Aleksandr Isaevich Solzhenitsyn was born on December 11th, 1918, in Caucasus. His father died in an accident before he was born, and he grew up living in a small hut with his mother and sometimes with his aunt in the summer. As a teen, he became influenced by Soviet propaganda, and many of his early writings supported communism. Solzhenitsyn enrolled at Rostov University in 1936. He majored in mathematics and physics, which benefited him later when he joined the military. After fighting in World War II under the Russian flag, Solzhenitxyn was arrested for conspiring against Stalin. He was sentenced to 8 years in a forced-labor camp. His time in this gulag changed his stance on communism. He saw what it truly could do to a nation, and when he