From literary perspective, it was a rather weak work. Giving him the Nobel prize was certainly politically motivated and put a lot of shame of the Nobel committee. It's dull, quite repetitive, and overall boring.
Also, it is now known to be largely made-up, with many of the stories of the book being a certain lie.
In any case, whatever helped kick down Soviet Empire was worth the costs incurred and i think he was one of the greatest figures out of those who made it happen. What matters is that plenty of people read, and believed it. Glasnost created, almost instantly, a critical mass of literature like that, widely available to the Soviet reader, bringing up realisation that the very existence of the nation they lived in, was immoral, unacceptable, and it had to be smashed as soon as possible.
Almost no one really did anything about it, or if they did, it didn't matter. It's just that when USSR started shaking, almost no one was willing to help it.
In Ukraine in 2013, we had Maidan and similarly sized Antimaidan. In 1991 Moscow, there was no Soviet "antimaidan", no one gave a flying fuck about saving the Union anymore. People like Solzhenitsyn were the main if not the only reason why it was the case.
That's only an issue if you're treating the book as a primary historical source, but it's a far cry from it being "largely made-up." Dude was transcribing remembered stories from countless conversations with inmates, of course it's not going to be completely accurate.
> Dude was transcribing remembered stories from countless conversations with inmates, of course it's not going to be completely accurate.
... under the careful guidance of the CIA.
It would have been a much better work if he did not exagerate so much. But, "P: [hopping down from his throne] I'll tell you what I want! I want a last supper with one Christ, twelve disciples, no kangaroos, no trampoline acts, by Thursday lunch or you don't get paid!! "
What are you talking about? He wrote the book covertly in the Soviet Union:
> After the KGB had confiscated Solzhenitsyn's materials in Moscow, during 1965–1967, he worked to develop his preparatory drafts of The Gulag Archipelago into finished typescript. He accomplished some of this while in hiding at his friends' homes in the Moscow region and elsewhere. While held at the KGB's Lubyanka Prison in 1945, Solzhenitsyn had befriended Arnold Susi, a lawyer and former Estonian Minister of Education, who had been taken captive after the Soviet Union occupied Estonia in 1944. Solzhenitsyn entrusted Susi with the original typed and proofread manuscript of the finished work, after copies had been made of it both on paper and on microfilm. Susi got the manuscript to his daughter, Heli Susi, who kept the "master copy" hidden from the KGB in Estonia until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.
It is actually not a fiction but a slightly faked documentary. The ambition of the author was to present what he knew about Gualg, filling the void with imagination so that the whole book looks like a well-researched documentary.
I read many of his works. Cancer Ward looks like traditional fiction, but we know that it is directly inspired by his personal experience.
That's one of the distinctive traits of this author. He went through pretty much everything he wrote about.
It may not have amounted to a desire to save communism itself, but there was enough opposition to the "shock therapy" liberalization being imposed after its fall that Yeltsin had to shell parliament at the U.S.'s behest in 1993. We got what we wanted, and the Russians got 10 years of kleptocratic asset stripping whose consequences led directly to Putin.
But that was too late by then. Soviet Union was done. The goal has been achieved. No one really cared about what happened to Russia after (and in a hindsight, it was a mistake - process of breaking it down into pieces, each having it's own version of history and hating each other, should have continued until what remained was safe). But of course, hindsight is always 20/20.
> process of breaking it down into pieces, each having it's own version of history and hating each other, should have continued until what remained was safe
I really wish you would understand at some point that such statements play right into Putin's hands, and are one of the major reasons why he's still in power and has no realistic prospects of losing it. Until you do, there will be no lasting peace.
Pretty much all communist countries need repression to maintain control. USSR is the most known example, but other countries in its area of influence used similar methods. Whole Eastern Europe is still traumatized.
It would be nice if we had an example of a communist state which came into existence and was not immediately beset by foreign intelligence agencies, influence campaigns, and actual military invasions attempting to depose it. We've seen how capitalist regimes behave under such conditions and it's no better.
It’s probably not possible if you also throw in internal actors seizing power. Communism suggests an absence of concentration of power.
If an internal actor wants more power and starts making moves, you’d have to have consensus and collective action from the rest of the group to stop them. That is both very difficult and very expensive to achieve.
Yes. "A communist state" is an oxymoron. Communism is by definition stateless. Government/governance, sure, but without a state. Rojava would probably be a better example of communism (in practice) than Soviet.
I was born in communist country. No money, only objective points to describe cost of production and egibility, no police but militia, one "united" workers party and tax in nature and goods. But no money ;D and no state ;D
It's the other way around, all communist states were pretty much military states as it suits best the command style economy (How else would you make it work anyways?).
