The huge and still growing literature of personal recollections of the (mostly Soviet) Communist concentration camps has not been paralleled by scholarly explorations of the same topic and its social-scientific and moral dimensions. Likewise what Dariusz Tolczyk calls the “intellectual and spiritual aspect of the Soviet camp experience” remains largely unexamined and undigested by Western intellectuals, academic and other. This lack of interest is especially striking when compared to the attention (well deserved) Nazi camps have received from Western scholars. Many possible reasons for the discrepancy may be suggested, but probably the most important is the reluctance to even come close to the moral equation of Nazism and Communism that a systematic study of the Communist camps may lead to. To be sure, these camps--including the best known ones in the former Soviet Union—were not, by design, extermination camps. Mortality rates were high, but they were not achieved by gas chambers and no “Final Solution” was envisaged by the killing of a designated group of people. This is not to suggest that the Communist camps did not serve ambitious political-ideological objectives; as Tolczyk points out, they were “laboratories established by the ultimate artist, where the material was to be transformed according to the overall artistic plan.” They were considered “social medicine”: “schools of labor” administered to usher in a new era and improve human beings

The Soviet (and other Communist) camps were far more ecumenical than the Nazi ones as far as the selection of inmates was concerned: anybody could qualify for admission if suspected to be an enemy of the state and the party, regardless of age, sex, race, ethnicity, class, religion, or prior political affiliation and position held. Communist camps also differed significantly from the Nazi ones in that they sought (in theory) to “rehabilitate” the wrongdoers, transforming them from enemies of the state into useful citizens through the therapy of work and ideological indoctrination. Nazi totalitarianism did not aspire to transform and reeducate the (racially defined) enemies of the state and society, but only to exterminate them as efficiently as possible. The gates of its camps were festooned with the slogan “Arbeit machts frei” (“work liberates”), but that was intended merely as a tactical deception of the doomed, just as were the showerheads in the gas chambers.

We know by now, and knew even before the fall of the Soviet Union, that the Communist camps did not rehabilitate anybody and killed far more people than the Nazi ones. Death in Communist camps was induced by “natural” causes: starvation, hard work, poor clothing and shelter in harsh climate, and non-existent or inadequate medical care. While estimates vary, the number of those who perished in Communist camps—most of them Soviet and Chinese—is somewhere between forty and sixty million. A more complete figure of the victims of the Communist systems has to include those executed by shooting, usually outside the camps in prisons or secluded forests.

There was one important similarity between the Nazi and the Soviet programs of purification; in Tolczyk’s characterization,  

This was a new type of violence; systematic, controlled, oriented toward a goal, disciplined, and ultimately guaranteed by the great achievements promised in the future.

But unlike what the Nazis intended, the fruits of Soviet-Communist violence were to benefit the entire nation, or mankind, rather than only the members of a superior racial group. Arguably the Bolshevik violence was also a good deal less systematic and disciplined than the Nazi; it was possible both in theory and practice to survive the gulag and the mass violence associated with the purges in the 1930s. Moreover the scope of the purge victims somewhat exceeded the official requirements and expectations (abetted by the mutual denunciations of millions of ordinary citizens).

The book here reviewed is an outstanding addition to the small body of scholarly literature dealing with the Communist labor camps: their nature, perceptions, and official legitimation. By implication See No Evil also helps to illuminate the differences and similarities between Nazi and Communist camps and the discrepancy between their treatment by Western scholars and intellectuals. The author, a student of Slavic literature rather than politics, chose an ingenious and rewarding way for addressing the topic; he examines the treatment of the camps (and the earlier revolutionary violence) in the works of Soviet writers entrusted with the application of the party-line to the topic, a most demanding task even for writers committed to the principles of socialist realism. In addition Tolczyk discusses Solzhenitsyn’s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch (1962), the only work published in the Soviet Union before glasnost that raised fundamental questions that the regime could not handle even under Krushchev’s “thaw.”

Tolczyk’s study goes beyond exposing the breathtaking falsehoods of the official literature about the camps—it is an original and illuminating contribution to understanding Soviet totalitarianism as a whole, and its ceaseless attempts to bridge the vast gap between theory and practice, ideals and realities. As Tolczyk points out, “the Bolsheviks were pioneers in their ruthless attempt to systematically reprogram and control the human sense of truth and falsehood, good and evil.” The book also helps us to better understand the universal puzzle of how groups and individuals can convince themselves of the righteousness of their cause to a degree that “victimization and killing present no ethical problem” and instead “become ethically positive if done for the sake of the universal justice of the Bolshevik future.” Under these conditions “the moral connotations of the words lie and murder should depend only on whose class interests they serve.”

Most Westerners knew next to nothing of the Soviet camp system let alone the official efforts to redefine it—a remarkable example of the totalitarian aspiration to substitute an official, imaginary version of reality for that which can be experienced, or, as the author puts it, “to defeat experience with words.” Some Western visitors taken on conducted tours of the Soviet model prison camps in the 1920s and 1930s were introduced to the official views and ideals of these institutions, but the literary efforts have remained largely unknown. Tolczyk begins by discussing works of fiction from the late 1920s which deal with revolutionary violence and portray the “executioners as tragic heroes” who overcame residual moral scruples by viewing their brutality as “tragic necessity.” In one of these stories, the hero who routinely signs death sentences perceives his activity as “weed[ing] the gigantic garden, pulling out various weeds.” The revolution —in this frame of mind—was “viewed as a struggle between different species.” Such verbal and theoretical dehumanization of the victims helped to bring any moral scruples under control.

