Can we have an actual discussion about this book?

You want to start us off, shitdick?

>>9497942
What's it about?

>>9497948
A guide to cleaning your room

>>9497942
>Natalya Reshetovskaya, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's first wife, wrote in her memoirs that "The Gulag Archipelago" was based on "campfire folklore" as opposed to objective facts. She wrote that she was perplexed that the Western media had accepted The Gulag Archipelago as "the solemn, ultimate truth", saying its significance had been "overestimated and wrongly appraised". She said her husband did not regard the work as "historical research, or scientific research", and "The Gulag Archipelago" was a collection of "camp folklore", containing "raw material" which her husband was planning to use in his future productions

>>9497980
Her memoirs were legitimately part of a KGB campaign to discredit his book. You can't make this shit up.

File: 4.png (14KB, 96x112px) Image search: [Google]

14KB, 96x112px

>>9497980
ex-wife

credible

>>9497980
>the solemn, ultimate truth
I think most people are aware that it's not supposed to be scientific research but a semi-fictional, journalistic explanation of certain mechanisms based on accounts.
I mean, we have personal letters from Lenin and Stalin themselves ordering things LIKE in this book so it's not like history proved him wrong but obviously he didn't have the opportunity to go through orderly public archives on mass murder while the the SU was still intact (or later, for that matter).

>>9497985

this

>>9497942
>shitty propaganda
>m-muh sixty gorillion

go back to /pol/

>>9497985
>You can't make this shit up.
Of course you can, Comrade!

>>9497985

That's what they all say.

>>9498008
>>9497985

Stalin did nothing wrong, and I would have done the same thing.

File: abridged.jpg (35KB, 329x499px) Image search: [Google]

35KB, 329x499px

I was thinking of just reading the abridged version. What do you guys think?

>>9498044
I just ordered the first full volume, I'll decide if I want to switch to the abridged version once I finish it

File: 4fc.jpg (26KB, 600x610px) Image search: [Google]

26KB, 600x610px

>Gulags are really shitty places to live

Woah, glad I put off reading War and Peace for this

Actual discussion goes on the discord I'm afraid, this is just a playground to us. And sorry no, you can't have an invite.

>>9498079
>life is complicated
Woah, glad I put off reading about how the small changes I'm witnessing in society can lead to totalitarianism for this

I was reading Stasiland, and there was an offhanded comment in one of the interviews about how in East German prisons, the actual criminals were encouraged to bully and abuse the political prisoners. Which was something that I also read in the Gulag Archipelago.

Solzhenitsyn describes the logic. A criminal who killed or stole or assaulted someone was just a victim of an oppressive society. With proper education, they could be reformed. But someone who saw the glories of socialism and intentionally turned against it was a traitor and an enemy of the people. Therefore, they deserved no mercy, and a murderer was better treated by the guards than someone convicted of anti-Soviet activity.

>>9497942
Worst kind of OP, has nothing substantive to say and expects everyone else to do the heavy lifting.

End yourself.

>>9498167
I remember this from a series of cartoons by a prison guard; they were divided into "true thieves" and "bitches"

Here are the cartoons:
http://www.cvltnation.com/brutal-drawings-from-the-gulag/

They're pretty hard to make it through

>>9498094
>how the small changes I'm witnessing in society can lead to totalitarianism for this

lel so you admit you just want to read this book so can LARP being a schizophrenic tier paranoiac

>>9498226
you are so sheltered dude.

>>9498226
Ironically, the purpose of the book is to make you suspicious when someone tells you you're a schizophrenic paranoiac for not liking the political changes.

>>9498244
Oh yeah I better read a 1000+ page book of edgy made up stories you see posted on /b/ everyday so I can pretend I've had life experience and seen into the void like you
Get fucked, you know nothing about me

>>9498264
>Ironically, the purpose of the book is to make you suspicious when someone tells you you're a schizophrenic paranoiac for not liking the political changes.

Thats about as ironic as L Ron Hubbard writing about the dangers of psychiatrists

>>9498265
>Get fucked, you know nothing about me
Well I know you cannot be very smart.

>>9498265
>a 1000+ page book of edgy made up stories you see posted on /b/ everyday
I'm not even right-wing by any stretch of the imagination but you are a blind fucking dunce. If you didn't live in such a well put-together society, your brain and the way you think would have gotten you killed before you hit 20

>>9498274
Yeah and where do you live fucking North Korea?
Acting like a Green Beret because you read a fantasy novel, get out of here

>>9498277
I live in the same well-put together society as you do, I just don't have the same blind trust in what I've been told

>>9498278
So you arbitrarily favour blind distrust over blind trust. This is the logic of a manic paranoiac.
I know the dangers of totalitarianism same as you, I just don't take the pretense to assert that my own pet dislikes in society are a slippery slope towards it then pavlovian condition myself with USSR fanfiction to justify it.

>>9497964
More or less.

>>9498287
I didn't claim we're on that route, that was a different anon. I know you're a blind dunce because you said:
>a 1000+ page book of edgy made up stories you see posted on /b/ everyday

Which is what, quite literally, only Marxists blinded by their own beliefs and the lies of others believe

>>9498306
My interest is in Literary quality. This book is pulp, its not good fiction and its certainly not good non-fiction
The fact that despite its gargantuan size is was and continues to be ideologically shilled by the likes of (((Time))) magazine and hacks like Peterson annoys me to no ends when otherwise potentially intelligent people are wasting their time not reading any of the countless legitimate classics out there.

