The Gulag Archipelago

Solzhenitsyn considers Stalin’s death and its impact on the Gulag system. In the wake of Stalin’s death, Beria fell from power. Solzhenitsyn considers Beria to be “the Archipelago’s Boss” (454) and his death accelerated the camps’ closure. Gradually, the most severe practices in the camps were abandoned. Prisoners had names instead of numbers and were permitted correspondence with the outside world. Eventually, inmates were even allowed to choose their own hairstyles and possess actual currency to purchase items such as food. From 1954, an “easier time set in” (455) on the Gulag Archipelago.

While historians praise Nikita Khrushchev for dismantling many of the atrocities put in place by Stalin, Solzhenitsyn believes that Khrushchev covertly continued practices such as the Gulag. Though Khrushchev attacked the malignancies of the Stalin regime, Solzhenitsyn is appalled that the new head of the Soviet Union did nothing to truly dismantle the Gulag. Solzhenitsyn does not believe that the Soviet Union could exist without the Gulag Archipelago. He looks to current and future historians to document the ongoing crime against humanity that can be found in the Soviet labor camps.

Solzhenitsyn refutes the idea that most of the Gulag’s inmates were political prisoners of some sort. Very few were political activists, and most were arrested for vague infringements or false accusations. Solzhenitsyn describes the fate of the town of Novocherkassk, which revolted against the Khrushchev regime by going on strike. They were protesting the price of food and the lowering of wages, but violence broke out between the protestors and the army. Though the townspeople pleaded with the soldiers, the violence continued. In the aftermath, the stores were suddenly stocked with luxurious food, the wounded all vanished, and anyone suspected of involvement was exiled. The strike was called off and the workers returned to the factory. In this and many other incidents, suspects were sent to the Gulag, but they were not convicted as political prisoners. This minor difference is the only one Solzhenitsyn can detect in the post-Stalin era. Additionally, trials are conducted “semi-publicly” (465) rather than in secret, though “the judge is not at all interested in the substance of the case” (466). Solzhenitsyn criticizes left-wing people in the West for dismissing claims of Soviet criminality. Though Solzhenitsyn concedes that the number of prisoners is far fewer than in Stalin’s time, he believes that the law has not been meaningfully reformed.

As Solzhenitsyn wraps up his manuscript, he regrets that he did not first have the opportunity to share his account of the Gulag with others and hear more of others’ stories, “to put the whole in true perspective” (469). Instead, all he could do was listen to friends’ stories and incorporate them in his work. Solzhenitsyn explains that he had to write The Gulag Archipelago in secret and in fragments which he then kept scattered and hidden in various locations, as a measure to protect the whole of the manuscript if any part of it were to be found by authorities. He recounts a setback in 1965 when his archive was raided and portions of his writing were confiscated by the KGB. He wishes the book could have been more comprehensive, but writes, “I have stopped work on this book not because I regard it as finished, but because I cannot spend any more of my life on it” (470). He implores other former inmates to share their stories when they can.

In a short postscript dated May 1968, Solzhenitsyn admits that he wrote his Afterword in a rush because he expected to lose his freedom after he contacted his peers at the Writers’ Congress (a creative union of professional Soviet writers). However, he was not arrested. He has done what he can to refine and improve the work, but once more refers to the secretive and fragmentary writing process: “I have never once seen the whole book together, never once had it all on my desk at one time” (471). He thanks everyone who has contributed their stories to his work and insists that he has done his best to protect their identities.