Never Remember: Searching for Stalin's Gulags in Putin's Russia

Columbia Global Reports

by Masha Gessen, Misha Friedman (Photographer)

A haunting literary and visual journey deep into Russia’s past—and present.

The Gulag was a monstrous network of labor camps that held and killed millions of prisoners from the 1930s to the 1950s. More than half a century after the end of Stalinist terror, the geography of the Gulag has been barely sketched and the number of its victims remains unknown. Has the Gulag been forgotten?

Writer Masha Gessen and photographer Misha Friedman set out across Russia in search of the memory of the Gulag. They journey from Moscow to Sandarmokh, a forested site of mass executions during Stalin's Great Terror; to the only Gulag camp turned into a museum, outside of the city of Perm in the Urals; and to Kolyma, where prisoners worked in deadly mines in the remote reaches of the Far East. They find that in Vladimir Putin’s Russia, where Stalin is remembered as a great leader, Soviet terror has not been it was never remembered in the first place.

“A short, haunting and beautifully written book.” —The Wall Street Journal

Genres: History, Russia, Nonfiction, Politics, Russian History, Art, Audiobook

162 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 20, 2018

About the author

Masha Gessen (born 1967) is an American-Russian journalist, translator, and nonfiction author. They identify as non-binary and use they/them pronouns.

Born into an Ashkenazi Jewish family in Russia, in 1981 they moved with their family to the United States to escape anti-Semitism. They returned in 1991 to Moscow, where they worked as a journalist, and covered Russian military activities during the Chechen Wars. In 2013, they were publicly threatened by prominent Russian politicians for their political activism and were forced to leave Russia for the United States.

They write in both Russian and English, and has contributed to The New Republic, New Statesman, Granta and Slate. Gessen is a staff writer at The New Yorker, covering international politics, Russia, LGBT rights, and gender issues.

Reviews

[Diane S ☔ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Russian gulags, the most known book on this subject is the The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956, which I have not read, the pure size and small print was too daunting. I have read about them in various fictional renderings, but this is the first non fiction book I read. I was just appalled, that is not a strong enough word, at the amount of people that were imprisoned in these barren wastelands. Many died of the conditions but millions were murdered. The difference between this mass killing in Russia, and that of the Holocaust, is that it wasn't a particular group or groups that were targeted. Sometimes it was political or activists speaking out against Stalin, but other times it almost seemed like the luck of the draw.

After Stalin's death, for once became the new if temporary rule. Many gathered at political offices trying to find out what happened to family members. Some were able to find answers and a reluctant peace. The author touring different sites of closed gulags, found see ites of mass murders, graves filled with bones. After Putin's election history is once again being rewritten in Russian.

"The cacophony conveys the sense that the Gulag meant everything and nothing. That is the distinguishing characteristic of the Putin-era historiography of Soviet terror. It says, in effect, that it just happened, whatever."

There is so much more in this book, including a look at the last Gulag. The book also has full page, black and white photos that demonstarte different aspects of these Gulags. The barreness of the surroundings, sometimes just a snap shot of broken railroad ties, a picture of the face of a woman, a forlorn watchtower amongst ruins, very effective.

The many ways history can be rewritten time and time again, depending on who is in power. The title, Never remember refers to the whitewashing of this system occuring in Putin's Russia.

[Lauren · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gessen and Friedman's joint work of investigative and photographic journalism revisits the remains of the gulags, and their own 'long shadow' in today's Russia and post-Soviet states. Constructed around a series of essays and full page photography spreads, this book is a memorial to the millions who lost their lives in these decades.

Gessen also writes about the contemporary work of civic Memorial Societies to research and repatriate the "disappeared", and groups who are working to restore some of the gulags for memorial tourism and commemoration.

