Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956: An Experiment in Literary Investigation, I-II

xii, 660 pp. 8vo. Translated from the Russian by Thomas P. Whitney. "Drawing on his own incarceration and exile, as well as on evidence from more than 200 fellow prisoners and Soviet archives, Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn reveals the entire apparatus of Soviet repression -- the state within the state that ruled all-powerfully. Through truly Shakespearean portraits of its victims -- men, women, and children -- we encounter secret police operations, labor camps and prisons; the uprooting or extermination of whole populations, the "welcome" that awaited Russian soldiers who had been German prisoners of war. Yet we also witness the astounding moral courage of the incorruptible, who, defenseless, endured great brutality and degradation." CONTENTS: Preface, Part I - The Prison Industry : Arrest, The History of Our Sewage Disposal System, The Interrogation, The Bluecaps, First Cell, First Love, That Spring, In the Engine Room, The Law as a Child, The Law Becomes a Man, The Law Matures, The Supreme Measure, Tyurzak Part II - Perpetual Motion - The Ships of the Archipelago, The Ports of the Archipelago, The Slave Caravans, From Island to Island, Translator's Notes, Glossary: Names, Institutions and Terms, Index.