Súostrovie Gulag II.

The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956 #3-4

by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Elena Linzbothová (translator)

Drawing on his own incarceration and exile, as well as on evidence from more than 200 fellow prisoners and Soviet archives, Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn reveals the entire apparatus of Soviet repression -- the state within the state that ruled all-powerfully.

Through truly Shakespearean portraits of its victims -- men, women, and children -- we encounter secret police operations, labor camps and prisons; the uprooting or extermination of whole populations, the "welcome" that awaited Russian soldiers who had been German prisoners of war. Yet we also witness the astounding moral courage of the incorruptible, who, defenseless, endured great brutality and degradation. The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956 -- a grisly indictment of a regime, fashioned here into a veritable literary miracle -- has now been updated with a new introduction that includes the fall of the Soviet Union and Solzhenitsyn's move back to Russia.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Russia, Politics, Classics, Biography, Russian Literature

328 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1973

About the author

also known as
Alexander Solzenitsyn (English, alternate)
Αλεξάντρ Σολζενίτσιν (Greek)

Works, including One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (1962) and The Gulag Archipelago (1973-1975), of Soviet writer and dissident Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn, awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1970, exposed the brutality of the labor camp system.

This known Russian novelist, dramatist, and historian best helped to make the world aware of the forced Gulag.

Exiled in 1974, he returned to Russia in 1994. Solzhenitsyn fathered of Ignat Solzhenitsyn, a conductor and pianist.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleksan...

Reviews

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow.

The first volume of Soltzhenitsyn's book was fantastic, this one is so much better. Yes, part 3 (which consists about 597 of the 672 pages) drags after a while. In it he takes the reader through the Gulag, with chapters on the overseers, the children and pretty much every other aspect of the camps. We know it is vital to never forget the horrors of 20th century totalitarianism, and this book ought to be required reading to help us never forget.

But it is the short part four where the best of the book comes in. Soltzhenitsyn talks about how the camp brought out who people really are. People, he argues, did not become evil in the camp. Rather, they were already evil and this brought it out. This reminds me of Jesus' teachings about those faithful in small things will be given more. Who are really are when you're poor and insignificant will be amplified if given the chance. At the same time, Soltzhenitsyn reminds us that it is not just that some are evil, for that dividing line runs through each of us (fun fact, that is the one quote you may be familiar with, and he says it twice, having said it early in volume 1).





How does that work? How is it both true that people in the camps who became corrupt already were like that, as opposed to those in the campus who persevered? Soltzhenitsyn speaks about a moral core, a nucleus, and I think that's it. We are all capable of horrific things. If I look at those camp guards, the people who performed horrible acts, and recognize they are part of the same human race, that has to be humbling. I'm just as human as they are. I am just as capable of evil, for that line goes right through me. We need to be honest with who we are and discover that moral nucleus that would enable us to persevere in the worst circumstances.

As our culture leaves some of its traditional foundations for morals behind...its easy to think we're in trouble as a culture. May we not be too quick to leave the wisdom of the past behind. This brings me back to Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning, which I read recently. If the Gulag is too intimidating in its length, check that one out first. Then come back here.

So slog through the first 600 pages and read closely the last 80. Its worth it!

[Miltos S. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Αρκετά πιο κουραστικό από το πρώτο μέρος, σίγουρα όμως το ίδιο συγκλονιστικό.

[Elena Papadopol · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Ceea ce ar trebui cuprins in aceasta parte este de necuprins. Pentru a concepe si a pricepe acest salbatic adevar, trebuie sa-ti fi tarat vieti de-a randul zilele prin lagare, prin aceste locuri unde, fara o inlesnire cat de cat, nu apuci sa supravietuiesti nici macar unei singure condamnari, caci lagarele au fost nascocite pentru exterminare.
Urmarea: toti cei ce au sorbit pana la fund, cei ce au gustat mai din plin sunt in mormant; ei nu vor vorbi niciodata. Esentialul despre lagarele Arhipelagului nu va fi spus de nimeni, nicicand."

"Cea mai benigna, dar si cea mai raspandita forma de tradare era ca in aparenta sa nu faci rau nimanui, dar sa fii orb la suferinta celui ce piere langa tine, sa nu-l ajuti, sa te intorci cu spatele."

"Cum foarte inteligent spunea un poet, ceea ce am trait noi nu a fost cultul personalitatii, ci cultul dedublarii personalitatii."

[Stela · Rating 4 out of 5]

Termin cu inima strînsă și volumul al II-lea al Arhipelagului Gulag, în care Alexandr Soljenițîn, enumerînd metodele „exterminării prin muncă” folosite de sistemul comunist sovietic, descrie totodată încă alte metode care fac dovada infinitei inventivități umane în a face rău. Apropo, știați că celebra deviză „Cine nu muncește nu greșește” aparține marelui gînditor Lenin? În orice caz, adevărul ei a fost cu prisosință verificat în lagăr, unde munca însemna moarte sigură, din cauza unor condiții atît de infernale încît făceau să pălească orice comparație, fie ea cu realitatea, de exemplu destinul iobagilor, fie cu ficțiunea, de exemplu Amintiri din Casa morților a lui Dostoievski.

Că viața „zekilor” (cum erau numiți deținuții) era infinit mai grea și mai lipsită de drepturi decît a iobagilor, ale căror lucruri nu erau aproape niciodată confiscate de boier și care nu sufereau de foame („Iobagii erau robi, dar erau sătui.”), este aproape un truism. Dacă iobagii erau despărțiți uneori de familii toată lumea se indigna, iar proprietarii erau înfierați de opinia publică. În Arhipelag familiilor nu le era niciodată permis să rămînă împreună. Pe de altă parte, ocnașii lui Dostoievski aveau pîine la discreție, mese copioase de Crăciun, iar la Sahalin deținuții mineri și „drumarii" primeau rații suplimentare (1,5 kg pîine si 400 g de carne pe zi) în lunile cele mai dure ca regim de muncă, în timp ce, treizeci de ani mai tîrziu, prizonierii vor primi uneori numai 100 g de pîine umedă și plină de impurități pe zi, iar „șapte sute de grame de asemenea pîine vor fi socotite o rație de invidiat, „pentru fruntași"

Că tot am amintit de Lenin, știați că el este acela care a cerut crearea lagărelor de concentrare sovietice în 1918, folosind pentru prima dată această sintagmă (pînă atunci utilizată doar cu referire la prizonierii de război) pentru cetățenii propriei țări? Lenin, vizionarul!

Bazele Arhipelagului s-au pus în insulele Solovki, în fosta Mînăstire Solovki, ai cărei monahi au fost alungați. Aici și-a sfîrșit zilele, împușcat, nobilul Gheorghi Osorghin, născut și trăit în Franța, dar venit în Rusia cu toată familia din dragoste pentru ea, și trimis imediat de patria recunoscătoare la închisoare. Pentru că orice manifestare religioasă era aici interzisă, profitînd de faptul că lucra la infirmerie, el se strecoară pe furiș la slujba de Paști, ducîndu-i episcopului mantia și Sfintele Daruri. Pentru acest gest este condamnat la moarte, dar roagă să-i fie amînată execuția pînă după plecarea soției care venise în vizită și căreia îi ascunde adevărul; la plecare îi dă să ducă acasă lucrurile sale cele mai de preț – hainele călduroase.

Și iată ce înseamnă ținuta pe care anatema aruncată asupra aristocrației ne face s-o uităm—pe noi, cei ce scîncim la fiece mărunt ghinion, la fiece înțepătură: să petreci trei zile și trei nopți cu soția, dar să n-o lași să simtă nimic. Nici o aluzie, în nici o frază! Să nu ți se frîngă, nici măcar pentru o clipă, glasul! Să nu ți se împăienjenească ochii!

Dacă se poate spune că soarta lui Osorghin, deși tragică, era poate inevitabilă din cauza condiției sale sociale de nobil, cum se poate justifica soarta atîtor oameni cu „origine sănătoasă” dar purtători de condamnări absurde în baza faimosului articolul 58 care reunea „politicii”? De exemplu, alineatul 1 al articolului 58, „trădare de patrie", a fost aplicat nu numai tuturor foștilor prizonieri de război (așa le trebuie dac-au îndrăznit să se lase prinși! ar fi spus Stalin), ci și persoanelor care nu s-au evacuat în regiunile ocupate de nemți: un profesor care ceruse, pentru a părăsi Leningradul, trei locuri în avion, pentru el, soție, și cumnata bolnavă și dîndu-i-se numai două a lăsat femeile să plece, a primit 10 ani sub acuzația că l-a așteptat pe inamic.

Dar nu toate alineatele articolului 58 erau accesibile oricui – cum să-ți trădezi patria dacă nu ești soldat (alineatul 1-b), cum să te înhăitezi cu burghezia mondială (alineatului 4) dacă locuiești, să zicem, la Hantî-Mansiisk, sau să sabotezi industria și transporturile de stat (alineatul 7) cînd ești frizer? Pentru toți aceștia s-a găsit soluția: atotcuprinzătorul alineat 10, „agitație antisovietică”, acompaniat de la fel de accesibilul alineat 12 – „nedenunțarea”. Iar dacă vi s-a părut absurdă și oarecum neverosimilă condamnarea lui Petrini la trei ani pentru cuvîntul „ordonanță”, ce spuneți de cei zece ani pe care i-a luat și vînzătoarea grăbită care a notat pe poza lui Stalin de pe o pagină de ziar numărul bucăților de săpun primite de la un furnizor, și tractoristul care și-a pus un afiș electoral într-unul dintre bocanci, ca să-i țină de cald, și bătrînul paznic reumatic care a cărat în cîrcă, legat cu o curea, un bust voluminos și greu al lui Stalin, și cîți alții...

Uneori nici nu era nevoie de încadrare: o femeie a întrebat consternată la o ședință de partid de ce i s-a dat voie lui Troțki să părăsească Uniunea Sovietică după atîtea crime.

