Gulags Like Nazi Death Camps Solzhenitsyn

The Fact of Double Genocide Affirmed. Red=Brown. Soviet Betrayal of Warsaw Uprising Recognized. Author Admits Soviet Guilt for the Katyn Massacre

This monumental work provides a great deal of arcane details about Russian history, Soviet thinking and policies, and the situation inside the Gulags. For this reason, it can be hard to follow to the reader who doesn’t have extensive prior knowledge about these matters. Two glossaries in the back of the book are helpful in this regard. Because there are so many topics and issues raised in this combined volume, I will elaborate on only a few of them.

DOUBLE GENOCIDE (RED=BROWN) AFFIRMED

Some Jews, evidently seeing it as a threat to Holocaust supremacism, have warned of the “dangers” of comparing the presumably-peerless Holocaust with the genocides and classicides inherent in the Gulags. This has been called Double Genocide and Red=Brown (the dreaded equating of Stalin’s crimes and Hitler’s crimes). Alexander Solzhenitsyn, a world-class authority on the Gulags, is not among those following this rather Judeocentric “Gulags were not so bad” contrivance.

THE MASS MURDER FACTORY THAT WAS THE GULAGS: THE DOUBLE STANDARD

The eminent Russian writer estimates that there were 15 million inmates in the Gulags in 1941. (p. 28). The practice, common in the west, of dichotomizing Nazi and Communist camps is not shared by Solzhenitsyn, who comments: “Since Herod was no more, only the Vanguard Doctrine [that nationalism would die out] has shown us how to destroy utterly–down to the very babes. Hitler was a mere disciple, but he had all the luck: his murder camps have made him famous, whereas no one had any interest in ours at all.” (p. 359).

SOLZHENITSYN RECOGNIZED THE FACT THAT THE SOVIETS HAD BETRAYED THE 1944 POLES’ WARSAW UPRISING

Solzhenitsyn mentions Gulag Poles only sporadically in this set of volumes. He alludes to the Soviet betrayal of the Warsaw Uprising by noting that it is not much discussed because “…it shows us in an unfavorable light.” (p. 45).

SOLZHENITSYN RECOGNIZED SOVIET GUILT FOR THE KATYN MASSACRE DECADES BEFORE THE RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT BELATEDLY DID ALSO

After the Katyn massacre of Polish officers and intellectuals, by the Soviets, came to light, the latter attempted to shift the blame to the Nazis. The so-called Burdenko Commission served this purpose, and their “findings” are cited to this day by Soviet-deniers. Solzhenitsyn alludes to the Soviet whitewash, and affirms the fact of Soviet guilt for the Katyn Massacre. (pp. 60-61).

FELIKS KONECZNY WAS RIGHT ABOUT RUSSIA AS A MANIFESTATION OF TURANIAN CIVILIZATION

Solzhenitsyn is candid about the chronically-despotic aspects of Russia’s past: “In the conventional Cadet (let alone socialist) interpretation, the whole of Russian history is a succession of tyrannies…Whether it was Ivan the Terrible, Alexis the Gentle, heavy-handed Peter, or velvety Catherine, all the Tsars up to the Crimean War knew one thing only–how to CRUSH.” (Emphasis his)(p. 79).