The Gulag Archipelago, winner of the Nobel Prize and deemed the “Best nonfiction book of the twentieth century,” was published in 1973 by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, a Soviet war veteran who was sent to the Gulag on false charges. A damning picture of the nature of totalitarianism and humanity’s potential, The Gulag Archipelago deserves all its acclaim.
The Gulag Archipelago begins with Solzhenitsyn’s description of what arrest looks like. Solzhenitsyn describes arrest as “a blinding flash and a blow which shifts the present instantly into the past and the impossible into omnipotent actuality,” as people could easily comprehend the arrests of many others, but when it comes to their own arrest they are dumbfounded due to their selfishness (4). The NKVD officers who would arrest the victims would commonly tell them that they would be fed and looked after once they arrive at the camp, but this is one giant lie, considering the deprivation of the Gulag. Solzhenitsyn calls the NKVD “Organs,” as they are the organs of the Soviet Union, and their primary function is to keep everyone living in an atmosphere of fear. Solzhenitsyn also states that the Gulags were inevitable in a totalitarian regime like the Soviet Union, as they came to rely on them for economic productivity. Solzhenitsyn then states that when it comes to mass arrests, there is no rationale for them - “the Organs had no profound reasons for their choice of whom to arrest and whom not to arrest. They merely had over-all assignments, quotas for a specific number of arrests” (9). Solzhenitsyn then states that although most people knew they could be arrested at any moment, they didn't attempt to escape because of their optimism bias - they acted like it was impossible for them to be arrested, though they knew on some level that the only person truly safe from the arrests was Stalin.
Solzhenitsyn describes that he was fighting for the Soviet Union in WWII when he was arrested. This shows the absurdity of the Soviet system, as they would arrest and execute their own officers in a total war, reflecting their total disregard for reality. Solzhenitsyn was called by his bridge commander to his headquarters and then asked for his pistol. He complied, and when he did, two NKVD officers grabbed him and told him that he was under arrest. Solzhenitsyn describes how surprised he was when he learned this, as “Ten days before, I had led my own reconnaissance battery almost intact out of a fire pocket” (14). He then reflects on the psychology of his commander, thinking that while it was insane for him to comply with the NKVD, it was quite expected, seeing that his life relied on subordination for survival. Before he left with the secret police, he shook Solzhenitsyn’s hand and wished him happiness. As Solzhenitsyn was led to a prison, he was asked if he would be so kind as to give directions to the prison, and he complied, and “in gratitude they immediately put me not in an ordinary cell but in a punishment cell” (15). After a while, Solzhenitsyn and the other prisoners were led outside to defecate, and to his shock and embarrassment, he was meant to do it with and in front of everyone. Solzhenitsyn described the place where he defecated as “soiled all over with human feces, so densely scattered over the whole square that it was difficult to find a place one’s two feet and squat … Two machine gunners grimly pointed their machine pistols at us as we squatted” (17).