[Ken · Rating 5 out of 5]

Never Remember: Searching for Stalin's Gulags in Putin's Russia Masha Gessen, staggering, I'm not that political probably below average but will spout disagreement to policies my government make, I'm allowed I voted no one hears me much, even less pay attention, least my dog loves it, if I had a dog. But imagine being Russian during this era, prisons hard labour, torture, execution, millions died and these are the positives, just for a wrong comment overheard or imagined by someone who had it in for you. Seems at times it was luck of the draw that you didn't end up in a Gulag. Thats scary secret police bursting into your home middle of the night dragging you out of bed bundling you of to christ knows where. All in all it would seem to me it was just plain old slavery for pointless projects the communist party wanted to get done and that no one sane would ever do willingly. Then now the kick in the teeth its all been white washed over, the secret police portrayed as heroes, dissidents slammed as "just no good" all this in Putins modern day Russia, given the smooth over gloss it all up, shine,shine... holy smokes friggen unbelievable. The world of Putin is right and the rest of the world is dead wrong, with the millions of ghosts, yeah whatever..

[Kathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well researched and interesting.

[William · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The U.S.S.R needed workers. That's Kolyma for you."

[Arthur · Rating 3 out of 5]

An audiobook of slightly more than 3 hours. I presume the actual book has photos and so I'm afraid I'm at a bit of a disadvantage.

One of the travesties of justice that are occurring in the world today is the whitewashing and revisionism of Russian history. Unlike Germany which distances itself from the terror of its past, and extensively teaches about the horrors of nazism, Russia has a prime opportunity to distance itself from its brutal Soviet past - yet doesn't. Its gulag administrators and overseers were never punished - there were no equivalent Nuremberg trials, many of these men and women retired with government pensions.

It makes it more difficult to claim these persons were criminals because that would mean the heroes of World War II, the great victor Stalin and his protégés, would be seen as nefarious characters, akin to Hitler. Modern Russia would rather this part of its history be forgotten, which means forgetting the plight of all those who suffered in the gulags, which ironically were mainly Russian citizens.

What makes this book important isn't that it gives a history of gulags, plenty do that. What this book does is shine a light on how the history of gulags is treated in present day Russia. How notable Nazi concentration camps have been preserved as museums, yet how the Gulags have been left to rot away in harsh climates, with just a handful of notable exceptions.
The Russian government isn't merely ignoring gulag related museums, and history, it's actively suppressing it by labeling at least one organization that studies it "foreign agents", which is a nice way of stating "enemy of the people".
The downside of the book is that it seemed to be missing editing. Much of the information came across as boring even when the subject is not. It's also odd for me to complain the book felt too short (usually I complain the opposite) but I just didn't find it satiating my appetite.

[Tom Johnson · Rating 4 out of 5]

NEVER REMEMBER: Searching for Stalin’s Gulags in Putin’s Russia by Masha Gessen – Published 2018

The writing was excellent - the photos not so much; uneven is the best I can say about them; several being particularly poignant. I would sooner see a photo that adds interest to the text rather than having it attempt some abstract artistic impression. The publisher is Columbia Global Reports, from Columbia University. Their goal is to provide condensed looks at major worldwide political developments. I think they accomplish their objective with Masha Gessen's take on the revisionist movement in Russia to rehabilitate Stalin. Putin is leading that charge and effectively so. The unanswerable is how and why the Russian people have absorbed so much punishment over a millennium while maintaining their unrelenting love for Mother Russia.

Could not help but think of the many parallels with our own history: from our annihilation of the first Americans; the torture and murder of millions of African slaves (to this day that sin remains a stain on our body politic); then on to the colonial conquest of the Philippines; the two European wars (although on that point, I can understand how we wanted to keep faith with our family in the UK); then the numerous proxy wars against the Soviet Union; and now our chaotic War on (or of) Terror. The book is more cogent than my review.

Page 54: " ... we're talking about legacy (of Stalin's Great Terror) rather than memory." Masha Gessen believes that, unlike in Germany, in Russia there is no demarcation between a before and after the fall of the Communist Party. Journalists in Russia lead a precarious life. This is just the latest "fall from a balcony", https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/... - In Putin's Russia, journalists (and hapless businessmen) seem to have a real problem with falling from tall buildings. The past is present - just not nearly as extreme - sort of like our racism. We are still fighting the Civil War; over there the State's iron fist still packs a punch.