Pentru această întrebare absurdă a primit pe merit (și a ispășit) trei termene de condamnare la rînd. (Deși nici un anchetator și nici un procuror nu i-a putut explica în ce consta vina ei.)

Nici copiii nu scăpau de vigilența comunistă. Încă din 1935, Stalin decretează ca toți copiii de doisprezece ani (cît avea și iubita lui fiică atunci!) să fie judecați și condamnați după tariful maxim al codului penal. Opt ani a primit copilul care și-a umplut un (unul singur!) buzunar cu cartofi, cinci ani cel care a cules zece castraveți de pe tarlaua colhozului, și numai trei ani o fetiță de 14 ani, care culesese de pe drum o șuviță de grîu scursă dintr-un camion (i s-au dat circumstanțe atenuante pentru că nu a luat-o din hambar!).

Cît despre articolul 58, acesta nu avea limită de vîrstă (recordul condamnărilor în baza lui a fost deținut de un băiețel de 6 ani). Așa sînt condamnați niște puști care bătîndu-se într-un club de colhoz au agățat cu spatele un afiș de propagandă, smulgîndu-l. Un școlar ciuvaș de șaisprezece ani care a făcut o greșeală scriind—în limba rusă, care nu era limba lui maternă—o lozincă pentru gazeta de perete, a încasat 5 ani. O fată de clasa a opta care, asistînd la arestarea tatălui ei și-a amintit că a aruncat în sobă un cuplet și a vrut să-l distrugă, este surprinsă de milițian si condamnată la 5 ani pentru că scrisese că-și dorea (era în timpul războiului) să cadă o bombă peste școală ca să nu mai „tocească”.

Arată-te, țară care ți-ai iubit copiii așa cum i-am iubit noi pe ai noștri! (...)
...acești amari cetățeni, care încă nu erau cetățeni ai propriei lor țări, dar ajunseseră cetățeni ai Arhipelagului. Atît de precoce și de straniu și-au atins majoratul—trecînd pragul pușcăriei.

Am amintit doar cîteva aspecte din cutremurătorul volum, alese aproape la întîmplare, fiindcă, pentru a le acoperi pe toate mi-ar trebui tot atîtea pagini cîte numără el. Dar cine, dintre cei care l-au citit, va uita vreodată, printre altele, că lagărul a transformat-o chiar și mamă într-o mamka în stare să-și zdrobească pruncul de ciment, fără remușcări? Cine va putea uita societatea aceea a Gulagului cu clase stranii, de la zekul simplu, la „chiștoci” (copiii!), ciripitori (numiți cu un cuvînt la fel de insultător în limba rusă: seksoti) oploșiți (cei care reușeau să se sustragă muncilor grele), peste toți tronînd „grangurii de lagăr” a căror denumire nu mai are nevoie de explicații suplimentare?

Și ca să închei în același ton, cine va putea uita „toată floarea cea vestită” a intelectualității rusești, anihilată și fizic și psihic cu acea lipsă de respect pentru cultură care s-a dovedit că este apanajul orînduielilor socialiste/ comuniste de pretutindeni? Cum spune Soljenițîn însuși:

Trebuie să n-ai nici o urmă de dragoste de țară, să fii complet străin de ființa ei, pentru a împușca mîndria națiunii, oameni care concentrează în personalitatea lor cunoștințele, energia și talentul unui întreg popor!

[Cassandra Kay Silva · Rating 5 out of 5]

I started reading this series after a verbal altercation with an individual over my American upbringing and challenged notions about the Soviet Union and its actuality. As someone who does not like being challenged on their assumptions unfairly, I took up the challenge of reading the canon of the Gulgag in an attempt to gain an awareness of something that apparently I was fundamentally missing.

Oh had sadly true that statement is. How fatefully unaware my assumptions regarding humanity tyranny and personal subjugation truly were. This book truly changed my life, my political leanings, my assumptions about humans, justice and capacity. Were it not so.

May all the lives lost in this machine of death be remembered.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

The second volume of the Gulag trilogy is primarily focused on the work camps. He continues his excellent narrative with some amazing stories and describes the people of the archipelago as they really were. This is a remarkable work and should receive a wider audience than it does. This book is about humanity at its best--but more often at its worst. This is one of the most important works available to understand the human soul.

[Gator · Rating 5 out of 5]

The fact that Solzhenitsyn made it out of the Gulag alive and blessed us with this book is an absolute gift. This is the most influential book I’ve read to date in my life.

A Masterpiece!

“Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either — but right through every human heart — and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. And even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained. And even in the best of all hearts, there remains.... an unuprooted small corner of evil.”

[Max Nemtsov · Rating 5 out of 5]

Продолжаем урывками.

...автор, похоже, считает, что концентрационные лагеря изобрел людоед Ленин в 1918 году. Жаль его разочаровывать, конечно, но придумали их даже не англичане во Вторую англо-бурскую войну в конце 19 века, а вообще испанцы в середине того же века - в т.н. Десятилетней войне с Кубой. Вот кому и принадлежит эта сомнительная честь в новейшей истории.

...а теперь страна и сейчас должна помнить своих героев - в гнусном "риа новости" завелась какая-то особо отвратительная пизда виктория никифорова, которая убеждает безмозглых и убогих в том, что гулаг - миф:
тут - https://ria.ru/20221230/rossiya-18423...
и тут - https://ria.ru/20210523/gulag-1733466...

...корит Шаламова за идеализацию медпунктов и лазаретов, однако сам идеализирует христианство и дореволюционный быт. Упрек же Шаламова в том, что Солж - литературно-политический делец, потому что ищет свою аудиторию "на Западе", выглядит, как минимум, потешно: где ж еще ее искать. В России-то все это просветительство, как мы видим, нахуй никому не сдалось, невзирая на перестроечные тиражи обоих. Но даже в этой былой размолвке двух политических зэков, лагерников со стажем видны ростки "белых пальто" и свар нынешней оппозиции. Хотя понять и принять то, что у обоих был попросту свой - разный - лагерный опыт, ни одному, похоже, так и не пришло в голову. Но чем глубже в текст, тем "острее" "полемика". Выжили-то, не забываем, оба.

...главы о "благонамеренных" и сексотах могут составить конкуренцию параноидальным очеркам Системы у Пинчона. А очерки об урле как будто списаны с нынешней натуры. Да и "культура зоны" живее всех живых - и я не только "шансон", конечно, имею в виду, но и такую вот хряпу: https://youtu.be/3rd3NxOgyEU А еще есть сколько-то прямо чеканных формулировок: "В ЧКГБ надо быть острым и попасть обязательно в глаз, в МВД достаточно быть тупым и не промахнуться по черепу." (К нынешним "спецслужбам" это уже не применимо, там тоже мясники и живодеры.). Зато применимо вот это, да еще как: "...И всё это — только легчайшая ступень предательства — отстранение. А сколько ещё заманчивых ступеней — и какое множество людей опускалось по ним?.. Да те редакторы, которые бросались вычёркивать имя вчера арестованного писателя?" Не упоминает он разве что прикормленных властью "театральных деятелей", которые сами увольняют актеров и, как и 100 лет назад стирают с афиш имена драматургов. "Парша душ", по выражению автора, точнее не скажешь.

...а если копаться в частностях, открывается много занимательного: например, что большевицкая клика не вымерла до сих пор и по-прежнему правит этой лживой страной. Достаточно посмотреть, например, чей родственник - "философ" и "методолог" нынешнего блядского режима Щедровицкий. ...Идеолога Беломорканала, "старого большевика" Сольца, вовремя, с счастью, сведенного с ума советской карательной психиатрией. Поневоле заподозришь хрен знает что.

...помимо имперского и христианского сознания, в комплект заводских настроек у автора входит, конечно, и бытовой антисемитизм, и ползучая гомофобия. Надо сказать, сочетание это довольно тошнотворное, как и все продукты, в чьей торговой марке присутствует определение "русский": я всегда старался избегать товаров типа "русского сахара", "русского чая" или "русских трав". Что уж говорить о "русском мире": все, что у Солжа в голове по углам (и еще не сильно прет в "Архипелаге" на глаза), - все это и суть неотъемлемые черты этого "мира", из этого-то он и состоит. Ну и еще из рабства, получив заряд которого на всю жизнь, Солж натужно пытается в себе изжить - писанием этого текста в т.ч. Но христианскость его настолько умильна, что скулы сводит от патоки всех этих фальшивых достоевских рассуждений. (Это помимо того, что в рассуждениях он, судя по всему, путает мораль и нравственность, хотя казалось бы.)

...говоря о растлении населения, он, конечно, не забывает и о персонажах нынешнего мема (это я для понятности) "как хорошо, что прежних хозяев расстреляли". Но его справедливое риторическое возмущение несколько однобоко: так было, в общем, повсюду. Марк Мэзауэр с большой болью писал целую главу о том, что когда фашисты вычистили всех салоникских евреев в "черный шабат" 1942 года, греки с их имуществом проделывали то же самое (и точно также отказывались его потом возвращать выжившим после концлагерей).

...ну и да, мы не забываем, что это устная история у него все-таки. А потому рассказывают ее - выжившие, победители, "придурки". И про литературу ему б лучше не рассуждать, а это это его деление на "верхних" и "нижних" отдает идиотизмом. Зато его саркастическая теория о том, отвечают ли зэки сталинскому понятию нации, держит воду до сих пор: не только зэки отвечают ему теперь, но и весь т.н. "русский народ",  превратившийся в безмысленных zooтечественникоv. И тут наглядно видно, как зона проросла во всю русскую жизнь - это прекрасное напоминание тем, кто забыл.

...попадаются необъяснимые стилистические красоты, натурально торчащие зелеными мозолями: "Прямота так и светилась из его крупных спокойных глаз..." - такое вот. Это отдельно от его обычных идиосинкразий и корявых стишков, неизвестно зачем сюда приплетенных.

[Έλσα · Rating 4 out of 5]

Η απόφασή μου να ξεκινήσω αυτό το βιβλίο το οποίο είχα στο ράφι χρόνια ήταν ξαφνική. Ένα ντοκιμαντέρ για τα Γκούλαγκ μου ξύπνησε την επιθυμία να το διαβάσω.