Solzhenitsyn talks about the history of the Gulags, and it was noted that The Gulag Archipelago was somewhat controversial because Solzhenitsyn states that although Stalin was a monstrous dictator who reigned over the Gulag with an iron fist, his predecessor, Lenin, was also guilty of terrible acts. For instance, Lenin relished violence, not hesitating on one occasion to execute some farmers who took only a little food to share with their families. He also mandated that special camps should be created to imprison people who were merely suspected of crime. The idea of the Gulags already existed and were well-entrenched before Stalin’s rise to power, so many were guilty for their existence, not just Stalin. Solzhenitsyn then describes the torture methods which the NKVD would use on their prisoners to break them. Most prisoners would confess, sooner or later, to the imaginary crimes which they had supposedly committed. Interrogation methods include: disruption of a person’s circadian rhythm (by interrogating them at night), persuasion (including emotional appeals for a person to bear the brunt of their crime for the sake of the Party), foul language, psychological contrast (good cop, bad cop), humiliation, any method which invokes confusion (one interrogator went so far as to strip herself and tempted her victim), intimidation, lying, the mentioning of one’s loved ones (sometimes the interrogators would lie, saying that a person screaming nearby was a family member), the manipulation of sound, tickling, the putting out of a cigarette on the victim’s skin, the manipulation of light (temporarily blinding a person), paradoxical actions (in one instance, a victim was led to his cell, but it took twelve hours), punishment cells, strenuous positions (in one instance, a woman was forced “to remain seated on a stool in the corridor for six days in such a way that she did not lean against anything”), exposure to the elements (prisoners could be thrown into a hole dug in the ground), compulsion to make the accused stand on his knees (Solzhenitsyn notes that this is especially devastating for confident people), deprivation of water and sleep (some were forced to stay awake for weeks, and forcing a prisoner to refrain from sleep was an excellent interrogation method, seeing that it left no physical indications), having an assembly line of torturers to guarantee ruthlessness, locking prisoners in a room full of bedbugs (it is described that there are so many the prisoner will give up and let them drink his blood), beatings, the amputation of fingernails, the utilization of strait jackets, breaking a prisoner’s back, and bridling (“A long piece of rough toweling was inserted between the prisoner’s jaws like a bridle; the ends were then pulled back over his shoulders and tied to his heels” (50 and 55). Solzhenitsyn then tells the reader to not judge those who confessed, as it is impossible to know one’s inner strength before a trial, and the experience of intense suffering is contrary to the speculation of it.
Solzhenitsyn states that those who survived the Gulag system were much more realistic when it came to the world. For instance, Yuliya Rumyantseva was tortured by the Nazis, but she refused to confess. Solzhenitsyn states that “For a reader who is not in the know this is a model of heroism,” but for those who survived the Gulag “it’s a model of inefficient interrogation” (65). Solzhenitsyn then states that the NKVD guards had reason to do what they did, as they required confessions and the submission of prisoners in order to keep their jobs, causing those who resisted to be seen as personal enemies: “By refusing to confess they menaced the interrogator’s personal standing. It was as if they wanted to bring him down. In such circumstances all measures were justified! If it’s to be war, then war it will be! We’ll ram the tube down your throat - swallow that salt water” (68). Solzhenitsyn then shows a clear instance of Lord Acton’s quote that “Absolute power corrupts absolutely,” as he describes that a “bluecap” is an NKVD officer who only recently had been a nobody. Solzhenitsyn states that power is intoxicating, as bluecaps only until recently had concerned parents who “didn't know where to turn to launch you in life. You were such a fool you didn't even want to study, but you got through three years of that school - and then how you took off and flew” (69). Solzhenitsyn states that bluecaps were intoxicated with power because of the vast quantity they suddenly possessed, as they are above every other branch of society, since others “control people’s military or official duties, wages, reputations, but you control people’s freedom” (69). NKVD officers are always silently acknowledged, but they are never talked about, as no one wants to draw their attention.
Solzhenitsyn was in the Gulag when he learned of the end of WWII, and he remarked that the victory wasn’t for him and others who were betrayed by their motherland, as they were considered as “traitors” while it was precisely the opposite case. Solzhenitsyn states that “The Russians were carrying the whole war on their shoulders,” yet they received little from the totalitarian government, since it does not feel indebted to them for their existence - “What is the right course of action if our mother has sold us to the gypsies? No, even worse, thrown us to the dogs? Does she really remain our mother? If a wife has become a whore, are we really still bound to her in fidelity? A Motherland that betrays its soldiers - is that really a Motherland?” (93). Solzhenitsyn admits that while his lot was bad, so were those of most Soviet soldiers, considering that while every other nation treated their soldiers like heroes at the end of the war, only Russian soldiers were “renounced by their Motherland and degraded to nothing in the eyes of enemies and allies” (99). Solzhenitsyn then describes that during WWII Article 58-1b, which stated that during war any soldier who attempts to retreat will be shot on sight, was enacted. He ironically states that while most soldiers get their deaths from enemy soldiers, Russians get theirs from their own side. Most of the POWs who came back after WWII were quickly sent to the Gulags from 1946-7, as Stalin was paranoid about outside influences.
