The Gulag Archipelago

The reasons why each person or nation may experience growth or prosperity may be different; however, the origin of this success is the same. The people who suffer are able to use that suffering to produce better outcomes and experiences. In the absence of suffering, there are no lessons to be learned and no reason to reflect on alternatives. To suffer does not only mean to experience physical pain, but it can also mean to experience emotional pain or be extremely displeased of a current situation. To suffer is to be discontent, and one must do anything to prevent an enduring unhappiness. As a result, growth and success are achieved. In The Gulag Archipelago, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn identified a link between suffering and learning; suffering being the cause and learning being the effect. In The Gay Science and Beyond Good and Evil, Friedrich…

In Death and Redemption, Steven Barnes provides the first major revision in our understanding of the Gulag since Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago of the 1970s. Barnes, while noting that Solzhenitsyn – who lacked archival records and relied only on first-hand testimony and his own personal experience – was remarkably correct about many aspects of the Gulag’s history, nevertheless challenges Solzhenitsyn’s contention that we should understand the Gulag only as a place of destruction.…

Communists, opposed these moves, and the Russian Civil War occurred in 1918. By 1922, the Bolshevik Red Army had defeated the White Russians. That year, the country’s name was changed to Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and was led by Lenin until his death in 1924, when Joseph Stalin took control of the country. Gulags, an acronym for The Chief Administration of Corrective Labor Camps, were Russian labor camps created after the 1917 Revolution that flourished during the Stalin era in…

also eliminating the circulation of any anti-Communist ideas within society. However, it was the use of terror through the form of gulags, purges and show trials where Stalin could dominate Soviet society and government as he eliminated all opposition and instilled a sense of fear to prevent the uprise of…

amounts of communications from both email networks and SMS messaging. The NSA does have some limitations, but many fear that they have already stepped over their bounds significantly. A common argument used in defence of the NSA is the statement “if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.” However, others would argue that giving that kind of power to the government is wrong in the first place. Many would use the quote: “power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”…

detail society’s pressures upon those who are different. David from Muskegon, Michigan explains this well, “As a gay male, seeing attempts to remove LGBTQIA+ content from shelves is almost hurtful.” He goes on to explain that family members regard such topics as sinful, deprived, or disgusting. Leading on from this, there are many examples in history in which book banning has gone awry. Book banning is a long-practiced tradition of authoritarian regimes, be it those commonly understood to be…

circumstances. Instead, it revolves around facets of contemporary Indonesia’s perceptions towards these past events and how they’re remembered. It largely focuses on a group of gangsters, particularly Anwar Congo, who from being a hustler that dealt with illegal movie tickets, led a government-sanctioned extrajudicial death squad that hunted down suspected communists, most of whom were innocent. The subjects come together to make a film about their deeds during those days, displayed in some…

Europe, economically he was a disaster,’ can be attested. Politically, democratisation (demokratizatsiya) was carried out domestically. The political system was to be transformed into one of pluralist democracy (democracy that allows freedom of association) involving competitive elections, freedom of group organisation, the establishment of representative assemblies in which critical voices could be heard, subordination of the most powerful institutions to rule of law, and real diversity in the…

as a result of a poor and corrupt government. Throughout Soviet history, a prodigious amount of people have been victims of political repression, barbaric treatments, and social marginalizitaion. This was all a direct result of a government dominated by fascism under the dictatorial leadership of Stalin. In the late 1920s, communism was the norm and all those who posed a threat to the regime were subject to cruel treatments sponsored by the government. At the time, a regulatory law known as…

The Gulag Archipelago claims, “Sleeplessness befogs the reason, undermines the will, and the human being ceases to be himself, to be his own ‘I’” (Solzenicyn). Sleep deprivation occurs when a person has gone without sleep for an extended period of time. This condition is progressive and affects every aspect of the body. Sleep helps regulate emotions, behavior, and physical health. Getting an adequate amount of rest each night reduces one's chances of having serious health concerns. An array of…