Μεγάλη και επίπονη απόφαση. Η ανάγνωσή του αποτέλεσε Γολγοθά. Ήταν το πιο δύσκολο ανάγνωσμα που έχω μέχρι στιγμής. Πραγματική «ανάβαση»

Ο πρώτος τόμος ξεκίνησε με τον τρόπο συλλήψεων, ανακρίσεων, μας γνωστοποίησε ο συγγραφέας τις συνθήκες κράτησης, τα κελιά των φυλακών, τους τρόπους προσέγγισης - σύλληψης των «κατάδικων». Μέχρι εκεί ήταν όλα καλά! Μετά μπήκαμε στους νόμους, στην εδραίωση της Σοβιετικής ένωσης, στις δίκες, σε ονόματα, ιδιότητες, πολιτικά και ιστορικά γεγονότα. Υπήρχαν κεφάλαια που ένιωθα πως οι σελίδες τους δεν έφευγαν. Έμοιαζαν ατελείωτα κ με έκαναν να δυσανασχετώ.

Σκλάβοι, αγρότες, κολεκτίβες, συνθήκες διαβίωσης, πείνα, λοιμώξεις, αρρώστιες, υπακοή στο καθεστώς, τιμωρίες, σοσιαλισμός, κομμουνισμός, εξορία.
Μετά από πολλές σελίδες φτάσαμε στις νήσους Σολόβσκι, αρχιπέλαγος στη Λευκή θάλασσα.

Στο δεύτερο τόμο τα πράγματα δυσκόλεψαν αρκετά. Δεν κυλούσε τόσο εύκολα η ανάγνωση. Ένιωθα πως ήμουν εγώ σε στρατόπεδο καταναγκαστικής εργασίας. Στην ουσία μαθαίνουμε πως Γκούλαγκ ήταν υπηρεσία με απόλυτη ταξιαρχία η οποία ήταν υπεύθυνη για τις εμπορικές δραστηριότητες προϊόντων. Έδρασε από την εποχή του Λένιν κ ενισχύθηκε την εποχή του Στάλιν. Οδήγησε στο θάνατο εκατομμύρια ανθρώπους που εργάζονταν κάτω από απάνθρωπες συνθήκες πολικού ψύχους που έφτανε μέχρι κ -40 βαθμούς.

Άνθρωποι ενήλικες κ ανήλικοι, εγκληματίες - ποινικοί κρατούμενοι, πολιτικοί εχθροί -αντιφρονούντες του καθεστώτος, αγρότες που εναντιώνονταν στις κολεκτίβες οδηγήθηκαν στις αχανείς εκτάσεις της Σιβηρίας εκτείοντας ποινές 10-15 ακόμα κ 20 χρόνων καταναγκαστικής εργασίας. Κάποιοι δεν επέστρεψαν ποτέ και όσοι γύρισαν είτε αυτοκτόνησαν είτε έζησαν για πολλά χρόνια έναν εφιάλτη καθώς οι μνήμες τους δεν έσβησαν.

Φυσικά κ δεν είναι μυθιστόρημα ούτε ένα εύκολο ανάγνωσμα. Ο αναγνώστης αδυνατεί να συγκρατήσει όλες αυτές τις πληροφορίες. Η αλήθεια είναι πως περίμενα περισσότερες ιστορίες. Είναι έρευνα, ιστορικά και πολιτικά γεγονότα με βιώματα του συγγραφέα. Η αλήθεια του κ οι ιστορίες που βίωσε κρύβονται εκεί… στο καθεστώς. Γεγονότα που αποτέλεσαν μαύρες εποχές της ιστορίας.

[Steve · Rating 5 out of 5]

As I read this account of the decades of abuses inflicted on tens of millions of those gulag unfortunates, I wondered for my character. How would I behave were I a zek? Would I find my way into the ranks of trusties? Would I have survived or died within the camps? What if I were a guard or an officer of guards? Would I devolve into one of the monsters to force the zeks out into -40F winter weather, insufficiently clothed, to labor in the forests, knowing many would die from the task? If I were an ordinary citizen, fortunate to avoid the camps, how many family members, friends, coworkers or neighbors would I undermine to save my own skin? These questions, so far disconnected from today’s American lifestyle, create some personal difficulty connecting with our current social disorders, which seem rather trivial in comparison to the world Solzhenitsyn described. Where were, or are, the tears, for those tens of millions of souls, most arbitrarily subjected to conditions beyond our daytime imagination? All these questions.

[Joel Cuthbert · Rating 5 out of 5]

'No matter how ruined a man and his world may seem to be, and no matter how terrible man's despair may become, as long as he continues to be a man his very humanity continues to tell him that life has a meaning.' - Thomas Merton (from the opening sentence of his No Man is An Island)



I have spent the last few years reading this book. I began it some sunny day many different selves ago, having always been charmed by the bitter wisdom of the Russian literary type, and knowing that Solzhenitsyn esteemed a strong religious belief and one that seemed confounding in light of Russian history. A history I will admit, I did not know much about. And I will continue to admit I do not know that much about.

The Russian history is one long, storied, complicated, narrative. The kind the doubles over itself, with too many characters, with too many names, with too many individual moments to ever be fully grasped. I have read this book as one digests the heaviest of meals.

One of the few things I recall about high school english class was a particular assignment when reading Shakespeare’s Hamlet, in which we are asked to try and trace at which point the main character’s tragic fate was clinched. The idea was that at some point fate takes the lead of one’s life, and steers the car towards the inevitable cliff. Before that point life is lived in turns of sweet and sour, but at some point there crosses a point of no return.

Russia it seems to me wanders for it’s own 40 years into that fate of a wilderness. And this book (these series of books) takes a few thousand pages to try and wrestle out the why’s, the who’s and how-come’s of inevitable tragedy. Of the devastation of a people, and what should ultimately be the destruction of the human soul.


What staggers the mind, and overwhelms the reader, is not only the mind-numbing onslaught of detail and character, but the indefatigable voice that tells each new height of insurmountable violations on the dignity of the human spirit.

Somehow in the final chapter of this volume the author stumbles out of the darkness and dares to declare some strange spirit of hope. And it is this spirit (that lies at the center of even it’s darkest passages) that makes this one of the most remarkable literary experiences of published print.


Few books have so profoundly, and subconsciously seeped into my psyche, and shaped my understanding of suffering and hope, despair and life.


This is not a pleasant, easy or enjoyable read. Is it too much? Yes. Is it verbose to the point of losing most readers? Yes. Is it plodding, meandering, difficult to follow? Yes.

Is it also beautiful, poetic, life-affirming? Yes.



How does one review a book like this? It is the testament of one man’s spirit. The history of one man’s life. An attempt to fully document an age.


It sits on my shelf like an ikon. Will I reread it? Passages certainly, and if one day more-than-likely an abridged edition.

But it is a book that has shifted, challenged and shaken so much in me.

For it’s existence I am thankful.

[Xander · Rating 4 out of 5]

In Volume 1 of his influential and magnificent The Gulag Archipelago, Russian writer and camp-survivor Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wrote about how the system of prison and forced labour camps arose in the 1920’s in the Soviet Union. More than a reaction to the Soviets’ victory in the Civil War, the Gulag-system was a direct offshoot from communist ideology. Communism, as instated by Lenin and intensified by Stalin, preached a radical collectivism: mass confiscation by the state of all property and means of production and the erection of a totalitarian bureaucracy to redistribute products and property.

Forced labour – really a system of concentration camps through which hundreds of millions of innocents passed, and where tens of millions perished – was a logical outcome of communism, but also an important pillar on which the ideology rested. People who, in a healthy society, are considered prisoners – thieves, murderers, rapists – were considered to be victims of bourgeois society; people who, in a healthy society, are considered ordinary citizens, were considered to be prisoners. Communism inverted guilty and innocent – or rather, it eradicated the concept of ‘guilt’ – the camp was the destination for anyone whom the state deemed it to be expedient to be a prisoner. Quotas had to be fulfilled; bureaucrats had to make careers; the state had to produce food, products and services for low costs (i.e. free) – hence, millions of prisoners were needed.

In Volume 1 of The Gulag Archipelago, Solzhenitsyn not only explained how this system started and developed; how Lenin created the Law Codes to justify these crimes; how Stalin sent wave after wave to disappear in this system of sewage disposal; most of all, he explained what arrest, imprisonment, interrogation and transport (to distribution centres and to camps) meant to the person involved. And how it felt. Throughout Volume 1, Solzhenitsyn is able to give detailed descriptions of the horrible conditions under which prisoners were treated, and how prisoners were gradually broken down and worn out, to make them submit to the even more brutal conditions of the Gulag.

In Volume 2, Solzhenitsyn leaves this period of arrest, imprisonment, interrogation, conviction and transport. This book – again a huge tome, spanning almost 700 pages – is focused solely on the Gulag, the camps. He starts by explaining how the first camps already started functioning in the early twenties (even when the Civil War was still raging). Back then, the churches on the Solovsky Islands, an inhospitable, harsh region in north-western Russia, were confiscated by the state and prisoners were gradually sent there. The whole region soon developed into a brutal forced labour regime, where prisoners had to dig out entire canals. It is almost impossible to convey the brutality the prisoner faced: logging trees, digging in mines or building canals for more than twelve hours a day, on 150 grams of bread and a cup of water. They had to do all this without any tools or technology; if they had some, they were built from wood and were so primitive that they either broke down or that the construction project was a complete failure. (And we all know the consequences this latter option implicated…). To show the deranged nature of the Soviet system: even locks had to be created from wood.

