The Gulag Archipelago: Volume 3

Katorga: Standard English translation is “hard labor” or “penal servitude” and the Russian term derives from the Greek word for the forced labor of a slave chained to the oar of a galley. *Important Note*: the word katorga had come to stand for a specifically Tsarist type of punishment; it summoned to mind images of idealistic revolutionaries toiling in Siberian mines (p. 530)

I think, more than just a prison sentence, Katorga denoted someone who was lower than low, at least in socialist Russia. It meant someone was literally a slave to the state, chained to the work to which they were assigned until their term ended, or they wore out and died. As katorzhane, you lost your name and your identity. You were given a number, and that was it. Just like the fascists.

But in volume 3, Solzhenitsyn assures the reader that here is where hope is born. That if we’ve stuck with him this far, it gets better from here. And I have, in these first two chapters, learned something about WWII that I never knew. Which is not necessarily surprising, I am hardly a WWII expert. But it did make me go “huh!” I know that when WWII started, the Soviets were allies with Hitler, which lasted until Hitler invaded Russia, at which point all bets were off. What I did not know is that in certain parts of Russia, when the German troops started rolling in, they were seen as liberators. Which begs the question: How fucked is communist ideology and reality, when the FREAKING FASCISTS are seen as liberators of the people?

What’s interesting about this third volume, is that it was a forward to the English translation written by Solzhenitsyn from his residence in Vermont, where he lived after being exiled from Russia for having first written The Gulag Archipelago, and then having received the Nobel Prize in literature for what he wrote. Now, he did not go to Sweden to accept the prize because he feared he would be denied re-entry to Russia should he leave. And so Russia was forced to physically exile him.

In his forward, Solzhenitsyn says “the concentration camp terrorism of the fifties, out of which heroic uprisings were born later on, was essentially different form the “left-wing” revolutionary terrorism which is shaking the Western world in our days, in that young Western terrorists, saturated with boundless freedom, play with innocent people’s lives and kill innocent people for the sake of their unclear purposes or in order to gain material advantages. Soviet camp terrorists in the fifties killed proved traitors and informers in defense of their right to breathe.”

Which is where we find ourselves today. “Antifa” sees themselves as…? What? Anti-fascists? I think Solzhenitsyn would say they suffer from an excess of freedom, to see fascism where none exists. And they are playing with and destroying innocent peoples lives. Over nothing. I would hazard a guess that 99.99% of the people Antifa targets are not, in any way shape or form, fascists. That .01% is probably blind dumb luck that they actually got one. These are children, playing at being revolutionaries. And people are being hurt by them. Which makes them the lowest of the low. Hurting innocent people to push a vague, non-existent ideology, based on words to which they do not understand the meaning. And their end game is imprisoning or killing anyone who disagrees with them. Which sounds an awful lot like Stalin, easily among the biggest mass murderers to come out of the 20th century. Kids….kids….FIND BETTER IDOLS! When you emulate a murderer, don’t be surprised when people look down on you as scum, and treat you like the criminals you seek to be.

And I get it. History is not taught nearly at the level it should be, in order to avoid repetition. At some point under Stalin, the focus for 58s shifted from Corrective Labor Camps to Special Labor Camps. This is the camp of Ivan Denisovich. And Special Labor appears to have meant “used to build more prisons.” And here is where Solzhenitsyn himself spent his time as a brick layer. Building prisons.

And along with all those camps, they tried everything they could to dehumanize the inmates. They implemented number system…just like the fascists. Tried to remove the inmates names. Not always successfully. Names really are hard to lose the habit of. Nonetheless, every inmate was given a letter/number combination. Those who didn’t want to work, were forcibly dragged. Sometimes by the guards out of the bunks. Sometimes by the head of the camp division behind his sleigh. It’s easier to torture and murder people you see as less than human. And some of those deemed less than human, were assigned grave digging detail. Inmates who had not been denied communication could write letters home, but the letters might not be sent. If the women working in the censorship office didn’t feel like working, they might not bother to read the letters. This did not mean the letters were sent…no the women would not risk being imprisoned themselves by missing a letter. They would simply burn the letters. Solzhenitsyn says these women burned the souls of the inmates.

And then Solzhenitsyn asks an important question: Why did we stand for it? An important question, given how outnumbered the guards were compared to the inmates. There were certainly those who opted for escape directly from the camps. A few even made it, which gave those left behind hope. Those who didn’t were put in punishment cells, where they’re rations were severely restricted and they frequently left with lifelong illnesses.

Solzhenitsyn spends the chapter exploring the history of prisons in Tsarist Russia. And the conclusion I draw is that the Tsars were not that bad. Namely because all the political prisoners who ran the October Revolution were at one point imprisoned under the Tsars. And they were treated quite well as political prisoners. And when they were released and “exiled”, the exile was rarely enforced. In fact, the Tsars were so lenient in their treatment of political prisoners in general, that I kind of think Lenin took his experiences as a lesson in how NOT to treat political prisoners, IF you want to remain in power yourself.

