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Gulag: A History
Escrito por Anne Applebaum
Narrado por Laural Merlington
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The Gulag-a vast array of Soviet concentration camps that held millions of political and criminal prisoners-was a system of repression and punishment that terrorized the entire society, embodying the worst tendencies of Soviet communism. In this magisterial and acclaimed history, Anne Applebaum offers the first fully documented portrait of the Gulag, from its origins in the Russian Revolution, through its expansion under Stalin, to its collapse in the era of glasnost. Applebaum intimately re-creates what life was like in the camps and links them to the larger history of the Soviet Union. Immediately recognized as a landmark and long-overdue work of scholarship, Gulag is an essential book for anyone who wishes to understand the history of the twentieth century.
Acciones del libro
Comenzar a escucharInformación sobre el libro
Gulag: A History
Escrito por Anne Applebaum
Narrado por Laural Merlington
Descripción
The Gulag-a vast array of Soviet concentration camps that held millions of political and criminal prisoners-was a system of repression and punishment that terrorized the entire society, embodying the worst tendencies of Soviet communism. In this magisterial and acclaimed history, Anne Applebaum offers the first fully documented portrait of the Gulag, from its origins in the Russian Revolution, through its expansion under Stalin, to its collapse in the era of glasnost. Applebaum intimately re-creates what life was like in the camps and links them to the larger history of the Soviet Union. Immediately recognized as a landmark and long-overdue work of scholarship, Gulag is an essential book for anyone who wishes to understand the history of the twentieth century.
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Good, reasonably readable, and interesting. The main drawback is the same as in other books I read....include better maps. I am no Russian expert and place names requiring me to go to the internet irritate me. Better maps are necessary or do not include the geographic data (which in this case would negate the book).
I ordered this book at the same time as the author’s Red Famine, a look at Stalin’s largely manufactured famine centered in the Ukraine. I didn’t much enjoy Red Famine and wasn’t holding out much hope for this work. The author’s writing style in Red Famine was not reader friendly and I found it a chore to get through. However, for some reason, I tolerated this work much better. Perhaps it was the subject matter, which seemed to allow for more interesting reading.As the title suggests, this work deals with the history of the Soviet gulag system of penal camps and relocation centers from the 1920s to their discontinuance in the 1950s. Unlike Red Famine, this book contains numerous personal stories and observations by those that survived the camps. As a result, it was easier to read and far more captivating than Red Famine. I can recommend this work for anyone interested in the subject matter, or Soviet history in general.
Ms. Applebaum does a superb job of laying out the history of the Gulag. From its start during the Lenin era all the way to its fall during the 80s and the fall of the Soviet Union. Reading some of the stories of how one lived and survived in the camps was hard to get through but I like how she ends the book letting us know that remembering those imprisoned in the Gulag is so very important.
This is one of the saddest and most bone-chilling books I've ever read.
Really good book. I have to take a starter off for the narrator. I enjoyed her for the most part but every now and again her bowels are pronounced about 6 to 9 decibels louder than the rest of her reading. It makes the reader turn the book down really low or simply put up with a piercing pronunciation now and again.
I'm amazed when I think of what it must have taken to pull all of this material together in such a long and comprehensive book. And it is long, so some level of patience will probably be required to get through it, but it is certainly worth doing if Russian history, particularly the dark side of it, interests you.
