The Gulag Archipelago [Volume 1]: An Experiment in Literary Investigation

by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Capitalist England fought at our side against Hitler; Marx had eloquently described the poverty and suffering of the working class in that same England. Why was it that in this war only one traitor could be found among them, the businessman “Lord Haw Haw”—but in our country millions? It is frightening to open one’s trap about this, but might the heart of the matter not be in the political system? One of our most ancient proverbs justifies the war prisoner: “The captive will cry out, but the dead man never.” During the reign of Tsar Aleksei Mikhailovich, nobility was granted for durance in captivity! And in all subsequent wars it was considered society’s duty to exchange prisoners, to comfort one’s own and to give them sustenance and aid. Every escape from captivity was glorified as the height of heroism. Throughout World War I, money was collected in Russia to aid our prisoners of war, and our nurses were permitted to go to Germany to help our prisoners, and our newspapers reminded their readers daily that our prisoners of war, our compatriots, were languishing in evil captivity. All the Western peoples behaved the same in our war: parcels, letters, all kinds of assistance flowed freely through the neutral countries. The Western POW’s did not have to lower themselves to accept ladlefuls from German soup kettles. They talked back to the German guards. Western governments gave their captured soldiers their seniority rights, their regular promotions, even their pay. The only ...