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A review by davehershey
The Gulag Archipelago, Volume I by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
5.0
Whenever people in America want to say something is evil or atrocious, the quickest comparison is the Nazis and Hitler. We all know the story of the Nazis and the evils they perpetrated. I wonder though, do we too quickly forget the evils of Soviet Russia and Stalin? Perhaps it is because we fought with the Russians and against the Nazis in WWII that the evils of the Nazis are more known to us. Our grandparents fought them on the beaches and the Holocaust is the most well-known genocide of the 20th century. Yet the victims of the Gulag, the millions and millions killed by Stalin? Their story has not come down, for whatever reason. The war with Russia was a Cold War, not as exciting a story to tell as the stories of WWII.
I was born in 1980, so I am only speaking from experience. But I feel like I've always known the Nazis were bad, but learning about the Communists came later. It really hit me a couple years ago when I read a history of WWII that emphasized how America partnered with one evil dictatorship to defeat another. Perhaps we need to be reminded that just as there are those today who admire the Nazis, there are some who see Communism with rose-colored glasses.
All that to say, I have been looking forward to reading this book. This volume is magnificent in its depth. The best parts are when Solzhenitsyn shares his story of arrest, transport and time in camp. He spends a lot of time here on the trials that Stalin used to build up the Gulag system throughout the twenties. Those stories, while important history, do drag a bit.
This volume also includes the only quote from the book I was familiar with. Reading the context, his discussion on ideology, was brilliant:
I look forward to reading volume 2 when my friend gives it back to me (that's what you get for letting people borrow books!. Till then, be on the lookout for dictators who demand you keep clapping because the first one to stop clapping may end up in chains!
I was born in 1980, so I am only speaking from experience. But I feel like I've always known the Nazis were bad, but learning about the Communists came later. It really hit me a couple years ago when I read a history of WWII that emphasized how America partnered with one evil dictatorship to defeat another. Perhaps we need to be reminded that just as there are those today who admire the Nazis, there are some who see Communism with rose-colored glasses.
All that to say, I have been looking forward to reading this book. This volume is magnificent in its depth. The best parts are when Solzhenitsyn shares his story of arrest, transport and time in camp. He spends a lot of time here on the trials that Stalin used to build up the Gulag system throughout the twenties. Those stories, while important history, do drag a bit.
This volume also includes the only quote from the book I was familiar with. Reading the context, his discussion on ideology, was brilliant:
I look forward to reading volume 2 when my friend gives it back to me (that's what you get for letting people borrow books!. Till then, be on the lookout for dictators who demand you keep clapping because the first one to stop clapping may end up in chains!