Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn Classic Soviet-Censored Novel, In the First Circle, Uncensored English Version

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In the First Circle: The First Uncensored Edition

Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn (Author), Harry Willets (Translator) 

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This first uncensored translation of what many consider Solzhenitsyn's masterpiece shows the Nobel laureate treading deeply into the logic of Soviet Russia's gulag, if not deeply enough into the minds of his characters. A quest to discover the identity of a rogue Russian diplomat serves as Solzhenitsyn's springboard for a tour of Russia's immense gulag system, slipping from prisoner to jailer to anguished wife (and even detouring through a weary Stalin) to briefly examine the lives of more than 60 significant characters. Each short chapter contributes to a vast mosaic of philosophies and moral dilemmas that, taken together, form a panorama of a Russia gripped by Stalinist terror. Unfortunately, none of the characters steps out from the shadow of the political to become a full-fledged individual; the result is an oddly skewed work, a highly journalistic novel that hits the political and material realities of post-WWII Russia, but that subsumes humanity beneath its ideas. It's more valuable as testimony than as literature, thanks largely to Solzhenitsyn's insight into one of the great abominations of the 20th century. (Oct.)
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From Booklist

*Starred Review* Even the title was truncated when The First Circle, an expurgated English translation of Solzhenitsyn’s Soviet-censored masterpiece In the First Circle, was published to acclaim in the West in 1968. Written in the mid-1950s just after Solzhenitsyn’s eight years in the gulag, his nearly fatal bout with cancer, and his sentence to “perpetual” exile in Kazakhstan, this novel of tyranny and transcendence, set in a secret Soviet prison research facility, appears for the first time in full and in sterling English, following the Nobel laureate’s death at age 89 in 2008. In this many-voiced, flashback-rich, philosophical, suspenseful, ironic, and wrenching tale, Solzhenitsyn interleaves the stories of a grand matrix of compelling characters (women are accorded particular compassion) trapped in a maze of toxic lies, torturous absurdities, and stark brutality. It all begins with diplomat Innokenty Volodin’s anonymous phone call to the American embassy. Imprisoned scientists, most notably linguist Lev Rubin and mathematician (and stoic) Gleb Nerzhin, are put to work identifying his recorded voice, the catalyst for a scorching inquiry into free speech, which is but one strand in Solzhenitsyn’s metaphysical interpretation of incarceration. As the resilient and talented prisoners draw strength from books and conversation, Nerzhin decries humankind’s “astounding capacity to forget” both crimes and punishments. Solzhenitsyn has an antidote: this indelible novel of towering artistry, caustic wit, moral clarity, and spiritual fire. --Donna Seaman

Review

“The new edition of Solzhenitsyn’s epic novel, In the First Circle captures better than any other work of fiction the quintessence of communist rule at its Stalinist peak: all-pervasive, paranoid, oppressive, incompetent, lethal. ... The longer text is deeper and darker.” (The Economist )

“The appearance of this new version of Solzhenitsyn’s best novel is an exciting literary event. This is a great and important book, whose qualities are finally fully available to English readers. A fifth longer than the original, it is a vastly better novel.” (Washington Post )

“Solzhenitsyn’s Cold War masterpiece ... a new radically retranslated edition, which is greatly expanded.” (London Times )

Product Description

The thrilling cold war masterwork by the nobel prize winner, published in full for the first time

Moscow, Christmas Eve, 1949.The Soviet secret police intercept a call made to the American embassy by a Russian diplomat who promises to deliver secrets about the nascent Soviet Atomic Bomb program. On that same day, a brilliant mathematician is locked away inside a Moscow prison that houses the country's brightest minds. He and his fellow prisoners are charged with using their abilities to sleuth out the caller's identity, and they must choose whether to aid Joseph Stalin's repressive state—or refuse and accept transfer to the Siberian Gulag camps . . . and almost certain death.
First written between 1955 and 1958, In the First Circle is Solzhenitsyn's fiction masterpiece. In order to pass through Soviet censors, many essential scenes—including nine full chapters—were cut or altered before it was published in a hastily translated English edition in 1968. Now with the help of the author's most trusted translator, Harry T. Willetts, here for the first time is the complete, definitive English edition of Solzhenitsyn's powerful and magnificent classic.

