History bookshelf:<\/p>\n
\n<br \/>\n<\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Next book on the shelf is <i><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/0061253715?ie=UTF8&tag=thesheivari-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0061253715\">The Gulag Archipelago<\/a><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=thesheivari-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0061253715\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" style=\"border:none !important; margin:0px !important;\" \/><\/i> by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.<\/p>\n<p>Solzhenitsyn was imprisoned in Stalin’s gulag – the “gulag archipelago”, from 1945 to 1953. This is his book about how the “gulag” worked, but not just the camps themselves: the whole system. He explains, painstakingly, how the interrogations worked – how it was that people confessed in droves to things they did not do – why it was seen as an honor to turn in your family and friends. There are a couple of separate chapters on all of the sensational show-trials and what each one MEANT. Because, of course, the trials were not real. They were completely orchestrated, nothing unplanned about them at all – so we can look at them as symbolic of certain things. Solzhenitsyn’s writing is extremely readable, very personable, almost like a diary. <\/p>\n<p>He goes to the heart of the lunacy, and stays there. Not only does he stay there, but he explains it. He lived it. Russia denounced him for years. His international fame grew to the point that he was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1970. Russia denounced the Nobel Prize. Of course. Typical. He never said what Russia wanted him to say. He still doesn’t, come to think of it. A complicated man, someone I admire very much, I think that <i>The Gulag Archipelago<\/i> is one of the most important books not only of the 20th century, but of all time. It goes a long long way towards explaining the WHYS – and he does it in a way that really resonates with me. It’s not just about political policies, or party politics, or power struggles – He talks a lot about psychology. The psychological pressure of the interrogations (which is immortalized so terrifyingly in Arthur Koestler’s novel <i><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/1416540261?ie=UTF8&tag=thesheivari-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1416540261\">Darkness at Noon<\/a><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=thesheivari-20&l=as2&o=1&a=1416540261\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" style=\"border:none !important; margin:0px !important;\" \/><\/i>) – I always put myself in the positions of these people, I can’t help myself. Maybe it’s just natural curiosity, or maybe that’s the part of me that’s an actress, that doesn’t just want to know facts but wants to enter into the experience of others. And I can’t help but try to imagine myself in those interrogation rooms, being questioned – and … what on earth would have to happen in there to make me betray my friends? My boyfriend? My family? I can’t imagine. It’s painful to think about, and yet somehow I can’t help it. I try to imagine what circumstances would have to exist in order for this to occur. You get my point. That’s the way my mind goes. Psychologically, it is one of the main things that interests me about this whole period in Russian history. The fabricated confessions. Piles of them. Glorifying that little shit who turned in his parents as kulaks. People rushing to betray their friends. Again, like I’ve said before – a looking-glass world. Betrayal became a virtue. It became a civic duty. How did that occur? Books like <i>Darkness at Noon<\/i>, <i><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/0195317009?ie=UTF8&tag=thesheivari-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0195317009\">The Great Terror: A Reassessment<\/a><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=thesheivari-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0195317009\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" style=\"border:none !important; margin:0px !important;\" \/><br \/>\n<\/i> by Robert Conquest, and <i>Gulag Archipelago<\/i> make great strides in answering that question.<\/p>\n<p>Solzhenitsyn wrote about his own imprisonment – and what it was like – in the holding cells, and then in the forced labor camps. But he also describes the lead-up, the mass arrests, the rounds of show trials through the years, the insane year of 1937 – I’ll excerpt a bit from the section on the trials.<\/p>\n<p>I went into it thinking it was going to be dry and informative. I have no idea why I thought that. This book is the OPPOSITE of dry. You’ll see in the excerpt below. He has a couple of parenthetical comments, asides to us, he makes fun of what’s happening – you’ll see how he does it. It’s very very readable. All parentheticals are his. All italics are his. He even puts exclamation points in parentheses, to show how gobsmackingly audacious it all was. I love his observations on the word “Center”.