Chapter III

One Day In the LIfe Of Ivan DenIsOvICh: a

taLe Of human wOes:

“The Extraordinary political and intellectual feat of

Solzhenitsyn was to emerge from the hell of concentration

camp to tell the story---- in books whose moral and

documentary force has no parallel in modern history.” Mario

Vargas Llosa.

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is the most celebrated

novel of A. Solzhenitsyn. Apart from being a literary masterpiece, it

is a revolutionary document. It is one of the finest expose of the

real tyranny of the communists’ hardships and at a larger level of

all dictatorships.

Solzhenitsyn tried to reveal a blatant truth about the Soviet

regime that though the title of the most heinous dictator of the 20th

century of course goes to Adolf Hitler, but Hitler burned out quickly,

in twelve years. In fact the title should go to Stalin. He tried to

expose, through his novels that Stalin proved more dangerous to

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humanity than Hitler. Stalin lasted for many years; he died an old

man while still in power.

He was a beacon of a steady and stable evil. Whatever good

he did was obliterated by the immeasurable evil that came with it.

The economic sabotage, social unrest, massive and systematic

human rights violations, widespread famine and poverty—all were

worse than his predecessors. Russia did not fare well under the

Czars, but the situations under the regime of Stalin was rather

grave than them. He puts before us the cruel face of an

authoritarian regime. The novel “One Day ----” is a tale of “Man’s

inhumanity to man”.

The influence of Leo Tolstoy is clearly visible on the title of

the novel. In an interview, once Solzhenitsyn stated that he had

been interested in a statement made by Leo Tolstoy, who said that

a novel could deal with either centuries of European history or with

one day in a man’s life. This statement by Tolstoy may be one of

the reasons behind changing the title of the novel from S-854 to

One Day in the life of Ivan Denisovich.

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is literally a prison

story, and it takes its place in a long list of similar works which

deals with conditions in prisons, labour camps, concentration

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camps, mental hospitals, or POW camps. It comes in the category

of the similar other works like The Survivor by Terrence Des Pres,

The Bridge on the River Kwai by Pierre Boulle, This Way for the

Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen by Borowski, Papillon by Henri

Charriere and many other German, French and British POW

novels.

It was probably an accident that One Day--------- was

published exactly one hundred years after Letters from the House

of the Dead, Dostoevsky’s famous account of his own experience

in prison under the Czar. But many Russians would certainly

recognize the connection between them and realize the irony

inherent in the comparison: prisoners under hated Czars were, by

far, more humane than those under Stalin, and very few people

were imprisoned during the Czars.

Solzhenitsyn has laid open a whole new world. For almost

three decades the whole USSR was turned in to a vast

concentration camp. The life of all Soviet citizens was directly or

indirectly influenced by the camp system. There was hardly a

family that did not have a son, a husband, a brother, or some other

relative in a camp. Solzhenitsyn says it was a known reality but

few could believe it outside the Soviet Union.

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Max Hayward and Leopold write truly in the introduction of

the translation of “One Day --------.

“The blanket of silence over the prison-camp universe was

as thick as the snow over the world’s greatest land mass,

stretching from the Kola Peninsula to Magadan, from Vorkuta to

Kolyama.”

Solzhenitsyn succeeded in creating a greater impression of

horror and revulsion than anything ever published abroad by even

the most embittered victims of the concentration camps, because

of his great artistic quality.

Georg Lukacs writes very truly about Solzhenitsyn:

“Solzhenitsyn’s achievement consists in the literary transformation

of an uneventful day in a typical camp in to a symbol of a past

which has not yet been overcome, nor has it been portrayed

artistically. The camp epitomize one extreme of the Stalin era, the

author has his skilful grey monochrome of camp life in to a symbol

of everyday life under Stalin”. ( Lukacs 1970:13)

The novel was considered more authentic and convincing

because it was written by a person who himself had remained a

staunch supporter of Communist ideology. It was a bold attempt by

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a Russian himself to show the world outside Russia that how

common men were suffering in a so called an ideal Communist

state. In the novel Solzhenitsyn tried to expose that how an ideal

utopian socialist concept had turned in to an authoritarian,

inhuman, insensitive system where even the basic human dignity

had been sacrificed.

It was really a difficult task to revive the Great Russian

tradition of raising the human concerns and social issues through

literature in a communist state. Trying to present the gloomy

contemporary literary scenario Solzhenitsyn wrote to The Fourth

National Congress of Soviet Writers- May 1967:

“Many writers were subjected, during their life time to abuse and

slender. Moreover they have been exposed to violence and

personal persecution (Bulgakov, Akhmatova, Tsvetayava,

Pasternak, Platonov, Alexandr Grin, Vasilly Grossman). The

leadership of the union cowardly abandoned to their distress those

for whom persecution ended in exile, camps, and death (Pavel,

Vasilyev, Artem Vesely, Babel, Tabidze, and others).”

He further added:

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“We learned after the 20th congress of the party that there

were more than 600 writers whom the union had obediently

handed over to their fate in prison and camps.”

( Labedz 1970:243)

Alexander Solzhenitsyn took up the challenge to restore the

literary and human values of the past. Solzhenitsyn very astutely

put forward the general conditions of the Russian people as Max

Hayward and Leopold Labedz write in the introduction of their

English translation of the text, about these concentration camps:

“He shows that the camps were not an isolated feature in an

otherwise admirable society. They were, in fact, microcosms of

that society as a whole. The novel draws an implicit parallel

between life “inside” and “outside” the camp. A day in the life of an

ordinary Soviet citizen had much in common with that of his

unfortunate fellow countrymen behind the barbed wire. We can

realize that on both sides of the fence it was the same story of

material and spiritual squalor, corruption, frustration and terror.”

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is the first novel of

Solzhenitsyn. After going through four or five drafts, Solzhenitsyn

reached at a finished version of One Day in 1958-59.It was

published in November 1962 in the Soviet literary magazine Novyi

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Mir (New World), no.11: 8-74. The publication of One Day---

immediately put Solzhenitsyn on the scene of world literature.