Solzhenitsyn then personifies the law as a human being, and shows how the Soviet law devoured its own offspring when it matured. He eventually comes to talk about “The Supreme Measure,” otherwise known as capital punishment. Solzhenitsyn describes how innocent people were shot for no apparent reason, and to illustrate his point he shows the pictures of victims, along with the descriptions of their deaths - all six of the prisoners were shot, probably for bogus reasons. Solzhenitsyn remarks that almost all those who were sentenced to die offered no resistance, making him question what about the death penalty gave it its hypnotic effect.
Solzhenitsyn then discusses the transportation to the camps. He describes that the conditions were hellish, since the guards on the trains would stuff as many people into a room as possible, effectively making movement impossible. Solzhenitsyn states that before the war, it would take 1.5-2 days for prisoners to arrive at their destination, while during WWII it could take up to a week. The guards, in an attempt to ward off escape (and to save energy), would feed the prisoners next to nothing, causing many to die of dehydration and suffocation. Solzhenitsyn describes that the guards didn't want to cause suffering to the prisoners, as they were supposedly going to work for socialism in the Gulags, but “The convoy staff is limited; some of them have to be on watch in the corridor; some are on duty on the platform; at the stations they clamber all over the car, under it, on top of it, to make sure there aren’t any holes in it” (154). Due to this clear imbalancing of the proportion of prisoners to guards, guards would seldom allow prisoners to use the bathroom, and when they did, there was little time. Solzhenitsyn describes how to ensure that no escape would be attempted during the bathroom break, “the door to the toilet was not closed, and the convoy guard, watching the process from the platform of the car, could encourage it … Sometimes the orders came before you even started … And that meant that from the platform they’d prevent your doing anything else. And then, of course, you couldn’t wash your hands” (155). If that wasn’t bad enough, the sanitation was absolutely horrific - “There was never enough water in the tank there, and there wasn’t enough time either. The toilet was filthy … And tracking back the liquid mess on his shoes, the prisoner would be shoved back into the compartment, where he would climb up over somebody’s arms and shoulders … his shoes would dangle to the middle row and drip” (155-6). Solzhenitsyn soon discusses that most western writers viewed the latrine bucket as the definition of humiliation and a loss of power, but he states that they are mistaken, as it is a benefit, considering how “In 1937 there were no latrine buckets in certain Siberian prisons, or there weren’t enough. Not enough of them had been made ahead of time” (161).
Solzhenitsyn remarks that “Human nature, if it changes at all, changes not much faster than the geological face of the earth,” seeing how humanity continues to feel roughly the same emotions - “the very same sensations of curiosity, relish, and sizing up which slave-traders felt at the slave-girl markets twenty-five centuries ago of course possessed the Gulag bigwigs in the Usman Prison in 1947, when they, a couple of dozen men in MVD uniform, sat at several desks covered with sheets … and all the women prisoners were made to undress in the box next door and to walk in front of them bare-footed and bare-skinned, turn around, stop, and answer questions. ‘Drop your hands,’ they ordered those who had adopted the defensive pose of classical sculpture. (After all, these officers were very seriously selecting bedmates for themselves and their colleagues.)” (164-5). Solzhenitsyn clearly and effectively captures the fact that human nature really hasn’t changed at all since the agricultural revolution - our technology has changed, but that doesn’t change the intrinsic nature of Homo Sapiens, seeing how at a genetic level we are very similar to those who lived ages before us. Solzhenitsyn talks more of transportation, eventually coming to the topic of slave caravans. He describes that in order to account for all prisoners, the mere loading of them into the caravans could take a day.