Since the Soviet Union was based on communism, and communism portrays itself to be an economic ideology, it is interesting to make an analysis of the costs and benefits of this way of structuring society. The benefits? Canals that were dug so primitively and under such idiotic conditions, that they were never officially taken into use. Solzhenitsyn describes the building of the White Sea-Baltic Sea and the Moscow-Volga canals by forced labour – but of course this has to be multiplied by hundreds, or even thousands, of such projects. The costs? 250.000 people perished building the White Sea-Baltic Sea canal; 200.000 people perished building the Moscow-Volga canal. But never mind this – labour force, after all, is infinitely replaceable. It has cost the state absolutely nothing; well, maybe the food and clothes (if one can speak of these things, at all), but anything else was build on exploitation of human beings.

And this was just in the 1920’s, when the Soviet Union was still in tatters and when Lenin even introduced policies of market economy to recover as quickly as possible (Oh, hypocrisy!). When Stalin took over, the whole Gulag system spread far and wide and intensified – in duration (sentences ranged from 10-25 years), in brutality (many millions of people died) and in number (at the end of Stalin’s reign, all of Russia was covered with watch towers and barbed wire). Solzhenitsyn, himself a camp and cancer survivor, compares the Gulag system to cancer: the Gulag system developed, metastasized, and hardened. This comparison is very helpful in understanding this monstrous piece of history.

After this short historical explanation, Solzhenitsyn then uses almost 80% of Volume 2 to explain all the inns and outs of camp life. He divides this up into groups of people; for example, explaining how women suffered from camp life, how thieves ruled the camps, how political prisoners were treated, how people were recruited to spy on follow inmates (the trusties and stool pigeons). The picture that emerges is a system of forced labour that was ultimately bureaucratically enforced from above (i.e. Moscow), but which was in practice composed of layers of hierarchies. The Soviets used human nature to make things work for them: by introducing (unreachable) work norms they gave themselves the stick with which to punish prisoners randomly. They set up shock workers and competition between work brigades to make the prisoners work effectively and efficiently (One wonders why communism accepted this form of free market competition….).

In general, everyone was set up against everyone, all day and on all domains (food, work, bunks, social relations, etc.). By doing this, the state thought up a brilliant scheme that allowed a handful of guards to oversee hundreds of thousands of prisoners that freely submitted to the most horrible conditions a human being can think of. This same mechanism, by the way, can be seen when one looks at the American slave trade or the Holocaust. People who submit freely to the most inhumane conditions, only because of fear and division.

Alas, the main port of Volume 2, which deals with the life of the persons in camp, is interesting but can become rather long winded. Example after example after example. After 250 pages, one gets the picture just fine: in camp, the prisoner was submitted to anything one can think of, and then some. It doesn’t really matter if Solzhenitsyn explains the fate of men, women, political prisoners, thieves – the USSR’s slogan ‘From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs’ is very appropriate here. Women, of course, were degraded and humiliated by gang rapes, enforced prostitution, all kinds of perverse torture, but also by horrible working conditions and plain violence. And so were the men, just in different ways. And the distinction between political and non-political prisoner wasn’t really important for the experience of camp life as well – only when it came to amnesties and decrees.

Anyway, the first 600 pages of the book, except for the historical explanation of the Gulag system, are all about these camp experiences. This makes the book somewhat less focused, and less impressive as a political argument than Volume1. But the experiences themselves are heart-breaking, unbelievable and simply unthinkable. Solzhenitsyn somewhere states that the stories of these human beings (many of whom perished in the camps long before the book was published) serve as a statement: the lives and experiences of these people deserve to be written down in history’s book.

Just like in Volume 1, Solzhenitsyn doesn’t shy away from naming and shaming. While protecting his sources by hiding full names, he doesn’t protect the perpetrators and career bureaucrats who convicted innocent people by the thousands and tortured, killed and punished millions more. One can read Solzhenitsyn’s own hate towards these people, and this is entirely understandable. It in no way affects the factual side of the stories, while it conveys the inhumanity of the Soviet Union very strongly.

The last part of the book, less than 10% of the whole volume, is the most interesting part. In part 4, Solzhenitsyn goes off on a philosophical and psychological tour de force. He reflects on what life in a forced labour camp – brutal, repetitive and meaningless work, under harsh, inhumane conditions, and for decades long (!) - does to a person. According to him, the Gulag separates the wheat from the chaff. The camp shows who is good and who is bad. The fault line between the two is located not in society, but in the heart of a human being. People can be both good and bad, at different places and at different times. It is your decisions in a your reaction to a particular situation and time that make you good or bad. And according to Solzhenitsyn, most of the camps were filled with bad people. People who cheated, lied, thieved, murdered and snitched their way to survival – opportunists with the motto ‘Rather you than me, today’. A minority of people stuck to their own convictions and morality, mostly intellectuals who were born and raised to be ethical people. Usually the cost of such behaviour was death, but sometimes someone managed to survive. It is these people that Solzhenitsyn puts on a pedestal.

Solzhenitsyn’s philosophy is simple. A person arrested, imprisoned, tortured, interrogated, convicted, transported to camp and entering camp life for the first time, is someone who has to renounce everything and everyone he has. His life is over the moment he enters the camp. And then life truly begins; deprived of everything, such a person can flee inside his own mind – the one and only bastion the guards will never be able to take, not even through propaganda. One learns to adapt to camp life, and to reflect on one’s past life. The future doesn’t exist anymore. In a sense, this is almost a mode of contemplation (it resounds somewhat like the Christian martyrs who were persecuted heavily under the Roman Empire).

Camp life forces the human being to show his or her true colours. Am I good or bad? There’s no hiding my face anymore. Am I unconquerable and free, or suffering and lowly? Solzhenitsyn’s philosophy sounds like Nietzsche on steroids. Nietzsche claimed life is suffering, and it’s the way that one responds to life’s sufferings that determines who one is. But while Nietzsche was never really put to the test – his suffering comprised a professorship-turned-sour, a love that never was, and a failing eyesight – Solzhenitsyn was able to see this existentialist claim unfold in reality.
He states that communis opinion (especially under survivors and intellectuals) is that people are bad in essence and just tried to survive. He also states that, although most people in the Soviet Union fell for the corruption and deceit, there were much more good people than is accepted in general. He mentions examples of how inmates helped each other, and how even state officials and civil servants sometimes tried to help – even though most of all the people – officials and civilians alike – were picking survival over humanity.

The Soviet Union was a society that was structured – on purpose – to create continuous feelings mistrust, secrecy, fear and helplessness, which permeated to every nook and cranny. Anyone could be an informer for the NKVD (later KGB): spouses informed on their partner, even children denounced their parents. The goal of these policies was to create a maximally divided society, in which every person was on its own and could be hauled off to the camps every moment. This is a society in which the people in power can control every aspect of every person’s life. Totalitarianism.
(It is interesting to note here that the Soviets had a youth movement that indoctrinated generation after generation on the threat of internal enemies of communism – the future bureaucrats and camp guards. Even Hitler and his Hitler-jugend bleaks in comparison.)

To end this review, it is interesting quote Solzhenitsyn on the effects of such a policy of mass fear, secrecy and mistrust.

“In 1949 the father of a girl who was a fellow student of V.I.’s was arrested. In these cases everyone would shun such a student, and that was considered natural. But V.I. did not shun her, and openly expressed sympathy with the girl, and tried to find ways to help her out. Frightened by such unusual conduct, the girl rejected V.I.’s help and participation, and lied to him, saying she did not believe in the innocence of her arrested father, and that he had evidently concealed his crime from his family all his life. (And it was only during the times of Khrushchev, that their tongues were loosened: the girl told him she had decided he was either a police informer or else a member of an anti-Soviet organization out to rope in the dissatisfied.)
This universal mutual mistrust had the effect of deepening the mass-grave pit of slavery. The moment someone began to speak up frankly, everyone stepped back and shunned him: “A provocation?” And therefore anyone who burst out with a sincere protest was predestined to loneliness and alienation.” (p. 636)

Anyone who was only superficially related to someone arrested, was excommunicated by everyone around him/her. This is how a society tries to continue in the face of continuous terror and threat. People would offer servitude to those in power; they would retreat into secrecy and mistrust others; they would act ignorant; they would inform on others (either voluntarily, out of fear, or as a recruited informant); they would betray anyone without the blink of an eye; become corrupt and cruel.

In such a society, the masses – always bending for those in power, out of sheer egoism and survival – will throw anyone to the wolves. “If I can just escape this sticky situation. I’ll do anything to live.” Stalin was able, through his reign of terror, to totally control the masses. He was able to do this, only because he disposed of all the people who thought for themselves and were critical of inhumane ways and repression. People who saw through the façade of communism: it was not the rule of the workers, and certainly not ‘To each according to his needs’, it was fascism plain and simple. There really is no different between Hitler and Stalin, or Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia.
It is important to repeat that the intelligentsia almost always serves as a bulwark to primitive emotions. The masses are easily stirred up and are controlled easily through psychology. All dictators and regimes fear the intelligentsia, because criticism sows doubt. And doubt leads to reflecting on what’s good and what’s bad. This is counterproductive to oppression and exploitation.

“Nowadays it is quite convenient to declare that arrest was a lottery (Ehrenburg). Yes, it was a lottery all right, but some of the numbers were ‘fixed’. They threw out a general dragnet and arrested in accordance with assigned quota figures, yes, but every person who objected publicly they grabbed that very minute! And it turned into a selection on the basis of souls, not a lottery! Those who were bold fell beneath the axe, were sent off to the Archipelago – and the picture of the monotonously obedient freedom remained unruffled. All those who were purer and better could not stay in that society; and without them it kept getting more and more trashy. You would not notice these quiet departures at all. But they were, in fact, the dying of the soul of the people.” (p. 642)

Notice the emphasis on quota figures. The Soviet Union was a state that enforced order through rigid control. Quota figures, consequences, net benefits were leading; human beings were just a means to reach the desired outcome. And the intelligentsia were an obstacle, a hindrance, since they exposed the insanity of the plan.

(This also parallels Hitler’s ‘Du bist nichts, dein Volk ist alles!’ and ‘Deutschland über alles!’ – the German people were to be sacrificed in order to the reach the desired outcome: world domination (‘Lebensraum’) and the destruction of the Jews (‘Judenfrage’). Also in this case, the intelligentsia was a major nuisance – it’s just that most of them fled to other parts of the world; those remained either converted to Nazism (Heidegger, Heisenberg, etc.) or were among the first to perish in camps.)

