Books That Matter: Gulag Archipelago

It was January of 2019 when I knew I needed to read Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. It was his son, Ignat, who convinced me.

Ignat was a guest on the Eric Metaxas Show (https://ignatsolzhenitsyn.com/latest/2019/1/29/interview-with-eric-metaxas). Their conversation recounted his father's life as the second man to be permanently exiled from the former USSR (Leon Trotsky was the first). He spoke with such matter-of-fact respect for his father's integrity - as if it were naturally owed him - that by the end of the interview, I knew I had to become acquainted with his father myself by reading what might be considered his most important work.

By dumb luck, I acquired an abridged compilation of the three volumes - totaling around 1800 pages collectively - abridged in collaboration with Solzhenitsyn himself - by Eric Ericson, Jr. This abridgement weighs in at a mere 472 pages. I started it in early 2024 expecting it would be that year's steep reading climb. Little did I know it would take me nearly 3 years to get through the "short" version.

Why? Two main reasons: Number one - my incredibly frightening ADHD brain, of course. Since internally I may still be 7 years old, I must have a "bedtime story" be the last thing I read at night. THIS. IS NOT. THAT BOOK. Besides the novel that serves as that bedtime story, I've picked up the habit of generally having a history/bio book going simultaneously; these always take me longer to get through. Even with this habit, I never dreamed I'd pick this book up after putting it aside so very many times.

Which brings me to the second reason this book took well over two years for me to read: while not graphic in nature, the grim brutality of the system brought to light in Gulag could not be drunk - not by this reader, anyway. I had to imbibe in small sips, until I got to the heart of the book in the last hundred or so pages, when finally FINALLY - I couldn't put it down.

Gulag Archipelago was so named to create a metaphor to describe the vastness of the Soviet system established to surveil, arrest, interrogate, and imprison political dissidents from the early 1920's and well into the 1950's. Solzhenitsyn portrays it as such a well-oiled machine that once a person fell under suspicion and was caught up in the intricate network of it, he rarely came out the other end until after a lengthy sentence to a work camp. If he came out at all.

The irony of Solzhenitsyn being the one to globally expose this horrific system is rich. This young man came out of university in 1941 as far too many of our young men (and women) come out of university today - deeply committed to Marxist principles and to his country's counterfeit utopian vision for the world. I'm both saddened and compelled to add parenthetically that this is one of the highest purposes of education today; and the bitter fruit from decades of this trajectory lies all around us in a rubble heap of all the failed attempts where it hasn't been "properly" implemented. (Something about a definition of insanity comes to mind here...)

At the end of his military service and WWII, Solzhenitsyn had the audacity to mockingly criticize - not by name, but insinuation only - Joseph Stalin in a private letter. He was sentenced to 8 years in the gulag - the final step short of death in a system with zero due process of individual rights.

This relatively short sentence - of a man originally committed to the principles behind the system who put him in the gulag - served as muse for that man to write the 1800 pages which exposed that system to the entire world. Weeks after the publication of Gulag Archipelago in December 1973, Solzhenitsyn was arrested, charged with treason, and forcibly removed from the Soviet Union stripped of his citizenship.

The status of brave whistle blower staled after an astounding speech given at Harvard University's commencement in 1978 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuVG8SnxxCM&list=PLZ0qrzrD-278Y_1qZrNP-KZFK4K7xv1L6). Suddenly, this global darling of the literary world lost much of his romantic luster as he pointed his finger of criticism to the West - presciently warning that too many "democracies" were following the exact path of Soviets.

The most beautiful, authoritative, and important voices in the public square are those of the convert. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn is one of those voices for me. While raised in the Russian Orthodox faith, he didn't return to faith in any God until his circumstances became so limited, He quite literally bumped into God in the tiny space that had become his life. I recognized that limitation, and this poem he wrote in praise of God - and his return to God - made me weep:

When was it that I completely

Scattered the good seeds, one and all?

For after all I spent my boyhood

In the bright singing of Thy temples.

Bookish subtleties sparkled brightly,

Piercing my arrogant brain,

The secrets of the world were . . . in my grasp,

Life's destiny . . . as pliable as wax.

Blood seethed - and every swirl

Gleamed iridescently before me,

Without a rumble the building of my faith

Quietly crumbled within my heart.

But passing here between being and nothingness,

Stumbling and clutching at the edge,

I look behind me with a grateful tremor

Upon the life that I have lived.

Not with good judgment nor with desire

Are its twists and turns illumined.

But with the even glow of the Higher Meaning

Which became apparent to me only later on.

And now with measuring cup returned to me,

Scooping up the living water,

God of the Universe! I believe again!

Though I renounced You, You were with me!

(In this abridgement, this poem can be found in Part 4 - "The Soul and Barbed Wire," Chapter 1 - "Ascent")

This book mattered because of its warning, but also because of its beauty - the beautiful words emanating from a beautiful heart reknitted to his Creator in the furnace of affliction. It mattered to have another witness of what Viktor Frankl more pithily testified of from a similar furnace:

"There are two races of men in this world, but only these two - the "race" of the decent man and the "race" of the indecent man. Both are found everywhere; they penetrate into all groups of society. No group consists entirely of decent or indecent people." (Viktor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning)

This book reminded me of a scripture in the Book of Mormon - after King Mosiah has read the grim and brutal account of the Jaredites to his innocent-hearted people - people who most likely would rather have been spared such a bleak picture of the depths of which fallen humanity is capable:

"Now this account did cause the people of Mosiah to mourn exceedingly, yea, they were filled with sorrow; nevertheless it gave them great knowledge, in the which they did rejoice" (Mosiah 28:18, emphasis added).

This dismal look at humanity included some exalting glimpses of man's potential for a higher existence - of man's ability to transcend from the race of the indecent to the higher race of the decent - only possible by individual choice. With Jesus Christ.

For that knowledge, I do indeed rejoice.