Then starting from that, what the military does best is producing weapons.
The United States was always ahead of the Soviet Union in military spending and escalating the arms race. We even have documented statements from Western architects who said the purpose was to bankrupt the Soviets.
No, the Soviet Union was spending 20% of its GDP on the military. The US, at the height of the cold war was spending 6%.
That's the only country which wasn't at war which was proportionally spending that much on the military.
The Soviet Union was a military state disguised as a country, pretty much nothing outside the military really mattered there.
It's even visible on the inside organisation of the Soviet Union itself (which they picked themselves, nobody asked them), which is pretty much the same as in any army, just at a country level.
Sure, the US exploited that flaw but it's been there by design.
No, it's his position that Lenin and Stalin faced foreign (or at least foreign-influenced) opposition almost immediately. Which is true.
On the other hand, that excuse runs pretty thin after 1945. But the oppression was still there. So it appears that oppression was more a feature of the system. (Or at least a feature of the man - but then Lenin did it too, and Brezhnev did it perhaps less, but still enough to be oppressive, so it looks like it was a feature of the system.)
many factories in USSR were built by British and US companies, opposition as hell... Biggest enemy of USSR was winter. And summer. And Marxs and Engels ideas.
You have examples, like North Korea, which invaded its southern neighbor in an act of naked, unprovoked aggression five years after the peninsula was partitioned.
And the North's military so easily overwhelmed the South's that within two months, they were driven to brink of defeat, retaining only the Pusan Perimeter on the south-eastern tip of the peninsula.
The absence of photographic evidence from the gulags doesn’t negate their existence. The Soviets deliberately restricted documentation of the camps, and destroyed records before and during the fall of the USSR.
> If it was so essential to the Soviet system, where were all the images of millions of prisoners in gulags after the Berlin Wall fell?
This doesn't really make sense as an objection; the gulags were (mostly) long emptied by then, and the collapse followed. Correlation is clearly there; causation is something you can argue either way.
A single prisoner dying in a remaining camp now being used as a prison in 2024 is a far cry from making the argument that "gulags were essential to the Soviet system."
You asked when the system ended; I pointed out it never really ended, it just got smaller. Putin's clearly using the "kill off the dissidents" playbook.
The argument that gulags were essential is "when their use was drastically reduced, the Soviet Union declined". I think that's overly focused on one element - the collapse had many causes - but easing up on dissidents is likely to have played at least a part. I'm not surprised today's neo-Stalinists yearn for a return to the system.
I haven't made any argument that no gulags ever existed, or that no one was ever mistreated in them. I imagine it was especially rough to be in one when resources were being poured into ending Nazi Germany's salt-the-earth campaign during Barbarossa.
Nice deflection. Except that Solzhenitsyn was imprisoned after the war and his personal experience comes from 1945-1953, well after Barbarossa had anything to do with it. It wasn't much better in the 1970s and 1980s either. I knew a person who was sentenced to 6 years of hard labor for human rights activism in 1975. Upon his arrival in Perm-36 camp, he was greeted with "we run a humane establishment and don't kill people; we torture you long enough that you die on your own". According to him, the turnaround was very high indeed, up to 20% of prisoners his section died each year.
In 1996, he returned with other fellow inmates and established a private museum. The museum's staff were labeled "foreign agents" and the museum was forcibly taken over by Russian government when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014. All mention of Stalin was erased, exhibitions about crimes against humanity and the fight for human rights were revamped in favor of a more "balanced" approach:
"We don't want to take sides," the museum's new head of exhibitions, Yelena Mamayeva, said shortly after being appointed. "We're trying to talk more about the architectural complex [of the camp], and not to get involved in assessing specific people who served sentences there, and assessing Stalin, and so on. Because right now this is not quite politically correct."
Instead of warning future generations about the dangers of totalitarianism, the museum now celebrates timber output of the camp and tries to present forced singing of songs praising the government that brutalized them as a rich cultural program offered to the inmates.
Meanwhile, on reddit and even HN, you regularly see progressives hypocritically trotting out their beloved Paradox of Tolerance (or at least their paraphrased misconception of it) to justify everything from deplatforming upto and including actual violence ("punch nazis") against those with whom they disagree.
I always think the it interesting how the paradox of tolerance gets interpreted as a an instruction and endorsement of intolerance, opposed to an actual paradox.
It also takes as an assumption that intolerant ideas outcompete tolerant ones, opposed to reach some equilibrium solution or the opposite.
The simple interpretation is “be tolerant, but not to a fault”. Same idea as the Constitution not being a suicide pact, or being allowed to break kosher rules to save a life.