>>9498320
>(((Time)))

Watch out, we got an alt-right superhero here!

>>9498008
GA is, at best, a highly biased "primary source". Solzhenitsyn repeatedly reminds the reader throughout that he is not and cannot write an academically acceptable treatment of the Soviet camp system. If you want to read an academic treatment, Robert Conquest has written several excellence books on the practices of Stalin's regime and I'm sure there are others with which I am less familiar.

That being said, of course people read (or don't read) Gulag Archipelago as being an objective and objectively correct account of 100% true experience. There are significant numbers of readers who have trouble distinguishing literal works of fiction from fact.

I started volume 3 yesterday.
Is it worth reading in its entirety? No, there are some really dull passages and its a massive investment of time.
Was half of volume 2 the best thing I read for the last few years? Definitely.

>>9498362
>Was half of volume 2 the best thing I read for the last few years? Definitely.
That says more about you than the book

>>9498459
Obviously but let me expand on that.
I cried tears of horror while reading the book, something that never happened to me while reading. I just could not stand the descriptions without laughing first then shaking.
Last time something like that happened I was in Hiroshima.

>>9498324
the alt-right champions this book nonstop though

>>9498459
>Using X says more about you than about X
says more about you and than it says about the poster you replied to

File: aryan.jpg (36KB, 700x400px) Image search: [Google]

36KB, 700x400px

>>9497942
It's a book that makes communists sweat, but then they realise that it wasn't true socialism so it's okay.
Just as Nazism wasn't true facism.
Starship troopers portrayed a utopian society.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIGHCoVzqtk

>>9498653
Not really

>>9498622
>I cried tears of horror while reading the book

lel what a fucking faggot, get a hold of yourself

>>9498678
I like to crash and rebuild myself. It's like shedding dead skin but I'm not sure you'll get it.

Will I like this if I liked Ivan Denisovich?

File: clap.gif (2MB, 357x296px) Image search: [Google]

2MB, 357x296px

>>9497946
fpbp

>>9498667
>It's a book that makes communists sweat, but then they realise that it wasn't true socialism so it's okay.

We should not abandon the ideas of communism or fascism because of their historical implementations, anon.

>>9497942
uh too long, doesnt leave me enough time to browse lit and reddit. read the day in the life of ivan desovich (i say this cuz i was assigned in class)

>>9499977
The way he talks about postmodernism is deserving of critique but he did NOT lose that argument with Sam Harris. Harris was being stubborn and focusing on the finest details of Peterson's points, even though his cool relaxed voice made him seem like the reasonable one.

Postmodernism isn't even what you should be focusing on listening from him. His lectures about archetypes and personality with philosophy and political science detours are way more interesting

>>9499977
t. bloody marxist

File: 1454562839387.png (60KB, 204x190px) Image search: [Google]

60KB, 204x190px

>>9497942
>authoritarian states violently purge dissidents to maintain control and this is bad because of my feelings
Is this all there is to this book or should it be taken seriously?

>>9499977

what a wretched attempt at a meme

>>9500377
t. Riggered

>>9500375
What makes it so poignant is that it was written by a Russian and it makes America look good.

That's all it takes.

File: 1491194110854.jpg (60KB, 480x360px) Image search: [Google]

60KB, 480x360px

>>9499977

>>9500367
postmodernism is at odds with marxism

>>9498044
All 3 don't even cover the scope of what went on.

>>9498167
The bitch wars were fascinating, sometimes there were no guards at all and the camps were self regulating

>>9497942
This is a beautiful piece of literature. At the time, Solzhenitsyn wrote it as factually as he could. If anyone is interested in how modern historians regard the Gulag system check out Gulag: A History by Applebaum.

But The Gulag Archipelago is beautifully written indeed. It's annoying that the alt-right is getting into it though because Solzhenitsyn wasn't pro-Nazi or fascism at all. Idiots gonna idiot I guess.
>>9498044
Just read the real versions, they're translated well and you won't regret it. The editions with the crazy cover are fine. Or go to the library and sit down with the first volume and see if you like it.

File: kublaikhan.jpg (8KB, 192x239px) Image search: [Google]

8KB, 192x239px

>>9500633
And what I mean is that The Gulag Archipelago is a primary source, but it isn't the only source that historians use, so read it with a grain of salt. It's like reading The Histories as your only source on the Persian invasion of Greece.

>>9500633
>Solzhenitsyn wasn't pro-Nazi or fascism at all

lol

Read Zemskov for an objective report of the Gulag from a non apologist.

File: 1480661064507.png (111KB, 644x598px) Image search: [Google]

111KB, 644x598px

>>9498667

>>9499977
weak

File: 41rdMM9w9iL._SX310_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg (33KB, 312x499px) Image search: [Google]

33KB, 312x499px

>>9500633
>It's annoying that the alt-right is getting into it though because Solzhenitsyn wasn't pro-Nazi or fascism at all. Idiots gonna idiot I guess.

Solzhenitsyn was basically the steve bannon of the 1970s. sorry for your loss

>>9498204

>vaginal prolapse

That link was disgusting even for a gore watcher, fucking people were at the hallmarks of degradation.

File: stalin_pepe.jpg (254KB, 884x757px) Image search: [Google]

254KB, 884x757px

>>9497942
Revisionist lies. Done. Don't post this thread again, comrade. We'd hate to see something happen to you.

>>9498204
Ah! The pornography!