In the late 1920s and early 1930s, the camps became the focus of official literary propaganda and were portrayed as tools of character reform. In this period Soviet society was supposed to move “from the conflict-ridden past to the conflictless socialist future,” and society was “the unruly human material out of which the Bolshevik genius … [was] to construct the most homogeneous, harmonious, just, and happy society on earth.” Maxim Gorky was in the forefront of these literary efforts. His cheerful and reverent account of the camps on Solovki islands, along with a chronicle—the collective product of thirty-six Soviet writers—of the building of the Belomor canal are the most important sources in the book.

Finally there is the literature of the “thaw” after Stalin’s death when some writers (generally unknown in the West) described the camps realistically enough but sought to portray them as somehow incidental to the essential character of the system that created them. The only inmates dealt with in these books are the innocent Communists, supporters of the system even in the gulag, whose faith in their ultimate vindication and the system’s capacity to rejuvenate itself never wavers.

The contribution of Soviet writers to the official definition and glorification of the camp system by propagating the “vision of a humane, benevolent concentration camp” is one of the most repugnant chapters in the intellectual history of this century. The treatment of their activities provided by this volume has not been available before. It is morbidly fascinating that Gorky’s visit to the first Soviet concentration camps located on the Solovki islands (near the Arctic circle) took place shortly after his return from abroad, from his long residence in the balmy climate of Capri and Sorrento. His impressions of the camps were part of a travelogue of the Soviet Union during 1928–29. His account helped to establish the politically correct conventions for Soviet writers for dealing with the camps. If there ever was a memorable parable to illustrate Julien Benda’s notion of “the treason of the intellectuals,” this is it. Tolczyk argues that Gorky—unlike the visitors from abroad taken to the model prisons—knew that what he was shown was a charade. Apparently the highly favorable impressions acquired during his travels in the Soviet Union were part of Gorky’s effort (or bargain) to make peace with the Soviet system, aspects of which he had been critical of in earlier years. As in the case of many Western visitors, flattery and official recognition played an important part in the process. Tolczyk points out that

Gorky was not unaware of the moral nature of the Soviet system. By choosing to assume the highest post in the Soviet literary hierarchy, he clearly consented to fulfill the political obligations attached to it.

The result was the account of his visit to Solovki, a perfect socialist-realist portrayal of the camps in which ideals and realities were fraudulently conflated: “Under Gorky’s pen, life in the concentration camp could be the cause of envy on the part of the inhabitants of the ordinary Soviet reality on the other side of the barbed wire.” Gorky’s impressions of the typical camp guard were also memorable: “From frequent smiles the face of this man had become brighter, as if he had washed it … his face is good natured and his dark eyes look at people softly and with trust.” Indeed. In the visitor’s book of the camp he wrote:

I am not in a state of mind to express my impressions in just a few words. … I would not want … to permit myself banal praise of the remarkable energy of people who, while remaining vigilant and tireless sentinels of the Revolution, are able, at the same time, to be remarkably bold creators of culture.

No comparable praise has been lavished (except by Himmler) on the operatives of the Final Solution.

The Belomor volume was written in 1933–34.[1] Besides describing and glorifying the construction of the canal (which connected the Baltic to the White Sea and was undertaken at Stalin’s initiative), it was also an ode to Stalin. The literary project began with Gorky leading a tour of 120 Soviet writers along the length of the canal to gather personal impressions that included conversations with the prisoner-workers and guards. Thirty-six of the writers contributed to the volume. The canal that was built entirely by manual labor not only linked the two seas but also reeducated the enemies of the system, thus “overcoming the last obstacles of the past on the road to a brighter future.” Nonetheless, in keeping with the character of Soviet totalitarianism, the book was banned in 1937 largely because it glorifies not only Stalin but also Genrikh Yahoda, the head of the OGPU, who had been in charge of building the canal but was subsequently purged by Stalin.

Documenting and recalling these monuments to the falsification of grim social-political realities stimulate reflections about the vulnerability of a system that was committed to and institutionalized deception and self-deception on a monumental scale. Only one critical issue arises out of reading this original and thought provoking study: that of including One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch. To be sure there is nothing to quarrel with regarding the discussion of the book, its historical and moral significance, and the problems it created for the Soviet authorities who unwisely (from their point of view) permitted its publication. Rather, the problem is one of cohesion or structure: the novel does not quite belong to a volume devoted to the fraudulent official representations of the subject. This is however a minor reservation about a study that brings a wealth of new information and insight to a topic that continues to demand our moral and intellectual attention.

[1] There is an abridged translation available: Belomor: An Account of the Construction of the New Canal Between the White Sea and the Baltic Sea, edited by Amabel Williams-Ellis (H. Smith & R. Haas, 1935).

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