The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956 by Alexander Isayevich Solzhenitsyn

Structurally, the text comprises seven sections divided (in most printed editions) into three volumes: parts 1–2, parts 3–4, and parts 5–7. At one level, the Gulag Archipelago traces the history of the system of forced labor camps that existed in the Soviet Union from 1918 to 1956. Solzhenitsyn begins with Vladimir Lenin's original decrees which were made shortly after the October Revolution; they established the legal and practical framework for a series of camps where political prisoners and ordinary criminals would be sentenced to forced labor.Note 1 The book then describes and discusses the waves of purges and the assembling of show trials in the context of the development of the greater Gulag system; Solzhenitsyn gives particular attention to its purposive legal and bureaucratic development. The narrative ends in 1956 at the time of Nikita Khrushchev's Secret Speech ('On the Personality Cult and its Consequences'). Khrushchev gave the speech at the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, denouncing Stalin's personality cult, his autocratic power, and the surveillance that pervaded the Stalin era. Although Khrushchev's speech was not published in the Soviet Union for a long time, it was a break with the most atrocious practices of the Gulag system. This 1974 Collins Fontana Paperback is in good condition. Owner's Name inside. Spine sunned and creased.

ISBN: 9780006336426 SKU: 1574478 Note: Any image shown is from a stock photo and is not the actual book.