People think Orwell and Ayn Rand predicted the future. In many ways they did, but they were mainly just writing about what the Soviets did, in a much, much softer way. This book is truly amazing, in the worst possible way. I'm angry I went through 12 years of school and got a bachelor's degree without ever having heard of it. That's not by accident.
No, it's not by accident - when Weatherman Bill Ayers was hired by the University of Illinois as a Professor, that was the opening of University gates to the far left.
I used to advocate reading Solzhenitsyn on all my comments and posts. Never got any traction. Maybe you will do better. If its greater than 160 characters, no one makes the effort.
Archipelago helped bring down the Soviet Union. It is a handbook for what is happening now and in the past 20 years in America - really since Bush 1. But the great cleansing started with 9/11. That was the inflection point. Thanks pede for posting this.
It's not easy reading, even for someone who is VERY literate and has an extensive vocabulary. Not to mention that it's difficult emotionally. I read it in college, along with his Cancer Ward, but I need to read them again.
Also by Noble prize writer Solzhenitsyn, "The Oak and the Calf," and so many other stories and books--including many warnings and addresses to the West. He was pessimistic that America could go forward since it moved away from it's Christian foundational values.
And if 2020 proved anything, it proved that America can quickly fall just like Russia did. And every American will be to blame, just like in the Gulag Archipelago.
If you are looking for an American take on the Soviet gulag system, I highly recommend, "The Forsaken: An American Tragedy in Stalin's Russia"
by Tim Tzouliadis. Painful reading about Americans who got caught up in the gulags and were forgotten and dismissed by the American government and press (i.e. NY Times).
Peterson's description of Gulag Archipelago was the final straw in my red-pilling on personal responsibility.
He paints a picture of a single man taking responsibility for his own actions changing the world. None of us know how truly powerful it is to walk with the dignity of being made in the image of our creator.
I was lost 6+ years ago. Grew up being into punk, metal... i was even a vegan for a while. Eventually ended up drinking far too much. Had a shit childhood and blamed the world for it. White privilege? That's what allowed dyfus to leave after doing nothing at all. Where was my privilege when my also white step dad was beating the piss out of us and allowed to continue?
First came Trump. I quit alcohol. Then slowly i started listening to JBP. Next thing I know i'm reading Gulag Archipelago and a ton of other philosophy/psychology books i never gave a shit about. I started taking responsibility for my own actions, realizing the entire world is shit and a gift. We all have bad stories. It's up to each of us to redeem our existence.
My life is infinitely better not because of these men, but because of the control i took over my life because of these men. I will cherish Jesus Christ, Donald J. Trump, Jordan B. Peterson, and Alexander Solzhenitsyn for the rest of my life.
I still dig metal, i still enjoy playing music. But i'm also far more careful to be into the music and not the scenes around them.
Good to hear. I was in a similar state not too long ago. I get douche chills thinking about myself only a few years ago. Very much the same person, yet so much different. There's a great poem (not really into poetry) by D. H. Lawrence called "Self Pity." it reads:
I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself.
A small bird will drop
frozen dead from a bough
without ever having felt sorry for itself
Yes, also "Ordinary Men" by C. Browne - professor Emeritus of history at UNC. I bought a case and give it to every LEO I know or interact with. It is apropos considering the trend LE is going down. A hard read, just like Archipelago.
"Resistance! Why didn't you resist?" Today those who have continued to live on in comfort scold those who suffered. Yes, resistance should have begun right there, at the moment of the arrest itself.
But it did not begin.
...
It says when they come to the doors at night to round up the people, you need a make a scene! Do not be 'nice' and admit to their phony charges.
What these people want to do, can not be done in the sunlight.
In his very first speech on his very first trip to the United States in 1975, 56-year-old Alexander Solzhenitsyn asked the question he had wanted to ask America most of his adult life. The renowned author of “The Gulag Archipelago” set it up by comparing the historic U.S. aversion to an alliance with czarist Russia to Roosevelt’s rush to recognize a far more repressive and infinitely more violent Bolshevik Russia in 1933.
Pre-revolutionary executions by the czarist government came to about 17 per year, Solzhenitsyn said, while, as a point of comparison, the Spanish Inquisition at its height destroyed 10 people per month. In the revolutionary years of 1918 and 1919, he continued, the Cheka executed without trial more than a thousand per month. At the height of Stalin’s terror in 1937–38, tens of thousands of people were shot per month.
Solzhenitsyn put it this way: “Here are the figures: 17 a year, 10 a month, more than 1,000 a month, more than 40,000 a month! Thus, that which had made it dicult for the democratic West to form an alliance with pre-revolutionary Russia had, by 1941, grown to such an extent, yet still did not prevent the entire united democracies of the world—England, France, the United States, Canada, and other small countries—from entering into a military alliance with the Soviet Union. How is this to be explained? How can we understand it?”
November 16, 1933: The Day Our Fundamental Transformation Began
Written by: Diana West
The reason why that transformation began,
Nov.16, 2018, is the 85th anniversary of an event that most Americans have never heard of. As I argue in my book, “American Betrayal,” it’s the seminal event in modern U.S. history. On this day in 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt extended “normal diplomatic relations” to the communist dictatorship under Joseph Stalin in Moscow.
People think Orwell and Ayn Rand predicted the future. In many ways they did, but they were mainly just writing about what the Soviets did, in a much, much softer way. This book is truly amazing, in the worst possible way. I'm angry I went through 12 years of school and got a bachelor's degree without ever having heard of it. That's not by accident.