Page 99: a nation beset by arbitrary laws means anyone at any time can be pulled over and shot; that last bit pertains to the political dissidents in Russia and to the blacks and browns here. Those laws, marijuana laws are a prime example, aren't so much for controlling a social problem as they are for controlling a segment of society. Creating felons is an effective way of disenfranchising anyone who dares to think of changing the social order. If you can't vote, you definitely can’t determine the future. Evidently in Putin land even running for office is frowned on. "Selective enforcement": an overt threat to democracy.

Page 147: Masha Gessen’s central myth of Russian history; the Soviet victory over German fascism in the Second World War justified the terror that preceded the war; because it instilled in the Soviet people the extreme discipline necessary to defeat the Wehrmacht; because ultimately it transformed Russia into a global superpower. This is followed by her discussion of the many monuments erected to the vainglorious party that credited itself with the triumph. We here in the USA follow suit in that regard: raising monuments to the southern men (and not so subtly to white supremacy) who lost the Civil War. (or did they?) At one time cast aside, the statues dedicated to Stalin are now creeping back to their former prominence on a plinth of pride. Never mind the millions who were so cruelly murdered for those same false idols – and never remember.

[Mandy · Rating 5 out of 5]

An evocative and often deeply moving exploration of the Gulags through a bleak and haunting collection of black and white photos and an equally evocative text by Russia expert Masha Gessen. Based on years of research, travel and personal testimony, Gessen explores the legacy of the Gulags and the relationship of contemporary Russia to them. Putin appears not to want this era memorialised, and is part of the revisionist effort to erase the evils of the past whilst rehabilitating Stalin. The subtitle of the book – Searching for Stalin’s Gulags in Putin’s Russia – says it all. The book is at once a record of the Terror and a chilling account of how the millions of victims are being betrayed by an official unwillingness to remember them.
Word of warning – not a good book to read electronically as the text and photos aren’t displayed to advantage in electronic format.

[Tanya · Rating 3 out of 5]

Russia has an inconsistent relationship with her own history. In the years following Stalin's death, there was a mild retreat from his totalitarian policies, but the government chose to brush under the metaphorical rug the devastation from the purges of the Gulag era. For decades many people were unable to find out what had happened to their loved ones (and historians believe Stalin killed around 10 million Russians in one way or another). Finally, with Gorbachev and his policies of perestroika information slowly leaked out. Some small-scale plans were made for memorials to the lost, and one site of mass graves in the Kovalevsky Forest was unearthed. But with Putin's rise to power the awakened memories were gradually smothered, as the history of the Stalin era was re-written as a time of glory and power.

Gessen, this book's essayist, makes the point that Germany was forced to deal with the Nazi regime's crimes because the WWII victors forced them to accept that collective memory. But the Soviets, being on the winning side, could tell the story the way they chose, which was to not tell it at all. Despite a short time of loosening, once again Russian people are being taught a white-washed version of their own history. All those who loved victims of the Stalinist purges and incarcerations are now gone, so Putin is able to pretend their pain never existed.

The essays of Never Remember were excellent, but as a book of photography I was unimpressed. All the photos are black and white and grainy, and often I could hardly tell what was being pictured. Perhaps that was the photo-journalist's intent, to reflect the view Russians have of their past, but the pictures weren't interesting to look at. So... 3.5 stars overall for Never Remember: Searching for Stalin's Gulags in Putin's Russia.

[Keen Reader · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 Stars!

“Between the early 1930s and the late 1950s tens of millions of Soviet citizens and thousands of foreigners were incarcerated in the hundreds of camps, prisons, and colonies that made up the Gulag. Millions died: Some were executed within days of arrest, some months or even years later, while hundreds of thousands were starved or effectively tortured to death.”

Gessen discusses such topics like Raoul Wallenberg, Perm-36 and Kolyma. We hear of one case where “At least one vessel, with some 12’000 inmates on board, was stranded in the ice floes; everyone on the ship died.” Which gives us some insight into how callous and cavalier Stalin treated human life.

Without doubt many of these photos have a cold and eerie feeling about them, and often the images read like fragmented postcards, sans postmarks, revealing very little. These black and white shots really create a vague and bleak mood, which lacks clarity or definition, which although reflects the tone rather well, results in these being more frustrating than rewarding.