The Gulag Archipelago is a timeless monument of History. In my opinion, it should be part of curricula on schools. It will open the eyes off all these younger generations of people, who have grown up in wealth, health and prosperity and who take progress for granted. Most of those people have leanings towards Marxism (although it is mostly cultural, as opposed to economic, Marxism nowadays). These people have no inkling about their own place in history; their ignorance makes them live off the savings of earlier generations, and they’re squandering everything pretty fast. Personal liberty, and economic liberty (albeit in clearly circumscribed areas) are among the most exalted human discoveries – ever. We should take note of past mistakes, learn from them, and recognize totalitarianism for what it is – especially in the age of the internet.

(Cf. China’s implementation of a digital system that rewards people ‘social credits’ for good deeds. Of course the ‘good’ is defined by the Party, and through in-built incentives, those in power can steer the masses to act accordingly. You don’t want to follow our policies and views? All right, you won’t get credits, hence you will not be able to live in a city or have a job.)

[Grettita Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

El grado de detalle de la mayor crueldad que ha sometido el ser humano a sus congéneres es impresionante. Es difícil tragar tanta tortura y miseria humana, pero siempre he sido creyente de que el conocimiento del pasado nos ayuda a prever el futuro. No debemos olvidar para jamás repetir… aunque la realidad actual sea otra.

[MJ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Where the first volume mainly focused on the sham trials, the absurd convictions, and the lengthy pre-gulag prison sentences the second one is primarily focused on life in the camps.

So many times in both of these books I can hardly believe what I'm reading. Solzhenitsyn is relentlessly flat in the retelling which effectively shows the normalization of atrocity. It is exceedingly hard to stomach. It went on as late as 1959. The Western mind cannot comprehend this fact as I think most of us feel like this all ended in the 40's with the fall of the Third Reich. Solzhenitsyn seems very aware of this and concludes this volume with some deep analysis of the human spirit and some strong warnings to the West against radical liberalism. It's stunning and stirring and horrifying.

He has a particularly beautiful passage about how the life blood of Russia survived this against all odds. It has an oddly hopeful view for when society seems totally lost.

[Aaron Crofut · Rating 5 out of 5]

"This was no different from Auschwitz..."

This is not an overstatement; if anything, Solzhenitsyn has shown that the Gulag was worse than Auschwitz. No single camp in Gulag saw as much death, true, but the Nazi system was neither as extensive nor as long-lived, nor did as many people go through the Nazi camps as the Soviet camps.

And this is horrible, but it is true: the majority sent to Auschwitz died quickly. Those who died in the Gulag did so after years or decades of prison life degrading not just their bodies, but their souls, their humanity. Viktor Frankl spoke of the man going into the gas chamber chanting a psalm of thanksgiving. This is infinitely more difficult to do when one must sing for a quarter century.

Yes, Socialists today should be held accountable to this horror; their philosophy has been shown to be prone to such misery that any proclaimed Socialist should be viewed with as much caution as any self-proclaimed Nazi. And yes, much of this book is dedicated to documenting the absolute horror of the Gulag. Part III details the birth and expansion of the cancer of mass incarceration, reiterating the points made in Volume 1 that the Gulag was a necessary element of the Soviet system and not an unfortunate mistake. It is a tough slog. There is a lot of awful things to know about, that we should know about.

But Part IV cannot be understood without reading the previous parts in full. And Part IV is almost spiritual. Those in the camps were given a simple choice between the death of the body and the death of the soul. We may legitimately thank God that such a choice is not presented to us, at least not yet, but Solzhenitsyn does something incredible: he thanks God that the choice was presented to him. For some few, the camps broke the spell of the world. I agree with Solzhenitsyn that nobody lost their humanity in camp who had not already had a bit of rot in their soul when in freedom. How deep is our goodness, our faith, our humanity?

How many of us are camp stoolies, camp guards, interrogators waiting to break free?

Am I? No other question ultimately matters.

"Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, not between classes, nor between political parties either-but right through every human heart- and through all human hearts....It is impossible to expel evil from the world in its entirely, but it is possible to constrict it within each person."

"Even if they offered us the chance to learn the truth, would our free people even want to know it?"

I cannot recommend this enough. We live in a spiritual desert. The scorpions are already coming out of the sands.

[Emiliya Bozhilova · Rating 5 out of 5]

[Ревюто е копирано от събраното издание в един том]

“Това, което написах, е само контролно прозорче към Архипелага, а не обзор от наблюдателна кула.”




Интервю с… Не, не с вампир. А с жертвите му. И става безпощадно ясно, че романизирането на злото често е просто престъпна заблуда, ако и да се среща често и да засища някаква прастара нужда да видим човечност и в най-невъзможни ситуации. Солженицин я показва, но не при вампирите, а при изтощените им жертви.

Когато през 1945 г. СМЕРШ (съкратено от “Смърт на шпионите”) пристигат за 27 годишния фронтовак, арогантен млад офицер и убеден марксист, капитан от съветската армия Александър Солженицин, вече крачещ по немска земя в края на войната, той все още не се догажда, че отива на една много дълга и много вледеняваща среща с историята, и че накрая ще стане неин говорител. А също и говорител на безименни милиони, оставили костите и(ли) душите си в замръзналата пустош.

Солженицин получава екслузивно гражданство в една съвсем отделна държава - тази на изтребителните, концентрационни лагери на Архипелаг “ГУЛАГ”. Тази държава има своя география, свои закони и свой народ - този на зековете (съкратено от “затворник”). През нея са минали няколко десетки милиона жители.

Тази държава е основана за класовите врагове и битовите престъпници. Първите са считани за много по-опасни от вторите, тъй като са социални чужди (не са пролетариат, а често някакви там професори, инженери, писатели…). Вторите - на тях и вина не може да им се вменява, тъй като са тласнати к��м престъпленията от класовото неравенство и класовия враг. Горките душички! Но Държавата бди - затваря зад телени огради и едните, и другите - но на рецидивистите често се връчват “възпитателни” и ръководни функции в затворите и лагерите - и те на воля се саморазправят с класовия враг и продават на черния пазар награбените вещи, като често са прерязали нечие и друго гърло в процеса, но няма лошо - жертвите са социално неприемливи индивиди.

Социално неприемливите в СССР се оказват безброй, всички обхванати от митичния член 58 на Наказателния Кодекс, който е толкова дълбоко законспириран, че да се намери за свободен прочит е немислимо, на арестанти не се дава, а дори и част от служителите в системата не са го чели. По член 58 могат да те осъдят, общо взето, само затова, че съществуваш. Долната граница е 12 години, подсъдни са намерението (искал, но неизвършил) и подозрението (вероятно (!) е знаел, но не докладвал на органите). Потвърждението на обвинението е формалност: на органите често се спуска бройка и те я запълват старателно (иначе и за тях лошо), а веднъж влязъл там, излизаш поне с десетка (10 години). С тази присъда те изпращат и ако гладен си скъсал два стръка жито от колхозната нива.

Изследователите на робовладелския строй имат богато поле за изява със съветските концентрационни лагери. Там кацат всички социални неприемливи по 58-ми. Идеята е семпла: и три месеца да изкара, все икономическа файда ще има. После да мре - идва следващият. И така - безплатно (т.е. без консумативи за храна, дрехи, инструменти и механизация) са построени куп големи инфраструктурни обекти като Беломорканал (напълно безсмислен и зле изпълнен), или се вадят ценни суровини с нула разход (материален) - златото в Колима. Работи се и при минус 40 градуса по 10 часа.

Солженицин методично, с научен подход, дисектира всеки етап от предварителния арест чак до гроба зад полярния кръг. Не бърза за никъде, излага пълната история и всеки факт от всяка една брънка от чудовищната верига, доколкото му е известна от онези 227 души, чиито разкази е събрал, и донякъде от собствения си опит. Разкоства показно, прецизно, хирургически, с черен хумор дори на моменти. Дисекцията включва и обстоен анализ на съветското наказателно законодателство след 1917 г. - тео��ии и практики, както и сравнения с царска Русия. Изключително етнологическо свидетелство са детайлните му портрети на всяка една група обитатели на тази омагьосана земя - от бачкаторите (които са си просто смъртници), войниците в конвоя, чак до … да, индиректно чак до самия Вожд. Е, нещата не са започнати от Сталин, започнали са още от Ленин. Но Сталин подобрява процеса. До такава степен го усъвършенства, че макар нищо друго в СССР да не работи и икономика практически да липсва, затворническото дело е в бурен подем, и е методологически изпипано. Хитлер е можел да завижда.

Уви, Солженицин не е имал достъп до архивите, по обясними причини. А какво ли щеше да напише, ако беше имал! Макар да си мисля - щеше да добави само по някоя уточняваща цифра, която никак нямаше да повлияе на описаното. Ако пък беше познавал Примо Леви, бързо щеше да намери общите пасажи с опита от нацистките концлагери (копи-пейст на места).

Написаното от Солженицин няма давност. То е все ще валидно. Принципите, гарантирали успеха на ГУЛАГ, са сред нас и днес. Те са общовалидни и вечни. Трябва само да се взираме по-внимателно. И да се съпротивляваме. И са не се отказваме.

———
И най-доброто обобщение - съчинено от затворници, още се спори кой е съчинил и текста, и музиката:

https://youtu.be/Vn6MwNUfTks

———
▶️ Цитати:

⛓ “Да, съпротивата би трябвало да започне оттук, от самия арест.
Не започна.”

⛓ “Братко мой! Не съди онези, които, изпаднали в такива положения, са се оказали слаби и са подписали нещо излишно…”

⛓ “Като не наказваме и дори не порицаваме злодеите, не просто съхраняваме техните нищожни старини, но и подкопаваме за новите поколения всякакви основи на справедливостта. Затова, а не заради „слаба възпитателна работа“ растат „равнодушни“. Младите свикват, че подлостта на земята никога не се наказва и винаги носи благополучие.
И мъчително, и страшно ще е да се живее в такава страна!”

