Updating the Gulag

...The change in the ways of the Gulag is indicative of the transformation that has taken place in the "larger zone," as the prisoners refer to the rest of Soviet society...

...Natan Sharansky (as he now calls himself) was instrumental in organizing both...

...And there was the terrible anguish of his family, whom he speaks of with heartbreaking tenderness...

...For the prisoner, regardless of what political, ethnic or religious reasons led to his conflict with the regime, the West, the only real life force that opposes the evil, becomes the fount of hope and inspiration...

...Twenty-five years...

...After being brought to Lefortovo Prison, the main investigative center of the Soviet secret police, hewas shocked to learn that the charge against him was high treason, punishable by rasstrel— death byafiringsquad...

...Almost every page of the book contains proof of the West's presence as an invisible third party—be it in the investigative offices of Lefortovo, or in the courtroom of the sham trial, in the punishment cells of Vladimir Prison, or in the frozen region of Perm Camp 35...

...He suffered humiliation and torture at the hands of his jailers, including cold and hunger in medieval punishment cells...

...Indeed, it is the legitimacy of this control that is challenged by Sharansky and his prison comrades —the small "International" of politiki ranging from Ukrainian nationalists to Russian Orthodox Christians to Zionists...

...If, however, the reform fails, the book will continue to serve as a reminder to all of us that somewhere in the depths of the Gulag, as is still the case today, hapless zeks take the very fact of our freedom as their source of strength to conquer their fear of evil...

...Don't try to fool us...

...The goal of the KGB was to parade him before the world as a spy in order to put a stop, once and for all, to the dissidents' growing habit of soliciting Western support...

...Welcome, young man," says a veteran prisoner, greeting him...

...The "class struggle" withits summary mass executions has evolved into an Orwellian confrontation between the classless state and the spirited individual...

...Sharansky's testimony provides a much needed updating of the Western perception of Soviet political repression...

...It is a moving historical and spiritual document that will be read for many years, regardless of the results of the current reform...

...For nothing...

...For nothing, the term is 10 years.' When Anatoly B. Shcharansky was arrested by the KGB for publicizing the plight of refuseniks—Soviet Jews denied emigration to Israel—he knew that he had not done anything illegal...

...Sharansky's memoir ends just before the onset of glasnost and perestroïka...

...His prison memoir is a powerful revenge...

...Both sides, the KGB and the inmates, check their actions, rate their victories and losses, and plan their strategy against each other by one criterion: the impact abroad...

...The KGB case against Sharansky did not fly in the court of international world opinion, because of his stubborn unwillingness to plead guilty in exchange for leniency...

...He spent nine years in prison before his release in 1986, as part of an East-West spy exchange with which the Soviets sought in vain to link him...

...Hence the weak, starved, half conscious zek (prisoner) cuddling on the cement floor of the punishment cell to save body heat becomes the incarnation of the mighty enemy plotting against the motherland...

...The Gulag described by Sharansky is no longer a vast killing field...

...assistant professor of microbiology, Columbia University A classic joke about the Soviet Union's prison subculture tells of a new inmate entering the camp barracks that will be his home for many years...

...Tell us, what is your term...

...If Mikhail S. Gorbachev succeeds in dismantling the police state and turning the Soviet Union into a civilized society, this book will stand as a tribute to those political prisoners who more than anyone else were responsible for the advent of liberty in Russia...

...its portrayal of the modern-day Gulag appears at the least convenient time for the Soviets...

...Their remarkable camaraderie and solidarity in defiance of their jailers' brutalities is the best evidence of the universal nature of Soviet oppression, and should help dispel the popular misconception that human rights in Russia is essentially a Jewish problem...

...Themost alarming examples of the trend were the refuseniks' open backing of the Jackson Amendment (the U. S. legislation introduced by the late Senator Henry Jackson, linking trade privileges to Soviet emigration policy), and the creation of a public committee to monitor Soviet compliance with the Helsinki accords...

...It was 1977, the heyday of détente, and the Soviet government was getting increasingly concerned about the fact that several of its disgruntled citizens had begun to bring their grievances to theattention of the West...

...He paid for this dearly...

...it is a sleepy bureaucracy that operates through the total control of the human mind and soul rather than primitive terror...

...it is a psychological battleground where a Kafkaesque succession of investigators, procurators, "people's" judges, police informers, prison administrators, and moronic guards is pitted against the lonely, fragile prisoner who is to be " re-educated" instead of destroyed...

...Theirony of the old joke became the reality in his case: The spying charge was meant to convince the world that at least some crime had been committed...

...The preoccupation with the West goes far beyond simple public relations consciousness and reaches the level of a major psychological archetype...

...The USSR is no longer a bloody dictatorship...

...If the Soviet Union's political prisons are a reflection of the whole society, then the most important revelation of Fear No Evil is the tremendous role of the West as the principal symbol of political, social, economic, and spiritual resistance to the totalitarian control...

...In the new Gulag, the confession of guilt brings quick release...

...Compared with Stalin's monstrous death industry (it is useful to reread any chapter of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago), one can see the essential difference that has developed during the past four decades...

...He therefore expected to face the customary charge of anti-Soviet agitation, which carries a maximum penalty of seven years...

...In the eyes of the KGB, anyone who thinks differently than the ruling bureaucracy dictates is a foreign agent...

...What did you get it for...