Jada Cheng
Mrs. Miller
English II
April 3, 2017
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
After World War two the world thought that human enslavement was over, but it wasn’t. In fact, it was just the beginning for the Soviet Union. The Bolsheviks were controlling its people by punishing them with hard grueling labor. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was one of many that were placed into the labors. Solzhenitsyn was born in 1918 in a small town called Kislovodsk in Russia. He was a writer, educator, and a famous critic to the USSR (Soviet Union). He spent eleven years in the Gulag labor camp system and exile. During those years, he wrote about his experiences and thoughts on his communist country. With his writings, it exposed the horrors that majority of the citizens suffered when forced into the many labor camps that gave Russia the industrial power. Also, he spoke publicly and
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It started with his most famous book, The Gulag Archipelago which,“...brought attention to the entire Soviet forced labor penal system.” (gulaghistory.org) The book gave a glimpse of what the Soviet government hid from the world. Since the book’s publication, many of the world’s leaders and advocates pressured the Soviet Union to change their ways. Another way that he exploited the government was that he spoke about how the government was controlling and restrictive. In one of his lectures, he said, “...living in a strained world where it is not allowed to blend spiritually; the molecules of knowledge and sympathy are not allowed to jump over from one half to the other.” (Solzhenitsyn) In this quote, he talks about how ideas and thoughts are not freely shared. This exploitation gave the world a better understanding on the need to change the Soviet Union. The attention that Solzhenitsyn brought along with him led to a start of change in the Soviet Union, which eventually end the brutal treatments of the Russian
Joseph Stalin said, “Ideas are far more powerful than guns. We don 't let our people have guns. Why should we let them have ideas?”. Stalin was a dictator of the USSR from 1929 to 1953. Under his dictatorship, the Soviet Union began to transform from a poor economy to an industrial and military based one. While still a teen, Stalin secretly read Karl Marx 's book the “Communist Manifesto”, and became more interested in his teachings. When Stalin gained power, he ruled his nations using terror and fear, eliminating those who did not comply with his governance.
Intro with Thesis: A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is a novel by Alexander Solzhenitsyn that documents totalitarian communism through the eyes of an ordinary prisoner in a Soviet labor camp. This story describes the protagonist, Ivan Denisovich Shukhov, as he freezes and starves with the other prisoners, trying to survive the remainder of his ten-year sentence. In this story, Solzhenitsyn uses the struggles in the camp as a way to represent the defaults of the Soviet Union under Stalin’s regime. By doing this, Solzhenitsyn uses authoritative oppression in his labour camps to demonstrate the corrupt nature of the Soviet system.
Throughout the book Solzhenitsyn uses the portrayal of the common prisoner, the man with average desires, views and means of survival, to show how civil values are victorious over evil. To show how the person who wins the small victories is not the person who lets go of his disciplines and drops to a place where nothing and no one matters except themselves. To show how the person who will make it through the night without having their throat cut is the one who holds on to their mental constitution. They will be the ones who get the extra cigars and the friends who will help them in times of need. The book is truly a story of victory; the victory of morals over selfishness.
Solzhenitsyn believed that it was nearly impossible to have truly free thoughts under the prison camp conditions described in One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, or in any situation where there is an authoritarian ruler. In a pris...
To further transform the Soviet Union, state officials encouraged citizens to help improve the literacy rate and recognize the many heroes of the socialist state. These heroes, including Joseph Stalin, “received huge amounts of fan mail and were lionized on appearances throughout the country” (72). They also encouraged the remaking of individuals, particularly through work. Before the transformation, many did not enjoy working, but “under socialism, it was the thing that filled life with meaning” (75). Numerous interviews an author had with “transformed” felons, illustrated that even criminals could be transformed into good citizens through work (76). However, Sheila Fitzpatrick argues that these interviews were “clearly a propaganda project.”
In his address, Solzhenitsyn has several intentions. He attacks the communist ways of Russia and the West and defends Christianity. He exhorts the action of keeping Christ in our hearts and dissuades the action of removing Christ. He praises those who stand for Christ and blames Communist for the downfall of the world.
Dmitri Shostakovich was one of the most celebrated composers of the 20th century. He achieved fame, but with much hardship along the way. He was censored and threatened with not only his life but that of his wife and children by playing the role of a public figure in Soviet Russia. The question is was he a committed communist or a victim? The events in his life, good or bad, shaped the music that he created and led to one of the greatest symphonies of the 20th century, his Fifth Symphony.
During Stalin’s regime, the individual Russian was the center of his grand plan for better or worse. Stalin wanted all of his people to be treated the same. In the factory the top producer and the worst producer made the same pay. He wanted everyone to be treated as equals. His goal to bring the Soviet Union into the industrial age put tremendous pressure on his people. Through violence and oppression Stalin tried to maintain an absurd vision that he saw for the Soviet Union. Even as individuals were looked at as being equals, they also were viewed as equals in other ways. There was no one who could be exempt when the system wanted someone imprisoned, killed, or vanished. From the poorest of the poor, to the riches of the rich, everyone was at the mercy of the regime. Millions of individuals had fake trumped up charges brought upon them, either by the government or by others who had called them o...