About the Author

After serving as a decorated captain in the Soviet Army during World War II, Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn (1918-2008) was sentenced to prison for eight years for criticizing Stalin and the Soviet government in private letters. Solzhenitsyn vaulted from unknown schoolteacher to internationally famous writer in 1962 with the publication of his novella One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich; he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1968. The writer's increasingly vocal opposition to the regime resulted in another arrest, a charge of treason, and expulsion from the USSR in 1974, the year The Gulag Archipelago, his epic history of the Soviet prison system, first appeared in the West. For eighteen years, he and his family lived in Vermont. In 1994 he returned to Russia. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn died at his home in Moscow in 2008.

The Bourgeois Dictatorship Grows Increasingly Insecure

What the, "war on terror" really means is,

'Look and anyone but me.'

 
Third (Communist) International

1. Faced with the growth of the revolutionary movements in many countries, the bourgeoisie and their agents among the workers are making desperate attempts to find ideological and political arguments in defense of the rule of the exploiters.
Condemnation of dictatorship and defense of democracy are particularly prominent among these arguments. The falsity and hypocrisy of this argument, relentlessly repeated by the capitalist media are obvious to all who refuse to betray the fundamental principles of socialism.
2. Firstly, this argument employs the concepts of ‘democracy in general’ and ‘dictatorship in general’, without posing the question of the class concerned. This non-class or above-class presentation, which supposedly is popular, is an outright travesty of the basic tenet of socialism.
Namely, its theory of class struggle, which socialists who have sided with the bourgeoisie recognize in words but disregard in practice. For in no civilized capitalist country does ‘democracy in general’ exist; all that exists is bourgeois democracy.
And its not a question of ‘dictatorship in general’, but of the dictatorship of the oppressed class, i.e., the proletariat, over its oppressors and exploiters, i.e., the bourgeoisie, in order to overcome the resistance offered by the exploiters in their fight to maintain their domination.
3. History teaches us that no oppressed class ever did, or could, achieve power without going through a period of dictatorship, i.e., the conquest of political power and forcible suppression of the resistance always offered by the exploiters – a resistance that is most desperate, most furious, and that stops at nothing.
The bourgeoisie, whose domination is now defended by the socialists who denounce ‘dictatorship in general’ and extol ‘democracy in general’, won power in the advanced countries through a series of insurrections, civil wars, and the forcible suppression of kings, feudal lords, slaveowners and their attempts at restoration.
In books, pamphlets, congress resolutions and propaganda speeches, socialists everywhere have explained thousands upon millions of times to the people the class nature of these bourgeois revolutions and this bourgeois dictatorship.
That is why the present defense of bourgeois democracy under cover of talk about ‘democracy in general’ and the present howls and shouts against proletarian dictatorship under cover of shouts about ‘dictatorship in general’ are an outright betrayal of socialism.
They are, in fact, desertion to the bourgeoisie, denial of the proletariat’s right to its own, proletarian, revolution, and defense of bourgeois reformism at the very historical juncture when bourgeois reformism throughout the world has collapsed and the war has created a revolutionary situation.
4. In explaining the class nature of bourgeois civilisation, bourgeois democracy and the bourgeois parliamentary system, all socialists have expressed the idea formulated with the greatest scientific precision by Marx and Engels.
The most democratic bourgeois republic is no more than a machine for the suppression of the working class by the bourgeoisie, for the suppression of the working people by a handful of capitalists.
There is not a single revolutionary, not a single Marxist among those now shouting against dictatorship and for democracy who has not sworn and vowed to the workers that he accepts this basic truth of socialism.
But now, when the revolutionary proletariat is in a fighting mood and taking action to destroy this machine of oppression and to establish proletarian dictatorship, these traitors to socialism claim that the bourgeoisie have granted the working people ‘pure democracy’, have abandoned resistance and are prepared to yield to the majority of the working people.
They assert that in a democratic republic there is not, and never has been, any such thing as a state machine for the oppression of labour by capital.

 

Will There be An End to Capitalist Ideolgy?

Where's the revolution?

By Antony Lerman

The causes of the global crisis lie in corruption, financial manipulation and institutionalised fraud, market rigging, bankers' greed, illegal wealth appropriation exacerbated by the bank bailouts and the promotion of war as a means of generating profits for big corporations at the cost of the poor, the disadvantaged and socially destitute.

The consequences of The Great Recession will extend far into the future.

There's the human cost, the devastating impact on people's lives, whether for us personally, for already disadvantaged groups, the country as a whole, developing nations, or the more than 2 billion people already living on less than $2 per day.

Predictions about the consequences of the deficit-reduction measures proposed are already dire. And for many millions, the debilitating impact of financial retrenchment is a reality today.