Solzhenitsyn instantly became a world celebrity. Discussing the

euphoria generated by the event, Sergei Volkov wrote:

“I was eighteen then, and I remember the general shock

caused by One Day………, both because it had been published at

all and for its enormous artistic power. This publication created in

the intelligentsia a sense of unprecedented euphoria which lasted,

just over a week.” (Volkov 2008: 205)

Nikita Khrushchev came to power as the premier of the

Soviet Union in, 1953. He made it possible for Solzhenitsyn to

publish his epoch making novel One Day------------It was like a

rebirth of the critical realism in Russian literature. The public

process of “de-Stalinization” which started in 1961 created a venue

in which Solzhenitsyn could write a book detailing the sufferings

and abuses of Stalin’s forced labour camps for political prisoners.

N S Khrushchev said in his memorable concluding address at the

twenty second Congress:

“It is our duty to go carefully in to all aspects of all matters

connected with the abuse of the power. In time we must die, for we

are all mortal, but as long as we go on working we can and must

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clarify many things and tell the truth to the party and the people..

This must be done to prevent such things from happening in the

future.” (Khrushchev: 196I, 82).

Two people helped him a lot in the publication of One Day----

----Lev Kopelev and A. Tvardovsky. As mentioned in the

introduction earlier, Tvardovsky (The editor of Novy Mir) took

personal interest in the publication of the novel. Tvardovsky

personally met Khrushchev and persuaded him to grant the

permission to publish the novel. In fact, Tvardovsky sensed his

commercial interests in the publication of the novel in the changed

political scenario. Alexander Tvardovsky also wrote a short

introduction for the issue, titled “Instead of a Foreword,” to prepare

the journal’s readers for what they were going to experience.

Discussing about the importance and the relevance of the novel

Alexander Tvardovsky writes:

“The effect of this novel, which is so unusual for its honesty

and harrowing truth, is to unburden our minds of things thus far

unspoken, but which had to be said. It thereby strengthens and

ennobles us.” (Novy Mir, No. 11:8-74)

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Tvardovsky was right in his assumption. Almost one million

copies of the novel One Day--------were sold out immediately. It

was an instant hit. Pravda and other soviet publications praised the

book. The book became that much popular that One Day in the

Life of…was specially mentioned in the Noble Prize presentation

speech when the Noble Committee awarded Solzhenitsyn the

Noble Prize in Literature in1970.

The novel One Day---------is based upon the

experiences of a simple peasant imprisoned in the Siberian Gulag.

Solzhenitsyn’s choice of a peasant, Shukhov as his protagonist,

echoes the fascination of 19th century Russian writers. Tolstoy,

Turgenev, and Nekrasov idealized peasants in their early and mid-

nineteenth century writings. The same trend was followed by

Chekhov and Bunin. But here, the writer is selecting it with a

different motto. He wanted to convey a message to the common

men of Russia that how an ordinary man could keep his human

dignity intact even in the inhuman repression and the others also

should think about it. It appears that somewhere Solzhenitsyn is

calling for change in the contemporary communist regime. The

novel was used by Khrushchev as propagandistic tool to condemn

the Stalinist system.

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Pointing out the main thematic concerns in the One Day in-

Harrison E Salisbury writes:

“The cruelty, the falseness of the charges, the animal fight

for survival, the debasement, the cynical grafting, the sentences

stretching in to Infinity( or death) the hunger, the suffering, the cold

etc are the prime themes, elaborated in the novel.”

(New York Times, Jan22, 1963)

The novel is largely based upon the personal experiences of

Alexander Solzhenitsyn himself of his four years experience of an

eight year sentence at Dzezkazgan in the province of Karaganda

in central Kazakhstan. The protagonist of the novel, Ivan

Denisovich Shukhov is no one other but Solzhenitsyn himself. Like

Shukhov, Solzhenitsyn worked as a foundry man and a bricklayer

during his sentence Like Shukhov, he was the member of the 104th

squad. Tiurin one of his sympathetic squad leaders is almost

certainly based upon a man of the same name with whom

Solzhenitsyn served in the real 104th squad. Tsezar and Alyosha

the Baptist are also based on real men.

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The novel One Day in the Life ---is a very detailed and

graphic description of one man’s life struggle in a Stalinist work

camp. Though the novel is a small one but Solzhenitsyn has

successfully created the world of horror before us. The world of

torture and abuse is recreated. He made his point by concentrating

on the relentless minutiae of everyday life. Camp jargon, popular

sayings, slang and coarse vernacular lent authenticity to the

peasant- prisoners voice; while the narrative is masterfully

couched in short, spare, staccato sentences, mirroring the one

track minds of prisoners, whose endless struggle to survive left

them no time for leisurely philosophizing or dreams.

Reading on this level, the novel becomes a scathing

indictment to the Soviet system as a whole. Thousands of innocent

men were taken from their families, homes and lives, and stripped

of their dignity and banished to the harsh labour camps where they

were to spend the rest of the days scraping out an existence and

living day to day. Here are chronic food shortages, except for a

privileged few who can bribe advantages out of corrupt officials.

There is vandalism and bureaucratic inefficiency, leading to the

waste and sabotage.

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Solzhenitsyn further reveals that all these are not limited to

the camp life only. Rather it has become permanent features of the

Soviet life. The people are living under a threat of constant spying

and informing activities which are typical of Soviet society.

Solzhenitsyn deplores all this as it creates distrust among people

who should cooperate against the authorities rather than against

themselves. A prisoner, he says, is another prisoner’s worst

enemy, not the authorities. Solzhenitsyn shows that how the

communist regime has succeeded in dividing the society by using

force and through lucrative dialects.

Solzhenitsyn reveals that how all these prisoners are in fact

serving life terms, though initially they are sentenced for ten years

and sometimes for twenty years. Nobody was ever released from

the larger Soviet prison; when one term ends, another one is

added on.