The book is based on first hand accounts of the Gulag (notably Shalamov) and effectively shows the horror of the camps as do other authors such as Solzhenitsyn, Klevniuk, Sgovio, Herman or Tzouliadis.The problem is that Applebaum systematically blanks out the central Jewish role in Bolshevism from the October 1917 revolution through the establishment of the Gulag, the Ukrainian death/famine of 1932/33 until 1937 when Stalin turned on his Jewish collaborators. At this point they did in fact become victims but this is deceptively presented as their whole part in the story.The interested reader can paste back in what the author has cut out:- The October 1917 Bolshevik coup was launched against the Provisional Government and destroyed the Constitutional Convention that was preparing the way for a Russian democracy. The many contemporary accounts wrote of the indiscriminate violence and the identity of the Bolsheviks, e.g. American ambassador David Francis, "The Bolshevik leaders here, most of whom are Jews and 90 percent of whom are returned exiles, care little for Russia or any other country but are internationalists and they are trying to start a worldwide social revolution" (see David R. Francis', "Russia from the American Embassy, April, 1916-November, 1918 [1921]").- Dozens of first hand accounts delivered to the British government told the same story ( Google: “a collection of reports on bolshevism in Russia pdf “) as did the London Times correspondent Robert Wilton (see his book, “The Last Days of the Romanovs”). They were correct in that 83% of the 12 member Bolshevik Central Committee was Jewish as was 70% of the 115 member Bolshevik government (Central Committee, Council of People's Commissars, Central Executive Committee and Extraordinary Commission) with the top leadership being exclusively Jewish if you count Lenin: i.e. Vladimir Ulyanov, Lev Bronstein, Ovsei-Gershon Apfelbaum and Lev Rozenfeld (a.k.a. Lenin, Trotsky, Zinoviev and Kamenev).- The Bolsheviks from the start declared that anti-Semitism was punishable by death while they showed extreme violence against any opponents, especially other socialists and communists. Lenin declared that the French revolutionary Terror had failed through lack of intensity and instructed his Jewish terrorists to not repeat the same mistake. He also raised Stalin to the Central Committee for his obvious intelligence and undoubted capacity for easy violence and deception (see Robert Service's excellent “Stalin, A Biography”).- The organized Gulag that appeared in 1928 with the White Sea-Baltic canal project followed the same lines with unbelievable conditions far worse than slavery (slaves generally had value, were fed, clothed and didn't die within months) with an all Jewish management: Lazar Kogan (Head of Gulag and Chief of Construction 1930-32), Matvei Berman (Deputy Head of Gulag to 1931 and Head from 1932), Seymon Firin (Assistant to Deputy Head of the Gulag 1932 and Deputy Head from 1933), Yakov Rapoport (Deputy Chief of Construction from 1931), Naftaly Frenkel (Assistant Head of Canal Construction) and Genrik Yagoda (Deputy Head of OGPU (NKVD) secret police from 1924 and later Head until 1936). All of them received the Order of Lenin (apart from Firin) as Soviet Heroes.- This same group of Jews went on to head the Gulag as it rapidly spread throughout Soviet Russia (“metastasized” is the word used by Solzhenitsyn) while at the same time Russia witnessed a new Jewish “revolutionary” bourgeoisie amply described by Slezkine in his book, “The Jewish Century” as they enjoyed elite educational academies, worshiped Pushkin and visited their country dachas (the inspiration behind George Orwell's book, "Animal Farm" ). None of this in “Gulag – A History”.- Equally the book gives three paragraphs to the Ukrainian death-famine (Holodomor) of 1932-33 in which 6-7 million Ukrainians died (at least 30% of them children). By June 1933 it is estimated that 30.000 people were dying every day while Jewish Politiburo member Lazar Kaganovich meticulously organized the removal of all foodstuff from the country with his commissars killing wild animals, setting up watchtowers and sending out inspection teams with any hoarding punishable by death.This reviewer has the feeling that if 7 million Jews had been starved to death by Ukrainians, Applebaum would have given events more that three paragraphs, not to say that that a whole industry would have been built around it.Its reasonable to ask why the author wrote the book. The Western media and academia have been happy to ignore the subject for 50 years so why is the Gulag suddenly “rediscovered” with such fanfare?Applebaum says that, “Until now, the social, cultural and political framework for knowledge of the Gulag has not been in place”.An alternative explanation could be that in the present Age of Open Information (and despite the best efforts of the Western media), there has been a growing awareness of the identities of Jewish Bolshevik mass murderers such as Yagoda, Frenkel and Kaganovich - hence the need for a new “definitive” goodthinkers account that puts the story straight.A particularly questionable part of this effort are the sly backhanded attacks on Solzhenitsyn throughout the text. Apparently his crime was to have told the told the truth about the central Jewish core of Bolshevism.