Solzhenitsyn soon examines the camps themselves and the slave labor present within them. In one instance, he mentions how six people - Firin, Berman, Frenkel, Kogan, Rappoport, and Zhuk - were each responsible for the loss of 30,000 lives, showing how little the lives of the prisoners mattered to the authorities. Solzhenitsyn describes the hunger associated with the Gulags, showing how it affects everyone, as when it is present to a severe degree, even a conscientious person would be forced to do dishonest deeds in order to survive. Solzhenitsyn states that hunger “compels the most unselfish person to look with envy into someone else’s bowl, and to try painfully to estimate what weight of ration his neighbor is receiving. Hunger, which darkens the brain and refuses to allow it to be distracted by anything else at all, or to think about anything at all, or to speak about anything else at all except food, food, and food” (226). Solzhenitsyn continues to describe the all-consuming hunger prisoners always felt, clearly illustrating what it could drive people to do, as prisoners would “throw themselves on it, and fight with one another, seeking a fish head, a bone, vegetable parings. And how one last-legger dies, killed in that scrimmage” (226). Solzhenitsyn moves on to discuss the physical effects of starvation, as “The man grows weaker, weaker, and the bigger he is, the faster it goes. He has already become so weak that he cannot climb to the top bunks, he cannot step across a log in his path; he has to lift his leg with his two hands or else crawl on all fours. The diarrhea takes out of a man both strength and all interest … He grows deaf and stupid, and he loses all capacity to weep … 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” (227).
Solzhenitsyn proceeds to discuss how women fared in the camp, Solzhenitsyn describes that it was quite common for female prisoners to have a relationship with the male prisoners. He then describes how warped the Gulags are, as if a female prisoner is to give birth to a child, she would be shipped to another camp with a maternity ward. Solzhenitsyn discusses that after WWII ended, Gulag sentences became harsher than before, as while people would be sentenced to a decade of hard labor before (a “tenner”), now they would receive twenty five. Crimes that could land such a sentence include: discrediting Stalin, showing negativity towards anything, feeling sympathy for Trotsky, and liking the United States. In another chapter, it was described that after the Great Terror of 1937, there was another epidemic of arrests afterwards, with “conspiracies” turning up in many Gulags. In just one Gulag, Burepolom, the following conspiracies were “detected”: “Hostile activity against the policy of the Soviet Communist Party and the Soviet government,” “Expression of defeatist fabrications,” “Expression of slanderous opinions about the material situation of the workers of the Soviet Union (Telling the truth was slander.),” “Expression of a desire (!) for the restoration of the capitalist system,” and “Expression of a grudge against the Soviet government” (252).
Solzhenitsyn, after talking about the punishments in the camps (executions, starvation, and filthy and intemperate punishment cells) and the thieves (nicknamed the “socials”), states that the worst horror of the Gulags were how they changed the children. Of course, childhood is frequently seen as a time of bliss, innocence, and joy, but for children sent to the Gulag or born in the system, it was the exact reversal: “The simplest reply to the overpowering injustices was to create injustices oneself! This was the easiest conclusion, and it would now become the rule of life of the kids for a long time to come” (271). Solzhenitsyn states that children who were extremely young (some were twelve) would be sent to the Gulags which were supposed to house adults, and in 1927 prisoners aged sixteen to twenty four made up 48%, almost half, of the entire prison population: “Ten years after the victorious Revolution these same girls and boys turned up in prison and constituted half the prison population!” (267). What makes this especially damnable is not only the wasted time for young people who were imprisoned, but due to the fact that the Bolsheviks saw them as class enemies, forgetting that during the October/Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, these young people were only “between the ages of six and fourteen,” showing how ridiculous, self-righteous, and fanatical the Soviet Union was when it came to its own policies, even when they defied logic and common sense (267).
