I think that you seeing this work of fiction as one of the greatest works of journalism of the 20th century is exactly why I posted. I agree that the gulag system sucks? So don't think I'm in favor of the USSR or something, because I'm not. But the book's content isn't real, it's largely fabrication, and you can say something like "I think he speaks to the truth of the situation despite not accurately representing facts and statistics" if you want to. But I don't think it's right to act like The Gulag Archipelago is anything but a novel, albeit one that maybe expounds truths beyond its content, especially in an arena like this which claims to value factuality.

I also think you missed the part where the author acknowledges that it's a work of fiction and informed by real experiences but not meant to relate to reality per se. So while I value your input (of course!) I can't help but wonder if a re-read of previous comments might be in order.

Solzhenitsyn is required reading today for Russion schoolchildren. That alone ought to speak to its importance and accuracy -- not of figures per se (unbeknownst to him, some of his sources were not accurate), but the reality of the horrors committed by the Soviets, which he experienced first-hand.

Have you read at least the first few chapters of The Gulag Archipelago?

> Solzhenitsyn is required reading today for Russion schoolchildren

Russia is an authoritarian oligarchy and their school system presumably reflects this. I don't think this is a mark in favor of what you think it is.

> Have you read at least the first few chapters of The Gulag Archipelago?

As a teenager, yes, do you think I'm missing something crucial, specifically from the early bits?

Gulag system sucks?

I don't know what country you are from, but I doubt its any with experiences of death camps. Take your non historical post truth head out of your ass and realise that MILLIONS of people were killed in nazi germany, the gulags, by the chinese communists. MILLIONS others were starved to death because food was confiscated from them.

These systems don't SUCK. They were the lowest points of human history.

I'm so fucking angry with apologists like you. You have no idea what people went through.

> Gulag system sucks?

> I don't know what country you are from, but I doubt its any with experiences of death camps.

I'm sorry that I wasn't sufficiently excoratory of the gulags. What adjective do you think would make you feel I have an acceptable level of distaste for forced labor camps?

I also don't think the gulags were death camps, weren't they "reeducation" and labor camps? Unlike a death camp, the point is to produce labor (in large part this uncompensated, essentially slave, labor was a major contributor to the USSR's ability to take on a half decade's industrialization in a fifth of the time, or so I'm led to believe).

> I'm so fucking angry with apologists like you. You have no idea what people went through.

I don't think you're in a state to have a rational conversation about politics, because it sounds like you have personal or familial experience with these institutions. I know some of my close friends have very close ties to the Trail of Tears in the USA and I also avoid talking to them about the issue - not because it's taboo, but because I don't think there's a meaningful conversation to be had there. It was an atrocity, and will never be made right. What can you say to that?