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Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

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The Gulag Archipelago Paperback

by ALEKSANDR SOLZHENITSYN (Author)

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Review: "To live now and not to know this work is to be a kind of historical fool missing a crucial part of the consciousness of the age" (W.L. Webb Guardian); "The ferocious testimony of a man of genius" (Stephen Spender London Magazine); "What gives the book its value is the sound it gives out; the harsh roar give out by a wise and experienced animal as a warning that the herd is in danger" (Rebecca West Sunday Telegraph); "He is one of the towering figures of the age as a writer, as moralist, as hero... in The Gulag Archipelago he has acheived the impossible" (Edward Crankshaw Observer); "It is impossible to name a book that had a greater effect on the political and moral consciousness of the late twentieth century" (David Remnick New Yorker). About the Author: Aleksander Solzhenitsyn was born in Kislovodsk, Russia, in 1918. He was brought up in Rostov, where he graduated in mathematics and physics in 1941. After distinguished service with the Red Army in the Second World War, he was imprisoned from 1945 to 1953 for making unfavourable remarks about Joseph Stalin. He was rehabilitated in 1956, but in 1969 he was expelled from the Soviet Writers' Union for denouncing official censorship of his work. He was forcibly exiled from the Soviet Union in 1974 and deported to West Germany. Later he settled in America, but after Soviet officials finally dropped charges against him in 1991, he returned to his homeland in 1994 and died in August 2008, aged eighty-nine. Solzhenitsyn wrote many books, of which One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, Cancer Ward and The Gulag Archipelago are his best known.

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English
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Vintage Publishing
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5.08 x 1.26 x 7.8 inches
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1784871516
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978-1784871512
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Product details

Language ‏ : ‎ English
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1784871516
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1784871512
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 13.2 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.08 x 1.26 x 7.8 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #16,128 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #11 in Historical Russia Biographies
- #16 in Human Rights Law (Books)
- #26 in Russian History (Books)

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sixpackistan

Why is this book so hard to get? Won ...

Reviewed in the United States on May 16, 2018

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Why is this book so hard to get? Won a Pulitzer but not readily available via prime or on kindle? For one of the most important works in human history- about government oppression- I find it odd that this was so hard to get a hold of.

1,081 people found this helpful

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Joshua L.

but it's a nice idea though" or "Oh yes

Reviewed in the United States on May 14, 2017

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I regard this book as of the most needed reads of the current generation of Western Civilization. As a millennial, throughout my life there are few things that I have heard more than "the power of the collective through community." I have heard this most often in reference to some form of Communism or Socialism. Always accompanying these isms have been general statements of their respective failures as political theories quickly silenced by blanket statements such as, "Yeah, but it's a nice idea though" or "Oh yes. The USSR was an ugly blot on history of Marxism BUT that is not REAL communism. The Russians did it wrong." Those statements, not only logically fallacious but also exceedingly arrogant, comes out of the mouths of almost every young person (14 to 30) that I speak to about Communism. They believe, through the meddling of media and academia, that Communism is a caring ideology that wants what is best for others. They are all about feelings and the supremacy of people's experiences. Well, that is what Solzhenitsyn does: he brings to you the reality of the sinister totalitarianism that is Marxism. Though he is regarded as one of the finest scholars of the 20th century he has done what the millennial generation wants: he has made it personal. This book has opened my eyes to the horrors of Soviet Russia and what is more, throughout his story, he reveals important aspects of our human nature. You Western son or daughter MUST READ THIS BOOK. It will change your life if you do.

1,025 people found this helpful

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Ken in Sask

This book put in words what many of my extended ...

Reviewed in the United States on December 12, 2016

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This book put in words what many of my extended family members in the Soviet Union went through. And, to think that many here in North America want to replicate that evil system here.

447 people found this helpful

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Chanetsa

Lessons from history that we can all learn from.

Reviewed in the United States on January 11, 2018

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Unbelievable stories from one of the most murderous times in history. We know a lot about the atrocities of the second world war but very little of this history is known to young people around the world.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn is a master with words. The book takes time to read because you're constantly thinking about what you've just read. The content will leave you dumbfounded! This should be a set book in schools. If this information were well known to our younger generations, perhaps the world would be a different place and our future more secure.

There is so much that can be learned from reading this book. I highly recommend this book to anyone who believes that we can learn from history.

