Solzhenitsyn Rebuffed by Gorbachev on Slav Union

MOSCOW —  President Mikhail S. Gorbachev today rejected exiled writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s recent proposals for replacing the Soviet Union with an all-Slavic state as disrespectful to other ethnic groups.

In his first public remarks on Solzhenitsyn’s suggestions, the 59-year-old Soviet leader said they are unacceptable and sharply conflict with his own views on how to restructure relations between the 15 Soviet republics.

“As a politician, his views on the future of our multinational state are unacceptable,” Gorbachev told the Supreme Soviet legislature. “They are far from reality. . . . These views have a destructive character.”

Gorbachev’s remarks put him into a competition with Solzhenitsyn, a Nobel laureate, for the hearts and minds of the Russian people and underscored the writer’s increasing importance. Solzhenitsyn, who lives in Cavendish, Vt., described life in Soviet prison camps in such acclaimed works as “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich,” and “The Gulag Archipelago.”

In his article, which appeared Sept. 18 in the reformist newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda, Solzhenitsyn, 71, called for spirituality over materialism and a unified Slavic nation.

Solzhenitsyn suggested forming a “Russian Union,” which would include the republics of Russia, Byelorussia and the Ukraine. A large part of Kazakhstan would also be included. The 12 other Soviet republics, including the rest of Kazakhstan, have different cultures and should be allowed to secede, he said.

Gorbachev said Solzhenitsyn’s political views are “all in the past, the past Russia, the czarist monarchy.”