The Gulag Archipelago ABRIDGED
Chapter 07 – In the Engine Room: https://files.catbox.moe/zej3kp.mp3
I give my apologies to the no doubt often mispronounced Russian names and places. Additional apologies for sometimes mispronounced English words…
This Chapter: What makes the arrests and imprisonments go "BRRRR!"
As a parent, this excerpt sounds an awful lot like our "zero tolerance" policy in public schools. The principal does not use judgement, only invokes the system:
>But it is not the judge who judges. The judge only takes his pay. The directives did the judging. The directive of 1937: ten years; twenty years; execution by shooting. The directive of 1943: twenty years at hard labor; hanging. The directive of 1945: ten years for everyone, plus five of disenfranchisement (manpower for three Five-Year Plans). The directive of 1949: everyone gets twenty-five.
OSO = Special Council of the State Security Ministry (secret police who arrest and imprison you under their own authority)
>Thus a person could disappear from the face of the earth with the help of the OSO even more reliably than under the terms of some primitive court sentence.
>The OSO enjoyed another important advantage in that its penalty could not be appealed. There was nowhere to appeal to. There was no appeals jurisdiction above it, and no jurisdiction beneath it. It was subordinate only to the Minister of Internal Affairs, to Stalin, and to Satan.
>Another big advantage the OSO had was speed. This speed was limited only by the technology of typewriting.
>And, last but not least, not only did the OSO not have to confront the accused face to face, which lessened the burden on interprison transport: it didn’t even have to have his photograph. At a time when the prisons were badly overcrowded, this was a great additional advantage because the prisoner did not have to take up space on the prison floor, or eat free bread once his interrogation had been completed. He could be sent off to camp immediately and put to honest work. The copy of the sentence could be read to him much later.
Taking the human out of the system. Abide by the system. Run by people "just doing their jobs":
>The OSO was nowhere mentioned in either the Constitution or the Code. However, it turned out to be the most convenient kind of hamburger machine—easy to operate, undemanding, and requiring no legal lubrication. The Code existed on its own, and the OSO existed on its own, and it kept on deftly grinding without all the Code’s 205 articles, neither invoking them nor even mentioning them.
Why you should listen:
You probably went through public school like me, so this urgently important part of history was not taught to you.
This book is 1984 before 1984 was written (it’s also nonfiction).
The powers perpetrating mass incarceration and murder throughout this book are still in power today.
Why Abridged?
If you don't have an intimate relationship with Russian history, you will be lost most of the time.
The full audio version is about an 80 hour adventure of dry listening. I suspect this will be fewer than 40 when I am finished.
This was written for a western audience.
Previous Chapters:
Introduction: https://files.catbox.moe/73kxit.mp3
Chapter 01 - Arrest: https://files.catbox.moe/ep8du7.mp3
Chapter 02 - The History of Our Sewage Disposal System: https://files.catbox.moe/3y8hwv.mp3
Chapter 03 - The Interrogation: https://files.catbox.moe/agp3dl.mp3
Chapter 04 – The Bluecaps: https://files.catbox.moe/takv7w.mp3
Chapter 05 – First Cell, First Love: https://files.catbox.moe/xd1u3r.mp3
Chapter 06 – That Spring: https://files.catbox.moe/12a1lm.mp3
(post is archived)