On reddit, hn, and internet in general the conservatives support modern totalitarian states like China, Russia or Iran much more often than progressives. Despite very real and very recent atrocities.
Civilization (and the social contract that sustains it) requires defense at times. D-Day serves as an example; we did substantially more than punching.
D-Day was done in response to violence (starting with the invasion Poland in 1939), not speech. Protection of political speech is the bedrock of American civilization.
It's funny, if you want to find the truly most loathsome of your fellow citizens, just browse your state's public sex offender registry. How many "punch nazi" types would endorse assaulting these people? Probably none, not even for the ones politically organizing and advocating for their "cause" (the "MAPS" types)--which is the correct attitude for a civilized society.
It's weird that you think there is a significant number of people who would punch a nazi or a tankie but not also punch a pedophile.
I've read a lot of pro fascist speech arguments on HN, but "we should treat them with the dignity and respect we afford child-fuckers" is definitely a new one on me.
> D-Day was necessary because Nazi storm troopers in the early 1930s weren’t opposed enough.
And Stalin's Great Terror of 1936-37 occurred because Communists weren't opposed enough. Yet conservatives don't go around calling for "Communists" (let alone as broadly constituted as the left casts their opponents as "nazis") to be assaulted, because they understand speech != violence.
> Pedophiles generally aren’t advocating
It's not hard to find pedophiles trying to rebrand themselves (e.g., "MAPS") and trying to advocate for decriminalization or reform.
> The ones on the registry have already been caught and punished, too. We have no such public registry of Nazis.
Probably because they haven't broken any laws--you know, the things a civilized society is supposed to use to punish its transgressors.
> Yet conservatives don't go around calling for "Communists" (let alone as broadly constituted as the left casts their opponents as "nazis") to be assaulted, because they understand speech != violence.
The former and future Republican president called for demonstrators to be shot, hecklers at his rallies to be beaten up, said "Any guy that can do a body slam, he is my type!" when Montana's governor assaulted a reporter...
A decent chunk of conservatives assaulted Congress when they didn't like the election results, and a lot more supported the action.
> It's not hard to find pedophiles trying to rebrand themselves (e.g., "MAPS") and trying to advocate for decriminalization or reform.
And if they make any significant inroads politically I'll happily add them to the punching list.
Indeed, although I think people "on the right side of history" (whoever they may be, fill in the blank yourself) would (could) do a bit better to ensure they use violence as a last resort. Never too late is crucial, but never too early is still important.
I read The Gulag Archipelago and did not find it to be as damning to the Gulag system as people seem to paint it, at least in historical context. Forced prison labor was only officially abolished in Britain in 1948. Political prisoners in USSR were but a tiny part of Gulag prisoners. Considering USSR replaced literal monarchy, that is still a big improvement. In the turmoils between 1917 and 1945 it is no wonder a proper court system was not established and the country had what it deemed other priorities. Hindsight is 20/20 here.
Solzhenitsin himself was booked for spreading information about Soviet atrocities, but severe penalties for spreading such information existed in many countries, including Britain. It is a rather typical (especially then) wartime law, that in Britain for instance went up to death sentence (probably not for that particular kind of violation).
This all feels alien now, but it is not that much different from other major powers were doing at the time.
You make a good point, as we should remember the many times the US and other countries imprisoned nonviolent political dissidents. However, I think when comparing the USSR, I think the magnitude and severity are distinct.
Comparing them on a binary basis runs the risk of making no true Scotsman errors, and easy to do as google powered amateur historian.
The point is not even in the relative sizes of the atrocities, but in the maturity of the involved systems, and priorities.
Take toikas. They are a terrible and very corruptible court system for peace time, but in 30 years of USSR life by the time Solzhenitsin got arrested 10 were in either the civil war, or in the WW2, where swift decisions might have been of more importance than the rate of false positives. So I can see why they weren't replaced until later.
How would you feel about similar excuses made for Nazi atrocities? The Nazi regime was also very immature, barely five years old by the time of Austrian anschluss, and invented many policies on the go, and was at war for most of its existence. Neo-Nazis even use exactly the same phrasing of "swift decisions" and "priorities" to reduce human suffering into abstract concepts and handwave it away.
I'm sure there are situations where some of Nazi atrocities could be justified with a similar logic, but I don't think that applies to the goals of exterminating Jews or enslaving nearby nations, the two things Nazis are mostly hated for.
Neo-Nazis present exactly the same case. No direct evidence exists to prove that the highest level of the German government (specifically, Hitler) ordered the extermination of Jews or was even aware of it. They claim there was no intent to exterminate or enslave anyone, arguing that things simply got out of hand as "swift decisions" had to be made to prioritize the war effort over the lives of civilians. They assert that the crimes committed across occupied Europe were the result of unfortunate initiatives by local administrators who failed to supply the civilian population and prison camps with food and other necessities. For this, they place blame on Allied strategic bombing, which severely hampered German logistics.
