Enemies of the State: Personal Stories from the Gulag

by Donald T. Critchlow co-editor of American Conspiracies Revealed and author of The Conservative, Agnieszka Critchlow

Overview

Long before Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (1962) shocked the Western world with its frightening description of a typical day in a forced-labor camp during the Stalin era, some readers in the West already knew of prison life in the Soviet Union, the Eastern bloc, and other Communist countries. A powerful genre of gulag literature had emerged in the late 1930s and developed throughout the cold war. Books by survivors revealed in graphic detail the systematic implementation of a totalitarian police state that induced terror in its citizens through torture, imprisonment in slave labor camps, and death. In Enemies of the State, Donald and Agnieszka Critchlow have selected excerpts from nine of the most widely read books from this gulag literature. The stories are riveting and inspiring. They are dramatic by their nature and illustrate humanity at its heroic best. But they have historical value too, because in addition to providing a ghastly record of Communist terror, they also explain why Western readers developed such deep mistrust of “peaceful coexistence” with any Communist nation. Memoirs from survivors of Communist prisons confirmed beliefs that the Communists could not be trusted. They told readers that Communist regimes operated through deception and denial, and that sympathetic visitors to the Soviet Union, China, North Vietnam, and Cuba were too often misled by the carefully staged performances of Communist officials. In short, gulag literature reinforced among American anti-Communists the idea of an apocalyptic struggle between communism and Western Christendom.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781566635219
Publisher:	Dee, Ivan R. Publisher
Publication date:	07/21/2003
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	6.60(w) x 8.32(h) x 0.81(d)

About the Author

Donald T. Critchlow teaches American history at Saint Louis University. He has written and edited eleven books, including Intended Consequences: Birth Control, Abortion, and the Federal Government, and Studebaker: The Life and Death of an American Corporation. He lives in St. Louis. Agnieszka Critchlow teaches in the American Studies program at Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic.

Editorial Reviews

These accounts by largely forgotten figures [offer] a strength in the face of the inversion of truth and rationality that is incomprehensible.

New York Sun - Tim Marchman

The stories told and retold here...make for painful but necessary reading.... What they have to say we must never forget.

First Things

Powerful and revealing information about the human costs of the attempted applications of Marxism-Leninism…

Journal of Cold War Studies - Paul Hollander

The Critchlows have rendered a signal service by providing attention, access, and background to this historically important literature.

John Earl Haynes

This book provides shocking insight into the workings of communism and, therefore, into the Cold War itself.

Conservativenet

The narratives collected...exemplify...the abuses of human rights in Communist states and act...as landmarks in...history...

The Russian Review

These stories should not only be read for the lessons they can teach us about socialism. They should be read because they are great literature, human drama, and an inspiration to everyone who will ever face adversity.

Conservative Monitor

These memoirs pose important questions about the monolithic character of communist ideology.

Slavic and East European Journal - Karla Cruise

Critchlow contributes greatly to our understanding of American politics in the last half of the twentieth century.

Jonathan J. Bean

...Powerful and revealing information about the human costs of the attempted applications of Marxism-Leninism...
— Journal of Cold War Studies

Paul Hollander

The Critchlows have rendered a signal service by providing attention, access, and background to this historically important literature.

JOHN EARL HAYNES

These accounts by largely forgotten figures [offer] a strength in the face of the inversion of truth and rationality that is incomprehensible.
—NEW YORK SUN

TIM MARCHMAN

These stories should not only be read for the lessons they can teach us about socialism. They should be read because they are great literature, human drama, and an inspiration to everyone who will ever face adversity.

CONSERVATIVE MONITOR

The narratives collected...exemplify...the abuses of human rights in Communist states and act...as landmarks in...history...

THE RUSSIAN REVIEW

This book provides shocking insight into the workings of communism and, therefore, into the Cold War itself.

CONSERVATIVENET