1974: Russian author charged with treason:
The Soviet authorities have formally charged Russian
writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn with treason one day after expelling
him from the country.
The writer, 55, was deported to West Germany yesterday and stripped
of his Russian citizenship.
Two days ago, Mr Solzhenitsyn was arrested in his wife's Moscow
flat and taken away for questioning by the Soviet secret police,
the KGB.
His charge, under Article 64 of the Russian Federation Criminal
Code, can be punishable with death by firing squad or a minimum of
ten years in prison along with confiscation of property.
He has been under investigation for six weeks after his novel Gulag
Archipelago depicting life in the labour camps was published in the
West.
While there was enough evidence of the Communists' brutality before
1974, when a Soviet citizen, well-known and acclaimed for his moral
stands, presented that evidence to Western audiences, the moral
veneer of Marxism began to crack.