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I view people that cling to the tenets of communism the same way I view Holocaust deniers. From the Bolsheviks of 1917 to the turmoil in Venezuela of 2017; Communism is as Churchill said; the equal sharing of misery. The pages of Solzhenitsyn’s Nobel Prize winning masterpiece are full of misery.

Solzhenitsyn paints a picture for the naïve westerner of the backbone and main pillar of Soviet Socialism: The gulag. The purpose of the network of gulags in the Soviet Union is to 1. Intimidate the masses so that they dwell in a constant state of fear and 2. To provide the nation state with an endless supply of slave labor. From the pages of this book you will learn that communism is probably the cruelest form of government in the history of humankind.

Solzhenitsyn’s writing is first hand. He was imprisoned for 8 years after being accused of writing letters that were critical of Stalin. He wrote these letters while serving in the Red Army during WWII. Being able to tell his story and that of his fellow zeks(convicts) was the motivation used by Solzhenitsyn to survive a brutal prison system designed to systematically kill it's inhabitants. His writing style is angry and he uses sarcasm to describe the system of Soviet Gulags that make Tsarist Russia look like the Cub Scouts in comparison. It is not an easy read. One thing that makes it a difficult read is that that the author rambles on and repeats himself. Solzhenitsyn apologizes for this but he explains he was never able to proofread the manuscript. In fact, he never saw all of his notes in one place. He had written this book and hid it in pieces all over the Soviet Union. He was raided by the KGB while in the process of smuggling the pieces out of the country for publication. So please forgive the author if he repeats himself and makes a few errors. He wrote the book while living in a police state and didn’t have the luxury of being able to proofread it. THIS IS HOW YOU HAVE TO WRITE A BOOK WHEN YOU LIVE IN THE SOVIET UNION!!! For this reason, make sure you select the abridged version.

This book is full of horrific but interesting stories. Many are laughable if they weren't so cruel. The NKVD (the precursor to the KGB) would observe a mass meeting. Clapping would commence at the mere mention of comrade Stalin’s name. The ovation would last for 15 minutes or more. People applauding would quite literally pass out rather than be the first one to stop clapping. Finally, one of the factory general managers stopped clapping because, after all, this was ridiculous. There was an agenda to keep. After the gathering the factory manager was arrested. This was how the NKVD separated out the leaders. The Soviet Union only wanted sheep. Leaders were dangerous and sent to the gulag. There is another story about the man who was struggling carrying a mass produced bust of Stalin. The bust was too heavy and he had no way to carry it properly so he tied a rope around Stalin’s head and slung it over his shoulder. The man was given a 10 year sentence for terrorism. Still another man was given 10 years for draping his hat and coat on a bust of Lenin. There are endless stories about how the zeks (convicts) and the 58’s (political prisoners) were coerced into confessions and sentenced without a trial for political crimes they didn’t commit. When the suspect were charged with a crime it would be in code. When the citizen asked “what is code 58-[XYZ]�� they were told by their interrogators “that is for us to know.�� During interrogations, the arrested argued that they had fought against the Germans or fought in the Revolution and their interrogators would say that “that is another matter.�� Please note that I did not use the term “suspects�� because there were no suspects. If arrested, you were guilty.

These were not isolated incidents. Solzhenitsyn said that almost every family had at least one family member or more incarcerated in one of the many islands of prisons throughout the Soviet Union. The zeks were fed a ration that could not sustain them when subjected to backbreaking labor. They were forced to work hard labor 7 days a week and often 16 hour days even if temperatures fell to -60˚F. The author tells of a canal built to the black sea where a quarter million zeks were killed in the process. Solzhenitsyn refused to compare the building of the canal to the building of the pyramids because, as he says, the difference was that the Egyptian slaves were at least given contemporary technology while the Soviets used only primitive technology! Trees were cleared by tying ropes to the tops of them and having gangs of zeks wiggle the tree until it could be toppled over. The canal was dug by pick and shovel and the frozen earth was carried away in wheel barrows or in a sack carried over the shoulder. People were dead from exhaustion, starvation, and by exposure and froze to death where they fell. The useless canal that ended the lives of so many was never even utilized. This and other things built by slave labor and managed by central government planning were most often inferior and shoddy.

Solzhenitsyn argues that peasants of Tsarist Russia were far better off than peasants living under Soviet rule. He cites the outrages that led to revolution and uses statistics to demonstrate how these outrages pale in comparison to the modern Socialist State and the system of Gulags. The Russian peasants were far, far, far better off before Lenin and Stalin came along. Yes, the peasants were slaves prior to 1867 but they got Sundays off and several Christian Holidays off. There were far fewer political prisoners and capital punishment was relatively rare. Ironically, all of these things �� abject slavery, political prisoners, and capital punishment �� inspired the Revolution. Lenin �� who had never pushed a wheelbarrow or worked a pick or shovel �� thought it was a good thing for prisoners to work rather than sit idle. The gulag was his idea. Millions upon millions of the former peasants �� some who had even fought in the revolution - were rounded up and convicted as political prisoners for such terrible crimes as “having a defeatist attitude.�� Many were executed there on the spot but others were executed very slowly in the work gangs of the gulag.

I found the following argument very interesting: Solzhenitsyn remarks about how West Germany had convicted former Nazis for war crimes and crimes against humanity. By 1966, West Germany had convicted 86,000 of them. He said that the Soviets loved to read about this in the paper. Each person would express glee each time a Nazi was sentenced. He said if the West Germans convicted 86,000 than the Soviet Union should proportionately convict 250,000. However, only 10 men total in the Soviet Union were ever convicted of crimes against citizens. Solzhenitsyn cries out in the pages of this book that the killers of millions of people walk among us every day. He said that when he brings this up, he is told that he shouldn’t dredge up the past. Solzhenitsyn contends that Soviet society needed the healing that it would provide when these men and women would repent and confess for their terrible sins for incarcerating, torturing, and murdering their own citizens. He argued that the Soviet Union needed this healing just like the Germans experienced.

I could go on and on about the destruction of the Kulaks, political prisoners as young as 6-years old, a system of informants and stool pigeons, prison demonstrations and work stoppages that were settled under the tracks of T-34 tanks and strafing planes�� but I have had enough. Communism disgusts me.

Gulag Archipelago is a fifty year old book. But it is timely reading. Over 40% of millennials surveyed say that they would prefer a socialist form of government over capitalism. Inside Russia, I am told that the youth yearn for the old days. Closer to home, the local high school has allowed the children to start a communist club. Isn’t that nice? Imagine the outrage if the school allowed the students to start a Nazi club? Maybe all the world’s “useful idiots�� (as Lenin used to call them) have need to read Solzhenitsyn’s masterpiece?