The Gulag Archipelago

Solzhenitsyn dismisses the myth that the arrests and imprisonments were at their peak only in 1937 and 1938. Though he does not have exact figures, he estimates that the Gulag held millions of prisoners through the 1930s and 1940s. The years 1937-38 were different, he believes, because the state imprisoned “educated people” (20) rather than silent peasants. These educated people now write about their experiences. Solzhenitsyn compares the flow of people into the labor camps to the Russian sewage system; sometimes the flow was strong, sometimes it was weak—but the pipeline was always in place. Solzhenitsyn then lists certain moments when the flow into the camps was particularly strong, though he admits that the list is incomplete. Many of these early campaigns of imprisonment were associated with the post-Russian Revolution climate beginning in 1918, when the new Bolshevik government wanted to secure its position by eliminating potential threats to the new Soviet system, any non-sanctioned form of religion, any threats to the working class, and any private business.

By 1929-30, the “flow” intensified to such an extent that Solzhenitsyn describes it as “the forced resettlement of a whole people, an ethnic catastrophe” (26). The state resettled farmers and their families into the northern tundra of Russia, forcing them into collectivized farming villages to try and produce food for the country. This enforced resettlement, like all the arrests, found justification through a seemingly innocuous piece of legislature conferring security services with broad-reaching and vaguely defined powers. People grew so scared of the security services, and so unsure of what constituted a crime, that their behavior became absurd. Solzhenitsyn recounts a crowd which rose in appreciative applause for Josef Stalin at the end of a meeting. They were so terrified of disrespecting the Soviet leader that they continued clapping beyond the point of exhaustion. The first to stop clapping were arrested. Solzhenitsyn points out that these thin pretexts for arrest were due to the security services’ assigned quotas; for the agents to meet their required number of arrests, any citizen’s action would be misconstrued as criminal. By 1939, the arrests were so common that some were released from prison. This “reverse wave” (29) allowed Stalin to appear magnanimous and to strengthen the position of the newly appointed head of the secret police, Lavrentiy Beria. Within a year, the arrests resumed and continued past World War II. Intellectuals, dissidents, prisoners, captured enemy soldiers, criminals, ethnic minorities, and many more were arrested or killed.

Solzhenitsyn explores the Russian security services’ interrogation and torture methods. He believes that no Russian before the Revolution would ever believe the authorities would use such extreme violence. As he recalls it, interrogators used pistols, deprived inmates of sleep, and employed a variety of violent methods to ensure that a prisoner always confessed, regardless of their actual guilt. The level of violence permissible to interrogators ebbed and flowed, with vague and tenuous legal and philosophical justifications for the torture. Though Stalin may not have given a direct order for torture, his subordinates had no doubt about his wishes. Solzhenitsyn lists the various torture methods, both psychological (such as persuasion, foul language, humiliation, sleep deprivation, or intimidation) and physical (such as beatings, fingernail or teeth removal, starvation, or exposure to bedbugs).

Nothing, Solzhenitsyn says, can prepare a person for “being arrested for nothing and interrogated about nothing” (56). Lawyers were not available and people did not know the legal system well enough to present a case for their innocence. Solzhenitsyn was finally able to obtain a copy of the legal code and lists the many ways he personally witnessed the code broken or ignored. Instead, prisoners were made to feel helpless and alone, despite how most cells were overcrowded and filthy—another form of torture. As the victim was returned to the overcrowded cell, the other prisoners advised them to give up and submit. The most dedicated members of the communist party in prison refused to doubt the party. They praised the torture and interrogation as necessary. Anyone finding themselves in prison, Solzhenitsyn says, must consider their life to be over. Giving up all hope of freedom or survival was the only way to endure the prison system.

Prisoners remembered every detail about their interrogation, apart from the identity of their interrogator. Solzhenitsyn describes the interrogators as uneducated, unempathetic, and obedient. These interrogators know that many of their cases against people were fabricated, but they continued anyway. Solzhenitsyn refers to these people as the bluecaps and he believes that they loved their work and the comfortable life that it afforded them. They resented prisoners who did not make their lives easy, so they felt no regret for their violent behavior. Bluecaps appreciated the power of their position, as well as its opportunity for gain. They released their anger and frustrations on the prisoners, while materially benefiting from the constant arrests—many of which were motivated by the bluecaps’ pettiness, personal grudges, or penchant for theft.

Though Solzhenitsyn loathes the bluecaps, he knows that they came from the general population. They were normal Russians who had been tempted by the “special rations and double or triple pay” (74). Solzhenitsyn struggles to see how the people who did sign up for the bluecaps could have abandoned any idea of morality or religion, though he knows that they did so. He believes that they convinced themselves that they were doing good, and that ideology gave people “the necessary steadfastness and determination” (77) to commit such terrible crimes. Solzhenitsyn bemoans the lack of retribution for the bluecaps, as he believes that seeking justice against the executioners and torturers is essential for Russia’s future.