Commentators of all political stripes are falling over each other to tell us that state social programmes will collapse. Unemployment will rise massively. Millions will be impoverished.

Health services will be curtailed, pensions reduced, infrastructure projects cut, educational opportunities diminished. Worldwide living standards will deteriorate. And things won't get better any time soon.

The last comparable global economic crisis gave a boost to all-encompassing, radical ideologies that claimed to provide a comprehensive analysis of what the problem was and a complete solution: communism and fascism.

Whatever you think of them – for me, both were disastrous – there is no doubting the immensity of each one's aspiration to remake society.

If, as many claim, "humanity is at the crossroads of the most serious economic and social crisis in modern history", where is today's big answer, or bold ideological analysis and recipe for transformation, the movement that's taking the masses by storm? It's not that I want it.

It's just that the circumstances seem so ripe for such a response and yet, unless I'm missing something, nothing comparable has emerged and I'm struggling to understand why.

Perhaps it's because politicians in all countries affected have successfully framed the crisis not only in terms of economic errors but also but also moral deficiencies.

They have offered a sop to the anger of the public, but dampened down speculation about the need for revolutionary change by proposing solutions that are almost exclusively managerial.

Evil may have infected the system and a few bankers' knuckles may have been rapped, but the holy grail will be reached by cutting the deficit. The cuts may get ever more radical, but they're just cuts – what any accountant would tell you to do to get your personal finances in order.

Rebalancing the economy effectively means letting free market forces take care of growth, then incomes and spending can recover. Endure the pain, take the medicine and all will be well.

The global consensus among political leaders sees this is the right approach, with variations as to how far and how fast to go.

It may be keeping dissent in check for now, but it looks to me fragile and was achieved with no little sleight of hand. Can it really be the case that, in effect, a bunch of accountants will solve all our problems?

You don't have to look far to find powerful arguments being made that what happened is not merely natural to the economic cycle and therefore won't simply adjust itself in time.

This approach locates the cause of the global crisis in corruption, financial manipulation and institutionalised fraud, market rigging, bankers' greed, illegal wealth appropriation exacerbated by the bank bailouts and the promotion of war as a means of generating profits for big corporations at the cost of the poor, the disadvantaged and socially destitute.

If economic growth falters, and many are warning that it will, the appeal of an analysis that says the system is fundamentally broken and the economists have been revealed as emperors without any clothes, may dramatically increase.

If then pressure mounts for more radical, root-and-branch solutions, is there anything on offer that may seriously challenge the neoliberal consensus and mobilise the masses?

I have no special command of the landscape, so correct me if I'm wrong, but fully-grown, intellectually coherent political-economic solutions, ready for instant harvesting, look to me to be nonexistent.

Despite claims that Marxism is undergoing a revival, memory of the barbarous uses to which it was put by communist regimes is still too fresh to make it anything more than of minority interest.

And when a radical populist like President Lula da Silva produces 9% growth in Brazil in first quarter 2010, within a basically capitalist economic framework, what thinking revolutionary will see the appeal of Marxism?

So, too, with the anti-globalisation movement directed at G8s and G20s, which anyway seems to have run out of steam.

Green economic and political theories seem far too weak and underdeveloped to gain serious traction and the deficit-reduction bandwagon will only, and almost certainly unfairly, make green solutions look unaffordable.

It may be wrong to rule out something radically new coming from more establishment sources, like the new Soros-funded Institute for New Economic Thinking, but don't hold your breath.

Perhaps there are other ideologies in formation, which even now are generating great excitement among those keen to find a new global answer to the global crisis.

Equally, such ideologies will generate deep scepticism and possibly fear in many who distrust wholesale social engineering.

It's true that our current politics are too crude to cope with either satisfactorily, explaining the causes of our current problems or devising and implementing an intellectually coherent and fair set of solutions.

So some new thinking is desperately needed. Nevertheless, for all its inadequacies, I favour a more fox-like, piecemeal, generalist approach to this task, rather than the widespread adoption of a hedgehog-like, all-encompassing ideology.

And yet I fear that we may not escape a deeply damaging bout of the latter at some point over the next 10 years.

Glenn Beck's Fractured Fairytales

Glenn Beck, wrong again

By David Walsh

Glenn Beck is a reactionary know-nothing who hosts a commentary program on Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News Channel in the US. An unstable individual, with a history of odd jobs in radio, Beck landed on his feet only during the Bush years as one of the new wave of talk-show demagogues.

