  This is a long overdue write up of the following: If the fundamental group of
a normal complex algebraic variety (respectively Zariski open subset of a
compact K\"ahler manifold) is a solvable group of matrices over Q (respectively
polycyclic group), then it is virtually nilpotent. This should be interpreted
as saying that a large class of solvable groups will not occur as fundamental
groups of such spaces. The essential strategy is to first "complete" these
groups to algebraic groups (generalizing constructions of Malcev and Mostow),
and then check that the identity component is unipotent. This is done by Galois
theoretic methods in the algebraic case, and is reduced to homological
properties of one dimensional characters in the analytic case.