162 people found this helpful

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william dawson

Our job is to do our best to make the world better at all times

Reviewed in the United States on July 12, 2018

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This book helped me understand the underlying causes for human misery. We all play a part in the destructive patterns in this world. Our job is to do our best to make the world better at all times. In order for evil to succeed it needs partners at all levels (leaders and followers). If we stop following and supporting we can then make it much harder for evil people to lead.

89 people found this helpful

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C

Excellent Book

Reviewed in the United States on January 17, 2017

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This book is a real page turner - I couldn't put it down. I think it's really important that people start educating themselves about the former soviet union and the real atrocities that occurred. There's been a lack of education in the US. I went to public schools and they basically told us a little bit about WWII and Nazi germany and left the soviet union entirely out of the conversation. The book smelled a little funny when it arrived but was brand new so I'm guessing just musty from storage.

123 people found this helpful

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David S. Wellhauser

This is the Abridged Version

Reviewed in the United States on October 19, 2012

Although there is nothing inherently wrong with abridgements, books like this, and this book in particular, should never be abridged. I have read the 3 volume paperback version and it is worth the time...and some effort.

I'm writing this review so people will know they are buying the abridged version and not as an attempt to trash this masterwork. This is a great book! Because of this it should be read in its entirety.

Also, as an eBook there is no reason all 3 books could not be sold as one...after all, there is no weight to them.

Happy Reading.

1,126 people found this helpful

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andi

Communism is still alive because is good for bad guys and they are multiply like worms

Reviewed in the United States on August 4, 2016

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Bestseller. If somebody believe that book is a picture of history which is over surely is wrong. Communism is still alive because is good for bad guys and they are multiply like worms. People cannot create system good for everybody. It is a good lesson for dreamers.

110 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Philoctetes

After such knowledge, what numbness?

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 16, 2018

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It is a biological mercy that the human body does not remember pain exactly, although one must live with the consequences of wounding and maiming. Likewise, there are certain traumas that one can understand but never truly comprehend if they have not been experienced first-hand. The nightmare of the Gulag is one of them, and thank heaven you can read and then exhale, go out, do the shopping, see your friends etc.

Anyone used to Russian literature, especially Dostoevsky, will have no trouble readin this true tale of woe, and anyone unfamiliar with the Russian master will also live through the abridged one-volume reduction of the vast 1,700 three-volume Gulag Archipelago from which this paperback is culled. Culled! Yes, indeed. There is a blend of literary sensibility and journalistic reportage, combined with the classic Russian macabre humour, that positively enables the reading of this account of the unparalleled suffering of the Russian people under the Soviet system. A common hyperbolic adjective is 'indescribable', often missapplied. IT IS DESCRIBED, VIVIDLY, but what it is not is comprehensible. Somewhere in the recesses of my memory is a TV programme that I think broadcast cartoon images drawn inside the camps, illustrating the horrific cruelties meeted (sic) out by the inmates alone, which are a fraction of the reality. And the reader's mind must read and understand and not comprehend, or else suicide through despair would be the likely outcome.

Thank heavens for the humour. Humour allows us to bear-up with anything. I'm reminded of Shostakovich's 13th Symphony with its verses in praise of humour. He truly is an excellent fellow. There's less humour in the incendiary foreword to this book provided by Canada's favourite intelligencer, Dr/Prof. Jordan Peterson. Like many, I'm sure, I was led to/reminded of this literary masterpiece by Peterson's frequent referencing of this text in both his academic lectures and public talks criticising the Left-wing when it is out of control. He really is furious that this book, and the reality which inspired it, are not common knowledge in the West. One can't help wondering if the reported mass hysteria and SJW (Social Justice Warrior) madness on US/Canada university campuses might not be diluted irrevocably by even the first paragraph of the chapter entitled 'Interrogation'. The cruelties doled out by the Soviet authorities are nothing short of ASTOUNDING! The brutalities. The hatred without boundaries, and no-one immune, no-one safe from arrest in the name of the quotas, and in the name of the Great Shepherd of the people, Stalin. STALIN! This book makes the Nazis look like pussycats, WW1 a vacation, the Holocaust an act of mercy. YOU CAN'T COMPREHEND!, BUT YOU MUST READ! READ AND UNDERSTAND, you well-meaning Lefties. This is what The People can come to.

I'm making brisk progress through this nightmare, surprisingly, and expect to finish within a few days. If nothing else, you'll think twice before complaining about your hard and unfair existence, after reading about construction work undertaken at 50 below zero, without any proper tools, and only your pyjamas to wear, and no shoes.