This proponent of “common sense,” whom the media chooses to portray as a “populist,” is fantastically compensated, taking in a reported $32 million from March 2009 to March 2010. This multimillionaire, unsurprisingly, is an enthusiastic spokesman for the American financial-corporate aristocracy and a venomous foe of anyone who dares to criticize it.

On June 3, as part of a defense of Israel’s massacre of humanitarian activists off the coast of Gaza, Beck cited comments made to reporters from the World Socialist Web Site at protests against the killings. This is only one of the most recent occasions on which Beck has referred to or cited the WSWS.

Beck made the comments the jumping-off point for an incoherent tirade alleging “a rich history… of socialism and anti-Semitism.” In the course of his comments, Beck accused Karl Marx of anti-Semitism, claimed that German nationalist ideologue Wilhelm Marr was “a radical socialist,” pointed to the full name of the Nazi Party (although he got it wrong) as proof that it was a socialist movement, etc., etc.

There is nothing new here. These are slanders that rely on the gullibility and lack of historical knowledge of Beck’s audience. One is not dealing here with an informed, even if deeply misguided intellectual opponent. Every sentence contains confusion, stupidity or lies—or all three.

Beck and his handlers know nothing at all. For example, Beck referred to “the left wing German terrorist, Ulrike Meinhof,” and began, “he sounds friendly—he said—oh, it’s a she?” He proceeded to misinterpret Meinhof’s bitter comment (a paraphrase perhaps of August Bebel’s famous remark that anti-Semitism was “the socialism of fools”) about how the German imperialists had diverted “the people's hatred of money and exploitation away from themselves and onto the Jews. The hatred of the Jews is actually the hatred of capitalism”… as an expression of anti-Semitism!

Anyone with the slightest knowledge of history recognizes that modern anti-Semitism was a phenomenon of the right, the response of the ruling classes of Europe in particular to the threat posed by the socialist working class movement in the last third of the 19th century. It was an effort to create a mass political base for the defense of the profit system and “the nation” by appealing to and stirring up layers within the middle class whose position was being undermined by the growth of large-scale industry, finance and trade.

The only consistent opponent of anti-Semitism was the Socialist movement in Germany, France, Russia and elsewhere. In 1887, for example, the German Social Democratic Party (SPD) ran Paul Singer, a Jewish socialist businessman, as their candidate in an important Berlin district, and he won more votes than any other candidate in the city. Six years later, the SPD openly repudiated the views of the 16 open anti-Semites who formed a faction in the Reichstag.

The French Socialist Party played a leading role in the defense of Alfred Dreyfus, the military officer who was framed up by the high command on false charges of treason and made the focus of a furious anti-Semitic campaign.

Hitler and the Nazis were the most remorseless enemies of the working class and the socialist cause, which they identified with the Jews (“Judeo-Bolshevism”). As historian Konrad Heiden explains, “The labor movement did not repel him [Hitler] because it was led by Jews; the Jews repelled him because they led the labor movement.” In power from 1933, the Nazi leader set about murdering left-wing opponents by the tens of thousands.

Beck’s claim that “Socialism and anti-Semitism have complemented each other throughout history” is an infamous lie. In reality, with his raving against “wealth redistribution,” “illegal aliens,” and “communist revolutionaries,” Beck draws around him the neo-fascistic, anti-Semitic and xenophobic fringe in American politics.

Among Beck’s disreputable political influences was the fanatical anti-communist and racist W. Cleon Skousen, a Mormon ideologue. In his book, The 5,000 Year Leap, Skousen claimed the US Constitution was based on the Bible and rejected the influence of the Enlightenment. He also contended that President Dwight Eisenhower was a communist agent and penned The Communist Attack on the John Birch Society.

On his radio program recently, Beck praised The Red Network: A “Who’s Who” and Handbook of Radicalism for Patriots, authored in 1934 by Elizabeth Dilling, a rabid anti-Semite and pro-Nazi. In her book, Dilling slandered Albert Einstein, among others, and defended the Nazi regime’s seizure of his property in Germany on the grounds that he was a communist.

This is Beck’s pedigree: genuine ideological filth.

If he defends Israel, it is not out of love of the Jewish people. Hardly. What Beck and other extreme right-wingers in the US admire about the Israeli state is that it oppresses people and kills its political opponents. This gets their blood going.

Nearly everything Glenn Beck says and does smells of ignorance and paranoia. Perhaps the most authentic element of his daily performance is the desperation he projects.