It is very interesting to note the specific observation of

Hannah Arendt about the nature of the totalitarian state. She very

clearly discerns the link between the totalitarian rule and the

particular condition of life that is the camp. She writes:

“The supreme goal of all totalitarian states is not only the

freely admitted, long ranging ambition to global rule, but also the

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never admitted and immediately realized attempt at total

domination. The concentration camps are the laboratories in the

experiment of total domination, for human nature being what it is;

this goal can be achieved only under the extreme circumstances of

human made hell.” (Hannah, Arendt. 2000, 240)

The book is not divided into chapters and therefore it

remains very interesting from very beginning to the end. It is like

the reader is spending the day with Ivan. Through the character of

Shukhov, Solzhenitsyn shows us a normal day in the camp.

Through this day, he tells the people, the life conditions, and the

general atmosphere of the camp .Though the time span is very

limited, it is only a day and hence it is very difficult to develop a

character. Yet Solzhenitsyn tries his best to achieve his goals by

using flashbacks to show the different sides of the various

characters specially the character of Shukhov.

The choice of a protagonist created a problem of narration

for Solzhenitsyn. Ivan is certainly not unintelligent but his

educational background is not suited for narrating a lengthy story.

On the other hand, it would not have been suitable to have a highly

educated narrator tell us about Ivan, because the educational and

the emotional distance between two would have been too great.

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First -person narration by Ivan and third person omniscient

narration were therefore not possible. Solzhenitsyn uses a form of

narration in One Day ----which is an ingenious variation of a

traditional Russian narrative form, the skaz. This technique is

widely employed in Russian folk tales, establishes an anonymous

narrator who is on the same social and educational level as the

protagonist and is able to transmit the main character’s actions

and thoughts, using the third-person singular and sometimes the

first person plural, but giving the impression to the reader that the

story is being told in first person by the protagonist. Indeed, in One

Day, the reader has the impression that Ivan is the narrator, but a

closer look will reveal that the most of the story is told in the third

person.

Solzhenitsyn uses beautifully the literary device of free

indirect discourse in the novel. This type of narrative is technically

known as erlebte rede, known in English as “narrated monologue”

Free indirect discourse is a way of writing in which a narrator

speaks in the third person but communicates a character’s private

thoughts. The narrator of the novel is not Shukhov. However the

narrator communicates Shukhov’s inner thoughts and desires

without differentiating them from his own.

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The episodes are arranged thematically around the three

main areas of concern for a typical prisoner: food work and the

eternal battle against the cruel camp authorities. Formally, the

episodes – one might properly call many of them vignettes- are

arranged in such a way that scenes describing the harsh camp

environment which is a threat to Ivan’s survival alternate with

episodes which depict his overcoming these threats, showing

Ivan’s small triumphs over the inhumane prison system.

The whole scenario is presented through a peasant Ivan

Denisovich Shukhov. Ivan Denisovich Shukhov has been

sentenced to a labor camp in the Soviet gulag system. He is

suspected of becoming a sleuth of the Germans when he is

captured by Germans as a prisoner of war during World War II. He

is innocent but becomes the victim of the communist system where

there is no way out but to suffer if you are convicted by the

government may be wrongly or deliberately. There is no status of

independent judiciary as we find in democracy. The communist

system is a typical centralization of all the powers in to one

authority, and as saying goes absolute power corrupts absolutely,

the communist states often become a hub of all types of

corruption.

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The novel starts with the waking of Shukhov at five AM in a

camp for political prisoners in Siberia. It is a freezing morning. He

is not well and lying in a bed for a little longer than his usual

schedule. For waking late, he is sent to guardhouse and given a

punishment of cleaning the floor. During the course of the day the

writer speaks of Shukhov’s squad, their working environment, their

physical hardships, the hostile weather, their allegiance to their

squad leader. Solzhenitsyn also details the methods adopted by

the prisoners for survival. The sole principal behind living is the

survival of the fittest.

Throughout the novel the writer tries to explore the effects of

such a forced imprisonment on the psychology of the common

human beings through various characters. The 104th is a labour

camp which has 24 members. Though almost all of them are

important because they are the part of the general design of

Solzhenitsyn but some of them are more important. These

characters are very crucial because it is only through these

characters Solzhenitsyn conveys his message of humanity and

faith, he differentiates between good and evil.

** Ivan Denishovich Shukhov : He is the protagonist of the novel.

The Writer uses him to show the pathetic conditions of life in a

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political Prisoners camp in a communist state. The readers are

shown the atrocities of the communist regime through his actions,

thoughts, feelings and his descriptions of the prison camp. The

writer has used him as a true Christian model also who is

accepting each incident patiently as a wish of God.

** Alyosha (Alyoshka): He is a Baptist. He propagates Christian

ideology by accepting the imprisonment as a wish of God. In spite

of all odds, he keeps The Bible with him secretly and reads it

continuously with all enthusiasm. He is presented to show the

importance of the faith in the life of human beings and the

determination of a communist state to curb it at any cost.

** Gopchik: He is a Ukrainian young, laborious man. He

commands a very high respect among most of the prisoners. He

is respected for his high standards of life. Shukhov has a special

feeling for him as he reminds him of his son. The inclusion of the

character of Gopchic is again the part of his design to show that

how the Communists were creating a great terror by punishing all

those who did not support them. Gopchic was punished for

bringing food to Ukrainian rebels.

** Captain Buinovsky: He was a former Soviet naval officer. He is

relatively a new comer in the camp. He is sentenced for taking a

gift while serving as a liaison officer on a British ship. He has to

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face many problems because being a former officer he cannot

accept the rulings of the warders so easily. Captain Buinovsky is

representing those ardent supporters of the communism who still

has faith in the communist ideology in spite of the fact that he has

been arrested wrongly and unfairly.

