For Solzhenitsyn, a survivor of the gulag system enforced by the KGB, the desire to see Russia as a great nation, its eternal spirit superior to the West’s vulgar materialism, found him in old age supporting ex-KGB man Putin, who once said that there is no such thing as an ex-KGB man and who sees the Soviet Union’s collapse as the greatest geo-political catastrophe of modern times. Despite this, Solzhenitsyn seemed to accept Putin as a “good dictator,” whose silencing of his critics enhances Russia’s soul.
索尔仁尼琴是由克格勃实行的古拉格制度的幸存者，对于他来说，盼望俄国成为伟大国家，其外在精神高于西方粗俗的唯利是图。他老来支持前克格勃特工普京，而普京曾言根本就没有什么前克格勃特工以及苏联的解体是现代最大的地缘政治灾难。尽管如此，索尔仁尼琴好像把普京接受成为一个“开明独裁者”，其压抑批评者的声音增进俄国的灵魂。