And no, the Brits don't come out of this smelling of roses, nor the Yanks. Everybody was complicit, to some small degree, if only out of wide-eyed vacancy of mind, gullibility, and bloody-minded credulity.

Desribing Hell has always been more vivid an experience than describing Heaven. Here is Hell on Earth.

105 people found this helpful

K. Moss

The claims made for this book are not overstated

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 11, 2018

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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 the very same kinds of prevarication within our own regulatory bodies in the UK, the same lines of reasoning, based upon the same set of values and beliefs about human nature and civilisation.

This is a beautifully-written book. It is full of righteous anger at the phenomenal human waste perpetrated by the communist ideologues, and humour too. It is not written according to a modern, western discipline of analysis, but then much of it was composed within Solzhenitsyn's head whilst he served his time within the Gulags. We encounter many thinkers, at that time, who were unable to write anything down - and so they memorised their entire oeuvre, in the hopes that one day they might be free to write it down. As the author observes, what Hitler got up to, in relation to the Jews, was a mere dress rehearsal compared to what Lenin and Stalin achieved between them, pre and post-WW2. Yet Hitler's evils feature prominently within our self-awareness because he was a fascist, yet Stalin's predations seem to get a free pass, because Western thinkers were fawning over the wonderful advances of socialism, and turning a blind eye to its very obvious evils.

A slight frustration with this edition is the number of chapters summarised only by a title and a couple of explanatory lines - but this was, originally, a massive three-volume work. It is nothing short of a miracle that we have this - and in my opinion, it should be required reading on every booklist before it is too late.

317 people found this helpful

Dave Thomson

This is what socialism becomes.

Reviewed in Canada on September 12, 2019

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This book looks daunting. It appears like an impossible task; like a marathon that only seasoned and avid readers can overcome. As one who's read it, I must shout from the highest rooftops: PLEASE READ THIS NOVEL!
I have heard so little about Stalin's Soviet Union. I read things in this book that I had never heard from my teachers or the news media at any time in my 40+ years on this Earth. What I learned about Man's inhumanity to his fellow Man as I paged through this literary masterpiece was unsettling and downright frightening. What was happening behind the scenes in Stalin's "Union of Soviet SOCIALIST Republics" for over 50 years, while Stalin was preaching "equality" and "justice for the working man", is both disgusting and immoral. To understand anything about our present and our future, we must study the past. By reading this work, composed by an actual prisoner of the Soviet Gulags, we begin to see a darker side of the Socialist promises made by past and present politicians in the name of social justice and equality of the classes.
This novel is the historical record of the embodiment of the cliché: The Road to Hell is Paved with Good Intentions.
I encourage ALL who are free citizens in this world: Thank your maker, that the Founding Fathers of the United States of America had the wisdom and the foresight to recognize the Inalienable Rights, granted by God, to speak freely; to defend yourself and your loved ones; and to enjoy Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.
~Dave, from Canada~

110 people found this helpful

Abhishek Debnath

Perhaps the Most Important Book of Twentieth Century

Reviewed in India on April 12, 2019

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Previously I heard the name of the book, and the writer as well, mentioned here and there. But reading Jordan B Peterson's "12 Rules For Life" made me realize the true importance of this one of a kind literary achievement. The writer was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature but that aside, this is perhaps the singular important documented example of human determination and courage of the bloody twentieth century. Soviet Gulags (similar to nazi concentration camps) are one of the most inhuman experiments executed by "civilized" human beings and the writer himself was a first-hand victim of the experiment. He not only has provided an elaborate description of those man-made hells, but where lies the actual brilliance of this book is: he tries to explore the Significance and Meaning of his anguished experience. Why did he suffer so much without any tangible reason?
What is the significance of being horribly tortured by a fellow human being? Read this book with utmost seriousness because make no mistake, history never repeats itself without giving any hint beforehand.

PS- This Vintage Classic edition is an one-volume abridged version of the three-volume original one. And the abridgement is sanctioned by the author himself. Given the sheer volume of the original version (though not at all avoidable, if interest permits), this is very much suitable to read for a general reader.

79 people found this helpful

Amazon Customer

Gripping. Heartwrenching and truly enlightening on the subject of ...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 29, 2018

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Gripping. Heartwrenching and truly enlightening on the subject of the demons that exist in all of us. A valuable lesson in how a lack of individual responsibility to stand up to totalitarianism allows evil to flourish. Should be compulsory reading for all high school students

59 people found this helpful

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