One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

The setting of the forced labor camp, the purpose of the prisoners’ labor, and the characters’ backstories and fates all speak to the human toll of Stalinism. The prisoners endure extreme cold, inhumane treatment, and hard labor without proper supplies or safeguards. They are often imprisoned for spurious reasons, and their backstories illustrate the corruption within Stalinism. Both Shukhov and Senka were held captive by German forces during the Second World War; Senka spent time in a concentration camp and was tortured. When they manage to escape they are not welcomed as war heroes but baselessly condemned as spies. Another prisoner, Gopchik, was imprisoned for bringing milk to a band of rebels. He is in his mid-teens but is treated as an adult, meaning, like all new prisoners, he has been given a 25-year sentence. Tiurin’s backstory demonstrates how the government abused its power by eliminating a faction of the population. His story represents the millions of kulaks who were exiled, imprisoned, or killed. Baptists like Alyosha are similarly discriminated against and targeted: “What harm did they do anyone by praying to God? Every damn one of them had been given 25 years” (154). The prisoners’ backstories show the various ways that individuals were oppressed during Stalin’s reign.

The camp’s purpose is to build an industrialized town for free citizens of the Soviet Union. Two instances of situational irony assist in satirizing the gulag system and showing its human cost—the prisoners are building a new settlement called the Socialist Way of Life, and the 104th was forced to build the solitary confinement cells in the guardhouse. Using these instances of irony effectively criticizes Stalinist forced labor in an indirect way by demonstrating that forced labor camps are fundamentally antisocialist, a notion reinforced by Buinovsky’s declaration to the guards, “You’re not behaving like communists” (44), when he is caught and punished for wearing a civilian vest to keep warm in the bitter cold.

The characters’ fates conclude the exploration of Stalinism’s human toll. Shukhov, Senka, and Alyosha submit to the oppression they face. Senka’s pride has been destroyed by the violent oppression he has faced, while Alyosha has escaped into his religion. While he has a positive outlook, he is destined to struggle because he is unable to adapt to the social environment of the prison. Shukhov feels freedom will never be an option for him; ironically, life inside the forced labor camp is easier than his life before, revealing that political repression exacts a high cost outside the prison system as well. He feels that remaining a prisoner is his best option. Death represents the ultimate human cost of oppression. While no deaths appear directly in the text, they appear indirectly through references to the prisoners having killed “squealers,” and through the foreshadowed deaths of Buinovsky and Fetuikov, who both have failed to accept their oppression. The human cost of Stalinism, these character arcs argue, comes down to a choice between submission and death.