[Philip Shade · Rating 5 out of 5]

"In the week after we left Magadan, everyone who had had contact with us got a visit from the FSB."

A really beautifully designed collection of photos and essays about the history and lack of history of the Soviet gulag system.

Fairly short (text wise) the book covers a lot of ground historically and socially. It gives a description of what the what the gulags were, and how they worked both functionality and as a tool of totalitarian terror against the populace. It also takes on how the system affected the Russian/Soviet people, and how the brutal history is being papered over and revised.

There's a really interesting design choice for the book, all the captions for the photographs are in the back of the book, after the notes.

At first I found flipping back and forth a little annoying, but as I read the essays I felt not knowing, looking up, having to remember, forgetting, and looking up again the context of the images symbolically mirrors the content of the text.

[David C Ward · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the West we’re used to the phrase Never Forget, applied to the Holocaust, as a minatory note to use history to prevent any recurrence of such horrors. The title of this cautionary book indicates that the reverse is just as likely: a gulag museum becomes a celebration of the guards; the Terror is necessary to prepare for war. Etc. More a polemic or witness statement, with excellent photographs, than a complete survey Never Remember asks important questions about how a society shapes historical memory. Has implications for the current Monument debate in the USA and for museums generally.

[Sarah Catlin · Rating 4 out of 5]

a really well thought out look at memory, and the idea that remembrance follows forgetting - can (or should) something be remembered if it was never even forgotten, or is so well forgotten that it no longer exists? this looks really carefully at the idea of a nation's memory, and how precarious a nation can become when an authoritarian government successfully erases a history too painful to celebrate, and how a museum or monument can even begin to exist in that kind of society. really well told, and really really well contextualised.

[Oksana · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars. Amazing how many russians choose to forget these days as evident by a majority of the populace supporting a genocidal dictator. Gessen does an excellent job in weaving in the strain and tension of trying to move others to remember. russians erect statues today to Stalin and Lenin and continue the silencing of any free speech, the little free speech that even happens. At this point, they will never remember.

[Holly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely crucial reading

[Joseph Spuckler · Rating 5 out of 5]

Never Remember: Searching for Stalin's Gulags in Putin's Russia by Masha Gessen is an attempt to remember a painful part of Soviet history. Born in Russia, Masha Gessen immigrated to the United States as a teenager with her family to escape religious persecution. Since that time, she has become an international journalist who writes for both Russian-and English-language publications. She returned to Russia to work as a journalist there but left again in 2013 to avoid anti-gay legislation.  She has earned the National Book Award for nonfiction, 2017, for The Future is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia.

The book begins with the search for Raoul Wallenberg,  a Swedish prisoner, that existed in a Heisenberg state of being neither alive or dead. Soviets unconvincingly claimed he was dead. Sweden (and CIA) believed he was still alive with multiple sightings of the prisoner from Siberia to a mental hospital in Moscow. Wallenberg disappeared from Hungary after the Soviet occupation in World War II. Previously he was responsible for saving Jews from the Nazis. The search for him or more likely his remains, he would be 104 today, is still uncertain. 

Alexander Solzhenitsyn's The Gulag Archipelago brought back the concept of Soviet prison camps to the West's memory.  Earlier Stalin's modernization of Russia was praised by many, not knowing that the labor was forced. The gulag system grew under Stalin.  It was a tragedy committed against his own people.  Soviet citizens were convicted in courts that the legitimacy of law or justice never appeared.  This system has been effectively removed from history under Soviet leaders following Stalin and now in Russia under Putin. Gessen wants to bring back the truth and the memory.

Glasnost began in 1985 and opened some of the KGB files. Local organizations, called Memorial Societies, began forming and looking into the past trying to bring back a picture of the Gulag system that exploded under the Stalin regime. Efforts to uncover the history and extent of the prison camps were stalled with the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. Societies searched for bodies, execution sites, and identification. Death certificates rarely truthfully revealed the cause of death and place of death; some do indicate execution as the cause of death. Veniamin Iofe and Irina Flige of the Leningrad Memorial Society search the system and fight to gain information still closed to the public.