** Andrey Tiurin(Tyurin): He is the squad leader of the camp

104th has been in the camp for the 19 years Solzhenitsyn has

presented Tiurin in a better shape in the sense that he gives better

jobs to Shukhov . He is a part of the communist hierarchy and let

us knows many things about the functioning of the communist

system. It is interesting to note that Tiurin was arrested not for his

personal offence but because being a son of a kulak.

** Tsezar Markovich: Tsezar is important because he presents

many nationalities with him. He is a mixture of many nationalities.

He is a symbol of multiethnic character of Russia.

** The Limper: He is the mess hall orderly. He controls the

entrance of squads in to the mess hall and readily hits people in to

their heads. He is a symbol of the oppression and the insensitivity

of the communist system.

** Fetiukov(Fetyukov): Fetiukov is presented with a very low

view. He is the most dislikable character of the camp. He has

thrown away all his dignity. He shamelessly scrounges for bits of

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food and tobacco. He is a person who has been reduced to his

base desires. The purpose behind the creation of the character of

Fetiukov is not clear. He may be representing those people who

simply live without any dignity or self respect. Solzhenitsyn targets

through him, those people who have accepted the contemporary

system (communist) without any resistance

**Lieutenant Volkovoy: He is the security officer at the camp. The

root of his name Volk means a wolf. He represents the true

oppressive and revengeful nature of a communism. He sentences

Buinovsky to ten days in the cell when he talks about the legality

and true ideas of communism. He is so cruel that he compels the

prisoners to open their coats in the chilling air of the morning and

search them for extra under garments.

The composition of Ivan’s prison camp is equally interesting.

It contains a cross section of Russian society. There are prisoners

representing virtually every professional, social and ethnic group in

the Soviet Union: we find artists, intellectuals, criminals, peasants,

former government officials, officers, Ukrainians, Latvians,

Estonians, and gypsies (Caesar Markovich).

“This cross-section presentation of the Soviet society is a typical

characteristic of Solzhenitsyn’s writings.”(Scammell.1985, 70)

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If one looks, beyond the literal level of the novel, it becomes

clear that Solzhenitsyn not only wanted to present a realistic

description of life in a Siberian prison camp, but that he also

wanted the reader to understand that the camp – on an allegorical

level – was a representation of Stalinist Soviet Russia. At a deeper

level the novel is a scathing indictment of the Soviet system.

The novel brings forward the various methods adopted by

the authorities to dehumanize and make these people insensitive.

The prisoners were assigned numbers for easy identification. In

fact it was an attempt to dehumanize them. Ivan Denisovich’s

prisoner number was S -854.’ He is often called by his number

and not by the name as if he is not a living entity but only an

article. Each day the squad leader would receive the assignment

for the day. The supply of the food was not decided by their

physical requirements but according to how they performed.

Prisoners were forced to work. The mistake of any prisoner could

result in to punishment for the others.

The novel laid before the world that how millions of the

people viciously imprisoned for countless years on baseless

charges. The novel tells us in very clear terms that how the

innocent people have to face forced imprisonment in such

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totalitarian states for no reason. The only reason behind such

arrests and harassments was to create an atmosphere of terror

that people remain suppressed. Commenting on the close

relationship between communism and terror, Jean Marie Chauvier

writes:

“The terror is for Solzhenitsyn not something exclusively

connected with Stalinism or with some bureaucratic degeneration

or other. It is integral to regime and ideology that prevailed under

Lenin and Trotsky.”(Chauvier 1974: 76)

Disclosing the arbitrariness and the highhandedness of the

system Solzhenitsyn reveals through Tyurin that how he was

arrested. Tyurin says that how he was produced before the major,

and how major interrogated him. Solzhenitsyn writes:

“What do you mean, first class, you swine? Your father’s

kulak! Here are the papers from the Kamen! Your father’s a Kulak

and you ran away.”(Solzhenitsyn 1990: 69)

The above revelation from Tyurin is enough to show, how

people were arrested without any of their fault. He is expelled from

the ranks just because his father was a kulak. Exposing the

atmosphere of fear and terror Solzhenitsyn reveals through Tyurin

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that he had not written anything to his home for last two years to

hide his identity as a kulak knowing that it would land him as well

as his family in to trouble.

Sozhenitsyn further exposes that how people were arrested

on the fabricated grounds and were compelled to accept their

crimes forcefully. The novelist presents the reason behind the

arrest of Shukhov very sarcastically. He Writes:

“In his record it said Shukhov was in for treason. And it is

true he gave evidence against himself and said he’d surrendered

to the enemy with the intention of betraying his country, and came

back with instructions from the Germans. But just what he was

supposed to do for the Germans neither Shukhov nor the

interrogator could say. So they just left it at that and put down: On

instructions from Germans.” (Solzhenitsyn 1990:54)

It was all the story of a forceful confession. Solzhenitsyn

writes:

“The way Shukhov figured, it was very simple. If he didn’t

sign, he was as good as buried. But if he did, he would still go on

living as a while. So he signed.”(Solzhenitsyn: 1990:54)

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The real Story was all different. Elaborating the real story

Solzhenitsyn writes:

“It happened like this. In February of forty two his whole army

was cut off on the Northwestern Front. They did not send any food

by air- there just were not any planes. Then things got so bad that

they cut the hoofs of the dead horses, soaked them in water to

soften them up a little, and ate them. The Germans tracked them

down in the woods and rounded them up. Then he got away with

four others. They made their way through the forest and bogs and

got back to their own lines. And what they got there, a machine

gunner opened fire. Two of them were killed on the spot and

another died of their wounds. Only two of them could escape. If

they had any sense, they’d have said they got lost wandering in

the woods--- then nothing would have happened to them. But they

told the truth and said they have gotten away from Germans--------

but only two of them did not have a chance. It was quite clear they

said, they had fixed up their escape with the Germans, the

bastards. (Solzhenitsyn 1990:55)