From a historical perspective, Gulag is an in-depth treatise on the creation, evolution and eventual dismantling of the immense Soviet concentration camps that became known as the Gulag. Far from a set system, the Gulag evolved with the changing needs of the Soviet Union – or the changing moods of Stalin – resulting in dramatic differences from era to era, or even camp to camp. Anne Applebaum writes a detailed accounting of the entire Gulag system from beginning to end. A commendable work of scholarship, Gulag misses no detail. However, it does fail to make an emotional connection to the prisoners who lived and often died in a system that didn’t make sense, even to its creators. Instead, it reads like a ledger, cataloging the arrests, camps, deaths and incidents without ever really letting us inside the lives of the people who brought about a concentration camp system that lasted for half a century. Gulag provides an understanding of a system that dominated Soviet Russia, but much like the Soviet system itself, it does lack any humanity.
During its more than 60 years of operation, more than 30 million people passed through the Gulag, millions of them never to return. I first became interested in the topic through the writings of Solzhenitsin, and my interest was reignited a few years ago when I read The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin's Russia by Orlando Figes (which I highly recommend, by the way, despite the recent revelations of Figes' unethical and possibly illegal actions). Applebaum's book begins with a chronological overview of the system, which existed even in Tsarist times. In its second section, the book explores every aspect of the Gulag experience, from arrest, to interrogation, to trial, to transportation to the camps (during which there was a high mortality rate), to actual life in the camps. Life in the camps is explored from the point of view of the prisoners and the administrators. The prisoners themselves were a diverse group--the politicals and the actual criminals, prisoners of war and other foreigners. The experiences of women prisoners uniquely included sexual abuse, as well as childbirth.Applebaum was the first to utilize the newly released official archives of the Soviet Gulag administration, and so she is able to explore not only the personal experiences of day-to-day life in the camps, but also the how's and why's of the existence of the Gulag itself. For example, she thoroughly analyzes the issue of the underlying purposes of the Gulag. Was it intended to remove undesireable elements from society, whether politicals or true criminals, or was it merely a device to obtain slave labor? The Gulag system was indeed a large portion of the Soviet economic system, and there is ample evidence that the Soviets used the system to colonize remote and hostile regions of the country, as well as to exploit the valuable natural resources of those areas, but there is also evidence of Stalin's paranoia. Applebaum also ponders the controversial issue of why for so many years the crimes against humanity resulting from this system were all but ignored, even as memorials were raised for Holocaust victims.This is an important book, because as compelling as the individual survivor memoirs are, they do not present the whole picture. This book undertakes to give us the universal as well as the personal. It is compellingly readable in addition to being academically documented, and I highly recommend it..
Mesmerizing, does a great job laying out the actual numbers behind the camps. I was struck by the parallels between the destruction of the zeks families, compared to the American prison complex. As more and more police misconduct comes to light, the more delusional the contrast between the two systems.
I can’t say enough good things about this book. Anne Applebaum has taken advantage of recent archive openings in Russia and conducted thorough and detailed research of the newly available material. Her findings are changing the way people think about the Soviet Gulag system. In the past, most historians had to rely on survivor memoirs and the classic history, The Gulag Archipelago, by Alexander Solzhenitsyn for their information. I think this caused a bias toward the point of view and experience of dissident writers. Applebaum’s use of newly opened archives allows her to uncover the government’s agenda, statistics, and methods; as well as prisoner records, including those of criminals, non-political prisoners, and collaborators who were less likely to share their stories. The result is a new perspective, one that Applebaum thoughtfully and articulately explores.The first and last sections are chronological in structure, but in the middle section, Applebaum chose to break her material into topics, such as punishment and reward, guards, and women and children. These sections are particularly descriptive and evocative of life in the camps. In addition, I found her comparison of Nazi concentration camps and Soviet labor camps concise and convincing. Her explication of the Gulag as a deliberate and organized economic system was eye-opening: the extent to which the Soviets were willing to go to create and maintain such a system, even in the face of obvious losses, was shocking. I also learned how erroneous I was in my preconception that the Gulag was populated primarily by political prisoners. Although I found the introduction to sound a bit like a graduate student’s paper, the rest of the book was engrossing and highly readable. I only wish there had been more photos, especially of some of the Central Asian camps. In any case, I highly recommend this Pulitzer Prize winning book.
I cannot praise GULAG by Anne Applebaum strongly enough! Run to the nearest store and pick up a copy now. A long time ago I received my degree in Soviet Foreign Politics, I have lived in the former USSR, and I enjoy Russian culture and literature. With that said, GULAG truly ranks up there in my top non-fiction books and one that must be read by all.