In one of the most insightful chapters in the book, “The Dog’s Service,” Solzhenitsyn talks mostly about the camp guards and the commandants, portraying them in a realistic yet damning light, showing just how flexible humanity’s nature can be. Or as Viktor Frankl wrote in Man’s Search for Meaning, humankind includes those who operate the gas chambers and those who enter them. Solzhenitsyn describes that when it comes to those who serve as administrators of the Gulag, there is a complete and utter lack of humanity and sympathy, since most of the people in that group chose their jobs willingly, reflecting their lack of basic decency. Or as he put it; “Every man with the slightest speck of spiritual training, with a minimally circumspect conscience, or capacity to distinguish good from evil, is instinctively going to back out and use every available means to avoid joining this dark legion. But let us concede that he did not succeed in backing out” (282). Solzhenitsyn then describes that the second selection for becoming a camp administrator that effectively roots out any basic goodness in those being selected “comes during training and the first service assignment, when the bosses themselves take a close look and eliminate all those who manifest laxity (kindness) instead of strong will and firmness (cruelty and mercilessness)” (282). Finally, a third selection occurs for the duration of the person’s job: “And those who had not visualized where and into what they were getting themselves now come to understand and are horrified. To be constantly a weapon of violence, a constant participant in evil! Not everyone can bring himself to this, and certainly not right off. You see, you are trampling on others’ lives. And inside yourself something tightens and bursts. You can’t go on this way any longer! And although it is belated, men can still begin to fight their way out, report themselves ill, get disability certificates, accept lower pay, take off their shoulder boards - anything just to get out, get out, get out!” (282).
Those who still remain are, to say the least, sociopathic, insensitive, and deranged people, since they view their jobs as being both “useful” and “honorable,” and it becomes even more concerning: “And some didn't even have to get used to it; they had been that way from the start” (282). Solzhenitsyn then states that the process of selection has caused the incidence of cruelty and mercilessness among the police of the Soviet Union to be much higher than in a randomly selected population, seeing how extensive the screening procedures are. Solzhenitsyn then asserts that different people can face the same situation and have completely different reactions and take-aways, but concedes that those serving the Gulag over long periods of time were virtually identical to each other when it came to their reactions and personalities. Solzhenitsyn goes so far as to provide an extensive list of their universal characteristics, seeing their prevalence, and they are as follows: arrogance (camp keepers view themselves as superior to everyone else due to their living station), stupidity (camp keepers never stop to acknowledge fallibility, as they are so accustomed to being obeyed they view the reactions of others as indicative of the quality of their judgement, not external circumstance), autocracy (“the camp keepers were fully the equals of the worst serf owners of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries), greed (people would enrich themselves by exploiting the prisoners), lasciviousness (female prisoners would be sexually exploited), and cruelty (“There was no curb, either practical or moral, to restrain these traits. Unlimited power in the hands of limited people always leads to cruelty”) (284-5). Solzhenitsyn maintains that it is basically a universal principle that camp keepers could not be decent, as they would either be warped through their service to totalitarianism or they would have left in the early stages of their training.
Solzhenitsyn offers some light at the end of the chapter, as he states that sometimes the guards who weren’t highly ranked would speak kindly to the zeks (a nickname for prisoners), and while it wasn’t common, it wasn’t that rare however. Fortunately, “among both prison and camp jailers it was possible to find human beings,” considering that “Every prisoner encountered more than one in his career,” while “In an officer it was virtually impossible” (287). Solzhenitsyn then states that social position and humaneness have an inverse relationship, as those who are ranked in a low position can be kind, while those who hold tremendous power are prone to abuse it.