Stalin’s hunger for power and paranoia impacted the Soviet society severely, having devastating effects on the Communist Party, leaving it weak and shattering the framework of the party, the people of Russia, by stunting the growth of technology and progress through the purges of many educated civilians, as well as affecting The Red Army, a powerful military depleted of it’s force. The impact of the purges, ‘show trials’ and the Terror on Soviet society were rigorously negative. By purging all his challengers and opponents, Stalin created a blanket of fear over the whole society, and therefore, was able to stay in power, creating an empire that he could find more dependable.
He directly witnessed a world, slowly drifting from God’s commands. The world, during his time, resembled a piece fruit that gradually decayed and worsened every day. In his younger years, he was a devoted communist. After fighting in the horrors of World War II, he achieved the title of captain of artillery. In 1945, his world and views drastically shifted. Solzhenitsyn was abruptly arrested by the Soviets for writing letters that criticized Joseph Stalin. The next eight years of his life were spent laboring in prison camps. To his dismay, the following three years he was forced into exile. It was in this period of eleven years that Solzhenitsyn began to contemplate his worldview and beliefs. In his state of poverty and imprisonment, he found the deep and steadfast love of Christ. He would secretly record his thoughts of God and the government on scraps of paper, memorize what he wrote, then dispose of the paper. His cruel personal experiences shaped his writings and
Throughout the 20th century, many countries were ruled by totalitarian leaders who were ready to commit many horrible deeds in order to achieve their goals. Josef Stalin, the leader of Soviet Union between 1924 and 1953, is the perfect example of a despotic ruler, who was responsible for the deaths of millions of people. He believed that communism would transform the Soviet Union into a perfect nation, with an ideal society where everyone would be treated equally. However, in order to achieve this perfection, all external and, more importantly, internal enemies had to be destroyed. Instead of a perfect nation, Stalin created a system, which was based on fear and denunciation, where killing of the so-called "enemies of the nation" became a sport, where Stalin's representatives competed against each other on the basis of the number of "enemies" killed. Throughout almost three decades, millions of innocent people were either killed or put into labour camps. The author of the book himself, was sentenced to eight years in a concentration camp for his anti-Soviet views, which he expressed in writing, and through the characters of his novel, Solzhenitsyn portrays his personal beliefs. Most of the characters in "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" are innocent people, who have never done anything reprehensible. Among them is Gopchik, a sixteen-year-old boy who was sentenced to 10 years in concentration camp for giving milk to Ukrainian nationalist rebels, and Aleshka the Baptist who received twenty-five years for his religious beliefs. The protagonist of the novel, Ivan Denisovich Shukhov, is a simple man without any heroic qualities. He is a former carpenter who was sent off to the battlefield during the World War II. After being captured by the Germans, Ivan and five of his fellow soldiers were able to escape and return to the Soviet military base. However, three of them were killed instantly, mistaken for German soldiers while the fourth soldier died from wounds a couple of days later. Although Ivan Denisovich was not shot, he was arrested and accused of being a German spy. Even though he was innocent, he had to confess during the interrogation, because he understood that he would be shot immediately if he did not. As a result, he was sentenced to ten years in a Siberian concentration camp for betraying Soviet Union. The Soviet labour camps represented a small-scale totalitarian nation, where wardens were the despotic rulers who frequently abused the prisoners.
As a dictator Stalin was very strict about his policies, especially working. For instance. Stalin had set quotas very high , as they were very unrealistic. The workers had very long days, and under the rule of Stalin most people worked many hours in overtime, and resulting in no pay. Stalin treated workers very, very harshly. Those who did not work were exiled to Siberia or killed. Some may say you got what you deserved in Stalin’s time. Those who worked very hard for Stalin sometimes got bonuses such as trips, or goods likes televisions and refrigerators. The workers had to conform to Stalin’s policies . Stalin’s harsh treatment of workers received a very unwelcoming response, but in fact the liberal amount of goods that the workers had made, had in fact
The Effects of Stalin on Russia Much like Adolph Hitler, Joseph Stalin was one of the most ruthless and despised people in the recorded history of the world. Stalin, though, found it fit to abuse his people in any way he saw fit. This man started what history now calls "The Great Purge. " Through the late 1920's when the rest of the world was living it up as the roaring 20's came to an end, Joseph Stalin was setting the stage for gaining absolute power by employing secret police repression against opposing political and social elements within his own Communist Party and throughout society.
"Gulag: Soviet Forced Labor Camps and the Struggle for Freedom." Gulag: Soviet Forced Labor Camps and the Struggle for Freedom. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Mar. 2014. .
Mochulsky, Fyodor Vasilevich. Gulag Boss: A Soviet Memoir Edited and Translated by Deborah Kaple. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.