What had been acceptable under Tsar Aleksei Mikhailovich in the seventeenth century, what had already been regarded as barbarism under Peter the Great, what might have been used against ten or twenty people in all during the time of Biron in the mid-eighteenth century, what had already become totally impossible under Catherine the Great, was all being practiced during the flowering of the glorious twentieth century--in a society based on socialist principles, and at a time when airplanes we're flying and the radio and talking films had already appeared--not by one scoundrel alone in one secret place only, but by tens of thousands of specially trained human beasts standing over millions of defenseless victims (94).
And yet, time and again, Solzhenitsyn returns to the idea that none is completely innocent. He recognizes in each human the capacity for the kind of evil perpetrated by the state."And just so we don't go around flaunting too proudly the white mantle of the just, let everyone ask himself: 'If my life had turned out differently, might I myself not have become just such an executioner?'" (160)
"Pride grows in the human heart like lard on a pig" (163)
It is at this point that he makes his most famous statement, "But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being" (168). This is unbelievable grace from a man so wrongly accused. Humans, he states, must believe they are doing good. No one believes himself evil. Therefore a human will justify any level of cruelty. Ideology is the great justifier in the Soviet Union. Trying to understand the level of evil and its grip on humanity is one of the things I believe kept him sane.
Time and again, Solzhenitsyn details the sheet ridiculousness of the whole system. In the beginning, only one sentence was passed, ten years in prison, and all were guilty. Eventually other lengths were introduced--five-years, twenty-five years, death--but it was all random. Solzhenitsyn cautions his reader not to ask why he is being arrested. There is not an answer for that and there never will be. The arrest is the point. Stalin simply wanted to instill terror in anyone who may threaten him, real or imagined. To ask questions was to sentence yourself. To ask about a loved one was to be convicted as well. Women were brutally raped. Men had all their possessions stolen by roving gangs. Food was almost non-existent. Prisoners were kept in the most inhuman conditions imaginable. For what?
Every story is told with an ironic touch. Solzhenitsyn rejoices that only half the bread was moldy. O happy day! This jarring method of story-telling both reduces and increases the sheer horror of the situation. I believe he arrived at a place where, in order not to lose his sanity, he had to approach each fresh terror with a slightly crazy lens.
He tells stories which have been smuggled out from prisoner to prisoner of individuals and their plights. Many end badly or have no ending at all; The person simply disappeared into the jaws of the Archipelago. In one touching vignette, he describes one of his cellmates:
If the first thing you see each and every morning is the eyes of your cellmate who has gone insane, how then shall you save yourself during the coming day? Nikolai Aleksandrovich Kozyrev, whose brilliant career in astronomy was interrupted by his arrest, saved himself only by thinking the eternal and the infinite: of the order of the Universe--and of its Supreme Spirit; of the stars; of their internal state; and what Time and passing Time really are. (484)
Time and again, Solzhenitsyn offers his reader advice for how to survive the Archipelago. Divest yourself of all possessions. They will be taken anyways and you will only end up bloody in the process. "But by owning things and trembling about their fate, aren't you forfeiting the rare opportunity of observing and understanding?" (915) Cherish the moments when you see the stars or hear music. "Prison will become easier to bear. Otherwise you will explode from rage." (526) Understand the weight under which your jailer toils. He knows he will be joining you soon and it is that thought that drives the fear that drives his madness.
As he finishes his journey and arrives at his destination, he concludes:
Shut your eyes, reader. Do you hear the thundering of wheels? Those are the Stolypin cars rolling on and on. Those are the red cows rolling. Every minute of the day. And every day of the year. And you can hear the water gurgling--those are prisoners' barges moving on and on. And the motors of the Black Marias roar. They are arresting someone all the time, cramming him in some-where, moving him about. And what is that hum you hear? The overcrowded cells of the transit prisons. And that cry? The complaints of those who have been plundered, raped, beaten to within an inch of their lives.
We have reviewed and considered all the methods of delivering prisoners, and we have found that they are all . . . worse. We have examined the transit prisons, but we have not found any that were good. And even the last human hope that there is something better ahead, that it will be better in camp, is a false hope.
In camp it will be . . . worse.
And yet, before the end, he sums up his advice:
Live with a steady superiority over life--don't be afraid of misfortune, and do not yearn after happiness; it is, after all, all the same: the bitter doesn't last forever, and the sweet never fills the cup to over-flowing. It is enough if you don't freeze in the cold and if thirst and hunger don't claw at your insides. If your back isn't broken, if your feet can walk, if both arms can bend, if both eyes see, and if both ears hear, then whom should you envy? And why? Our envy of others devours us most of all. Rub your eyes and purify your heart--and prize above all else in the world those who love you and who wish you well (591-592).
