I didn’t retain everything as well while listening as I would have reading, but the book is an incredible accomplishment with amazing and terrifying stories. One that stuck with me was how the stress of looking over your shoulder was so exhausting, people were practically giddy once they were arrested and it was over.

It's been a while since I last picked up this book and it has become one of the books that I always plan to finish but probably never will. It gives a deep insight into life in the Soviet Union under Stalin, but the statistics, the descriptions, the details assault the reader with so much horror and despair that I found it (so far) impossible to finish even book one in the series. In short: I think it's an important book that is definitely worth reading - if you can bring yourself to read through it.

Obviously a significant, impactful book and a fascinating read, probably for anyone but certainly for people like me who are still mostly unfamiliar with Russian history and culture. Necessary perspective on how corrupt a government can get and how good we really have it in the modern Western world in comparison (though Solzhenitsyn might disagree himself).

Despite this book's value and even though I'm glad to have read it, I give it a 4/5 just because I feel it could have been even more effective and reached more people if it were edited down and reorganized a bit to reduce repetition and emphasize the general descriptions over the long strings of anecdotes.

I enjoyed the insight that the author provided about his experiences in the Gulag system, along with its origins. I wasn’t aware that it was a 3-volume set, so I’d imagine the next two would pick up a bit more than this one in terms of pacing. Since it was translated from the original Russian, it was sometimes hard to follow, but obviously an important book, given that it won a Nobel prize.

I am surprised, no, shocked actually, at how perfectly constructed, researched and organized Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn's 'The Gulag Archipelago' is. He methodically describes the entire scheme developed in the Soviet Union from being arrested to examination and conviction in a legal court of judges to transportation to the awful Siberian prisons. Stalin perfected this legal political police state in order to legally murder or enslave millions of Russian citizens, but he only continued what others began.

I have no doubts the Communist revolutionaries used communism like a drug or a religion to develop a religious and sexual ecstasy in themselves. Destroying free will and independence in their victims involved lots of nakedness and torture and starvation - to break down pride in their victims (and do what to watchers, hmmmm). Their version of communism became a legalized tool to utterly destroy any tendency to think for oneself in any human head, especially brains resistant to religious ecstasies.

The novel '1984' [b:1984|5470|1984|George Orwell|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1348990566l/5470._SY75_.jpg|153313] is based on historical fact, gentle reader. The Soviet Union's history.

This is a stomach-churning story of insanity and torture, gentle reader. Solzhenitsyn's scholarship cannot deaden the horror of a police state. Unlike the Nazis, the Communist revolutionaries passed laws which were totally bonkers. This was done in order to ensnare ANYONE who actually expressed any sort of opposition, or who might be thinking in the future of opposing, or maybe they simply cross their legs looking like they oppose the revolutionaries. These insane laws fed victims into an assembly line of institutionalized slavery madness by Stalin and his government. Perhaps the communists were trying to literally create metalic robots from living flesh through torture and starvation. Survivors were certain to be broken mentally after the systemic methodologies the revolutionaries developed to make human brains incapable of all thought.

Honestly, if the revolutionaries and Stalin really wanted to only transform people into the type of citizen they wanted, they should have driven spikes into the eyes of their entire population. It works.

Lobotomy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobotomy

Instead, I think they WANTED to keep their people busy in the daily work of torture and killing.

What, I can hear you say, that is crazy! Yes, gentle reader, I agree. Yet it happened and was sustained by a human government and an entire country of compliant citizens. The Soviet Union later invaded all of eastern Europe and influenced many countries all over the world to change their governments into similar police states the Soviets had perfected.

It is a mistake to blame the political theory of communism for this, gentle reader, in my humble opinion. This is male genetics gone wild. These are men given license to act on those impulses to make war on their fellows and control other people's bodies through violence. In 'The Gulag Archipelago' it was a Communist government. This madness has also been expressed by:


-the Catholic Church https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inquisition,

-America's Red Scares https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Scare#Second_Red_Scare_(1947–57) and Salem witch trials https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salem_witch_trials,

-Idi Amin's Uganda https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idi_Amin,

-Cambodia's Khmer Rouge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmer_Rouge,

-China's Cultural Revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution

-North Korea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korea


and many many many many many other instances of human history, too numerous to list. Truly. Too numerous to list. Think about it.

The insanity of these systemic institutionalized regimes of terror is clear to see. The mistake you might be making every day, gentle reader, is to assume this stuff could never happen again. It will happen again. It will.

I strongly recommend reading 'The Gulag Archipelago' at least once in your life. At minimum, read '1984', a shorter fictional read which nonetheless mirrors the reality of many many many instances of human history.