The Gulag Archiepelago

Ever since I experienced my mortality, things have changed for me. While I did use death as intellectual concept to push me in daily endeavors, experiencing it was different. They had my life in their hands, that’s powerful. I hear about people being robbed and killed every time in Gomora, I am bombarded by police vans and forensic teams on a constant. I know that evil lurks in the shadow of every human being. I know evil exists. My mind keeps on playing the interaction like “what if”. What if I had too many drinks and I couldn’t regulate my emotions? What if I wasn’t attuned to their mannerisms and intercepted their thought process? What if they just yearned for blood? What if they had shot me and took all my belongings while I was on the ground bleeding to death? What about my loved ones and my family? What about my prospects and dreams? What happens in an alternate dimension? I’ve got no one to blame but myself. What would I have said to God? His given me all these blessings and talents and I was passive and comfortable like Camus on “The Stranger”? A drifter, under the hypnotic rhythm of the devil. I took life for granted. The horror of that interaction, I’d rather go to Hell. I would be too ashamed to answer to God. I would die for a second time from all the shame. At least in hell, my ruminations would torture me for eternity, that’s a better alternative, that’s what I deserve. I never would have forgiven myself. But I am lucky I have a second chance. With that I decided to read Aleksander Solzhenitsyn’s “Gulag Archiepelago”. The moment demanded that. It is the most difficult book I have ever read. I am a better human being because of it. I highly recommend it. The book is about the accounts that happened to people during the Totalitarian regimes in the 20th century in Soviet, Russia. It explores the business of prison, what happened in prison, the conditions, what happened in concentration camps, torture and death. Death is everywhere in the book, it occupies most pages in all volumes and sections. I learned not to take life for granted. I learned life is difficult. I learned true suffering. I learned that I am lucky. Momento mori. The term “Archiepelago” means a group of Islands and the sea surrounding them. In this case a group of prison islands.

You didn’t have to do much to be arrested in this time, literally, you didn’t have to do ANYTHING! There was a prisoner imprisonment quota and you are just a number. Your freedom would be just taken away from you. You didn’t have a choice or a voice. The KGB (military police) would just show up at night while you were sleeping and drag you into their vans while you were still disorientated. It was better at night, you are not strong-willed, you are confused. You didn’t have rights. If you don’t want to be dragged and tossed aside like a salad and preferred going to the van unharrased, better. A submissive sheep is a find for a wolf. I mean it’s all just a misunderstanding right? Let me just corporate and surely they will let me go right? WRONG! Everyone was being arrested. Women, men, children, everyone. Your confused protests like “Me? What did I do?” didn’t help, they would just tell you “Get in the van”. Everyone got arrested for NOTHING. You would go to the shops and you would be arrested. You would be out on the street and be arrested. You were arrested in every single way. The KGB had soldiers who pretended to be civilians, so they can blend in and arrest you. They had no warrants. The arrests just happened anytime, in the morning, afternoon and nights. You were better off making a scene and fighting than to listen to their demands. One person who was arrested in the afternoon, made such a scene by fighting, protesting, making people aware that he was being taken against his will that the KGB stopped and let him go. It was a small win that didn’t last very long. They came back for him late night. A woman who was arrested for not asking permission to go to court was put into a cell with men who raped her and made her a cell prostitute. They took her stylish shoes and blouse. To be arrested, you didn’t have to be a German spy, or a collaborator in treason, you just had to be human and alive. Your fate was decided before arrest. Josef Stalin just wanted statistics, that’s all you are a stat. Stallin repossessed land from his farmers, made them labor for it and arrested and killed them if they took a grain of rice. The result? Millions of Soviets dying of hunger. Stalin ran his organization with an Iron first that he gave one of his cabinet members 10 years for being the first to stop clapping after a standing ovation of 12 minutes. Everyone was scared of stopping, they just clapped and clapped. Moral of the story? Don’t be the first to stop clapping or you will get a 10 year sentence. No one but Stalin is safe.

The Gulag Archiepelago was a nightmare, what they did to the prisoners is pure evil, bad, a crime to humanity. You would think that because death makes us all equals that we should have humanity but not in this life. This life is about hierarchies and the person on top dictates what happens in your life. And because you are insignificant to him, a mere number, your destiny is a concentration camp, hard labor, death, a lengthy prison spell or you might be use for an experiment like BF Skinners lab rats. Once arrested, interrogaters would force the prisoners to accept fabricated charges. All the charges were made up like fairy dust. They would torture you, until you gave in. Their maxim being “A human being is weak, a human being gives in”. As a means of interrogation and torture. They used deprival of sleep, they had a blinding 200 watts bulb that was always on to keep you awake at all times and so they could always monitor you. The guards took shifts and breaks while you were awake. Some prisoners were awake for 2 straight weeks. They used self-isolation until you went mad or died. They used hunger, giving you nothing to eat or drink for weeks on end. It would be so dire that your tougue would swell. They squeezed heads with Iron rigs and vices like a Scorsese movie. They would put prisoners in special rooms, raising the temperature in effect cooking them like a stew. They put prisoners in small cells restricting movement of any kind. No space to sit, or to spread your legs or arms, you were just vertical. They put you on beds that were infested with bedbugs and bloodsuckers. They put you in a cell with a mad person for years. They stepped on your balls, this they did by getting you naked on your back while two offers stretched your legs and sat on either on, while the third officer stepped on your balls. They grated your skin. They beat you to a pulp. The doctors were the torturers and interrogaters, they worked together to not create a humane condition. The prisoners turned into cannibals to survive. Men were reduced to animals. All this to get you to admit what you didn’t do, something you don’t know. They used your family against you, promising to not do anything to them if you confessed and signed the papers but it was all a lie, they tortured them anyways. Families were separated to different distant camps so that they would never see each other again. After you were sentenced 10 years for nothing because “sentence for nothing at all is 10 years”, you went into your first cell. A filthy dirty, small cell with no windows – welcome to your new life.

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