In the First Circle: The First Uncensored Edition

Totalitarianism. It’s not a concept that we are very familiar with; those of us who have been born free. The sludge of fear, every decision weighed not against what is good and just and right, but instead against what the ‘powers’ will think; the battle to deny self but not lose your spirit in the process – tiny acts of rebellion unidentifiable to the minders but nevertheless something that is your own, a fake accent or a carefully planned ‘accident’; not sabotage but just orchestrated carelessness when everything around is done with such care. Nothing to call your own, upon which to hang your personality. Boredom, total and omnipresent.

There was a time in the 1960s and early 1970s when we thought the Russians were winning. They were beating us, or so it seemed. Space exploration and the amassing of armies; or at least that was the story that was sold. Of course we all know now that it was propaganda. But we cannot deny the outcomes – nuclear arsenals and rockets flying close to the moon and monumental buildings and epic underground subway stations. “How is it we finally defeated them?” is often the question posed by the experts.

I have always had the opposite question, how in blazes did they make it as far as they did? Their ideology, their planning, their civilization should not have been able to put a man into space. It should not have been able to build a bomb, to invade and annex other countries. To challenge the west. Theirs is a creed of mediocrity unto death. And it’s not that they seized some developed nation; the “Empire of the Sun” controlling industrialized Japan and turning it into an elaborate war machine. They didn’t install Marxism through a worker revolt in the UK – but a peasant revolt in backward Tsarist Russia.

And they took their rabble and whipped them up into the greatest challenge the United States experienced – lasting for 70 years. They shouldn’t have been able to do that. The project should have burned itself out in a matter of years, not lasted almost a century.

All that to say, I’ve been reading Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s most famous (or certainly longest) novel “In the First Circle”. The first circle he is referring to is the first circle of hell, from Dante. It’s a mystery novel about a group of political prisoners who, because of their knowledge and education are taken from the gulag to a special set of prisons where they are put to work building the technological advancements of the regime. There the living conditions are moderately better; better food, better work, better sleeping, small pleasures such as reading. The book is good – if somewhat tedious, he certainly could have used an editor. But Russian novels are always a little long and sometimes too in the weeds – especially for an American audience.

What is most fascinating to me is the portrayal of Stalin’s paranoid totalitarianism and how it played out in society. How they controlled the minds of their prisoner/citizens; how they not only got them to obey but to excel, to produce out of their slave labor incredible technological achievements. They did this through allowing their prisoners to compete – if only in that one special area of life, their work for ‘Mother Russia’. By denying them any sense of individuality or satisfaction in their lives – family, faith, wealth, leisure and the like – and giving them only one outlet for expressing their humanity, their productivity in their slave labor, the Soviet dictatorship figured out how to make them productive.

This was hard for me to understand at first. Why didn’t they starve themselves, why didn’t they refuse to work – denying their captors their minds? But in the interactions of the prisoners on the pages of Solzhenitsyn’s novel I started to better understand how the soviet system functioned for so long. It’s a little ironic that the only way it was able to stabilize and advance was through competition – even the limited competition in the limited avenues available to the oppressed. But humanity does find a way, doesn’t it? Even in the harshest of circumstances, people seek to let their inner light shine through – a lesson that all despots learn sooner or later.

Let us hope we’re done with totalitarianism – although I know that hope is probably empty. So too let us read and reread the works of Solzhenitsyn and Rand and Orwell and the other great novelists of freedom lest we forget what makes those regimes tick forward, and we lose our ability to fight them.

ALEKSANDR SOLZHENITZIN IS MAYBE THE BEST WRITER/NOVELIST/HISTORIAN OF THE 20TH CENTURY.
I was initially fearful that this would be tough read, but it read very smoothly. It was exciting, full of suspense,pathos. His characters are very realistic. Many of them endure horrible suffering. Many overcome their troubles. Some ruin their lives by doing the right thing, by doing good, by thinking beyond their own narrow worlds. This book is very inspiring. But it is also very funny in spots. Some situations are unbelievably clever in their humor. (the visit of Eleanor Roosevelt to the prison and the guard having the prisoners all spiffed up for the occasion. The trial of Prince Igor according to the stalinist regime.) THE STORY DEPICTS LIFE IN RUSSIA UNDER STALIN.
I LOVED THIS BOOK, A REAL PAGE TURNER.

Anyone who reads this book is guaranteed to never say again, "I'm having a bad day". The courage and faith of this man are but an example of the many who were plunged into this horrific life. May God Bless them all.
Without a doubt one of the best books I have ever read. Everyone in America should be required to read this book.

Since I had never read anything by Solzhenitsyn, I ordered this book when he died. It is so bleak and hopeless that I could not read it straight through - I could only take it in small doses. I am absolutely stunned that Breshnev allowed it to be published. I have learned more than I ever thought possible about the USSR, that time in history, evil, and courage.