⛓ “От затворника трябва да вземем всичко през първите три месеца — а след това повече не ни е нужен!”
Н. Френкел

⛓ “Идеологията! — тъкмо тя дава търсеното оправдание за злодеянието и необходимата продължителна твърдост на злодея. Тъкмо тя е онази обществена теория, която му помага да оневинява пред себе си и другите своите постъпки и “да чува не укори, не проклятия, а хвалби и почит. Така инквизиторите укрепват властта си чрез християнството, завоевателите — чрез възвеличаване на родината, колонизаторите — чрез цивилизацията, нацистите — чрез расата, якобинците и болшевиките — чрез равенството, братството и щастието на бъдещите поколения.”

⛓ “Не, несправедливо ще е този дивашки строеж на XX век, този канал (Беломорканал), построен „с ръчни колички и кирки“ — несправедливо ще е да го сравняваме с египетските пирамиди: та пирамидите са строени със съвременна за времето им техника. А у нас при налична техника — с четиридесет века назад!”

⛓ “Не отделни черти, а целият главен смисъл в наличието на крепостното право и Архипелага е един и същ: това са обществени устройства за принудително и безжалостно използуване на безплатния труд на милиони роби.”

⛓ “в този лагер трябва да умреш, а който не е умрял — да си направи извода.”

⛓ “Абсурдно? Диво? Безсмислено? Ни най-малко не е безсмислено, тъкмо това се нарича „терор като средство за убеждаване“.”

⛓ “Но в това открай време е нещастието на човека — той не може да разбере кое е вещта и кое — цената за нея.”

⛓ “Интелигентът е този, чиито интереси и воля към духовната страна на живота са настойчиви и постоянни, непораждани от външните обстоятелства и дори въпреки тях. Интелигент е този, чиято мисъл не е подражателна.”

⛓ “В нашето славно отечество най-важните и смели книги остават непрочетени”

⛓ “Нима цялото зло, което се върши на Архипелага или по цялата земя, не се извършва чрез самите нас?”

⛓ “О, колко трудно, колко трудно е да станеш човек!”

⛓ “А психологията на престъпника е много проста и достъпна за усвояване:
1. Искам да живея и да се наслаждавам, плюя на останалите!
2. Който е по-силен, той е прав.
3. Не се завирай където не те засяга! (Тоест, докато не бият теб, не се застъпвай за този, когото бият. Чакай си реда.)”

⛓ “За климата на Архипелага се знае, че дванадесет месеца е зима, останалото е лято.”

⛓ “в МВД е достатъчно да бъдеш тъп и да се прицелваш точно в черепа.”

⛓ “паметта е най-слабото място у руснаците, особено паметта за злото”

⛓ “У нас тъкмо падналия го бият. А в изправения - стрелят.”

[Teo]

"The line between good and evil runs through every heart." A study of human nature, lest we be deluded into thinking that 'we stand' and 'I am not like all those other bad people.' Time in the Gulag might change our minds. Noteworthy to see who are the ones who 'shine like stars' in the middle of that kind of darkness.

[Невен Паштар · Rating 5 out of 5]

Понирање у срж људског бића... Језовито добро!

[Illiterate · Rating 4 out of 5]

Solzhenitsyn argues the gulags arose from an ideology of work and a need for manpower (part 3). But he also relates them to a battle of good and evil in our souls (part 4).

[Atreju · Rating 5 out of 5]

Un testo poderoso, coraggioso, potente. Un grido, un lamento fortissimo, un terremoto che cerca di spaccare l'ipocrisia letteraria del realismo socialista e la follia di uno Stato che ha elevato l'ideologia a dogma.
In questo secondo volume l'autore ci racconta l'arcipelago da dentro. Il Gulag è come una metastasi e si propaga in tutta l'Unione, a partire dal suo prototipo (le isole Solovki). Come un tumore maligno, ne corrode progressivamente e rapidamente il corpo sano e propaga veleno in tutta l'area circostante. Lo Stato è oramai una cornice ai Gulag, all'interno della quale tutti sanno o, quantomeno, sospettano, partecipi (volenti e nolenti) di una folle menzogna continua collettiva. Il testo ci racconta i lager in tutti i loro aspetti: dalla formazione alla loro composizione e struttura interna e financo alle specie umane che lo popolano (gli "zek" vengono trattati come fossero un gruppo etnico "biologicamente" differente da tutti gli altri). Continui e numerosissimi i rimandi a casi concreti, a testimonianze, a figure storiche, a fonti normative (su tutte, il famigerato art. 58 del codice penale sovietico). Fiumane e fiumane di uomini, donne e bambini, milioni di individui che non si concentrano unicamente nel periodo del c.d. "terrore" Ezoviano (anni 1937-1938) ma che popolano tutti i 4 decenni che vanno dalla presa del potere da parte dei bolscevichi fino al periodo successivo alla morte di Stalin. Un'immensa schiavitù, quale la storia non aveva mai visto, il precipitare della nazione in una servitù della gleba "2.0". Lavoro di sterminio. Il testo ci offre moltissimi approfondimenti: imprescindibili quelli riguardo la costruzione del canale Mar Bianco - Mar Baltico (opera colossale realizzata con la sola forza delle braccia, da centinaia di migliaia di persone, in condizioni proibitive, al prezzo di numerose ecatombi). In questo abisso del male, l'autore non risparmia nessuno (ne ha, ad esempio, per gli scrittori Gorkij e per Aleksej Tolstoj ecc.). Non mancano tuttavia alcuni sparuti e fulgidi esempi di rettitudine (la vita di Anna Petrovna Skripnikova).
Senz'altro, una delle letture più importanti della mia vita.

[Eugene Kernes · Rating 2 out of 5]

Overview:
The Gulag, as a concentration camp, began shortly after the rise of Soviet Russian power. Initially for POW’s and undesirable foreigners, that quickly expanded for citizens. The Gulag was used to develop the nation. A system designed to obtain free labor. The prisoners would not earn anything, while the state profited from their labor. This was a reintroduction of slavery in Russia. The work was degrading, carried out under harsh conditions, and without appropriate tools. Under socialism, no one else but slaves would have performed the work. The prisoners were barely fed, with the little food they did receive being of a very poor quality. The guards stole a lot of food. Guards even made the prisoners compete and fight to get the food.

To get labor for the Gulag, there was a low tolerance for deviating thoughts. Anyone who was overheard to speak anything against the socialist system, no matter the significance of what was said or even the privacy of the claim, were heavily punished with major charges against them with long sentences. The Soviet system was much harsher against dissenters than previous regimes. Under the Soviet system, it was not just the dissenters who were punished, but their entire family. Even children were given the full measure of punishment, without exception if their crimes were unintentional. The children were trained to hate.

The way the authorities themselves complied with the laws, was to use a language that prevented them from thinking about the consequences of their actions. Defending oneself against this system was impossible, and going on a strike was useless. What was left was to change fate, to break out. Some tried to invent something useful for the state, which would have given them a release.

Caveats?
This book is very difficult to read. Contains poor organizational structure, as related content can be found sporadically in the book. Most of the book is composed of examples, without much systematic analysis.

[Nate · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you don't read it, you will never understand.

"And if everyone were even one quarter as implacable as Anna Skripnikova--the history of Russia would be different." p. 664

"And these women had children who grew up, and for each one there came a time of extreme need when they absolutely had to have their father back, before it was too late, but he never came." p. 654

"A human being departs from life without ever having learned into what kind of deep well of evil one can fall. p. 640

"On arrival they were tipped into big pits that had already been prepared and buried alive. Not out of brutality, no. It had been ascertained that when dragging and lifting them, it was much easier to cope with living people than with corpses. This work went for many nights at Adak." p. 390

"At the very least, everyone keeps his mouth shut. And that is what is needed." p303

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

So we're through Volume Two of this behemoth indictment on the evils that occurred in Russia between the years of 1918 and 1956. As I stated in the review of Volume One, the level of emotional intensity at which this series of books is written is pretty unbelievable. It's no wonder this book is credited as helping to bring down the Soviet Union.

This volumes two parts focus on camp and camp life (where you end up after interrogation and transit prisons covered in the first book) - then an unbelievable chapter called 'The Soul and Barbed Wire.'

"Only those can understand us who ate from the same bowl with us." -Hutzul girl

There is no limit to what should be included in this part. To attain and encompass its savage meaning one would have to drag out many lives in the camps - the very same in which one cannot survive for even one term without some special advantage because they were invented for destruction. And from this it follows that all those who drank of this most deeply, who explored it most fully, are already in their graves and cannot tell us. No one now can ever tell us the most important thing about these camps. And the whole scope of this story and of this truth is beyond the capabilities of one lonely pen. All I had was a peephole into the Archipelago, not the view from a tower...To taste the sea all one needs is one gulp.

"In all the brightness it is as if there were no sin present...it is as if nature here had not yet matured to the point of sin." -Prishvin describing the Solovetski Islands

So we begin at what I gather was one of the first camps...before the Islands "metastasized." The Solovetski Islands.

How had it happened that the hares had not been exterminated? They would explain it to the newcomer this way: The little beasts and birds are not afraid here because there is a GPU order in effect: "Save ammunition! Not a single shot is to be fired, except at a prisoner!"

Describing a night wherein three men executed 300 prisoners at the cemetery on Solovetski:
By night's end, at any rate, he was seen washing off the blood-soaked tops of his boots, one after the other over a washbasin...They were drunk and careless - and in the morning the enormous pit, only lightly covered over, was still stirring and moving.

Here he talks about how a certain Judge Leibowitz of New York acclaimed the Gulag system after he visited it:
Oh, "what an intelligent, farsighted humane administration from top to bottom," as Supreme Court Judge Leibowitz of New York State wrote in Life magazine, after having visited Gulag. "In serving out his term of punishment the prisoner retains a feeling of dignity." That is what he comprehended and saw...Oh, fortunate New York State, to have such a perspicacious jackass for a judge!...And oh, you well-fed, devil-may-care, nearsighted, irresponsible foreigners with your notebooks and your ball-point pens - how much you have harmed us in your vain passion to shine with understanding in areas where you did not grasp a lousy thing!

