The Gulag Archipelago

Nonfiction | Biography | Adult | Published in 1973

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Download PDF

Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1, Chapters 1-4

Part 1, Chapters 5-12

Part 2, Chapters 1-4

Part 3, Chapters 1-7

Part 3, Chapters 8-14

Part 3, Chapters 15-22

Part 4, Chapters 1-3

Part 5, Chapters 1-6

Part 5, Chapters 7-12

Part 6, Chapters 1-7

Part 7, Chapter 1-P.P.S.

Key Figures

Themes

Index of Terms

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Part 4, Chapters 1-3Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 4, Chapter 1 Summary: “The Ascent”

Not only was the Gulag Archipelago not designed to reform or rehabilitate, but the inmates did not believe themselves to be guilty, so reform was impossible. The inmates’ conscious innocence, Solzhenitsyn believes, was the reason so few inmates attempted suicide. Inmates resolved to survive “at any price” (302) rather than reflect on their supposed crimes. Solzhenitsyn recalls the stories of several prisoners who struggled with their will to survive. He notes that life in the camp differed from life outside the camp as no inmate had to attend ideological meetings. Inmates did not have to worry about being a party member or joining a trade union or being accused of transgressing somehow against the party. As such, inmates had more time to think on whatever they please. This was a form of liberation, according to Solzhenitsyn.

Solzhenitsyn recalls the time inmates were made to watch an uninteresting film. The moral of the film—one which he believes was meant to apply to society at large—was that “the result is what counts” (307). Solzhenitsyn disagrees, maintaining that any ‘result’ is not important compared to how that result was attained. If inmates wished to survive at any cost, then they had to become stool pigeons and generally submit to the guards. However, surviving like this was not worth the moral cost of “losing one’s human countenance” (308). Solzhenitsyn finds himself reflecting on every single part of his life during his imprisonment, searching for anything in his past which might have ethically justified his sentence. He understands that, for his entire life, he has not “understood either [himself] or [his] strivings” (312). He reflects on his own past unthinking participation in the Russian military, and this almost makes him thankful for his imprisonment.

Part 4, Chapter 2 Summary: “Or Corruption?”

Solzhenitsyn concedes that not all inmates would agree with him about the camps providing a new perspective on life. He quotes other writers who believe that the camps are dehumanizing or that the camps instill corruption. Solzhenitsyn counters these arguments with examples of inmates who were not corrupted by their imprisonment. Those people who are corrupted by the camps, Solzhenitsyn believes, were already prone to corruption. True moral integrity can survive the camps, intact.

Part 4, Chapter 3 Summary: “Our Muzzled Freedom”

Solzhenitsyn reflects on the meaning of freedom for the Gulag’s prisoners. During his time in a prison camp, Solzhenitsyn was diagnosed with cancer and had a tumor removed. Like the tumor poisoning him from within, Solzhenitsyn believes that the Gulag poisoned (and still poisons) Russian society. The Gulag ensured that all Russians lived in constant fear of imprisonment; that they felt as though they lived in servitude; that they had become more secretive and mistrustful; that they had become more ignorant and uninformed; that they were more likely to inform on one another; and that they had become prone to constant betrayal. As a result, “[E]very act of resistance to the government required heroism quite out of proportion to the magnitude of the act” (324). Solzhenitsyn laments the Gulag system’s corruption of so many Russians who then sought work for the security services as informers. Due to fear of the Gulag, everyone became a liar to some extent, ultimately producing a cruel society. Eventually, everyone came to accept their lowly social position and developed what Solzhenitsyn calls a “slave psychology” (327).

Part 4, Chapters 1-3 Analysis

The first three chapters of Part 4 feature Solzhenitsyn’s insights into the inseparability of Soviet ideology from the Gulag, and of corruption from unprofitability.

As Solzhenitsyn explains throughout The Gulag Archipelago, the system of labor camps was not intended to reform, rehabilitate, or punish the inmates. By its very nature, the system could not enact a suitable form of justice. The people in the Gulag were charged with crimes that were either contrived or nonexistent, so they could not feel any kind of guilt. The wholly unjustifiable nature of the Gulag’s existence leads Solzhenitsyn to directly criticizing the Soviet Union. He believes that the Soviet ideology inevitably begets violence. The Soviet Union is not evil because of the Gulag—rather, the Gulag was the consequence of an evil inherent to Soviet society.

Added to the camps’ utter needlessness, Solzhenitsyn explains how these camps were completely corrupt. The guards lined their own pockets and the inmates could not be reformed, and this abject unproductivity was not worth the moral cost of the entire enterprise. Similar to the inextricability of the Gulag from Soviet ideology, the camps’ corruption and their unprofitability were irrevocably bound together. The Gulag’s very existence corrupted people, so corruption could never be purged from the system. The Gulag succinctly symbolizes the deep moral rot of Soviet society itself.

These chapters also indirectly demonstrate the Gulag’s profound continued effect on the author and on his grasp of the human conscience. As he considers the Gulag’s corruption, Solzhenitsyn does not apportion this immorality on an individual level. He believes that individuals can endure the immorality of the system without becoming corrupt, and he views himself as one such person. Further, however, Solzhenitsyn believes that morality exists in opposition to the Gulag; any person who actively works against the Gulag or who rejects it becomes moral, while those who cave to the Gulag or work on its behalf become immoral. This simple morality colors the world in broad strokes, but it is also a symptom of the author’s trauma. He can no longer view the world in other terms; he views everything, including morality, in terms of its relation to the prison camps. Though Solzhenitsyn hates the Gulag, he cannot escape its clutches. Even years after he leaves the camp, everything operates in deference to the system which held him for so long.