A review by rkkmistry
The Gulag Archipelago, Abridged Edition by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

5.0

WOW!!! EVERYONE NEEDS TO READ THIS BOOK!!! I think even the most woke of us have this sort of positivist idea of the world and even tho we know shit is fucked up we still have this sense that like conflicts are smaller and more controlled and "it's not like we're gonna have an all out World War III," but I think this book really hit home like how violence will work in the 21st century (hint hint it's behind closed doors and in concentration camps). I think it's just like important in understanding how violence on such a massive and mundane scale can be carried out almost administratively. And yes, I know that contemporary scholars think numbers are far far lower than Solzhenitsyn claims and I know that really this book is more of an oral history than an actual historical study, but I think we need that to like actually understand the devastation of the 20th /21st century. We're so inundated with images of violence and huge numbers, but this book really cut through the crap and had me like utterly horrified in the way that I feel it is important we all are. Like shit is bad yo!!! And I think that people that still believe in forms of communism or socialism shouldn't be afraid of this book, because the forms of state violence we see here are so familiar regardless of governmental structure. Overall maybe I'm sounding like a high schooler who just learned about racism, but like I think it's good to be shaken up a little every once in a while !!!