Solzhenitsyn ends this chapter thusly:

So that when we are asked: “Why did you put up with it?” it is time to answer: “But we didn’t!” Read on and you will see that we didn’t put up with it at all. In the Special Camps we raised the banner of the political—and political we became. (p. 97).

I think, the more the governments try to lock us all down and make us obey, the more political the sleeping middle class is going to become. Luckily for us, we do have legal recourse. It’s called the ballot box folks. Vote early, vote often, and vote the fuckers out of office!

Reading this week has been slow. On my part, not the stories part. The story is picking up now with rumblings of rebellion in the camps.

As seems to be the case in rebellions, the rumblings of discontent are first stirred by artists. Maybe this is the reason art is not taught as widely in school as it used to be. Teach the bare basics so that kids don’t learn to see beyond what you teach them. Teach them what to think, not how to think. Art teaches them how to think and how to see the world through different eyes.

In the camps, the artists start writing. Not on paper. Putting such thoughts on paper will get one time in a punishment cell. They start writing in their minds and memorizing the works as they go. It’s how Solzhenitsyn wrote The Gulag Archipelago: in the camps, memorizing the story as he wrote it. And he met others in camp who were doing the same thing: Creating poetry in memory, quietly sharing versus with trusted individuals in camp.

But by far the most interesting character he described was not a poet he met in camp. It was Petya Kishkin. Kishkin was, for lack of a better definition, a jester. And much like comedians everywhere, he shone a light of truth on those in the camps. Which was easy for him to do because he was in camp with them, also serving time for politics. Now, it’s hard to tell if Kishkin was truly his last name, or if this was more of a job description:

“The Kishkins are a phenomenon of great antiquity in Russian: they loudly tell the truth to the wicked and powerful, they make the people see themselves as they are, and all this by foolery which involves no risk to themselves.” (p. 120)

Solzhenitsyn then describes several incidents where Kishkin did exactly that, highlighting the absolute absurdity of the large number of inmates being held at bay by the comparatively tiny guard corps. Always without stepping a toe out of line. That is such a razor-sharp edge to walk that could have easily landed him in punishment or ended him with a bullet to the head. No risk in Tsarist Russia. Tremendous risk in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Yet he walked it with all the finesse of the finest tightrope walker, and you can see how his jests started making people THINK. And the rumblings started.

This reminded me so powerfully of todays comedians, some of the funniest people walking the planet, who won’t work on college campuses anymore. Because the campuses are bastions of intolerance, and no longer support free thought. Jerry Seinfeld, Joe Rogan, Dave Chappelle, Bill Burr…these brilliant men understand the dangerous road the leftist ideologues are walking us down. George Carlin and Lenny Bruce are rolling over in their graves, to see what has become of America. But they all shine the light of truth on the coming catastrophe. If only America will wake up and listen.

Next, Solzhenitsyn talks about The Committed Escaper. Among the inmate populations were those who decided they would die free.  Or die trying. And no matter which camp they were kept in, they would formulate escape plans. Solzhenitsyn relates in detail the escapes/attempts of Georgi Pavlovich Tenno, who was one such committed escaper. And that is where I stopped yesterday. Which is a shame, because the next chapter is told by Tenno, detailing what happened when he did escape from Ekibastuz special labor camp.

Yep, already liking Volume 3 best. Why? Because the people start to fight back against a repressive government. Who doesn’t like a good rebellion?

The chapter detailing Georgi Tenno’s escape and three weeks on the run was a thrilling escape adventure, that ends up asking one important question (between the lines). After evading everything for three weeks, Georgi and his partner, Kolya Zhdanok, find themselves on the river, very nearly to their destination in Omsk. The see a husband and wife also on the river, presumably also on their way to Omsk. Tenno and Zhdanok pretend to be MVD Operations Group (Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs) and orders the couple to pull up on the riverbank to have their papers inspected. The goal was to steal their papers. Because without papers, you cannot travel in Russia. Then, while “inspecting” the papers, the couples white kitten begins to purr and rub against Tenno’s ankles. And he found he could not do it. Why? Well, he never actually says. I think it’s because to steal the papers, would have put the couple in the camp in Tenno’s place. Could you do that? Condemn complete strangers to a hell you yourself are running from? What Tenno reports is this:

That’s how the world is arranged: they cam take anyone’s freedom from him, without a qualm. If we want to take back the freedom which is our birthright—they make us pay with our lives and the lives of all whom we meet on the way. They can do anything, but we cannot. That’s why they are stronger than we (p. 178).

Tenno could not do it. Because he was not them. And so he let the couple go. And because the couple had no reason to do otherwise, when they pulled up at the next town and were told about escaped convicts possibly in the area, they reported what they saw. And Tenno was captured. Zhdanok managed a few more days of freedom before also being caught.

