The raw material of life whilch serves as a basis for A. Solzhenitsyn’s story is unusual In Soviet literature. It carries within itself an echo of the painful features In our developmeat related to the cult of personality that has been debunked and repudiated by the Party, features that, although they are not so far away from us in time, nevertheless seem to us to be in the distant past. But the past, no matter what it was like, never becomes a matter of indifference to the present. The assurance of a complete and irrevocable break with everything which beclouds the past lies in a true and courageous comprehension of its full consequences. It was about this that N. S. Khrushchev spoke in his concluding words at the 22n Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, words so memorable for all of us: “It is our duty to gain a thorough and comprehensive understanding of the 4 nature of the matters related to the abuse of power. Time will pass and we shall die, we are all mortal, but