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Part 3, Chapter 3: The Archipelago Metastasizes
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Gulag Archipelago, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Oppression and Totalitarianism
Survival and the Human Spirit
The Dangers of Ideology
Power as a Corrupting Force
The Value of Religion and Spirituality
Summary
Analysis
By 1933, Stalin’s vision for socialism demanded a stronger state apparatus. Vyshinsky, the Soviet Union’s Prosecutor General, echoed this idea, emphasizing the necessity of bolstering the network of corrective-labor institutions. As a result, the Archipelago tightened its iron grip, restricting access to all but NKVD personnel and creating an environment of absolute control. This was a time when prisoners faced especially brutal conditions. Reports from places like Kolyma describe prisoners eating decayed horse flesh, grease, and moss to survive. Meanwhile others dragged fellow prisoners on sledges to work in temperatures below 50 degrees Fahrenheit, often while being beaten.
Vyshinsky’s support for expanding corrective-labor institutions is indicative of the state’s shift toward a more repressive regime, where the Gulag system became essential for enforcing ideological conformity. The horrific conditions described at Kolyma, where survival depends on consuming decayed animal matter, exemplify the extreme dehumanization that defined life within the Gulag. Again, absolutely no mercy is shown, as the victims of the Soviet system continue to pile up.
Themes
The start of World War II only worsened conditions, exacerbating the suffering of prisoners. As the war disrupted the Soviet Union, some camp officials reacted with temporary leniency, but most intensified their cruelty, isolating political prisoners and threatening them as hostages. The war also halted releases, and some prisoners were sent back to camps even after being freed. The NKVD exploited wartime conditions to extend sentences and increase punishments, while the Gulag metastasized even further. The once-glorious Solovki camp relocated to the Yenisei River and merged with Norillag, spreading its malign influence. Meanwhile, prewar years saw camps proliferate across the desolate deserts of Kazakhstan and beyond, with new labor colonies emerging in remote regions like Novosibirsk, Krasnoyarsk, and Uzbekistan, expanding the Archipelago’s reach.
World War II served as an opportunity for the Soviet regime to further entrench the Gulag system, using the chaos of war to justify harsher conditions and broaden the scope of imprisonment. Solzhenitsyn’s account of political prisoners being used as hostages reveals the regime’s ruthless exploitation of human lives for political gain. The relocation and expansion of camps like Solovki and the proliferation of labor colonies across remote regions demonstrate the regime’s commitment to a prison-industrial complex that extended beyond immediate political necessity.
Themes
