tual community worked hard for several decades.nA key insight into Solzhenitsyn can be discerned from hisncomment on his friend, Grigori Samoilovich M-z, in ThenGulag Archipelago. M-z was a former powerful Communistnofficial who, during World War II, was sent by his superiornto convey an order to a Soviet regiment to retreat. Thisnorder, if delivered, could have saved the lives of manynsoldiers and officers. But M-z was so afraid of being killed onnthe way to the regiment that he stopped and said a prayernand gave a pledge to Yahweh that if he will just survive henwill be a religious follower for the rest of his life. Thenregiment perished or was captured by the Germans; M-znsurvived, spent 10 years in the Soviet prison camps, andnthen years in internal exile. From all conceivable standpoints,nsays Solzhenitsyn, M-z was guilty of selfishness, ofnthe sacrifice of hundreds of lives for his own survival, and,nlast but not least, of insufficient hatred for the most deadlynenemy of the Jews that had ever existed. But, Solzhenitsynngoes on, there are higher principles than simple cold logic.nBy these principles nobody has any right to oblige annindividual to do anything involuntarily, much less risk his lifenfor the survival of others. By the very fact of his birth, annindividual does not belong to any institution or group, but tonhimself alone, despite all the ideologies that claim otherwise.nIdeologies may make a claim for the collective on thenindividual, but, says Solzhenitsyn, it is not the state that givesnbirth to man; it is his mother. The man’s transactions withnthe world outside himself are, therefore, either voluntaryntransactions and contracts in accordance with his ownnpreferences and decisions — or slavery.nThis extreme antistatism led an insightful Israeli author,nEmil Gogan, to conclude that Solzhenitsyn is actually annanarchist. Yet I would argue that for Solzhenitsyn thendifference between his libertarianism and true anarchism isnno less significant than for another Russian anomaly, AynnRand. Anarchism discounts the costs of one’s actions fornother individuals. Anarchism implies the imposition of one’snpreferences over others regardless of their consent; that is, itnimplies involuntary transactions. In practice, what anarchismnwould achieve would be another instance of thenpower of special interests, usually intellectuals. Therefore,nanarchism is as anticapitalistic as any other socialist design; itnis a nonstate totalitarianism of another breed of intellectuals.nIn an essay included in From Under the Rubble,nSolzhenitsyn rejects two symmetric concepts of freedom:nthe collectivist concept of freedom as submission of thenindividual to group or state preferences, and the anarchistnconcept of freedom as a free ride at the expense of others.nFor Solzhenitsyn, as well as for classical liberals, freedomnfrom restrictions on individual transactions is complementednby freedom from imposition of involuntary costs. The latterncondition is, of course, the very foundation for the rule ofnlaw and for the functioning of the state.nYet Solzhenitsyn would like to see the state and the courtsnnot only as secondary, but as redundant social contrivances.nIn voluntary transactions, one party tends to impose additionalncosts on the other by means of such general contractsnas the rule of law or of the majority. But, as Solzhenitsynnsuggests, the same things can be accomplished by selfrestraint.nHis concept of self-restraint (roughly translatedninto English as “self-limitation”) is not, as some critics havenmisunderstood it, an attack on selfish capitalist profiteering.nRather, it is an attempt to circumvent the multipersonal andnimpersonal contracts that may require an active involvementnof the state and of the courts. In addition to Adam Smith’snInvisible Hand of the market, there is, in the words of ArthurnOkun, an Invisible Handshake of human participants. Whatnis important here is that implicit contracts and self-restraintndo not abuse individual preferences, while institutionalnprotection of the interests of the third parties may clash withnindividual freedom.nSolzhenitsyn is neither a statist nor a social conservative.nIf we check public records, we find that he never spoke on ornfor any issue on the social conservative agenda, except thenrole of religion in the family. He always strongly opposednstate involvement in private and family affairs. He spoke innfavor of voluntary school prayer in public schools in his 1983nTempleton speech, but from a perspective quite differentnfrom that of social conservatives. He considers the prohibitionnof school prayer to be a state-imposed and ideologicallynmotivated violation of the rights of individuals forming thenfamily. (The natural desire of parents to reproduce theirnown preferences in their children is a basic economic notionnassociated with Gary S. Becker.) Solzhenitsyn believes thatnstate-guided intellectual development deprives the family ofnits basic rights and imposes the collective preferences ofnideologues on the next generation. For him, this is anfundamental assault not only on human freedom but also onnhuman nature.nSolzhenitsyn is a firm believer in the separation betweennchurch and state, believing that the destruction of thisnseparation under Peter the Great spelled disaster for Russia.nJudging by his writings on these matters in Russian journals,nunfortunately unavailable in English, the Russian GhurchnSchism of the mid-17th century was in reality the RussiannGounterreformation. The spirit of Russian Orthodoxy beforenthe schism was, unlike that of Gatholicism, the spirit ofnenterprise, hard work, thrift, and market relations. It was thenschism and then the domination of the state over thenGhurch under Peter that converted Orthodoxy to the spiritnof communitarianism and ubiquitous statism. (Peter practicallynabolished private property rights in Russia in 1714;nthey were restored years after his death, in 1731.) About twonmillion nonconformist Old Orthodox adherents, the socallednOld Believers, were brutally punished, and theirnfaithful descendants were persecuted for over two centuries.nReligion was turned into ideology and the Church into anstate institution. Yet, as Solzhenitsyn observes, most Russiannindustrialists, merchants, and entrepreneurial peasants werenOld Believers (see, especially. The Oak and the Calf).nSolzhenitsyn went so far as to declare that in a Russia of OldnBelievers the communist revolution would have been impossible.nSolzhenitsyn must have surprised both liberals and conservativesnwhen he candidly admitted to Japanese journalistsnand academics in Tokyo (September 1982) that he is not anSlavophile nor has he ever been one. Moreover, he said, henwas never influenced by the writings of Slavophiles. As anmatter of fact, these notorious 19th-century Russian Slavophilesnwere the only Russian followers of Adam Smith onnthe issues of free trade and state nonintervention in theneconomy and private life. This is, of course, fine withnnnOCTOBER 19881 13n