The life work of the writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn summarizes not only the experiences of his eight years in Soviet prisons but also the history of the entire society from the Tsar to Lenin, through Stalin to Khrushchev in the twentieth century. It is among the hundred most significant books of the 20th century. For the younger generation, it is a "prehistory," completely unsuitable for the holiday period, but the description of a totalitarian society, a society of constant state terror, forced labor, suspicion, fear, anxiety, informers, cruelty, sycophancy, and hypocrisy is incredible. It describes what a person is capable of surviving and enduring. An organized state hell and terror under the guise of building an "ideal society," a "human heaven on earth," in which human life has no value and anyone, truly anyone, can be sent to prison for usually 10, but even 25 years. It is not necessary to read it; it is enough to listen to the audiobook on YouTube.
Many prisoners, especially political ones, tried to maintain their dignity even in these inhuman conditions. After the insane conditions of their detention, interrogation, torture to confess to things they did not do, trial, transport, minimal food, and cold, they surrendered their attachment to life. They did not stoop, did not inform, did not lie, did not seek revenge. They remained human. In critical periods of the Gulags, 1% of prisoners died daily. For prisoners, it was necessary to survive not only physically but also spiritually. Believers, clergy, and intellectuals had an advantage in this, but they were persecuted all the more.
One of the slogans of that terrible time was: "The result is what matters." For the result, many things, sometimes everything, were often sacrificed. This is not, of course, the truth; what matters is "how, with what spirit, at what cost."
After many years in prison, the author recognizes that the goal of a person is not prosperity but spiritual growth; otherwise, a person becomes just a "beast for easier survival." In such cases, however, the torturers at all levels were punished the most, without knowing it, becoming part of a system of evil. For some prisoners, the reality became: better to die than to be humiliated, to lie, to become a perpetrator. From the perspective of eternity, however, only the result is truly important, regardless of all the horrors, pains, hunger, humiliations, and suffering experienced. The dreamed release into freedom over time becomes an illusion, because behind the prison walls, there is also unfreedom, political manipulation, constant control of life, and the risk of further arrests. An almost absurd proverb states: "Freedom corrupts; unfreedom teaches." Instead of fascination with evil, there is fascination with what a person can survive if they must and have motivation.
Jan Suchánek