The novel is full of such illustrations that how people were

imprisoned on the fictitious causes. At one another place in the

novel Solzhenitsyn writes:

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“There were five spies in every gang. But it was all phony. It

said they were spies in their records, but it was just they’d been

POW’s”. (Solzhenitsyn 1990:95)

Later, Solzhenitsyn’s case was supported by the various

World reports also, published on the atrocities committed by the

communist party in the Soviet Union. US News& World Report,

May19, 1986, writes;

“The gulags were used on a massive scale by Stalin. From

1936 to 1953 as many as 5 million people- peasants, dissidents,

ethnic minorities were swept in to the camps, many to be literally

worked to death. More than half a million people were imprisoned

for political crimes. The most common political charge was “anti-

Soviet agitation and propaganda”-any criticism, from public protest

to private letters.” (Horn, Miriam.1986: 37)

Criticizing the whole scenario, the well- known American

Sovietologist Adam Ulam wrote:

“the source and prime cause of political repression lies in the

excessive and unnatural politicization of the life of a nation: once

we overlook or minimize the sufferings of a human being because

he happens to be a reactionary priest or a rich peasant, we

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prepare the way for the persecution of political deviationists, then

of the people’s enemies, then of the of the people as a whole.”

(Ulam, Adam.1976:316)

Solzhenitsyn successfully brings before the world the cruel

and insensitive face of the Communism which is basically a

totalitarian state. The whole novel is an exposé of the inhuman

conditions prevailing in these concentration camps. Some of the

scenes of these camps are really pathetic. Describing the atrocities

committed to the prisoners, Solzhenitsyn writes at one place in the

novel:

“Warders quickly removed their gloves, told the men to open

their jackets and undo their shirts. Then they began to feel around

to see whether extra clothes had been put on against regulations.

Each prisoner was allowed to wear a shirt and a vest, and anything

extra had to come off. Anyone with extra clothing on had to strip it

off right there in the freezing cold.” (Solzhenitsyn 1990:27)

It is the height of the violation of the individual liberty and

privacy when even the under garments are checked out and the

prisoners are dictated what to wear, without taking in to

consideration the needs of an individual.

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There is no place for political ideals or rhetoric in the camp.

Though they are political prisoners but in fact they do not have any

such identity. The guards have unlimited power to search them

and punish them according to their will and not by any law. The

camp system of punishment is completely arbitrary and unfair as

we find in a normal dictatorial state. Bringing about the complete

arbitrariness and lawlessness prevailing in the system,

Solzhenitsyn presents a discussion between Captain Buinovsky

and Volkovoy. He writes:

“The Captain kicked up a fuss, just like he used to on

his ship—you have no right to strip people in the cold! You don’t

know the Article Nine of the Criminal Code!”

They had the right and they knew the article. You have still

lot to learn, my brother.

“You are not Soviet people”, the Captain kept on at

them.

“You are not Communists!”

Volkovoy could take the stuff about the criminal code, but this

made him mad. He looked black as thundercloud and snapped at

him:

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“Ten days’ solitary!” (Solzhenitsyn 1990:27)

Volkovoy’s differing response to Buinovsky’s charges reveals

Volkovoy’s self absorbed hypocrisy. The character of Volkovoy is

representing the cruel face of the regime. He personifies the

sadistic exercise of power for its own sake. Volkovoy uses his lash

for more than simply keeping order in the camp. He beats the

prisoners just too create an atmosphere of the fear, in the same

way as the Stalinist regime has killed many of the Soviet citizens

just to crush their democratic nature. Highlighting the terror of the

Stalin’s regime, The US News and World Report, May 19, 1986

explains:

“For those who can’t be broken, one other punishment

remains. Troublemakers may be sent to psychiatric hospitals and

given huge doses of mind-altering drugs that cause convulsions,

raging temperatures, acute pain and such long term effects as loss

of vision and paralysis. Such a cure for a rebellion rarely fails.”

There is one more interesting thing is to be noted here, that

the camp life has brought all these prisoners to their animalistic

level. The camp life has made them like wild beasts: they

scrounge for scraps of food, stand naked out in the fields during

the body search, and possesses no greater goal in their life that

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mere survival. The entire camp emerges before us as a zoo filled

with a variety of beasts. That’s why Solzhenitsyn ends his next

novel, Cancer Ward with the scene of a zoo.

Solzhenitsyn wants to point out that almost whole of the

society is suffering at the hands of the communist regime and

living under an unknown constant fear. Those who are outside the

prison are apprehensive of their possible arrest. Irony is that even

those officials who are carrying out all these orders are not sure

about their fate. They also have to share all these hardships along

with these prisoners.

Shukhov is punished for getting late though he is sick and

unable to get up from his bed. Generally he wakes up early in the

morning to help others or to earn some extra money. This fighting

spirit of Shukhov is the most interesting feature of his character.

He is an unyielding spirit with a lot of self respect. The most

memorable scenes of the novel are those where he demonstrates

a tremendous determination, and strength to endure the hardships

of imprisonment and dehumanization in a communist state.

Shukhov has his own code of living. It is extremely important to

Shukhov that he would not let him down like Fetiuov because that

could lead him towards inhumanity and death.

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As we know more about Shukhov’s moral upstanding

character, it becomes more difficult to understand the logic behind

his arrest. He is a man who would never commit any mistake

deliberately. This reveals only the arbitrary nature of the justice

prevailing in the system which shows that people are punished

regardless of their guilt or innocence. Shukhov’s punishment for

being sick reinforces the sense that the system has completely

rotten. We find a typical irresponsibility prevailing in the system,

where officials are responsible towards the authority only, which is

the typical quality of an authoritarian rule. His crime of being sick is

not an act of free will, but still he is punished. Theoretically people

are punished for their deliberate negligence towards their duty, so

that they become responsible for their work, and refrain from

harmful actions. But when people are punished for those actions

which are beyond ones control, we can understand only one logic

behind such actions that we want to create an atmosphere of fear,

the bare necessity of a dictatorial rule.

