![]() Those who staffed the Archipelago in its worst days "sit with other pensioners on social service councils looking out for any lowering of moral standards" and railing against any easing of camp conditions. ![]() Despite the passing of the "Great Deceased" (Stalin), the Archipelago continues, albeit in a reduced form, and so does vigilance: the Party cannot err. In 1954, at Kengir, they mutinied for 40 days, using balloons and kites to communicate with the outside, until crushed by assault troops and tanks. Once a zek himself, Solzhenitsyn bears witness to their escapes and revolts. Solzhenitsyn uses the final volume of his epic account of the Soviet penal camp system-covering the years from World War II to the present-to remind us that the Soviet peoples are not "such slaves as all those studies by liberal historians contemptuously make us out to be." Especially after the war, the Archipelago's inhabitants, the zeks, ceased to accept their fate with resignation. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |