Many of you may be surprised why we value so much the fact that someone suffered? Why to mention that someone was persecuted and killed? What difference does it make? Why are the teachings of successful people less valuable than teachings of alternative thinkers who were persecuted?
These are very valid questions and I am constantly reevaluating my criteria.
Of course the idea of suffering by itself doesn't validate the teachings. The fact that a thinker is persecuted on Earth strongly points in the direction of the thinker being on a correct path. Since our mainstream culture is almost always hijacked, makes teachings of all persecuted likely candidates of being valid.
But it is more than that. Since we are suspecting everyone in deception, most important test for us I s whether a person stood by their ideals under pressure of persecution by MIC.
Mandelstam, Galich, Dovlatov and many others stood by their conscience and didn't repent under threats. This makes their teachings more validated in human eyes. Babel and Bulgakov were trying to fit into the system one way or another. It was their talent and their nature that made them incompatible with the system. Pasternak was really badly messed up by the system. His loved woman pregnant with his baby was imprisoned while he was allowed to continue his literary career. Pasternak tried much to comply with the system and even to support it with his poetry. It was the talent that he had that made him different, so even in his attempts to comply the talent still leaked the truth. There were great many writers who were in similar dilemma to Pasternak and who did their best in unfavorable circumstances.
Allen Ginsberg was among American dissidents. He also suffered much and stood by his principles. Luckily, in the West, it is easier to survive even for dissidents.
Of course there were many alternative thinkers who were not openly persecuted by the system and were reasonably successful. Say T.S. Eliot, was quite successful and still, was a leader of alternative thought. It matters much where the person lived, what were their circumstances and how far they bent the permitted limits. George Orwell and Aldous Huxley being the leaders of alternative thought lived long and productive lives and were not persecuted.
MIC = military-industrial complex