Description

He was heralded as a hero in the West for his courageous and gifted writings from prison that exposed the horrors and tyranny of Soviet Communism. But the reaction here was more subdued, at times even hostile, when he began to speak with equal candor about the sins and spiritual poverty of the West, most notably in a commencement address given at Harvard University on June 8, 1978.

That address is the content of this video. The technical quality of the recording leaves much to be desired, but the power of his message, nevertheless, comes through with a poignancy and clarity that still challenges us today.

Among his comments: "But should someone ask me whether I would indicate the West such as it is today as a model to my country, frankly I would have to answer negatively. No, I could not recommend your society in its present state as an ideal for the transformation of ours. Through intense suffering our country has now achieved a spiritual development of such intensity that the Western system in its present state of spiritual exhaustion does not look attractive."