And things only got worse in camps after this little Marxist gem was implemented:
They dug down deeper into the storage chest of history and dragged out what Marx had called "extraeconomic coercion." In camp and on collective farms this discovery was presented with bare fangs. And then Frenkel came along and, like a devil sprinkling a poison into the boiling cauldron, he poured in the differentiated ration pot. There was a famous incantation repeated over and over again: "In the new social structure there can be no place for the discipline of the stick on which serfdom was based, nor the discipline of starvation on which capitalism is based."...And there you are - the Archipelago managed miraculously to combine the one and the other.

Here we finally get into some of the authors experiences in his first hard labor camp:
And tomorrow would be the same and every day: six cars of red clay - three scoops of black gruel. In (transit) prison, too, we seemed to have grown weak, but here it went much faster. There was already a ringing in the head. That pleasant weakness, in which it is easier to give in than to fight back, kept coming closer. And in the barracks - total darkness. We lay there dressed in everything wet on everything bare, and it seemed it was warmer not to take anything off - like a poultice. Open eyes looked at the black ceiling, at the black heavens. Good Lord! Good Lord! Beneath the shells and the bombs I begged you to preserve my life. And now I beg you, please send me death.

Solzhenitsyn is describing the common way death occurred in camp:
The diarrhea takes out of a man both strength and all interest - in other people, in life, in himself. He grows deaf and stupid, and he loses all capacity to weep, even when he is being dragged along the ground behind a sledge. He is no longer afraid of death; he is wrapped in a submissive, rosy glow. He has crossed all boundaries and has forgotten the name of his wife, of his children, and finally his own name too. Sometimes the entire body of a man dying of starvation is covered with blue-black pimples like peas, with pus-filled heads smaller than a pinhead - his face, his arms, legs, his trunk, even his scrotum. It is so painful he cannot be touched. The tiny boils come to a head and burst and a thick wormlike string of pus is forced out of them. The man is rotting alive...

But there is one form of early release that no bluecap can take away from the prisoner. This release is - death. And this is the most basic, the steadiest form of Archipelago output there is - with no norms...In the autumn of 1941, Pechorlag (the railroad camp) had a listed population of fifty thousand prisoners, and in the spring of 1942, ten thousand. During this period not one prisoner transport was sent out of Pechorlag anywhere - so where did the forty thousand prisoners go? I have written thousand here in italics - why? Because I learned these figures accidentally from a zek who had access to them. But you would not be able to get them for all camps in all periods nor to total them up.

Talking about checking the dead every single day:
This was seldom like an autopsy - a long vertical cut from neck to crotch, breaking leg bones, pulling the skull apart at its seam. Mostly it was not a surgeon but a convoy guard who verified the corpse - to be certain the zek was really dead and not pretending. And for this they ran the corpse through with a bayonet or smashed the skull with a big mallet. And right there they tied to the big toe of the corpse's right foot a tag with his prison file number...

One of my favorite parts was when he went through some of the ridiculous ways you could get arrested and get a "tenner" in GULAG:
Orachevsky had been given only five years. he had been imprisoned for a facial crime (really out of Orwell) - for a smile!...while showing another teacher in the classroom something in Pravda, he had smiled! The other teacher was killed soon after, so no one ever found out what Orachevsky had been smiling at. But the smile had been observed, and the fact of smiling at the central organ of the Party was in itself sacrilege!

A tailor laying aside his needle stuck it into a newspaper on the wall so it wouldn't get lost and happened to stick it in the eye of a portrait of Kaganovich. A customer observed this: Article 58, ten years (terrorism). A saleswoman accepting merchandise from a forwarder noted down on a sheet of newspaper. There was no other paper. The number of pieces of soap happened to fall on the forehead of Comrade Stalin. Article 58, ten years...However, for the most part fantastic accusations were not really required. There existed a very simple standardized collection of charges from which it was enough for the interrogator to pick one or two and stick them like postage stamps on an envelope:
>>Discrediting the Leader
>>A negative attitude toward the collective-farm structure
>>A negative attitude toward state loans (and what normal person could have a positive attitude!)
>>A negative attitude toward the Stalinist constitution
>>A negative attitude toward whatever was the immediate, particular measure being carried out by the Party
>>Sympathy for Trotsky
>>Friendliness toward the United States
>>Etc., etc., etc.

He talks of prisoners, who although imprisoned for ridiculous and false transgressions, remained dead red, orthodox Communists throughout their whole internment:
He is impenetrable. He speaks in a language which requires no effort of the mind. And arguing with him is like walking through a desert. It's about people like that that they say: "he made the rounds of all the smithies and came home unshod." And when they write in their obituaries: "perished tragically during the period of the cult," this should be corrected to read: "perished comically."

Take Prokhorov-Pustover, also a Bolshevik, though not a Party member, who turned in zeks for deliberately failing to fulfill (work) norms. (He used to report this to the chiefs, and the zeks got punished.) To the zeks' reproaches that he must realize it was slave labor, Pustover replied: "That's a strange philosophy! In capitalist countries the workers struggle against slave labor; but we, even if we are slaves, work for a socialist state, not for private persons. These officials are only temporarily [?] in power. One blow from the people...and they will disappear, but the people's state will remain."

It's...a jungle, the consciousness of an orthodox Communist. It's impossible to make sense of it.

Discussing escape attempts:
But a man who seriously undertook to escape became very swiftly fearsome. Some of them set fire to the taiga behind them in order to get the dogs off their trail...In 1949...a fugitive was detained with human flesh in his knapsack; he had killed an unconvoyed artist with a five-year term who had crossed his path...and had not yet had the chance to cook it.

In the spring of 1947 in the Kolyma...two convoy guards were leading a column of zeks. And suddenly one zek...skillfully attacked the convoy guards on his own, disarmed them, and shot them both. The bold fellow announced to the column that it was free! But the prisoners were overwhelmed with horror; no one followed his lead, and they all sat down right there and waited for a new convoy...And then he took up the rifles (thirty-two cartridges, "thirty-one for them!) and left alone. He killed and wounded several pursuers and with his thirty-second cartridge he shot himself. The entire Archipelago might well have collapsed if all former front-liners had behaved as he did.

Discussing thieves (read: knights) and there treatment under their ridiculous laws:
Here is what our laws were like for thirty years: For robbery of the state, embezzlement of state funds, a packing case from a state warehouse, for three potatoes from a collective farm - ten years! But robbery of a free person? Suppose they cleaned out an apartment...If it was not accompanied by murder, then the sentence was up to one year, sometimes six months. The thieves flourished because they were encouraged. Through its laws the Stalinist power said to the thieves clearly: Do not steal from me! Steal from private persons! You see, private property is a belch from the past.

Discussing the actual guards:
The convoy had nothing to fear from any investigation, and did not have to give any explanations. Every convoy guard who fired was right. Every prisoner killed was guilty...

At the gatehouse, a zek ran up to a guard with a release document and asked: "Let me through, I am going to the laundry [outside the camp compound]. I'll only be a minute!" "You can't." "But tomorrow I'm going to be free, fool!" The guard shot him dead. And there wasn't even a trial.

In 1938...a forest fire flew with the speed of a hurricane...and from the forest into two camps. What was to be done with the zeks? The decision had to be made instantly - there was no time to consult with higher jurisdictions. The guards refused to release them - and they all burned to death. That was the easy way. If they had been released and escaped, the guards would have been court-martialed.

Now we're finally on to Part IV "The Soul and Barbed Wire."
"Behold, I shew you a mystery; we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed." -I Corinthians, 15:51

"Think! Draw some conclusions from the misfortune. And all that endless time, after all, the prisoner's brains and souls are not inactive?! In the mass and from a distance they seem like swarming lice, but they are the crown of creation, right? After all, once upon a time a weak little spark of God was breathed into them too - is it not true? So what has become of it now?"

"Along our chosen road are twists and turns and twists and turns. Uphill? Or up into the heavens? Let's go, let's stumble and stagger. The day of liberation! What can it give us after so many years? We will change unrecognizably and so will our near and dear ones...And the thought of freedom after a time even becomes a forced thought. Far-fetched. Strange. The day of 'liberation!' As if there were any liberty in this country! Or as if it were possible to liberate anyone who has not first become liberated in his own soul.

His friend telling him a story while he's in the hospital:
"And on the whole, do you know, I have become convinced that there is no punishment that comes to us in this life on earth which is undeserved. Superficially it can have nothing to do with what we are guilty of in actual fact, but if you go over your life with a fine tooth comb and ponder it deeply, you will always be able to hunt down that transgression of your for which you have now received this blow."

"The Nuremberg Trials have to be regarded as one of the special achievements of the twentieth century: they killed the very idea of evil, though they killed very few of the people who had been infected with it...And if by the twenty-first century humanity has not yet blown itself up and has not suffocated itself - perhaps it is this direction that will triumph? Yes, and if it does not triumph - then all humanity's history will have turned out to be an empty exercise in marking time, without the tiniest mite of meaning! Whither and to what end will we otherwise be moving? To beat the enemy over the head with a club - even a caveman knew that.

"And that is why I turn back to the years of my imprisonment and say, sometime to the astonishment of those about me: "Bless you, prison!"

"All human emotions - love, friendship, envy, love of one's fellows, mercy, thirst for fame, honesty - fell away from us along with the meat of our muscles...We had no pride, no vanity, and even jealousy and passion seemed to be Martian concepts...The only thing left was anger - the most enduring of human emotions. We came to understand that truth and falsehoods were kind sisters.

"Those people became corrupted in camp who had already been corrupted out in freedom or who were ready for it. Because people are corrupted in freedom too, sometimes even more effectively than in camp."

