Solzhenitsyn's archipelago of lies by Yakovlev, Nikolai - 1974

Moscow: Novosti Publishing House, 1974. Softcover. Near Fine. First edition. 16mo. 61 [1] pp. Text in English. Printed wrappers. Staples lightly oxidized, wrappers with two creases, just about near fine. A refutation of *The Gulag Archipelago* by a Soviet historian, published the year after Solzhenitsyn's masterpiece was published in Russian (in Paris), and the same year it was published in English and French. Yakovlev, who can barely contain his disdain, calls Solzhenitsyn a "pseudo-historian and traitor," accuses him of "grossly falsifying history," and so on. 35 years later, *The Gulag Archipelago* would become required reading for Russian students. The Russian imprint on the final page does not state a limitation, as is sometimes the case-it does mentions the price is 8 kopecks-but the pamphlet is an uncommon and important window into the Soviet Union's response to "the most powerful single indictment of a political regime ever to be levied in modern times" (George F. Kennan), "the book that… Read More

Moscow: Novosti Press Agency Publishing House, 1974. First. Near Fine. Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn (1918 - 2008) was a Russian writer. A prominent Soviet dissident, Solzhenitsyn was an outspoken critic of communism and helped to raise global awareness of political repression in the Soviet Union, in particular the Gulag system. His most famous work was his massive three volume The Gulag Archipelago, which meticulously recorded the stories of dozens of Russian political prisoners exiled to Siberia by the Soviet regime.  Another was the autobiographical novel The First Circle, which describes a prisoner lab, in which technically skilled political prisoners are forced to work on government projects, many of which help the government to identify and arrest other "security risks". These small (6" x 4") softcover books are part of the Soviet propaganda campaign against Solzhenitsyn, who was forcibly deported in the same year as publication, 1974, his main crimes being that he wrote to expose… Read More