Solzhenitsyn moves on to talk about the terrible effects the Gulags had on Russian society as a whole. They are: constant fear (no one is safe from arrest except Stalin), servitude (no protest could ever be made), mistrust (anyone can be a “stool pigeon,” an informer for the NKVD), universal ignorance (cooperation is difficult, knowledge of the outside world is scarce), squealing (Solzhenitsyn estimates that “Out of every four to five city dwellers there would most certainly be one who at least once in his life had received a proposal to become an informer”), betrayal (betraying others meant showing the NKVD your loyalty, not to mention children were brainwashed to report their parents for any “anti-Soviet” activity), corruption (many became informers and others lost their sense of general morality), lying to survive (people had to fake loving the Soviet system to survive - those who refused are virtually guaranteed to be sent to the Gulag or shot), cruelty (ignoring those who need help), and slave psychology (little can be done, people can’t even complain or express their emotion without risking punishment) (323). An excellent example of the corruption of society was when Stalin once gave a speech to an audience, and no one attempted to attack him or to bring him down for his crimes. On the contrary, to ensure their own safety, they began clapping. No one dared to stop clapping because no one wanted to look suspicious to Stalin, but after many minutes of thunderous applause, an old man decided to stop and sit down. The next day, he didn't show up for work and no one saw him again - he was probably sent to the Gulags, where he died, or he was executed by the NKVD.
Solzhenitsyn discusses an inspirational story of Kengir, a Gulag camp, to show that human autonomy can be exercised and despotism crushed, albeit briefly (though after Stalin’s death, most of the extreme forms of Soviet absolutism would collapse rapidly, to the delight of most people). In Kengir, the prisoners rebelled against the guards who held them prisoner, and for forty days were free. During the forty days they organized well, agreeing to a list of demands in regards to the authorities, and managed to rule the camp peacefully before the Soviet authorities came to put down the newly independent camp. Despite the heroism of the prisoners, they were still no match for the guns and tanks of Soviet soldiers, and more than 700 died in the ensuing battle.
In 1953, Lavrentiy Beria, the head of the NKVD and one of the main leaders of the Gulag (who was also a sadist and mass rapist), was overthrown by other Soviet leaders who feared him, including the future leader of the Soviet Union, Nikita Khruschev. He was later executed, and the other leaders of the Soviet Union began making reforms, seeing how Stalin had died some time before. One of their immediate ones involved releasing large numbers of prisoners from the Gulag and putting a permanent stop to arbitrary arrests and executions. Solzhenitsyn himself was released from the Gulag in 1956 after Khruschev gave a speech denouncing Stalin’s cult of personality and the Great Purge. When Solzhenitsyn wrote the book, he stated that conditions have obviously improved, but the same totalitarian attitude of the government was still present, seeing how millions were still imprisoned in the Gulags. Furthermore, the Soviet government still violently put down rebellions, pardoning the military officers who shot civilians, clearly illustrating to Solzhenitsyn that “For half a century and more the enormous state has towered over us, girded with hoops of steel. The hoops are still there. There is no law” (468).
Personal thoughts:
The Gulag Archipelago is one of my favorite reads, for it is a historical narrative with sweeping scope, told from the point of view of a survivor of the totalitarian system which is being described. I highly enjoyed Solzhenitsyn’s description of the personality of the system and human nature, for they are very accurate, even if what they portray is sorry and depraved. Solzhenitsyn wastes no time talking about the Gulags, and he is completely blunt with his opinions regarding Soviet ideology, Lenin, and totalitarianism, which caused his book to be banned in Russia for years. The Gulag Archipelago clearly demonstrates humanity’s malevolence, but it also shows the strength of the human spirit, as even when people don’t directly rebel, they are still capable of surviving extreme conditions. Even covert acts of resistance are to be considered admirable, as it takes a large degree of strength and moral conviction to defy a system which has the power to take away everything from an individual, including their life. This book also illustrates that the political atmosphere of the 21st century has improved considerably, as even though Russia still has secret police and repression, the extent of their power has decreased substantially, and the Soviet Union has collapsed. Of course, Putin has replaced Stalin, and many Russians still admire Stalin, but it is likely for Russians to come to terms with their past and to move on into the future. I highly recommend The Gulag Archipelago to anyone interested in the Soviet Union, the relationships governments have with their people, individual autonomy, human nature, society, and change and continuity over time.
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