The Gulag Archipelago: 1918-1956 | Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn

The Gulag Archipelago: 1918-1956 | Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn | An expose on the evil heart of Communism

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	The Gulag Archipelago: 1918-1956 Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2002 - 512 pages average customer review:based on 65 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Drawing on his own incarceration and exile, as well as on evidence from more than 200 fellow prisoners and Soviet archives, Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn reveals the entire apparatus of Soviet repression -- the state within the state that ruled all-powerfully.

Through truly Shakespearean portraits of its victims -- men, women, and children -- we encounter secret police operations, labor camps and prisons; the uprooting or extermination of whole populations, the "welcome" that awaited Russian soldiers who had been German prisoners of war. Yet we also witness the astounding moral courage of the incorruptible, who, defenseless, endured great brutality and degradation. The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956 -- a grisly indictment of a regime, fashioned here into a veritable literary miracle -- has now been updated with a new introduction that includes the fall of the Soviet Union and Solzhenitsyn's move back to Russia.

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Excellent abridgment

I originally read the three-volume "Gulag" while in college and then later read this abridgment. This abridgment is very well done; it definitely captures the meat of what Solzhenitsyn wanted to convey. The three-volume work had a lot of detailed accounts of those who did not survive the Gulag or the Stalinist state, but those details can be hard to absorb and are easily forgotten. This volume provides the essence of what is THE book of the 20th century.

An expose on the evil heart of Communism

One of the most monumental accounts of one of the cruellest ideologies of history,this book should be read by all
Layer by layer Solzhenitsyn exposes the hideous system of imprisonment ,death and torture that he refers to as the 'Gulag Archipelago'
He strips away that the misconception of the good Tsar Lenin betrayed by his evil heirs and exposes how it was Lenin and his henchmen who put into place the brutal totalitarianism , which would be inherited and continued by Stalin
In fact the only thing that Stalin really did differently was to introduce a more personalised ,Imperial style of rule but otherwise carried on the evil work of Lenin
It was Lenin who imprisoned the Cadets (Constitutional Democrats) , Mensheviks,Social Democrats,Social Revolutionaries Anarchists and independent intelligentsia and had many killed
In this way he completely destroyed all opposition to Bolshevik hegemony
Under Lenin the persecution started of anybody convicted of religious activity and the complete destruction of the church in Russia
And it was Lenin who began the genocide of whole ethnic groups that would later gain momentum under Stalin
Under the Communist system all that is spiritual or not purely material in nature is destroyed.And we discover what a horror Marx's idea of 'dialectic materialism ' really is
But I cannot describe the horrors which Solzhenitsyn outlines in this book :the hideous torutres,the slave markets selling of young women into sexual slavery
Solzhenitsyn describes how the prison system of the Tsarist system was compassionate by comparison but the mild abuses of Tsarist imprisonment where reacted to with a shrill outcry that never greeted the horrors of Bolshevism and Communism
As he says in his ever present biting sarcasm "Its just not fashionable,just not fashionable
And even today,even after the fall of Communism in Europe (though its iron grip remains strong in parts of Asia,Africa and in Cuba) its still not regarded as fashionable to highlight the horrors of Communism as it is to do so for other human rights abuses of this and other centuries

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Do You Believe Man Has the Capacity for Pure Evil?

I'm encouraged to see this book is still a good seller despite its publication back in 1976. We should never forget the lessons contained herein.

In my younger liberal days, I thought we were all pretty much the same: basically good, trying to be honest and compassionate, with desire for an open society in which individual rewards are based on merit and work, supported by a transparent government based on the rule of law, not the capricious rules of men. "The Gulag Archipelago," on the other hand, shows us raw human nature as it is in reality.

Someone said, "A conservative is a liberal who's been mugged." Well, Solzhenitsyn's book will figuratively mug you if, like many of us in the U.S., you have been sheltered from the pure evil our fellow men can commit. That evil is in all of us, but that's an issue for another day. This is a mugging you will survive; it will make you a stronger and better person.

Totalitarian regimes like Soviet communism and German Nazism require legions of supporters. As you read this book, try to imagine which of your acquaintances would willingly participate or acquiesce. Would you? The answer is not as straightforward as it seems.

-Steve Parker, M.D., author of The Advanced Mediterranean Diet: Lose Weight, Feel Better, Live Longer

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A powerful book

Probably one of the most important works I have ever read. Solzhenitsyn gives voice to the millions of voiceless victims of Stalin's Soviet Russia. Unfortunately this is one of histories lesser known crimes, and the power of this man's voice helps to rectify this. This book is powerful and brutal. Solzhenitsyn forces his readers to stare into the face of evil and see the horrors that can happen when tyrants are allowed to run roughshod over a people.

This book is so tremendously important as a warning for all people to take care that tyranny does not get the opportunity to capture a people. It illustrates the inhumanity that man is capable of, and he shows readers the terrible price that dictators impose.

This book needs to be required reading because it has the affect of so eloquently exposing readers to the reality that people all over the world face. This is why this book is so powerful. It is the universal nature of this work that shows the reader what happens to people in this situation. This book forces the reader to be empathetic to the plight of suffering people the world over. What this work shows is that this type of oppression becomes so pervasive that it is almost impossible to overcome. The people don't want this nor do they simply acquiesce to this tyranny. What happens is that a society becomes totally corrupted to the point where there is nothing left.

This is an extremely important work that needs to be read.

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true believer in the power of literature

I cannot stop admiring the courage of the author and his belief in art as the most powerful and necessary form of preserving memory of history and humanity. His writing, neither history nor memoir, is compelling, and passionate, and inspite of his passionate criticism, I think I read his love for Russia and his people. I enjoyed reading his lecture as well, which shows more of his brilliant and yet rather humble analysis on the mission of literature/artists in the time of pervasive and universal atrocities againt humanity. He not only wrote but also lived his convictions.

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