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><br \/>\n<b>From <i><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/0061253715?ie=UTF8&tag=thesheivari-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0061253715\">The Gulag Archipelago Volume 1: An Experiment in Literary Investigation (P.S.)<\/a><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=thesheivari-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0061253715\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" style=\"border:none !important; margin:0px !important;\" \/><\/i> by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. <\/b><\/p>\n<p><b>The Case of the “Tactical Center” — August 16-20, 1920<\/b><\/p>\n<p>In this case there were twenty-eight defendants present, plus additional defendants who were being tried <i>in absentia<\/i> because they weren’t around.<\/p>\n<p>At the very beginning of his impassioned speech, in a voice not yet grown hoarse and in phrases illumined by class analysis, the supreme accuser informs us that in addition to the landowners and the capitalists “there existed and there continues to exist one additional social stratum, the social characteristics of which have <i>long since been under consideration<\/i> by the representatives of revolutionary socialism. [In other words: to be or not to be?] This stratum is the <i>so-called ‘intelligentsia<\/i>. In this trial, we shall be concerned with <i>the judgment of history on the activity of the Russian intelligentsia”<\/i> and with the verdict of the Revolution on it.<\/p>\n<p>The narrow limits of our investigation prevent our comprehending exactly the <i>particular manner<\/i> in which the representatives of revolutionary socialism were <i>taking under consideration<\/i> the fate of the so-called intelligentsia and what specifically they were planning for it. However, we take comfort in the fact that these materials have been published, that they are accessible to everyone, and that they can be assembled in any required detail. Therefore, solely to understand the over-all atmosphere of the Republic, we shall recall the opinion of the Chairman of the Council of People’s Commisars in the years when all these tribunal sessions were going on.<\/p>\n<p>In a letter to Gorky on September 15, 1919 — which we have already cited – Vladimir Ilyich Lenin replied to Gorky’s attempts to intercede in the arrests of members of the intelligentsia, among them, evidently, some of the defendants in this trial, and, commenting on the bulk of the Russian intelligentsia of those years (the “close-to-the-Cadets-intelligentsia”), he wrote: “In actual fact <i>they are not [the nation’s] brains, but shit.<\/i>” On another occasion he said to Gorky: “If we break too many pots, it will be its [the intelligentsia’s] fault.” If the intelligentsia wants justice, why doesn’t it come over to us? “I’ve gotten one bullet from the intelligentsia myself.” (In other words, from Kaplan.)<\/p>\n<p>On the basis of these feelings, he expressed his mistrust and hostility toward the intelligentsia: rotten-liberal; “pious”; “the slovenliness so customary among ‘educated’ people”; he believed the intelligentsia was always shortsighted, that it had <i>betrayed the cause of the workers<\/i>. (But when had the intelligentsia ever sworn loyalty <i>to the cause of the workers<\/i>, the dictatorship of the workers?)<\/p>\n<p>This mockery of the intelligentsia, this contempt for the intelligentsia, was subsequently adopted with enthusiasm by the publicists and newspapers of the twenties and was absorbed into the current of day-to-day life. And in the end, the members of the intelligentsia accepted it too, cursing their eternal thoughtlessness, their eternal <i>duality<\/i>, their eternal <i>spinelessness<\/i>, and their hopeless <i>lagging behind the times<\/i>.<\/p>\n<p>And this was just! The voice of the accusing power, echoed and re-echoed beneath the vaults of the Verkhtrib, returning us to the defendants’ bench.<\/p>\n<p>“This social stratum … has, during recent years, undergone the trial of universal re-evaluation.” Yes, yes, re-evaluation, as was so often said at the time. And how did that re-evaluation occur? Here’s how: “The Russian intelligentsia which entered the crucible of the Revolution with slogans of power for the people [so it had something to it after all!] emerged from it an ally of the black [not even White!] generals, and a hired [!] and obedient agent of European imperialism. The intelligentsia trampled on its own banners [as in the army, yes?] and covered them with mud.”<\/p>\n<p>How, indeed, can we not cry out our hearts in repentance? How can we not lacerate our chests with our fingernails?<\/p>\n<p>And the only reason why “<i>there is no need to deal out the death blow<\/i> to its individual representatives” is that “<i>this social group has outlived its time<\/i>.”