Roger:

Since Solzhenitsyn was brought up I suggest that you read “November 1916, The Red Wheel Knot II. It tells the tale of a military officer that goes to the city to improve the battlefield conditions during WWI. He gets involved with the Salon revolutionary set. While I was reading it the unintentional comparisons to the NY Times crowd dicussing the WOT was chilling.Very nuanced,full of themselves and completely out of touch and worthless.More concerned with slogans and their own internal politics then with achieving anything. A bit long, but not quite as depressing as the Gulag trilogy.