Solzhenitsyn further reveals that the communist ideology of

providing bread to all is not sufficient. A man needs more to live

than only the full stomach. He says, existence without dignity is

worthless. In fact, the loss of human dignity will also diminish the

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will and the capacity to survive. Compromises are certainly

necessary, but there is a vast moral gap between Ivan and

Fetyukov. Fetyukov will do anything for a little more food and he is

properly referred to as scavenging animal. Ivan in contrast, will

swindle and bully, at times, but basically, he relies on his

resourcefulness to achieve the same goal. He does not lick bowls,

he does not take or give bribes and he is differential when

necessary, but he never crawls.

The novel One Day…presents Communism as a system

which is arbitrary and devoid of basic human rights. According to

the United Nation, human rights are:

“right to life and liberty, freedom of expression, equality

before law, social, cultural and economic rights such as right to

participate in culture, the right to food, the right to work, and the

right to education.”(Universal Declaration of Human Rights,

1948)

Solzhenitsyn presents before us through the novel that the

Soviet concept of human right was different from the concept

prevalent in the West. According to Western legal theory, it is the

individual who is the beneficiary of human rights which are to be

asserted against the government. The Soviets rejected the

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Western concept of the ‘rule of law’ as the belief that law should be

more than just the instrument of politics; the Soviet view on rights

was criticized for considering the Marxist- Leninist ideology above

natural law. It is very true that people cannot avail proper human

rights in any totalitarian state. (Lambelet 1989. 61-62)

The title of the novel is also suggestive as well as

important. The title of the novel shows “Ivan Denisovich” as the

protagonist of the novel rather than as “Shukhov”. Solzhenitsyn

reinforces the importance of remembering the personal identities in

a totalitarian regime where the authorities are all determined to

crush the personal identity of the all citizen. They are not even

ready to call them by their names (As these prisoners are called by

their numbers and not by their names).

Solzhenitsyn leads us to expect a story about an individual

character with a clear social identity. The writer addresses one

person with two different identities, First as Ivan Denisovich as in

the title and then Shukhov as in the narrative. It implies that there

are two different Denisoviches. Shukhov’s life in the camp has

changed him so that he is no longer a person he used to be. He is

only a number in the camps documents: S- 854.

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Solzhenitsyn presents emphatically that the transition from

an identity to a meaningless combination of letters and numbers is

the final culmination of such dictatorial regimes. It is really

interesting that the text refers the last name Shukhov most of the

time instead of the first names Ivan Denisovich. In Russian society,

by addressing someone by his first name and Patronymic is cordial

and respectful. The Communist regime tried to eradicate this form

of address with the sole aim to eliminate the individual identity of

the citizen to create a so called classless society. The soviet

manner of addressing people as “comrade” followed by their last

name was an attempt to replace the old formula with a new one

better adapted to a class- less utopia.

Solzhenitsyn puts before us that how the Communist

system works. By force, ultimately the system succeeds in

changing the mindset of the people. The workers have left the

middleclass household far behind and their work site has become

their life- in exactly the way the Soviet regime has intended. The

fact that Shukhov is closer to his fellow inmates now than his own

family illustrates the early Soviet ideal of eliminating middle class

family life and making a worker care more about the international

working class than about his own family and clan.

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Solzhenitsyn Further reveals through the character of Ivan

Denisovich that no authoritarian rule can break the spirit of those

people who has got self respect and want to live with dignity. At

one point in the novel Solzhenitsyn writes:

“Then Shukhov took his cap off his shaven head—

however cold it was, he would never eat with it on. He stirred up

the cold gruel and took a quick look to see what was in his bowl.”

(Solzhenitsyn 1990:12)

This account of Shukhov’s breakfast in section one shows

his determination to live with dignity despite the degradation of

camp life. Similarly the stirring also reinforces the fact that he

yearns to keep any shred of control over his existence, even if he

knows it is futile. He stirs, despite knowing the fact that stirring will

only show him what fate has brought him.

Removing his cap is also symbolic in the sense that it

reminds him about the existence of some civilized world outside

the camp. Camp regulations do not require prisoners to remove

caps at meals. The gesture becomes more important when we

look at the hostilities of the weather. It is very cold there and to

remove the cap is very painful for Shukhov. But even then he

always does it with the feeling that civilized people remove their

150

caps before eating. The act of removing the cap provides him the

opportunity to assert his humanity. Shukhov’s attachment to this

piece of civilized etiquette shows us that the atrocities of the camp

life are not entirely successful in removing the basic dignity and

humanity of the prisoners. Levitzky writes:

“We feel in him a man of goodwill whose spirit is not filled

with bitterness, despite the crying injustice of punishment despite,

too the inhuman conditions of life in the so-called corrective labour

camps.”(Levitzky, 1971.300)

Survival is a task which needs Ivan’s constant, simple

attention. Abstractions, esoteric discussions on religion or on art

are irrelevant and counter-productive. Caesar Markovich can

survive only as long as his packages arrive. The Captain, if he

survives solitary confinement, will have to give up his unrealistic

ideas about communism and his over bearing manner if he wants

to live. Alyosha the Baptist is by the very nature of his faith, more

interested in an afterlife than he is in physical survival during this

life time. Clearly Fetyukov and all likewise who lacks the basic

essence of human beings will not live long.

It is a marvelous work which not only exposes the ugly face

of Communism but also teaches us what it means by a good

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human being. The novel reveals that in the face of degrading

hatred, where life is reduced to a bowl of gruel and a rare

cigarette, hope and dignity prevail. Though the camp is a place

filled with suffering and misery, the men continue to exhibit acts of

humanity in their day to day lives that slip by in a haze of despair.

The only way that these men survive this vicious life is by grasping

on to the little bits of kindness that can be seen in the trivial actions

and events during their day. The prisoners’ dedication to uplift

each other is inspiring and is a lesson and example to every

human being of the power of human kindness.