Stories of prisoners are included in the work. Sergei Kovaliov details his five-year imprisonment starting in 1975. The rules were excessive and impossible to follow. They were used for the most part to ensure that there was an infraction on whoever was chosen for punishment. Modern day attempts to open museums to allow people to remember the past has been difficult. Putin's political crackdown stopped much of the progress. Much like some explained slavery in America as humane -- food, clothing, shelter, and even Christianity. Currently, Russia is doing the same with its own black mark on its history. Museums show improvement in prisoner care such as the evolution of beds from planks making the environment more comfortable and humane for those serving time for crimes real or imagined.

Never Remember also contains photographs by Misha Friedman.  These pictures capture the memory of former camps and pieces of evidence that remain of the system.  This book is an attempt to emotionally connect the reader to a past that has been suppressed.  Visually and literally stunning work. 

[Stu Campbell · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fantastic book.....a photo essay on memory and forgetting in Russia. Through the words of Marsha Gessen, it tells the stories of Gulag victims, those who tried to remember, and those desperate to forget. The photos are tremendous and harrowing.....ruins of camps, mug shots, the desolate harbor of Magadan (capital of far eastern Kolyma, the capital of the Gulag) In many ways, as we forget the harrowing dangers of the 30's and 40's and embrace the yawning chasm of totalitarianism again, a meditation on the need for memory....and how forgetfulness is deadly

[Kenneth Chanko · Rating 4 out of 5]

After laughing my way earlier this year through Iannucci's "The Death of Stalin" -- the darkest of historical black comedies (don't miss it!) -- I figured I should tackle this more sobering work. "Never Remember" is the indispensable Masha Gessen's chilling report (photos by Misha Friedman) of how Putin has sought to rehabilitate Stalin and his legacy. One of the Gulag camps -- Perm-36, just outside the city of Perm in the Urals -- has, according to Gessen's first-hand account, become a "pilgrimage site" for "the new Stalinists," where Stalin-era secret-police uniforms are proudly worn. Also: "Some tents displayed portraits of Lavrentiy Beria, Stalin's last and most notorious secret-police chief." Imagine if at, say, Arbeitsdorf there were German folks today sporting Nazi garb and there were portraits of Heinrich Himmler there to admire. As earlier stated: chilling.

[anolinde · Rating 3 out of 5]

More like 2.5.

Basically a longform article in book format. An interesting, yet quick read. I wish there had been more discussion of "Putin's Russia," but maybe that's just my American bias given the current political climate. Very sobering to realize that an entire society has essentially never gotten closure for, or even acknowledgment of, the terror ("repressions") their own government imposed upon them.

[Claire · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fascinating combination of history and disturbing current events. Timely as a lens to understand the nature of Putin and his Russia and to think about the importance of retaining accurate history to understand great tragedies.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quite remarkable. The cover says that the "essay" is by Masha Gessen, but it is more like three essays, one about an area of the GuLAG in Kareliia in the northwest of Russia, one near Perm' in the Urals region, and a third near Kolyma in the Russian Far East.

The author is examining how (or if) Russians today remember the repressions of Stalin, the camps, the mass killings. The answer, in summary, is "less and less" - but it is interesting, if depressing, how she provides this answer.

The photographs that are large part of this book are black and white and work well with the writing, I would say.

The point the author made that I found the most interesting to think about, even if it wasn't the first time I had heard something like it, is that Russians today have a much more difficult time in admitting the horror of the events under Stalin since there was (and is) no "other" who either committed these acts or had them committed against them. The demographic character (so to speak) of those who were imprisoned or died was roughly the same as that of the people who took the actions to imprison or kill them. The Russians are left to blame themselves, in effect, and would prefer to forget these events (or anyway, not remember accurately), to move on to a Russia that takes rightful pride in itself.

A well designed book, it took only a relatively short time to read and ponder its contents. After I finished it, I had to sit for a while and think about where this leaves us. I'm simply not sure.