But the rest of part V is dedicated to highlighting other escape attempts, some successful for a time, and ultimately, rebellion in the Archipelago. It started in Solzhenitsyn’s camp, Ekibastuz. See, when Stalin decided it was time to shift the 58s to Special Labor Camps, he separated them out from the thieves. The thieves stayed in corrective labor, the 58s were sent to special labor. And an interesting mind shift occurred. Without having to worry about the thieves stealing what little they had left to them, the 58s decided if they were in for being political prisoners, they should BE political.

They started with a wave of murders. Wait, what?! Don’t worry. This would be the murders that Solzhenitsyn alluded to in his forward as “Soviet camp terrorists in the fifties killed proved traitors and informers in defense of their right to breathe.” The started killing known stool pigeons, people known to have betrayed other inmates to earn special privileges for themselves.

The 58s started striking. They started refusing the work. They even went on hunger strike. Imagine it. They are already on the verge of starving to death. They’ve only been given starvation rations for years at this point. And they refused ALL food, even the meager rations they were allotted. They held out for three days. But the match had been struck.

The last chapter in in part V was The Forty Days of Kengir. In 1954, at Kengir Special Labor Camp, there was a full rebellion. It started when the guards started taking random shots at the inmates for no reason. They killed a young girl, Lida, when she lay her socks out near the boundary fence to dry. They winged The Chinaman (name unknown) when the guard threw some makhorka (cheap tobacco) near the fence. When The Chinaman bent to pick it up, the guard shot him. And the match that was struck in Ekibastuz started a slow burn along the fuse. It hit dynamite in February 1954, when Aleksandr Sisoyev, The Evangelist, stepped outside his workstation to relieve himself. He was shot and killed. For no reason. He was nowhere near the boundary fence.

Kengir rebelled. The 58s took over the whole camp. For 40 days, they ran the show. They opened the boundaries between the women’s camp and the men’s camp. Couples who had only talked through the wall, who for years had passed notes by throwing them over the wall, met in person for the first time. Wedding vows long made were finally consummated. No one was raped. The women fought as hard as the men, taking their turns at guard shifts. Until the Soviets took tanks and ran over the camp. 700 inmates were killed when the Soviets retook the camp. But the spark of rebellion remained smoldering beneath the rubble.

All of part 6 is about the Exile of the victims. Here is covered what happens to the kulak’s, the ones who didn’t resist and weren’t subsequently imprisoned for anti-Soviet sentiment. They were rounded up from their homes, sometimes ancestral homes, and exiled to Siberia to work on state run farms. Unless you were expelled from the Soviet Union, exile meant you went where they sent you. It was prison without the bars. This was called the Peasant Plague, and Solzhenitsyn succinctly describes how brutal this was, and who truly benefitted from the dekulakization of the breadbasket of Russia, aka the Ukraine.

It was not just the Ukrainian peasant class that was displaced though. Anyone who was not pure Russian was moved somewhere else. Just…because. See, Socialism is all about hatred for other and racial purity. This is not discussed as widely as Hitler’s grand plan for a master race. But zeks in exile were prohibited from marrying anyone who was not Russian…if the zek was Russian.

For the Zeks though, it could be a mixed blessing. This was sort of your chance to make of life what you will. For Solzhenitsyn, it was a chance to start over. He had no family, his own wife from before Gulag having divorced him while he was in Gulag. He found himself exiled to Kazakhstan. One of the few advantages of exile for a former zek was that the government was required to either find him employment or support him. And so, he was assigned to help adjust the pricing at the store. See, when the state own and sells everything, the state must determine what everything costs. Which means at least once per year, the state adjusts the prices of goods up or down. One day he was doing his assigned job, adding up tallies, when the shop boss came in and announced Good News! Scientists had determined that you only needed four hours of sleep to function normally. And because this announcement was just in time for pricing season, everyone was expected to work from 7am to 2am, with two breaks for breakfast and dinner. Solzhenitsyn, having determined that the state had taken enough of his time, got up at 5pm and went home. Since this announcement was made just…AFTER…Stalin’s death…nothing happened. Solzhenitsyn continued to leave daily at 5pm and arrive fresh for work at 8am. Solzhenitsyn did not tell them that he needed his time to keep writing the play he had started. But not all former zeks were so lucky to land in a job they loved. Not all former zeks were so bold as to claim their time for themselves.

Until one lucky day, when the local school determined that Solzhenitsyn was, in fact, the only qualified math teacher and physicist in the town in Kazakhstan where he landed. Solzhenitsyn was then assigned to teach math at the local school.

But zeks that were not sent to exile, those that were just released, did not do well. Some of them even returned to Gulag to visit their friend who remained behind. And none of them could find work. In exile, the state was required to find them work. When they were just freed, they were on their own. And who would hire a former inmate and risk ending in Gulag themselves for helping a former 58? Gulag was determined to ruin everything good about Russia, determined to strip its soul and leave her people starving and desolate. I think Gulag succeeded.

This review was originally posted on YouTube on August 23, 2021, but is now available on Rumble and PodBean.