640
PARTISAN REVIEW
then today when , thanks to techni cal p rogress, we on ce aga in find
o urselves in the biblical situa ti on-within a stone's throw, we o ught to
look a little more closely at our bro ther. In rela ti on to the victims of
vari o us ca tas trophes we always occupy a somewha t superi o r pos iti on–
the pos ition of those present in rela ti on to those absent , o r a majority to
a mino rity. But a ca reful look a t the g lobe revea ls tha t the dead within
it outnumber those who li ve on its surface.
If
thi s book is no t read,
chances are we will join the rea l majo rity sooner th an we sup pose. Like
everythin g in the world , evil exi sts on three levels: pro babilit y, possi–
bility, and rea lity. A recurrence o f th e Gul ag or any simil a r phenom–
eno n west of Greenwich is, in purely sta ti sti ca l terms, probabl e and
psycho logicall y poss ibl e; as far as its rea l countenance is concerned,
thank s to Solzhenitsyn , we a re in possession of a to tall y convincing
portrait.
It is no t a ques ti on o f Ru ss ian pa ranoia or a persecuti on comp lex:
we Ru ss ians a re fortun a te in thi s rega rd , because every time we think
someone is pursuing us, it turn s out it's simpl y an agent o f the KGB.
T hi s book is concern ed with a human phenomenon , with the annihila–
ti on of a majority by a mino rity, fo r no maller how grandi ose the
Soviet state security appa ra tus may be, it nevertheless is signifi cantl y
inferi o r in number to its vi ctims.
Gu lag
is concerned with a p rocess
ana logous to the very process o f our thinking. In th e consciousness of
any murderer a certa in dogma ti c element is present , be it jea lousy,
revenge, thirst fo r gain , or a sense o f hi s own rectitude. An idea l
situa ti on a ri ses when res pon sibility for an acti on is ass umed by a state
(being a prio ri unpuni sha bl e) whi ch suppli es an ideologica l moti ve for
th at action . Ideal-because wha t can be mo re idea l th an th e co inci–
dence of dogma and in stin ct?
Dogma as such is always a reacti on to di versit y of cho ice. T his
circumstance diminishes the na ti o nal co lo ring of the Gul ag and g ives
the present book an ominous uni versa lity. Fo r it makes abso lutely no
d ifference to a body whether a Schmeisser or a Kalashnikov pumps a
bull et into it. In the fin al analys is, a bull et, with its compl ete ri g idity,
is the idea l exponent o f dogma . As fa r as Solzhenitsyn is concerned,
because o f the rather lo ng time he spent facing bo th types o f muzz les,
the wo rld wa r was never over. At any ra te, he did no t end up among the
victo rs: on May 9, 1945, as the viclo ry sa lute resounded, he was sitting
in one o f the mos t famous pri sons in the vi ctori ous sta te.
T he authors of the co ll ection
From Under the R u bble,
to whi ch
Solzhenitsyn has contributed three articl es, and the author of
On
Socia list Democracy
wa rrant a llention if onl y beca use th ey serve as a
kind of culture medium for Solzhenitsyn , and they themselves, in turn ,