I believe Applebaum really tried in her search of the truth about the Gulag, the famous, or rather infamous labor camp infrastructure of communist Russia. I enjoyed this book despite its morbid subject and thought it was a good piece of scholarly work. I do have a bias toward Solgen Nietzschen's 2 volume rendition, seeing as how he is a brilliant writer and was actually a prisoner of the Gulag. Bottom-line: This is a great book and would be a great companion to Solgen Nietzschen's 2 volume Gulag.Miso
A powerful and important book.
Applebaum's history of the Gulag is encyclopedic and for that reason is exhausting to read. She shows the evolution of the institution from a (by later standards, gentle) prison for politicals who offered competition to the Bolsheviki, through a slave labor system for building actual Socialism, through a stage where the Gulag played a key role in the terror campaign against all elements of the Soviet population before subsiding once more into a slave labor system, this time for the unfortunates caught up in the Great Patriotic War. Applebaum then explores step by step the elements of the Gulag from arrest orders through interrogation, "trial", transport and emprisonment. In this section she clearly shows how a regime that places no value on human lives as anything beyond units of labor debases all it touches.
This is a piece of research non-fiction about the history of Soviet work camps from origin to final. It is completely comprehensive. And long. I was impressed that the author could keep me focused and interested for the entire 700+ pages. It covers the economics of the camps, crime and black markets, security, personality and history of the victims, and evolution of placement, purpose, and most of all the reality of camp life. The book would seem a life's work by the author it is so exhaustively researched. Once read you'll never have to touch this topic again.
an incredible and detailed account of only one of the many tragedies endured by the soviet people in the 20th century. this book is not merely a description of the system, but a portal to further exploration of the unimaginable horrors. it introduced me to the beautiful and tragic writings of varlam shalamov and evgenia ginzburg.
In depth and harrowing account of the use of prison camps and their essentially political function as both a form of control and of economic development as slave labour. (although how effective this was is open to question as many of the big projects were for political status rather then economic benefit) They also reflect the dehumanising ideals that individuals were redeemed by work. One of the benefits/truths(?)of a religion that demonstrate the true spirit of God is one that respects differences, promotes dignity and can see that of God even in the like of Hitler or Stalin- condemn the sin not the sinner to use Judaic-Christian language.
I have read a fair amount of material on Stalinism and the camps, including all three volumes of Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago, but this is particularly useful in being one of the very few post-Soviet works on this subject I have read. Of neccessity very harrowing at times, it is also comprehensive in its coverage from a variety of different angles. I find some of the other comments posted here a bit baffling - she doesn't ignore WWII or the Tsarist prison system, though obviously they are not covered fully, as that is not the purpose of this book.
A nice complement to the work of Solzhenitsyn, who is arguably the angriest man on the planet. Having spent decades in the Gulag, he writes 'The grass grows green over the grave of my youth.' Both authors should be read to get a comprehensive view of this atrocity. Applebaum supplies many details about the operation of the system that were not available to Solzhenitsyn when he wrote his work, drawing on more recent sources.
Gulags are super-intense. I'm pretty sure we can all agree on that. A very interesting look into the whole Soviet concentraion camp machine. Very readable, and very adept at making one realize that absolute barbarism of this era in Russian history (one consistently and strangely glossed over in modern times, as Applebaum points out).
While this book is probably as good a general study as you could wish of what the Gulag system represented in Soviet society, and what it was like to be caught in the wheels of the system as both a prisoner and a functionary, Applebaum somewhat undercuts her achievement with a polemical edge that is more appropriate to an editorial essay than a work of history. Are there really that many individuals out there who are in denial of the gulag that need their noses rubbed in it? And as for the question of what it will take for Russian society to really come to grips with what the whole Gulag experience meant, and whether it just demonstrates that Stalinist Russia was simply "stupid, wasteful, and tragic" one might also note the number of people still in denial about what racism has meant to the United States. The hunt for a "useable history" never ends.
closely-typed pages detailing injustices and misery decade after decade.She, and Eddie Izzard, have wondered why Stalin/Soviet memorabilia isnt reviled the way Nazi symbols are. This book is full of horrendous detail of ideology gone mad.5 stars but not an easy read...