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A review by avalinda
The Gulag Archipelago Volume 1: An Experiment in Literary Investigation by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
5.0
Imagine a war, any war. People fighting and killing each other from buildings, trenches, planes, ships. The endless boom of guns, missiles, bombs, cannons. Innocent civilians getting caught in the crossfire. Whole towns and cities crumbling to the ground. World leaders censuring or condoning the violence. Protests and boycotts on the home front, ambushes and surrenders and desperate maneuvers on the frontlines. For those who survive, a litany of scars and wounds and lost limbs and trauma; for those who don't, a funeral among loved ones or endless anonymity in unmarked graves.
Now imagine a war on the human mind itself. A war against its very ability to think and reason; against the various principles that define a person, embedded somewhere in that vast network of neurons. A war against the mysterious force that drives a human being to not only live but fight for justice, wringing out blind submission in its place. Can you imagine it? Can you even wrap your mind around such an insidious yet systematic form of destruction - a conflict that neither begins nor ends on the physical plane, and yet is every bit as horrific as the wars we can see?
And now imagine, if you will, this second, barely visible war being waged by people not unlike you and me. People who have families, a variety of interests, a job (or two), and rarely enough money. People prone to everyday frustrations, fatigue, pettiness, jealousy, and a yearning for something more. People who would love more equality and opportunity in the world, and to not be ruled over by anyone else. In a country where social status is obliterated, and where things should theoretically be more free and equal, how do such people become capable of countless evils against each other; how do others fall beneath this evil en masse, vanishing almost without a trace?
We have arrived at one of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's many observations regarding the Soviet regime - how unchecked power can lead to mass destruction.
(And how many of us would know, when placed in the same situation and political climate as these people, which side of us would really win?)
Whether you call it greed, revenge, thirst for power, or all of the above - this was the driving force behind so many Russian citizens dismantling social, economic, and political foundations in the name of revolution. (And there's not much real estate between that and the "social dialogue" [read: cancel culture] of today.) Given the reins, many had no problem abolishing basic human rights, paving the way for countless future atrocities, to which some would later fall victim themselves. Show trials based on fabricated charges; mass usage of torture and execution; arbitrary arrest quotas; prison conditions reminiscent of Nazi concentration camps; systematic propaganda, indoctrination, and censoring of intellectual thought; and even the coining of new terms to continue ancient acts of evil under a different guise. The list is far from complete, and the book goes into such detail on these appalling subjects that it can be extremely difficult to read. And it makes me wonder, in the face of such evidence, how the so-called intellectuals of unaffected countries, both during Solzhenitsyn's time and our own, can continue to advocate for socialism and communism. This dark pattern has been repeated many times in history, in many different countries, and continues to thrive today; there is no better source for this than people who lived through it. It is incredible that anyone could survive, let alone still have a voice left to speak out against this cruelty.
And Solzhenitsyn manages to do this, with characteristic sarcasm, irony, and above all rage. He details and dissects the historical, social, and ideological background of Russia and the Soviet Union; he goes through a nearly endless list of crimes against humanity; he provides facts and figures on imprisonments and deaths; and most importantly, he tells the stories of real people, whose only "crimes" in the eyes of the government were honesty, uprightness, and independent thought. It's heartbreaking to read, and to know that we're going down the same path today - people can still be censored ("canceled") for those same moral qualities, simply because their beliefs and opinions don't match the accepted narrative. Why is it always so hard to learn from the past? Do we really have to lose our human rights to realize how important they were in the first place?
Solzhenitsyn may not have had access to such material, as these large-scale operations occurred in secret and evidence was destroyed just as secretly, but he had the power of words. And with those words - his own and those of other survivors - he did his part to ensure that the world would remember. As hard as it is, as heavy as that responsibility rests upon us, it must be done. It is our duty, as fellow members of the human race, to remember the darkness of our collective past so that we do not repeat the mistakes of history. So that those countless millions, lost in the violence of time, will not have died in vain.
