The Gulag Archipelago Volume 1: An Experiment in Literary Investigation (P.S.)

The Gulag Archipelago is a must read for everyone. It is an amazing and jaw-dropping description of madness and destruction of truly epic proportions. Until one has read such an account, one cannot fully comprehend what Russia's dissidents had to live through - the utter madness of it all, the utter destruction of the State and the utter helplessness of the man or woman caught up in its web !

I have the full three volume set of the Gulag that I read years ago. It is the greatest book ever written. In portraying Communism, as he described as man's inhumanity to man, Solzhenitsyn has an exceptional ability while depicting the excessively cruel treatment of human beings in the Gulag to demonstrate his dignity and the dignity of those who suffered at the hands of their oppressors. The entire book is full of stories of the courage of human beings in the face of such evil. In that way, while depicting the horrible conditions of the Gulag, the book ultimately provides an uplifting message that peace and kindness are enduring human traits that can and do shine through despite overwhelming attempts to erase them. Never has there been a more courageous and humane writer.

For any who have any nostalgia for the Soviet Union, this book should put it to rest. This book is hard to categorize; it is more than one man's opinion, but less than an objective history. It is, as Solzhenitsyn puts it, "an experiment in literary investigation": a combination memoir and dissertation on the evils of Communism and its inevitable product, the forced labor camp. Some have criticized Solzhenitsyn as an anti-Communist/pro-Western polemicist, but that is not an accurate description. He is a realist, showing not only the faults of Communists, but also those of the West and Western leaders. This should be required reading for European and world history classes. Volume 1 (of 3) describes the arrest and interrogation procedures, as well as life in the Gulag.

This is vintage Solzhenitsyn; his brilliant mind shines forth splendidly. A book that is difficult to put down, places one inside his mind to see what he describes, so much from having spent hours memorizing while in the camps so he could later give us a glimpse of the horror that millions upon millions of human beings endured.