Ivan's cherished possessions are a needle with thread and a spoon which he conceals in his sock. In the morning when he receives his ration of bread he sews half of it in his mattress so he'll have something to eat in the evening.

I have had a fascination with Russia and Russian history for decades. I read this book many years ago, and it was referenced in a book about the gulag that I am reading, so I decided to grab another copy. Kindle was easiest.

Ivan's cherished possessions are a needle with thread and a spoon which he conceals in his sock. In the morning when he receives his ration of bread he sews half of it in his mattress so he'll have something to eat in the evening.

I have had a fascination with Russia and Russian history for decades. I read this book many years ago, and it was referenced in a book about the gulag that I am reading, so I decided to grab another copy. Kindle was easiest.

Solzhenitsyn did what many of us refuse to do: he spoke out. But his circumstances were not about political correctness or loyalties to a political party; his circumstances were unabashed, full-out suppression, even terrorism, from the police state. Yet he spoke, and it landed him in the gulag as described in this book. Bravo, Mr. Solzhenitsyn, for speaking the truth at great personal cost.

This political/social/interpersonal treatsie is so very thought provoking, especially for the western mind who has no concept of the modern prison camp culture. Solzhenitsyn brings you into the very person he is writing about in ways that most authors have no idea how to do. If you are looking to expand your mind across several spectrums, start by reading Crime and Punishment and then quickly move to One Day in the Life of...

Have you ever pondered a crust of bread? Or stopped to consider the ‘thickness’ of a bowl of soup? Have you thought about food in terms of ounces? The exact number of pinches necessary to fill a hand rolled cigarette? The careful choreography required to give you an advantage over others – advantages measured not in grand titles or powerful friends but in slices of sausage or the thickness of a fleece coat?

I just finished Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s first, simple novel “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich”. Solzhenitsyn decided to write this book while he himself was in the Gulag, as a catalog of sorts of the experiences and concerns of the Soviet Union’s unfree. That alone amazes me; while this great writer’s mind was occupied with the not-so-trivial minutia necessary to stave off death till tomorrow, till next week he was also thinking about his writing. I guess that’s what makes great writers great.

I have a friend who always tells me “You have to hustle in this life, to get ahead”. We do that sometimes in the West – networking, going to happy hour after work when we’re tired, attending the Christmas party even though we’d rather be with our families. Some people “hustle” to get to Target superstore at midnight before “Black Friday” – pushing and pulling to secure a cheap flat-screen TV or a free foot massager. But “hustle” took on for me a new meaning, laid out as it was by Solzhenitsyn in that formidable daily struggle to stay one step ahead. Because in the life of the Gulag, hustling becomes existential, and sinister. Rushing to get in line for the many “counts” and “searches” – to preserve the precious minutes of free time before bed. Cozying up to the guard who will let you keep most of the package you receive from family … that is if you receive a package at all. Hurrying, wary to never be late for the countings in the morning; for breakfast – where your food is measured expertly in ounces by your practiced eye; trudging deliberately to your forced-labor site to arrive not too soon but not too late either; jockeying to the side of the fire, to soak up the precious warmth. Fighting through the melee for the thickest bowl of soup. Everything is for sale in the camps – a bizarre ‘people’s capitalism’ where you sell tiny favors, lies. Influence. “Peddlers of pull,” Ayn Rand called it.

“Waste not, want not” we are told by our grandparents – but storing away in your underwear detritus found on the side of the road, obsessing over its potential use all day long? Sewing bread into the interior of a mattress as if it were a sacred artifact? Experiencing a piece of salt pork; counting the puffs of a cigarette; measuring your misery honestly – those who lie to themselves will not survive the gulag. Who of us have done this, we who live in a world of excess?

Novelists depend so much upon luck – there are so many who fade away, never recognized for so great a talent married to such courage. Solzhenitsyn’s luck was that Khrushchev had an anti-Stalinist streak; he hated the despot and perhaps thought himself as more of a humanitarian. During one of his fits, he was handed a copy of “One Day in the Life”, and Solzhenitsyn exploded upon the world. I, for one, am glad he did. We need reminders of the dark shadow of totalitarianism; of the oppressive evil of communism; of the viciousness to which that ideology reduces the human soul.

We need reminders, because there are still gulags out there. In Venezuela people again are counting food; waiting in lines; turning their heads from the malevolent stares of their minders. They might be allowed to live in their houses – at least most of them, who have not become tools of the regime’s propaganda, people like Leopoldo Lopez and Lorent Saleh – but they still watch what they say, they still peddle pull. They are still unfree. Or North Korea, where Yeonmi Park eloquently and fearlessly tells us of the great gulags in that godless place. Cuba, Syria, Belarus, Iran. So many places still lock away those who dare to think of something other than the regime.

For this I thank Solzhenitsyn. You should too.

Just finished reading Follett"s Edge of Eternity on kindle and the plight of one of the characters reminded me so much of
this great book. I bought One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich for a friend who also read the Follett book.