I've been saying for a few years now that the Gulag Archipelago should be required reading in high schools.
☝️☝️☝️☝️this
yeah they dont let ppl read this one and they dont require the others. fahrenheit 451 is light enough for them to spin it in their favor.
No, it's not by accident - when Weatherman Bill Ayers was hired by the University of Illinois as a Professor, that was the opening of University gates to the far left.
I read that this is required reading in Russia schools.
If you want the ability to predict the future... discover history.
Circa 2021 Me... just now.
I used to advocate reading Solzhenitsyn on all my comments and posts. Never got any traction. Maybe you will do better. If its greater than 160 characters, no one makes the effort.
Archipelago helped bring down the Soviet Union. It is a handbook for what is happening now and in the past 20 years in America - really since Bush 1. But the great cleansing started with 9/11. That was the inflection point. Thanks pede for posting this.
if they dont read it. they will live it.
It's not easy reading, even for someone who is VERY literate and has an extensive vocabulary. Not to mention that it's difficult emotionally. I read it in college, along with his Cancer Ward, but I need to read them again.
Reading this now. It's scary that most people don't know anything about what the Soviets did to people.
It’s scary that it’s on purpose
Also by Noble prize writer Solzhenitsyn, "The Oak and the Calf," and so many other stories and books--including many warnings and addresses to the West. He was pessimistic that America could go forward since it moved away from it's Christian foundational values.
And if 2020 proved anything, it proved that America can quickly fall just like Russia did. And every American will be to blame, just like in the Gulag Archipelago.
It’s on Z Library
If you are looking for an American take on the Soviet gulag system, I highly recommend, "The Forsaken: An American Tragedy in Stalin's Russia" by Tim Tzouliadis. Painful reading about Americans who got caught up in the gulags and were forgotten and dismissed by the American government and press (i.e. NY Times).
internet archive version:
https://archive.org/details/TheGulagArchipelago-Threevolumes/The-Gulag-Archipelago__vol1__I-II__Solzhenitsyn
Peterson's description of Gulag Archipelago was the final straw in my red-pilling on personal responsibility.
He paints a picture of a single man taking responsibility for his own actions changing the world. None of us know how truly powerful it is to walk with the dignity of being made in the image of our creator.
I was lost 6+ years ago. Grew up being into punk, metal... i was even a vegan for a while. Eventually ended up drinking far too much. Had a shit childhood and blamed the world for it. White privilege? That's what allowed dyfus to leave after doing nothing at all. Where was my privilege when my also white step dad was beating the piss out of us and allowed to continue?
First came Trump. I quit alcohol. Then slowly i started listening to JBP. Next thing I know i'm reading Gulag Archipelago and a ton of other philosophy/psychology books i never gave a shit about. I started taking responsibility for my own actions, realizing the entire world is shit and a gift. We all have bad stories. It's up to each of us to redeem our existence.
My life is infinitely better not because of these men, but because of the control i took over my life because of these men. I will cherish Jesus Christ, Donald J. Trump, Jordan B. Peterson, and Alexander Solzhenitsyn for the rest of my life.
I still dig metal, i still enjoy playing music. But i'm also far more careful to be into the music and not the scenes around them.
Good to hear. I was in a similar state not too long ago. I get douche chills thinking about myself only a few years ago. Very much the same person, yet so much different. There's a great poem (not really into poetry) by D. H. Lawrence called "Self Pity." it reads:
I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself. A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough without ever having felt sorry for itself
Thanks. I wish there were more content like this on this site. Like actual discussion about communists and communism.
Yea, the memes are fun and all, but there's a lot more that can be accomplished here.
Yes, also "Ordinary Men" by C. Browne - professor Emeritus of history at UNC. I bought a case and give it to every LEO I know or interact with. It is apropos considering the trend LE is going down. A hard read, just like Archipelago.
Gulag and 1984 .... and you know what the left has in store for us....
Throw in some Brave New World too.
I started reading it over the weekend.
It says when they come to the doors at night to round up the people, you need a make a scene! Do not be 'nice' and admit to their phony charges.
What these people want to do, can not be done in the sunlight.
November 16, 1933: The Day Our Fundamental Transformation Began Written by: Diana West
The reason why that transformation began,
And if you want the TL;DR version, you can read "Live Not by Lies" by Alexander Solzhenitsyn here: https://honestyculture.com/alexander-solzhenitsyn-live-not-by-lies/#:~:text=%E2%80%9CLive%20Not%20by%20Lies%2C%E2%80%9D%20by%20Alexander%20Solzhenitsyn%20(1974),one%20time%20we%20dared%20not%20even%20to%20whisper.
He makes a persuasive case and lays out practical things we can all do to resist totalitarianism.
IF YOU BUY A COPY
Get the unabridged 3 volume.
I’m literally browsing with my arm resting on this book, between chapters....
Also one of the longest.
Audiobook on youtube.
Along with "The Cancer Ward' and "August of 1914", which would make a great movie.
YES! Prolific and salient.
Jordan Peterson talks about it a lot.
Yea that's how I came across it, reading 12 Rules For Life (good book).
Horror movies don't work on me anymore and, I can't stop thinking about the horrors.
Being shot, drowning or, being burned alive seem like good ways to go to me now...
God help us all