Can anyone doubt that the next documentary blockbuster will be American Gulag: Inside Uncle Sam’s Camps, from Michael Moore? There must be a dozen scripts already circulating in Hollywood with similar titles, and now that Amnesty International has weighed in, surely it’s only a matter of time before a new example of creative filmmaking will be breaking attendance records nationwide.

So let me suggest a way of dealing with the inevitable agonizing over Gitmo and Abu Ghraib. Get hold of a video of Marina Goldovskaya's film about the genuine article, The Solovky Power: Evidence and Documents, and sit your friends down for an in-depth look at the real, original, death-through-labor Soviet archetype, where something far worse than the occasional mistreatment of Korans occurred. This distinguished film will enable everyone to get their historical bearings; moreover, it is a standing rebuke to those who would rec ...