I’m about two thirds of the way through (an abridged version of) Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago… one wishes to believe that if we taught this in our schools in the United States, we would produce adults more wary of both communism and utopian dreams of all kinds.
Not having read Archipelago, I won't comment on it. But, I re-read One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich in April. And, on your 8th point: It is striking how much life in Ivan's camp revolves around improvised transactions, which frequently go beyond bartering goods, and instead involve small personal kindnesses that an inmate gives to a fellow prisoner in exchange for, say, keeping a place in a line for him, or not telling a camp guard about some illegal personal item that he has stashed away in a mattress or under a rock. There’s a petit market economy that cannot be captured by statistics.
Not having read Archipelago, I won't comment on it. But, I re-read One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich in April. And, on your 8th point: It is striking how much life in Ivan's camp revolves around improvised transactions, which frequently go beyond bartering goods, and instead involve small personal kindnesses that an inmate gives to a fellow prisoner in exchange for, say, keeping a place in a line for him, or not telling a camp guard about some illegal personal item that he has stashed away in a mattress or under a rock. There’s a petit market economy that cannot be captured by statistics.
I may have to purchase that.
(What am I saying - of COURSE I will purchase that. Probably find a $3 copy on eBay. But when will I get around to reading it, that's the question.)