Ivan combines all the qualities necessary to survive. He

works for himself and his comrades but not for the authorities. He

does not rely on the outside help, but his own skill and craftiness.

He follows only sensible orders and neglect absurd ones. He has

faith, but it is a faith designed to help him cope with the realities of

this life, not one which exhausts itself in dogmatic theological

debate. Ivan believes in the strength and the dignity of the simple

Russian worker and peasant without being a doctrinaire

Communist. He is, with some lapses, a compassionate human

being who looks at his fellow prisoners with sympathy and

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understanding. He is liked by most of his fellow prisoners and

respected for these qualities. Terras Victor observes:

“Ivan Denisovich is a survivor, not because he will steal

from, or inform on his fellow prisoners, but because he has

retained his self respect and human dignity.” ( Terras 1991: 592)

Solzhenitsyn reveals that though communism tried to create

an impression that their economic system of controlled economy

would solve all the problems but in fact the system was destroying

the traditional economy. To make things more explicit he cites the

example of his own village.

Solzhenitsyn presents a very pathetic and gloomy scene of

the Russian village and the village economy under the Stalinist

system. Here this thing is to be noted that whenever we use the

phrase “The Stalinist system” we mean the ultimate destiny of a

true communist state. Through the device of letters back and forth

between Shukhov and his wife, the readers learn about the

deleterious effect of the Stalinists system on kolkhozes or the

collective farms. Plots are divided and subdivided; crops are

planted right up to the back of cottages. People are shown leaving

their villages to work somewhere else and leaving their ancestral

occupations. Solzhenitsyn writes:

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“The thing Shukhov didn’t get at all was what his wife wrote

about how not a single new member had come to the Kolkhoz

since the war. All the youngsters were getting out as best they

could----- to factories in the towns or to the peat fields. Half the

Kolkhozniks had not come back after the war, and those who had

would not have anything to do with the Kolkhoz. They lived there

but earned their money outside.”(Solzhenitsyn 1990:32)

The main reason behind this situation was the collectivization

of the agriculture by Stalin. Under collectivization, Stalin ordered

that all grain which the Kulaks produced would be given to

Bolsheviks. The kulaks would also have to give up the land that

they were entitled to after the abolition of the serfdom in 1861 and

let the Soviet government become their landlord. Not only that the

kulaks had to give up their grain, they had to sell it to the

government at very low price. Dekulakization forced the lower

class peasants to leave their ancestral occupation of agriculture.

As a result, a severe famine occurred from 1932 -33.

Jonathan Lewis cites a very interesting incident in his book to

expose the real benevolent face of the communism. Mykola Pishy,

a young kulak remembers a requisition squad approaching her

mother to seize whatever food they had left:

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“Please leave us something. We have got five children in the

family. They’ll die.” The leader of the squad callously replied, “I

don’t care about your children. I care about my party.”

( Whitehe 1990: 66-7).

There is no doubt that collectivization was a failure but one

must wonder as to what would possess a leader like Stalin to

enforce such a policy. An eminent critic of Stalin, De J, Alex

comments:

“Stalin was so power hungry that he wanted total control over

agricultural production and make it more prosperous. On the

contrary, Stalin may have been worried about a possible peasant

revolt so he enforced collectivization so he could have a total

control over his people. (Alex. 1986, 237)

By presenting the picture of a Russian village, Solzhenitsyn

is making the point that the hopelessness which is pervading in the

camp is not limited to the camp only but rather is a phenomenon of

whole Soviet society. The traditional agrarian economy of the

Russia was being destroyed.

One important point is to be noted here that Solzhenitsyn is

indicating towards a general shortage of foods in the newly created

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U.S.S.R. The communist regime gave more thrust on the

development of the factories and in doing that the agriculture was

ignored. Before collectivization, Russia had been the “bread

basket of Europe”. Afterwards, the Soviet Union became a net

importer of grain, unable to produce enough food to feed its own

population.(Steel 2002: Chapter 6.)

Solzhenitsyn points out that the communist system was

faulty and impractical. There are two unredeemable and crucial

flaws of Soviet-style socialism. First, socialism is based on

coercion and second it must rely on a collective lie.

In a socialist state generally the ownership of the means of

the production are controlled by the state. All economic activities

and decision making and activity must be subordinate to and under

the direction of the state. The only way to ensure this

subordination is by force. Coercion must be used to ensure

compliance with central economic directives. And to Solzhenitsyn

the use of coercion corrupts the user of coercion and debilitates

those coerced. Its unbridled use in all aspects of life is not

consistent with spiritual development. The novel One Day -----is a

detailed expose of the same.

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Solzhenitsyn presents Ivan Denisovich in contrast to the so

called benevolent communist regime which boast of taking care of

the down trodden. The writer presents the pathetic conditions of

the inhabitants of the camp in a very sarcastic way. In the very

beginning of the novel he presents that the prisoners were not only

living under very inhuman conditions but even they were not given

sufficient food to survive. They were compelled to lick from the

unwashed dishes and bowls left in the kitchen and dining hall like

dogs and animals. He writes:

“by going around to the store rooms……by going to the

mess- hall to pick up the bowls from the tables and take them in

piles to the dish washer-there was always a chance of getting

something to eat, although there were too many others with the

same idea, and what is worse, if you found something left in a

bowl, you could not resist starting to lick it out.”

