One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

[quevivafidel]

We will be reading this book in my literature class next week and I was wondering what were the opinions of those who have read it. I just Googled the author and found, "Instead of blaming Russian conditions, he blamed the teachings of Karl Marx (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Marx) and Friedrich Engels (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Engels), arguing Marxism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marxism) itself is violent. His conclusion is Communism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism) will always be totalitarian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Totalitarian) and violent, wherever it is practiced. There was nothing special in the Russian conditions which affected the outcome." Ugh...looks like I'm in for a long read.

[Random Precision]

Solzhenitsyn is a definitely a fucker. However, Ivan Denisovich is quite short (my copy's only about a hundred pages), and doesn't repeatedly whack you over the head with anti-communism like The Gulag Archipelago does. It's just the straight-up description of one man's life in the gulag, and how he makes it through the day. Life sucked there to be sure, whether you were the hardened criminal the Stalinists like to portray, a virtuous political dissident like Solzhenitsyn supposedly was, or somewhere in between, as I suspect most people in the labor camps were. It's the only book of his I would actually recommend reading.

[quevivafidel]

Ha, were you forced to read his books for a class or did you voluntarily torment yourself?

Thanks, though; I'm glad to know it's not one of his more anti-communist books. I guess this Solzhenitsyn was an angry ex-bourgeois Russian in the Tsar days or something?

I'm starting to think my literature teacher chose this book on purpose to see my reaction because he always comments when he sees me with a Lenin or Marx book...

[Random Precision]

Ha, were you forced to read his books for a class or did you voluntarily torment yourself?

Thanks, though; I'm glad to know it's not one of his more anti-communist books. I guess this Solzhenitsyn was an angry ex-bourgeois Russian in the Tsar days or something?

As Solzhenitsyn won the Nobel Prize, I felt compelled to read at least something from him. He is (is because somehow he hasn't died yet) of bourgeois origins, his father was in the Imperial Army and his family had a wealthy estate, which was later collectivized. However he was imprisoned for criticizing Stalin's management of WW2 in a letter to one of his friends. That was certainly an unjust imprisonment by Stalin's regime, no matter how much of a reactionary Solzhenitsyn became later in life.


I'm starting to think my literature teacher chose this book on purpose to see my reaction because he always comments when he sees me with a Lenin or Marx book...

Haha, yea, I get the same shit from my history teacher.

[hekmatista]

Life was harsh in the Gulag, but equating them with the Nazi extermination camps or even Gitmo is just plain wrong. For what it's worth, regardless of class origins, A.S. started out as a Stalinist true believer after 20 years of Soviet socialization. Getting imprisoned for expressing an opinion hardened his critical attitude and he has been on an ever rightward trajectory ever since. Among other things, he returned to the Orthodox Church.