Their main conclusion is that no master plan existed for extermination and enslavement - much like how communists argue that there was no overarching plan when the Soviets starved several million people to death during the Holodomor, and committed many other crimes against humanity.
Me and I, and Nazis, and USSR could claim anything. But we are discussing factual events and hopefully trying to come to objective conclusions. There's multiple evidence that Nazis goals were extermination and enslavement, but I am not aware of any that would indicate USSR wanted people in Ukrainian SSR to die from starvation.
There is not a single piece of written evidence that Hitler ever ordered the Holocaust. The intent and responsibility have been derived from his speeches, the actions of his subordinates, and other indirect evidence.
The USSR's intent to exterminate Ukrainians (and many other ethnicities) can be proven to the same standard; and has been proven; and this has led to worldwide condemnation, from the European Parliament representing 450 million people in 27 countries, to even Ecuador and Australia.
The European Parliament,
...
Recognises the Holodomor, the artificial famine of 1932-1933 in Ukraine caused by a deliberate policy of the Soviet regime, as a genocide against the Ukrainian people, as it was committed with the intent to destroy a group of people by deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction;
Well no, it is not the same at all. There are multiple accounts as you say that confirm verbal orders for explicit extermination of Jews, and enslavement of untermensch, but AFAIK no such evidence is present for deliberate Holodomor.
Some countries of EU and the parliament recognizing something is not evidence of any kind.
In fact it paints EU parliament in bad colors to me because wow, coincidentally they do it in 2022 with many individual countries still objecting and US and UK simply refusing to twist the facts into that conclusion just yet.
You are arguing something that I'm not. There are testimonies of witnesses that claim murder of Jews was planned and directed at e.g. Wannsee. Nothing like that exists for Holodomor.
As I said, there is no direct evidence of any kind that the highest level of the German government (in Hitler's person) had anything to do with the Holocaust, so why would you expect to find anything where the USSR's leaders explicitly stated their intentions?
As for indirect evidence, there's plenty for the Holodomor too: a) Stalin and other top-ranking officials were aware of the food shortages in Ukraine, b) they knew that their policies were going to make things worse, c) they still adopted those policies, and d) they expressed satisfaction with the outcome. They deliberately allowed millions of people to die of starvation to suppress Ukrainian national identity and punish them for perceived disloyalty.
If someone came to your city, confiscated all food, harshly punished any attempts to store even a minimal amount for basic survival, caused a horrific starvation that killed many people, drove survivors to such insanity that mothers ate the flesh off their living children, and still blocked all foreign aid and prevented people from leaving, then how would you call it if not deliberate mass murder?
Look, I don't know if you have some agenda, but otherwise I can't explain why you keep making statements that alternate between being outright false, ignoring context, moving goalposts, and drawing "parallels" that are not parallel in any sense.
> the highest level of the German government
Cool, that's the first time "the highest level" comes up. You started with "The Nazi regime". Do you think "The Nazi regime" is Hitler and his direct reports? How many is that? About 20 people?
> there's plenty for the Holodomor too
Then you list 1 single piece of "evidence" (one list of items that would implicate regime provided ALL of them are true). And it is not really an evidence, because clause "b) they knew that their policies would make things worse" is your own personal guess. I can't see how you could logically arrive that Stalin foresaw that that policy will make things worse. What evidence do you have for that claim? I kinda suspect that your evidence for it looks likes this:
(a && b && c && d) => Holodomor was intentional.
Holodomor was intentional.
Therefore
b must be true
Which is problematic on two accounts: the 2nd statement is the one being debated on the first place (e.g. circular evidence), and 2 - you can't reverse implication in the first statement.
Also, it is now known to be largely made-up, with many of the stories of the book being a certain lie.
In any case, whatever helped kick down Soviet Empire was worth the costs incurred and i think he was one of the greatest figures out of those who made it happen. What matters is that plenty of people read, and believed it. Glasnost created, almost instantly, a critical mass of literature like that, widely available to the Soviet reader, bringing up realisation that the very existence of the nation they lived in, was immoral, unacceptable, and it had to be smashed as soon as possible.
Almost no one really did anything about it, or if they did, it didn't matter. It's just that when USSR started shaking, almost no one was willing to help it.
In Ukraine in 2013, we had Maidan and similarly sized Antimaidan. In 1991 Moscow, there was no Soviet "antimaidan", no one gave a flying fuck about saving the Union anymore. People like Solzhenitsyn were the main if not the only reason why it was the case.