The Gulag Archipelago: 1918-1956, An Experiment in Literary Investigation III - IV (English and Russian Edition)

But I only see partial volumes now, as others wrote, and especially now, every one should read this book.

This review is based on the original 1970's English-language Harper & Row edition. There is so much here about Russian history, Soviet thinking and policies, and the situation inside the Gulags. Because there are so many topics and issues raised in this combined volume, I will elaborate on only a few of them. Solzhenitsyn rarely mentions Gulag Poles in this set of volumes. In one year, 2,100 Zolotisty Polish inmates had been reduced to 168 survivors (p. 131). The Soviet concentration camps have sometimes been favorably compared to the Nazi German ones by western liberals. We hear, for instance, that at least the children were well treated. Tell that to the Gulag children, some imprisoned for political crimes at the dangerous age of six! (p. 463). Besides physical suffering, Gulag children underwent severe de-moralization, in effect becoming amoral beasts (e. g., p. 452). Finally: "They didn't hesitate to liquidate the `kulak' families right down to tiny children, and they even wrote about it proudly in the newspapers." (pp. 370-371). Communist apologists have claimed that Gulag deaths were caused largely by passive negligence, Soviet-system inefficiencies, wartime disruptions and privations, etc. This is nonsense. To illustrate: "...police dogs are fed better than prisoners..." (p. 534). Well, at least there were no gas chambers in the Gulags. But so what? They weren't needed. Referring to the primitive state of Gulag life, labor, and death, Solzhenitsyn quipped: "That's what our gas execution van consisted of. We didn't have any gas for the gas chamber." (p. 91). In describing the Belomor Canal project, Solzhenitsyn commented: "Stalin simply needed a great construction project SOMEWHERE which would devour many working hands and many lives (the surplus of people as a result of the liquidation of the kulaks), with the reliability of the gas execution van but more cheaply, and which would at the same time leave a great monument to his reign of the same general sort as the pyramids." (p. 86. Emphasis his). Some have argued that there was no Gulag equivalent to the Nazi death camps--no camps to which admission absolutely guaranteed death. In fact, there were. "Certain work brigades (Ogurtsov) died off totally, including the brigadiers." (p. 221). Also: "The real Solovki was in the logging operations, at the remote work sites. But it is precisely those distant backwoods that are most difficult to learn about nowadays, because THOSE people did not survive." (p. 54. Emphasis his). "During the war years (on war rations), the camp inmates called three weeks at logging `DRY EXECUTION.'" (p. 199. Emphasis his). "We are not able to enumerate the countless logging camps. They constituted half the Archipelago." (p. 593). Solzhenitsyn cites 15 million Gulag inmates, at any one time, based on the ROSSIYA-SSSR encyclopedia--a figure also endorsed by former inmates (p. 205). According to émigré Professor of Statistics Kurganov, the Gulag claimed 66,

The wit and wisdom of this book is almost beyond comprehension. I defy anyone to read the chapter, "The Ascent", and then tell me they have read a better twenty pages of literature....from any era.

This book is a beutiful piece of literature and history. It was also written while on the run from the most devastating goverment in existence. The book is much more intresting to read, literature wise, than most academic works. The truth of the horrible soviet conditions in the gulag and the horrible and equally evil denial of the west that these things happened. This is a book that should be read in many places, at least in Russia, and for anyone else who truly wants to understand human life and the history of humanity.

"The line between good and evil runs through the heart of every human being." This abridged edition of Solzhenitsyn's hauntingly intimate portrait of his own arrest, interrogation, imprisonment, rebellion, and eventual release during Stalin's purges is a book like no other. This book, written by a constantly watched and persecuted dissident - bent but not broken by the brutality of Stalinist work camps, shares the author's (and his other inmates') personal experiences falling into this dark, usually fatal, abyss. Solzhenitsyn's original work was published in 1971 and produced an absolutely damning indictment of communism in Russia. Indeed, the stunning quality and importance of his writing earned him a Nobel prize. Besides his own experiences, Solzhenitsyn collected personal stories from hundreds of his fellow inmates. The sadism of interrogators, the cruelty of guards, the indifference of neighbors, the paranoia of the public, the betrayal of stoolies, and the true comradery of innocent inmates are presented in vivid, factual detail. In addition to this, the author also presents an encyclopeadic knowledge of the entirety of the gigantic Stalinist security apparatus (normal labor camps, special labor camps, transfer camps, railroad transfers, prisons, holding cells, interrogation cells, NKVD, SMERSH, commissars, exile communities, and still more). But at the heart of it all, the book remains an unforgettable journey through man-made hell. Stalin meant to destroy every man, woman, and child arrested, regardless of their innocence, and he largely succeeded. But survivors like Solzhenitsyn did truly 'tear down the wall' and made this world a far better place to live in. We all owe him a huge debt of gratitude!

How thin is the veil we call Civilization!! This book is indeed a tedious read by virtue of its length. However, Solzhenitsyn's history is written with the prosaic style of a Tolstoy or Dostoyevsky. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was a Captain in the Soviet Army as it charged through Nazi occupied Poland when he was arrested on trumped-up charges in February 1945. Thus began his odyssey through Gulag, "the country within a country". The perpetually weak economy of Communism could not survive without the forced labor of millions of is own citizens who became prisoners for one reason or another, or no reason at all. Solzhenitsyn relates his own experiences as well as those of other prisoners with whom he became acquainted while incarcerated. He relates how ordinary Russians were arrested and charged with fraudulent charges (if charged at all), interrogated, tortured and forced to confess under extreme duress, and sent off to labor for the good of the Motherland. Throughout the book, Solzhenitsyn asks the reader incredulously, "how did we let this happen?" That is no doubt one of the most important questions posed in all of human history. If we study history in order to prevent the repetition of our mistakes, then Solzhenitsyn's work should be required reading of all residents of Planet Earth.