In a culture of corruption and lies...the strong get eaten first:
"Yes, it was a lottery all right, but some of the numbers were 'fixed.' They threw out a general dragnet and arrested in accordance with assigned quota figures, yes, but every person who objected publicly they grabbed that very minute! And it turned into a selection on the basis of soul, not a lottery! Those who were bold fell beneath the axe, were sent off to the Archipelago - and the picture of the monotonously obedient freedom remained unruffled. All those who were purer and better could not stay in that society; and without them it kept getting more and more trashy. you would not notice these quiet departures at all. But they were, in fact, the dying of the soul of the people."

I'll end with this:
"Looking back, I saw that for my whole conscious life I had not understood either myself or my strivings. What had seemed for so long to be beneficial now turned out in actuality to be that which was truly necessary to me. But just as the waves of the sea knock the inexperienced swimmer off his feet and keep tossing him back onto the shore, so also was I painfully tossed back on dry land by the blows of misfortune. And it was only because of this that I was able to travel the path which I had always really wanted to travel. It was granted me to carry away from my prison years on my bent back, which nearly broke beneath its load, this essential experience: how a human being becomes evil and how good. In the intoxication of youthful successes I had felt myself to be infallible, and I was therefore cruel. In the surfeit of power I was a murderer, and an oppressor. In my most evil moments I was convinced that I was doing good, and I was well supplied with systematic arguments. And it was only when I lay there on rotting prison straw that I senses within myself the first stirrings of good. Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either - but right through every human heart - and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. And even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained. And even in the best of all hearts, there remains...an unuprooted small corner of evil. Since then I have come to understand the truth of all the religions of the world: They struggle with the evil inside a human being (inside every human being). It is impossible to expel evil from the world in its entirety, but it is possible to constrict it within each person."

[Aaron Schuschu · Rating 1 out of 5]

I read the first volume of this series in the fall of 2021, read 396 pages of this volume, and will probably never read volume 3. While interesting to bring up the bridges to nowhere which were a direct result of an ideology not right for the time or place (in that vein, more of a criticism of accelerationism than leftism) I’m just not with the whole 80% of it being venting about anticipating negative reception on account of what he assumed to be popular at colleges but never was. Besides, if you were a collaborator, you pretty much got what you deserved.

[Jared Hanishewski · Rating 5 out of 5]

We are told often to be more empathetic So let us emphasis.

The year is 1937 and you live in Stalin’s Russia. You are an individual, but wait there is no individual; there is only the Soviet Collective. It is everywhere and it is always watching. Every word you say it hears. Every action you take it scrutinizes Every opinion you hold...Hahaha that’s funny “opinions”. So you live in constant terror. No, not terror just fear, terror comes later. Every day you live in fear careful to make sure you put on the right show. “Yes comrade”, you say “it is a beautiful morning and we are set straight by the Soviet will”. Pretty soon you discover something. Why fight the collective? Why rage against fear? After all it is easier to swim down stream then up it. So you opt for the safer option. Loyalty. Yes, loyalty for the Party, and love for the motherland. Love for comrade Stalin. You are a loyalist. And a devote Christian too. So you pray twice a week for the health and wisdom of Stalin. Sunday’s and Wednesday’s like clockwork.

One fateful Wednesday as you are leaving the chapel you are approached by two tall men. They ask you ever so politely if you wouldn’t mind coming down to the station. Just a few questions they say. Well why wouldn’t you go after all you are a model citizen who has never done anything against the collective. So you hop in to their black car. How you should have screamed, bit, punched and kicked.
Five days later you are signing a paper. It is the admission of your guilt. This is when the reader ask what torture was used on our poor soul. Was it a branding rod or maybe sharpened tongs? Oh why so dramatic? No hot iron was used. Try not sleeping for five days, you’ll sign anything. Yes, you are signing a paper saying how last Wednesday you prayed for the death of Stalin. This they say is a violation of article 58-8 (as if prayer can be an act of terrorism). For that they slap you with a ten year term in a hard labour prison camp, in Gulag.

Fast forward 2 weeks and you have arrived Camp Novy Iyerusalim, more commonly know as starvation-station. You are quickly told how things are run around here. It isn’t pretty. Your first work order is digging in the clay pits. You are to work 11 hours a day without break not to mention the 5 mile walk to and from the site. So more like 15 hours. You ask for a shovel to dig the clay, you are told that this is quite impossible. So as the spring showers pour on, you dig clay with your bare hands. You do not have a way to dry or do you have an extra pair of clothes. Men drop dead of exhaustion and malnutrition all around you. This becomes your life:

Wake. Walk. Dig. Walk. Eat. Sleep soaked.
Wake. Walk. Dig. Walk. Eat. Sleep soaked.
Wake. Walk. Dig. Walk. Eat. Sleep soaked.
Wake. Walk. Dig. Walk. Eat. Sleep soaked.
Wake. Walk. Dig. Walk. Eat. Sleep soaked.

You fought in the war. You know how to embrace hardship. So you struggle on. But alas in this monotonous hell you find yourself praying to the father above to “please send me death”.

As you pay your “debt” to society you learn the hard truths of the Gulag.
One. To be a woman here is a curse, to be a beautiful woman is to suffer most of all.
Two. The children (You could be thrown in gulag as early as 12) were perhaps the most dangerous of them all. Quick to adapt to their new surroundings they would roam around in gangs stealing from and knifing anyone who got in their way.
Three. Dare not tell your escape plan to anyone. Informers were everywhere.
Four. Dare not escape.
Five. Step out of line. Beaten. Ask for more gruel. Beaten. Can’t get up from your beatings. Beaten to death.

Through all this you determine that you will survive. You will fight back with the only thing you possess, the will to live. And you also determine you will not loose your soul to this place, that you will not let the corruption of gulag to get under your skin. Years pass by and you survive, survive and survive.

The day comes your release. Only one more sleep. You go to bed anxious. You are awaken in the middle of the night by a fist punching your gut. “Get up!” They say. Cold and in pain you obey. You are led, along with eight others, to the forest. The security chef and his men all surround you with rifles. A pit has been dug. “Get in zeks!” they shout. You obey. And it is here they shoot you. You feel the bullet enter your stomach. As you lay immobilized by pain you feel the dirt hit you. First to be covered is your feet then your chest. You feel yourself being buried alive and your last thought is not of your family or the injustice of this Soviet state. No, your last thought is of the efficiency of your executioners. How it is easier to cox the living to his grave then to drag the dead. Now the dirt is over your face, you feel it in your noose. Now it is time for that terror.

This book took me awhile to read. And I must say it is quite depressing. Solzhenitsyn writes first hand the horrors of the Gulag and the injustices of the Soviet state. One thing I’ve learned is the price a country pays when it builds itself on a lie. The gulag archipelago is an attempt to unravel that lie. In Solzhenitsyn’s final analysis he determining that it was never the collective that was responsible for the evil done to the innocent. It was always individual.

[Fr. Peter Mottola · Rating 5 out of 5]

Volume two was just as soul-crushing as Volume I—full review to come at the end of Volume III. The section entitled "The Soul and Barbed Wire" certainly makes the journey worthwhile, and I am very glad to be reading the unabridged version.

[Tahir Ashurov · Rating 5 out of 5]

Soljenitsın bütün bu illərdən sonra da aktuallığını qoruyub saxlayır. Üçüncü kitabı oxumağı səbirsizliklə gözləyirəm.

[Ali Najafiyan · Rating 4 out of 5]

بعد از بازداشت و شکنجه و دادگاهی شدن ، حال به انتقال و حبس محکوم پرداخته می شود . حکومت شوراها در تحقیر انسان و پایمال کردن حقوق انسانی سنگ تمام گذاشته . باور کردنی نیست که از این وقایع کمتر از یک قرن زمان گذشته و هر آینه بعید نیست که روزگار آبستن چنین وقایع شومی در حق انسان باشد . شاید تنها نقد من به این کتاب لحن توام با طنز تلخ سولزنشتین به وقایع است و پراکندگی سالهای روایت شده .

[Kalli Talonpoika · Rating 4 out of 5]

teine osa jõuab lõpuks laagritesse, mis olid ootamatul kombel veel hullemad, kui kõik, mis sellele eelnes. Solženitsõn on väga põhjalik, pannes laagrite ajaloo jupphaaval lugeja ette kokku, kuid mõnikord see põhjalikkus on raamatule komistuskohaks (nt mdea kas oli vaja nii pikalt laagrite "kultuuriprogrammist" kirjutada)

[Nilesh Jasani · Rating 5 out of 5]

If one is to read only one part of the trilogy, this is perhaps the one. The first one has a lot of history and context which are relevant but not unique. I am sure the last one - the one I am going through now - will have a lot of views on consequences and future. The middle volumes are the core that defines the monumental work.

A lot of what I reviewed in the first volume is worth repeating. If there is any literary work, where no reviewer is even worthy of commenting, this is perhaps that. Our race has seen indescribable tragedies. The worst are perhaps those created by men themselves. Stalin's great purge must rank near the top of any such list. Solzhenitsyn's work ensures that future generations never forget its minutest details. That the author published this at tremendous personal risks and post achievements like a Nobel prize (which would make perhaps some other to turn less ambitious or brave) embellishes the great service this work has done to our societies.

That said, this is an incredibly hard book to read. The writing style is fluid. Despite the voluminous details and hundreds of tales containing different types of people, places and nature, the rhythm is consistent and rarely containing too much more than necessary. Yet, this encyclopedic work is like a dictionary or an almanack. A reader's emotions would reach the revulsion limits early with the framework set in terms of what to expect. The grimness is relentless and beyond a point, many may feel sick worried about one's own sadistic tendencies to keep reading. A tragedy involving millions could have tales differing somewhat that could last books hundreds of times as big or summarized with key details in a length perhaps one fifth. Some, like this reviewer, may feel guilty leaving such a great work midway as well and plod on. Every reader may have her own point at which the book becomes too much.

The second volume focuses on the life in Gulag. Gone are descriptions of events that led to the purge or explanations of the era-defining terms like Gulag, GPU, NKVD, Cheka, the labour penal system etc. This book is just about the slave-like life in the labour camps.