The Gulag Archipelago, what do you guys think if this?

Any criticisms? I've heard it said that this book is damning evidence of the evil of communist ideology (or at least ideology in general), is that true?

Other urls found in this thread:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Harmony,_Indiana
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Territory
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_killings_under_Communist_regimes#Legal_prosecution_for_genocide_and_genocide_denial
twitter.com/NSFWRedditVideo

The gulag literature is really rich. As for exposing the evils of communism it's only the tip of the iceberg. They've done far worse so I almost pity the apologists.

It wasn't real communism.

Some of the objections I have heard revolve around the fact that nearly all of the stories not from the author's perspective are "just hearsay" without solid evidence and could therefore be complete fabrication. Others object that the work whitewashes all of the prisoners of the labor camp system as being victims of the Stalinist system when some of them really deserved to be there for committing crimes, but I don't really think that is true if you read the books. It is certainly a harsh indictment of the USSR in the Stalinist period, and a sad record of man's capacity to inflict terrible cruelties upon himself.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Harmony,_Indiana

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Territory


Especially the first one. The heritage of communism is a non-religious cult that failed and the reasons why it failed was summed up by the son of its creator.

Communist version of Holocaust books, obviously its all propaganda right?

Tankies gonna tank

Even back then the left blamed the Nazis for everything.

This. Not everything in the book should be taken as 100% true gospel or authenticated fact. It's still a good book though.

As shitty as Gulags are they really aren't anything new in Russian history either with the whole Katorga penal colonies

This is addressed in the book tho. Gulag was way worse than katorga. Especially when stalin made his own version of katorga aswell.

Even today Russia still runs its prisons as forced labour colonies.
Granted, they're no gulags, not by a long shot, but they still ain't fun.

>If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?


Russia was never the same after the revolution; Scientists and intellectuals within the Sharashkas, musicians and artists wheeled by troikas to their deaths...the false accusations which left innocent people jailed for 20 years. I could go on..

However, what is most disgusting is the claim that this communist regime had the capability of being "evil". The truth is they were simply incapable of proper governance.. as if the Stalinist regime intended for people to boil and eat grass, or for them to claim famines were "organized". Sheer stupidity and terror working hand in hand.

Go read the book.

Real enough to be cause of death

read cancer war instead, the author is less butthurt after the evil commies save his life

Gulag Archipelago is literally fanfiction pushed by CIA as a "history book on the USSR".

It's like if the Chinese started publishing 1984 as an acurate description of Thatcher's Britain.

>Solzhenitsin was a Nazi collaborater (he admitted it)

How the heck did he managed that? He served in the Red Army and fought the Nazis up until he was imprisoned.

the KGB wrote a book about how he was a liar and then put his wife's name on it, so he's wrong

*tips beret*

*1 labour voucher has been deposited in your account*

if you kill your enemies, they win

Saying he's a collaborates is a huge stretch but he definitively disliked Nazis less then Bolsheviks. When Gen. Vlasov collaborated with the Nazis after his capture, and even commanded an all-Russian Corps. called ROA (the guy then switched sides yet again, after it became obvious that Germans aren't pulling out of this one and sided with the Prague uprising), for which he was later declared a traitor, Solzhenitsin was a bit too sympathetic to the guy. In the book he even downplays Vlasov's incompetent leadership (unlike the Solzhenitsin writes, Vlasov was ordered to retreat after breakthrough around Leningrad failed, but for whatever reason, the retreat was sluggish and led to the encirclement of the 2nd Shock Army) and side switching (by claiming it was STALIN that made him do it, Vlasov he wuz bolshoi malchik dindu nuffin) in the most denialist manner possible. Solzhenitsin sympathies in the affair (in similar situations, had Vlasov been a general of the British army, he would have been shot after a trial as well, so this is hardly a Stalinist thing), as well as his previous record of public dissent (he very obviously did not like the communist government) made his (very short) capture in the hands of the Germans and prompt escape dubious to the NKVD, which eventually led Solzhenitsin to the gulag. While it's very hard to justify Stalinist purges and Solzhenitsin's trip to the gulag, he's very much a demagogue himself, to the point he was sympathetic to everyone and everything even remotely anti-communist. That does not make Solzhenitsin wrong or inaccurate on his personal experiences in the horrors of gulag, but his personal affections should be taken into account, just like taking into account the official Soviet spin on his case.

The first-hand stuff is good.

Anything larger than that needs to be taken with a huge grain of salt however.

>tfw they ran loli brothels in some camps

source?

I read it very long time ago, I can't provide the source. But do you really need a source to know it's true? Families were separated, guess what could have happened to the kids, so far from any witness...

There weren't any little girls sent to gulag far as I know, if there were they'd almost certainly have been raped though.

>There weren't any little girls sent to gulag far as I know
There were entire families, they were separated at the arrival of course (it's not a family resort), and the kids were put in "orphanages". There were also births.

Good book
Read it after I cleaned my room and started to sort myself out

...

Are you saying your room is as bad as a gulag? Are you saying you have loli brothels in your room?

Maybe he lost in it his room, and when he found it he decided to read it. I've lost books in my garage and then found them years later.

Is cleaning a humanity subject?

>Google Jordan Peterson

So you're some arsepained tankie or something?
Why don't you go to /pol/.

>Jordan Peterson bases his critique of Marxism and '''''''post-modernism'''''' not on understanding Marxist theory and terminology but through reading Gulag Archipelago
Makes sense for a demagogue

Well women's studies is humanities, so yes.

Goddamn why is Veeky Forums taking this /pol/ book like it's real?

It's Nazi propaganda! Fiction! The author didn't even see the alleged events, he just took a bunch of rumors and put them in a book and made money by selling it to a bunch of scared white men seeing red everywhere.

>On 19 September 1974, Yuri Andropov approved a large-scale operation to discredit Solzhenitsyn and his family and cut his communications with Soviet dissidents.
>Among other active measures, at least three StB agents became translators and secretaries of Solzhenitsyn (one of them translated the poem Prussian Nights), keeping KGB informed regarding all contacts by Solzhenitsyn.
>Andropov also gave an order to create "an atmosphere of distrust and suspicion between Pauk[b] and the people around him" by feeding him rumors that everyone in his surrounding was a KGB agent and deceiving him in all possible ways.

>convince him he's being surrounded by kremlin agents
>surround him with kremlin agents

what was their endgame here

This book is required reading in my country. Where I live it's also illegal to deny communist war crimes

Where do you live, bizzaro Germany?

Lithuania, we had laws that made holocaust denial plus nazi imagery illegal and the law was expanded to include communist crimes and communist symbols

There was a big stink from groups to try and stop it from happening but I'm glad it's illegal now

It is recomended reading in much all of Eastern Yurupian high schools (excluding Russia of course), but I would doubt it is required reading since it's long af. One day of Ivan Somehingovitch is more common.

as for the denial:
>en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_killings_under_Communist_regimes#Legal_prosecution_for_genocide_and_genocide_denial

Well, if you can't have freedom of speech like a civilized society, you might as well try to focus it productively like into stopping commie apologists.

americans went wrong when they didn't ban nazis AND commies

now you guys hate nazis but shill for commies. just look at your news

Based Putin made it mandatory in 2013 I think.

uncited hearsay. The author makes no pretense at this, read the preface

criminally underrated

>material for this book was given to me in reports, memoirs and letters by 227 witnesses.
>material for this book was also provided by thirty-six soviet writers

fucking hell

silly racist, speaking out against communism makes you a nazi

(you)