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gessen finds little interest among Russians to confront the miseries they allowed and perpetuated upon themselves over 70 years, as embodied by the Soviet Union's gulag—the 12-time-zone-spanning political prison/concentration camp system that resulted in the execution, torture, slave labor, and starvation of tens of millions of Russian citizens, mostly during the 1930s. Misha Friedman's moody photographs that accompany Gessen's essays show the remains of towns, sites, and buildings that made up the archipelago of the gulag. Some of the most dramatic facts about gulag locations that would seem to make for compelling photographs documenting the horrors do not, in fact, have photos. Perhaps this was a deliberate choice. My one complaint with this book is that not every essay is supported with Friedman's photographs.

[Alisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don’t usually like reading about contemporary explorations of the concept of memory; maybe I just hadn’t read the right essays yet. These ones are fantastic: approachable, personal and journalistic, wry. Political historical context is deftly woven in, but the real story being told is about how individual Russians today are trying to preserve, forget, rewrite, or overlook the Gulag and the period of The Great Terror—and this includes varied approaches across different political regimes. It’s more interesting than it sounds.

The photos were beautifully somber and did much to set the mood. I wish they had leaned a bit more towards the documentary journalistic side, or at least the image captions could have been placed closer to the photos, rather than at the very end of the book.

[Charlotte · Rating 2 out of 5]

What a great title. What a great concept. But this was so unsatisfactory. Most of the photos, while skillfully executed in stark black and white, were so close up and/or so general (a small section of forest, a field, a weathered wooden sign) as to not show much of anything at all. The spare captions didn't do much to enhance my understanding either. I assume that this approach was used to illustrate the point that "Soviet terror has not been forgotten: it was never remembered in the first place" (from the jacket blurb). But unfortunately these vague out-of-context scraps of information did not do much to aid in the remembrance of the Soviet gulags.

[Eoin Flynn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like Masha Gessen, but her deeper understanding of Russian state processes that lead to the tragedies she covers in this book, doesn't come across. If you hear her speaking on podcasts and the like her knowledge comes across very strongly. This is likely due to the journalistic approach she takes in this book; focussing on the human stories. This focus comes at the expense of delving into the machinations of the Russian state. I think this is a pity, but no doubt many people will prefer the human interest and the lack of insights into state bureaucracy.

[Reader · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a book about the state erasure of identity. It is similar to "Red Memory" which dealt with memorials and museums about the cultural revolution in China. Russia, similarly has a patchy approach to something it has already tried to erase. There is little or no memorials to the Gulags and what is left is dangerous, minimised and deliberately confused. The photographs here match the texts very well as a picture of forgetting. The book as a whole is, in addition to being a political work, also a work of art.

[ingrid · Rating 4 out of 5]

Changed me feelings about this book as I went along. Initially annoyed by no captions on the pictures, some of which are hazy and unclear, later decided the photographer was after an overall impression of anonymity and the bleak message that (almost) no one in Russia cares or cares to remember the absolute horrors of Stalin's tyranny and murder of millions of his countrymen. To be fair, it is also dangerous to remember and to publicly care.

[Denny Hunt · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't think the large sections of photos added much to this book although I think not to include some of them would have been a mistake. The non-verbal black and white stark unfathomable dreariness and evil cannot only be conveyed in words. For me this book filled in some blanks about the more modern Russian attitudes towards the gulag era. I am glad I have read many other books about Russia, the Soviet Union and related books before encountering this one.

[Scott Martin · Rating 3 out of 5]

A haunting photo/essay work attempting to reveal the backstory of the gulag system that does not get a lot of coverage in today's Russia. Yet, it is a major part of the history, and the signs are there, but people have to look for it. That is not so easy for people living there. Many had family members who suffered through the gulags. How much they want to remember in these isolated parts of Russia is another matter. This work tries to help that out.

[Casey · Rating 5 out of 5]

A grisly, 3.5-hour audiobook about Stalin's terror, the brief opening of the archives in the 90s, and the Putin regime that is whitewashing history and bringing Stalin back into favor. Horrific. Hard to listen. But the story needs to be told.

This is my second book by this author and I will definitely read more.

Highly recommended.