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A review by franciscodscn
The Gulag Archipelago, Volume I by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
5.0
"The Gulag Archipelago" is a masterpiece.
Solzhenitsyn's poignant descriptions introduce the reader to one of humanity's most horrible accomplishments. Although this isn't the most precise historical account of Gulag- it was written in the USSR - the Russian writer does a great job of portraying the emotions and thoughts that go through a prisoners mind once he becomes a part of the *Sewage Disposal System*. Besides drawing from his own experience, Solzhenitsyn also gathered hundreds of stories from people across the Soviet Union, without which the book wouldn't have had the same impact, I am sure. From the types of arrests, to the terrors of interrogation and the horrible *Stolypin* cars, - the trains used to transport prisoners - this 1st volume is the perfect introduction to Gulag and to the awfully bureaucratic and misanthropic soviet regime.
In page 353, one of Lenin's letters is mentioned, in which he discusses the criminal code he was working on, and, had those thoughts not been uttered, I don't think I would be sitting here writing this review. Here is an excerpt:
“The basic concept, I hope, is clear, notwithstanding all the shortcomings of the rough draft: openly to set forth a statute which is both principled and politically truthful (and not just judicially narrow) to supply the motivation for the essence and the justification of terror, its necessity, its limits. The court must not exclude terror. It would be self-deception or deceit to promise this, and in order to provide it with a foundation and to legalize it in a principled way, clearly and without hypocrisy and without embellishment, it is necessary to formulate it as broadly as possible, for only revolutionary righteousness and a revolutionary conscience will provide the conditions for applying it more or less broadly in practice.
With communist greetings, Lenin"
This is not to say, however, that the book isn't boring. Believe me, It can be very hard to get through some parts, like the 133 pages in which Solzhenitsyn describes a number of trials dating from the October Revolution to the 1930s.
Still, reading volume 1 of "The Gulag Archipelago" is fundamentally worth it, and I can't wait to read the other two volumes.
Solzhenitsyn's poignant descriptions introduce the reader to one of humanity's most horrible accomplishments. Although this isn't the most precise historical account of Gulag- it was written in the USSR - the Russian writer does a great job of portraying the emotions and thoughts that go through a prisoners mind once he becomes a part of the *Sewage Disposal System*. Besides drawing from his own experience, Solzhenitsyn also gathered hundreds of stories from people across the Soviet Union, without which the book wouldn't have had the same impact, I am sure. From the types of arrests, to the terrors of interrogation and the horrible *Stolypin* cars, - the trains used to transport prisoners - this 1st volume is the perfect introduction to Gulag and to the awfully bureaucratic and misanthropic soviet regime.
In page 353, one of Lenin's letters is mentioned, in which he discusses the criminal code he was working on, and, had those thoughts not been uttered, I don't think I would be sitting here writing this review. Here is an excerpt:
“The basic concept, I hope, is clear, notwithstanding all the shortcomings of the rough draft: openly to set forth a statute which is both principled and politically truthful (and not just judicially narrow) to supply the motivation for the essence and the justification of terror, its necessity, its limits. The court must not exclude terror. It would be self-deception or deceit to promise this, and in order to provide it with a foundation and to legalize it in a principled way, clearly and without hypocrisy and without embellishment, it is necessary to formulate it as broadly as possible, for only revolutionary righteousness and a revolutionary conscience will provide the conditions for applying it more or less broadly in practice.
With communist greetings, Lenin"
This is not to say, however, that the book isn't boring. Believe me, It can be very hard to get through some parts, like the 133 pages in which Solzhenitsyn describes a number of trials dating from the October Revolution to the 1930s.
Still, reading volume 1 of "The Gulag Archipelago" is fundamentally worth it, and I can't wait to read the other two volumes.