Now imagine a war on the human mind itself. A war against its very ability to think and reason; against the various principles that define a person, embedded somewhere in that vast network of neurons. A war against the mysterious force that drives a human being to not only live but fight for justice, wringing out blind submission in its place. Can you imagine it? Can you even wrap your mind around such an insidious yet systematic form of destruction - a conflict that neither begins nor ends on the physical plane, and yet is every bit as horrific as the wars we can see?
And now imagine, if you will, this second, barely visible war being waged by people not unlike you and me. People who have families, a variety of interests, a job (or two), and rarely enough money. People prone to everyday frustrations, fatigue, pettiness, jealousy, and a yearning for something more. People who would love more equality and opportunity in the world, and to not be ruled over by anyone else. In a country where social status is obliterated, and where things should theoretically be more free and equal, how do such people become capable of countless evils against each other; how do others fall beneath this evil en masse, vanishing almost without a trace?
We have arrived at one of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's many observations regarding the Soviet regime - how unchecked power can lead to mass destruction.
“If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”
(And how many of us would know, when placed in the same situation and political climate as these people, which side of us would really win?)
Whether you call it greed, revenge, thirst for power, or all of the above - this was the driving force behind so many Russian citizens dismantling social, economic, and political foundations in the name of revolution. (And there's not much real estate between that and the "social dialogue" [read: cancel culture] of today.) Given the reins, many had no problem abolishing basic human rights, paving the way for countless future atrocities, to which some would later fall victim themselves. Show trials based on fabricated charges; mass usage of torture and execution; arbitrary arrest quotas; prison conditions reminiscent of Nazi concentration camps; systematic propaganda, indoctrination, and censoring of intellectual thought; and even the coining of new terms to continue ancient acts of evil under a different guise. The list is far from complete, and the book goes into such detail on these appalling subjects that it can be extremely difficult to read. And it makes me wonder, in the face of such evidence, how the so-called intellectuals of unaffected countries, both during Solzhenitsyn's time and our own, can continue to advocate for socialism and communism. This dark pattern has been repeated many times in history, in many different countries, and continues to thrive today; there is no better source for this than people who lived through it. It is incredible that anyone could survive, let alone still have a voice left to speak out against this cruelty.
And Solzhenitsyn manages to do this, with characteristic sarcasm, irony, and above all rage. He details and dissects the historical, social, and ideological background of Russia and the Soviet Union; he goes through a nearly endless list of crimes against humanity; he provides facts and figures on imprisonments and deaths; and most importantly, he tells the stories of real people, whose only "crimes" in the eyes of the government were honesty, uprightness, and independent thought. It's heartbreaking to read, and to know that we're going down the same path today - people can still be censored ("canceled") for those same moral qualities, simply because their beliefs and opinions don't match the accepted narrative. Why is it always so hard to learn from the past? Do we really have to lose our human rights to realize how important they were in the first place?
"Thus many were shot - thousands at first, then hundreds of thousands. We divide, we multiply, we sigh, we curse. But still and all, these are just numbers. They overwhelm the mind and then are easily forgotten. And if someday the relatives of those who had been shot were to send one publisher photographs of their executed kin, and an album of those photographs were to be published in several volumes, then just by leafing through them and looking into the extinguished eyes we would learn much that would be valuable for the rest of our lives. Such reading, almost without words, would leave a deep mark on our hearts for all eternity."
Solzhenitsyn may not have had access to such material, as these large-scale operations occurred in secret and evidence was destroyed just as secretly, but he had the power of words. And with those words - his own and those of other survivors - he did his part to ensure that the world would remember. As hard as it is, as heavy as that responsibility rests upon us, it must be done. It is our duty, as fellow members of the human race, to remember the darkness of our collective past so that we do not repeat the mistakes of history. So that those countless millions, lost in the violence of time, will not have died in vain.