<\/p>\n<p>Here, at the start of the twentieth century! What power of foresight! Oh, scientific revolutionaries! (However, the intelligentsia had to be <i>finished off<\/i> anyway. Throughout the twenties they kept finishing them off and finishing them off.)<\/p>\n<p>We examine with hostility the twenty-eight individual allies of the black generals, the hirelings of European imperialism. And we are especially aroused by the stench of the word <i>Center<\/i>. Now we see a Tactical Center, now a National Center, and now a Right Center. (And in our recollection of the trials of two decades, Centers keep creeping in all the time, Centers and Centers, Engineers’ Centers, Menshevik Centers, Trotskyite-Zinovievite Centers, Rightist-Bukharinite Centers, but all of them are crushed, all crushed, and that is the only reason you and I are still alive.) Wherever there is a <i>Center<\/i>, of course, the hand of imperialism can be found.<\/p>\n<p>True, we feel a measure of relief when we learn that the Tactical Center on this occasion <i>was not an organization<\/i>; that it did not have (1) statutes; (2) a program; (3) membership dues. So, what did it have? Here’s what: <i>They used to meet!<\/i> (Goose-pimples up and down the back!) And when they met, <i>they undertook to familiarize themselves with one another’s point of view!<\/i> (Icy chills!)<\/p>\n<p>The charges were extremely serious and were supported by the evidence. There were two (2) pieces of evidence to corroborate the charges against twenty-eight accused individuals. These were two letters from people who were not present in court because they were abroad: Myakotin and Fyodorov. They were absent, but until the October Revolution they had been members of the same committee as those who were present, a circumstance that gavde us the right to equate those who were absent with those who were present. And their letters dealt with their <i>disagreements<\/i> with Denikin on certain trivial questions: the peasant question (we are not told what these differences were, but they were evidently advising Denikin to give the land to the peasants); the Jewish question (they were evidently advising him not to return to the previous restrictions); the federated nationalities questoin (enough said: clear); the question of the structure of the government (democracy rather than dictatorship); and similar matters. And what conclusion did this evidence suggest? Very simple. It proved the fact of correspondence, and it also proved <i>the agreement, the unanimity, of those present with Denikin<\/i>! (Grrr! Grrrr!)<\/p>\n<p>But there were also direct accusations against those present: that they had exchanged information with acquaintances who lived in outlying areas (Kiev, for example) which were not under the control of the central Soviet authorities! In other words, this used to be Russia, let’s say, but then in the interests of world revolution we ceded this one piece to Germany. And people continued to exchange letters. How are you doing there, Ivan Ivanich? Here’s how things are going with us. N.M. Kishkin, a member of the Central Committee of the Cadets, was so brazen as to try to justify himself right fromt he defendants’ bench. “A man doesn’t want to be blind. He tries to find out everything he can about what’s going on everywhere.”<\/p>\n<p>To find out <i>everything<\/i> about what’s going on <i>everywhere<\/i>? He doesn’t want to be blind? Well, all one can say is that the accused correctly described their actions as <i>treason, treason to Soviet power<\/i>!<\/p>\n<p><iframe style=\"width:120px;height:240px;\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" src=\"\/\/ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/widgets\/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&OneJS=1&Operation=GetAdHtml&MarketPlace=US&source=ac&ref=tf_til&ad_type=product_link&tracking_id=thesheivari-20&marketplace=amazon&region=US&placement=1843430851&asins=1843430851&linkId=VAMTEUH52NPYAS6C&show_border=true&link_opens_in_new_window=true\"><br \/>\n<\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>History bookshelf: Next book on the shelf is The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. Solzhenitsyn was imprisoned in Stalin’s gulag – the “gulag archipelago”, from 1945 to 1953. This is his book about how the “gulag” worked, but not just … <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=4663\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">→<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[15],"tags":[967,966,76,150,2601,141],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4663"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4663"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4663\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":103342,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4663\/revisions\/103342"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4663"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}