The Gulag Archipelago Volume 1: A Literary Exploration of a Soviet Prison System

Tim: Like some others I got a weird print on demand version with a pink cover that's about 1.5 times thicker than what it should be. The text is the same. I went to a bookstore to buy the red one that matches vol 2 and 3.

United States on Nov 14, 2023

Chris: The author, a Nobel Prize-winning Soviet military officer and prominent dissident, discusses both (1) his own experience of being arrested, interrogated, tortured, and sentenced in the Soviet Union in the mid-1940s and (2) the historical development of the Soviet security apparatus, in this unique work of memoir, history, and novel. The author argues that the oppressive Stalinist system was an outgrowth of Leninism, and that the brutal police procedures and show trials were developed in the earliest days of the Communist Revolution. These techniques may have been refined over the next few decades, but their origin lay at the birth of the Soviet state.

As others have noted, this work is one of the monumental human artistic achievements and is a must-read. I leave just a few of my favorite quotes from the book:

"Every man always has handy a dozen glib little reasons why he is right not to sacrifice himself."

"Even the most broad-minded of us can embrace only that part of the truth into which our own snout has blundered."

"Objects and actions change their aspect quite decisively depending on the position of the observer."

"Human nature, if it...

United States on Oct 24, 2023

Amazon Customer: I’m sure this book is a wealth of information but after a couple pages I’m asleep. I’d be really surprised if I ever finish reading this.

United States on Oct 22, 2023

Hired Ranger: This is one of the most important books of the 20th century and can be credited in large part to bringing down the former soviet union. In honest and deeply saddening terms it explains how communism almost inevitably leads to disasterous consequences by taking you through the real life experiences of Alexandr Solzenhitsyn and his incarceration in the Soviet gulag system. Where men almost inevitably become monsters by increments. It is a stark warning to those who would run the most large scale and conclusive social experiment in ideology ever tried. With the predictable consequences seen throughout the modern history. It should be mandatory reading in every western school. It is not an easy read but you do come out of it wiser and with a better understanding of the flaws in the ideology and why and how things consistently go wrong every time it is tried and taken to its inevitable conclusion.

United Kingdom on Oct 16, 2023

KB: If you're here because of Jordan Peterson or other like-minded influencers, you won't regret this read. I've picked up several copies for close friends and the ones who took the time to read it all agreed that this is truly one of the greatest books for the younger generation.

TL;DR - Absolutely read this book.

United States on Sep 23, 2023

Amazon Customer: This book gives an in-depth accounting of the varied authorities practices and methods of selection for incarceration. The English version is somewhat a challenge to follow however clearly hits the mark. I personally did not realize that loyalties to the government of a previous time, dedicated military service, return to the Soviet Union from legitimate travel , religion beliefs, speech, could and would result in arrest.

Canada on Jul 05, 2023

SHIELDFAN: If you’re prone to retching on hearing stories of gruel being served up in washbasins, human corpses being shoved under beds, prisoners eating the remains of a dead horse and 80 prisoners crammed into a transit train being left to wet themselves because visits to the toilet took too long to supervise, THE GULAG ARCHIPELAGO is not for you. But if your stomach can stand such tales, and many far worse, the book is quite simply a masterpiece. Written in the spirit of the Star Trekkers, its Nobel Prize-winning author boldly going, like Captain Kirk and his crew, where no man had gone before, it was the first-ever true exposé of the brutality that occurred in the Stalin-era labour camps, or GULAGs as they were known. Predictably its publication in the West resulted in serious consequences for Solzhenitsyn – he was deported to the USA in 1974 – but thank God it was published.

I first became acquainted with Solzhenitsyn’s writings whilst a pupil at a well-regarded grammar school in the Home Counties in the 1970s. My third-year class studied ONE DAY IN THE LIFE OF IVAN DENISOVICH, which documents a typical day in the life of a prisoner in the “special” camps in which...

United Kingdom on May 04, 2022

Frank: Admittedly, when I first got this book and seen how large it is, I was immediately intimated. Shortly after starting it, this feeling continued.

Before reading this I literally knew nothing about Russian history, not a thing. So I barely understood what Solzhenitsyn was talking about and for the most of the beginning of the book, this is a problem. Obviously Solzhenitsyn references many names and events relating to Russian history, which I had no understanding or connection to which inevitably made the book difficult to interpret.

So in response to this, I took the time to research Russian history to at least give me a basic understanding. Once things began to make more sense, the book wasn’t as heavy to pick up.

For someone who finds themselves in a similar situation to myself or even struggles to read the first 1/4 anyway, STICK IT OUT.

This book is phenomenal. Solzhenitsyn proves himself as possibly one of the most impressive writers of the 20th century.

His life and the fundamentals that made up the gulag archipelago open your mind in a way which no other book will.The horrific details and truth within this book gave me a new found...

United Kingdom on Nov 17, 2021

r.jericho: I was brought here by Jordan Peterson and am embarrassed to say I hadn't heard about these volumes of work before. Shockingly (or maybe not so shockingly) the education system failed to mention this, even though I was in private school. That being said, I've felt the need since around March to delve deeper into what we are looking at in the USA - defined by what can only be called a hybrid mix of cultural marxism, communism, post-modernism, and Maoism. It is my belief that we are facing an existential threat to our country.
This book is a horrifying and haunting tale of what could be on deck if Americans don't stand up now. I encourage anyone to read it just to get a small taste of what went on in the Soviet Union, and to understand truly what communism is and what it does/has done to people, but I think it is especially pertinent to the USA as we face down a pseudo maoist cultural revolution that China saw in the 1960s. Between this and the words of the infamous KGB defector Yuri Bezmenov, I would say the USA is well into the second 'destabilization' phase and has even entered into the third phase of 'crisis.' I truly would advise people to read these books as a warning, and...

United States on Sep 04, 2020

K. Moss: This is the book I've spent a great deal of my life avoiding reading. I thought this was because the dire nature of the subject-matter was off-putting, but I have discovered that what Solzhenitsyn describes as the cultural mix underpinning so much atrocity and injustice is a phenomenon which has become progressively embedded in our own Western culture. The problem with what we encounter in 'The Gulag Archipelago' is that it seems so extreme that we almost cannot identify with it. We think that it cannot possibly have any direct relevance to the West, and what is happening here.

But what Solzhenitsyn diagnoses is the pathology of a culture in self-destruct mode, one which allows the Lenins and the Stalins of this world just enough credence and space to perpetrate their evils. Whilst he uses Russian or Soviet terminology to describe this phenomenon, what we see are the kinds of sentiment, intellectual dishonesty and absence of accountability that are now prevalent within left-leaning secular western culture. Time and time again, as he describes the disingenuous self-justifications of the communist leadership in pre and post-war Russia, I was reminded that I have encountered...

United Kingdom on Feb 11, 2018