Most Americans did not have the patience to read Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago, and so really did not grasp the true nature of the ideology behind the Soviet Union. One of the better ways for an American to wrap his mind around the concentration camps that made up the Gulag Archipelago is to read Alexander Dolgun’s Story: An American in the Gulag. Because it is written by an American chiefly for Americans it is more comprehensible that Solzhenitsyn, although no less horrifying. Instead of Solzhenitsyn’s thousands upon thousands, Dolgun’s story is that of one man. But it brings across the calculated cruelty and inhumanity of the camp system. Dolgun is also footnoted by Solzhenitsyn (in Gulag, volume 1, as I recall) as the only known survivor of Sukhanovka who retained his sanity.
Thanks for the referral to “Alexander Dolgun’s Story” — I just bought it on Amazon. I tried reading Gulag Archipelago about 20 years ago and couldn’t get very far. I have more interest today (thanks to Obama) and 20 years additional maturity and patience, so I may give it a go one more time.
One great read is Solonevitch, unfortunately almost unknown in English. What is often missed, and Solonevitch captures it, is that the system was comprehensive, while the labor camps, the starvation, the fire squads, the endless wars, and the rule of terror were parts of a complete whole, design to remake a once European nation into a mob of slaves. For example, he recalls how peasants begged the Gulag prisoners for food. The conditions in some crack industrialization site were probably worse than in prisons, — and these were people who volunteered for that work.