(Solzhenitsyn 1990: 6)

Later various studies showed that the starvation was not

limited to the concentration camps only, rather a large population

under the regime of Stalin was facing the problem of insufficient

food. Kenez Peter writes:

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“Starvation was rampant and between1932-33 the Soviet

Union suffered a cataclysmic famine. The government did nothing

to assist the starving, what little grain was harvested was brought

to the cities: in effect the regime traded the peasants for the

workers.” (Peter. 1985.100)

The insufficient quantity and low quality of food is mentioned

throughout the novel. The petty fights which take place in the mess

are enough to show the inhuman conditions prevailing in the

consecration camps. Referring to all this mismanagement, at one

point in the novel, Solzhenitsyn speaks through Shukhov:

“The amount of oats Shukhov fed to horses when he was a

boy, and he never thought he’d long for a handful himself one

day”. (Solzhenitsyn 1990:60)

The character of Fetyukov is also an example that how the

scarcity of food can degrade a human being to the level of an

animal. It is really very pathetic to see him licking dishes and

bowls. Solzhenitsyn writes:

“ Fetyukov came through the barracks and he was crying. He

was all hunched up and there was blood on his lips. So he must’ve

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gotten beat up again for trying to scrounge somebody’s bowl.”

(Solzhenitsyn 1990:128)

The mention of the quality of the food is equally important

because it is often reiterated by the communists that they take

care of all the human beings with the sole motto to uplift the

downtrodden. At one place in the novel Solzhenitsyn writes:

“After the gruel there was magara porridge. It had

frozen in to a single, solid lump, and Shukhov had to break it in to

little pieces. It was not only that the porridge was cold, it was

tasteless, it was just grass, only yellow and looked like

millet.”(Solzhenitsyn 1990:18)

Solzhenitsyn presents very adroitly that how a communist

state can act revengefully to those who don’t fall in their line or

dare to oppose their policies.

Solzhenitsyn demonstrates through repeated examples, the

ways in which internment in a special camp robs the individual of

his humanity. The power of these examples is increased by

Solzhenitsyn’s repeated use of understatements. For Shukhov and

his fellow prisoners, this loss of humanity has become so common

place as to cease to outwardly upset them. For example, when the

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guard taunts Shukhov about the way in which he washes the floor,

saying:

“Didn’t you ever see your wife scrubbing the floor, pig?”

Sukhov responds somewhat sarcastically, saying,” They took me

away from my woman, Comrade Warder, in, 41. I can’t even

remember what she was like.” (Solzhenitsyn 1990:14-15)

The response is really very pathetic and enough to show that

how Shukhov is missing his wife and family all these days. The

statement and admission that he has forgotten what his wife was

like is more disturbing than any other depiction of Shukhov missing

his wife because it demonstrates the ways in which his long prison

sentence has affected him and robbed him of basic human

responses. At one another point Solzhenitsyn raises the same

question but this time more poignantly that how this camp system

has destroyed the basic human spirit of these prisoners. They

were live but without any life. They were all disappointed and

dejected. They had lost all hopes. Even they were not interested in

writing letters to their family members. Solzhenitsyn writes:

“Writing now was like throwing stones in to a bottomless pit.

They fell down and disappeared and no sound came back. What

was the point in telling them in what gang you have worked in and

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what was your boss like?” Now you had more in common with that

Latvian Kilgas than with your own family (Solzhenitsyn 1990:32)

The above statement is very suggestive. It does not mean

uselessness of writing but at a larger level it is the uselessness of

the life. His attitude towards life has completely changed, in the

duration of the last ten years which he has spent in the various

prison camps. We can understand the dismal mood of Shukhov

that how the home has become a distant place in his mind. He

rarely thinks about his wife and children. He is not angry or

resentful towards his family. They have simply vanished from his

consciousness. They have sunk without a trace in to the

bottomless pool of Shukhov’s heart. This despair and gloom is not

pertaining with Shukhov as an individual but rather representing

the mood of the whole of the generation. They have lost all hopes

of freedom and since there is no meaning behind their survival.

“Indeed, a horrendous toll can be exacted on mind and body by

arduous work, extreme cold, near starvation, medical neglect,

systematic beatings, and threats of death, isolation and promises

of release in return for confession.”

(US News & World Report, May 19, 1986:37)

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Throughout the novel Solzhenitsyn stresses again and again

the theme of freedom with confinement. Solzhenitsyn reveals that

the authorities in a Communist society control the prisoners so

completely that ultimately they lose their own identity. At one point

Shukhov says:

“Even a prisoner’s thoughts were not free but kept coming

back to the same thing, kept turning the same things over again.

Will they find that bread in the mattress? Will the medics put me on

the sick list this evening? Will they put Captain in the cooler or

not?” (Solzhenitsyn 1990:31)

Commenting on the situation, Clive, Geoffrey asserts:

“Ivan Denisovich is the everyman of the Soviet Prison System.”

(Clive, Geoffrey. 1972, 143)

It is very useful to refer the concept of the Panopticon to

understand these disciplinary structures. The Panopticon is an

architectural device described by the eighteenth- century

philosopher, Jeremy Bentham, as a way of arranging people in

such a way that, for example, in a prison, it is possible to see all of

the inmates without the observer being seen and without any of

the prisoners having access to one another. Michel Foucault

describes it in the following way in The Eye of Power:

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“A perimeter building in the form of a ring, at the centre of

this a tower, pierced by large windows opening on to the inner face

of the ring. The outer building is divided into cells each of which

traverses the whole thickness of the building. These cells have two

windows, one opening onto the inside, facing the windows of the

central tower, the other, outer one allowing daylight to pass

through the whole cell. All that is than needed is to put an overseer

in the tower and place in each of the cells a lunatic, a patient, a

convict, a worker or a schoolboy. The back lighting enables one to

pick out from the central tower the little captive silhouettes in the

ring of cells”. (Foucault, 1980: 147)

From this analysis of a particular way of organizing the

spatial arrangements of prisons, schools, and factories to enable

maximum visibility, Foucault argues that a new form of internalized

disciplinary practice occurs: one is forced to act as if one is

constantly being surveyed even when one is not. Thus this form of

spatial arrangement entails a particular form of power relation and

restriction of behaviors.

Solzhenitsyn puts before us one another feature of the

communist system which is an important theme of the novel, that

how people are unhoused in the communist system. The beds

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have become their home. They hide all their personal belongings

(if they “have any) in their beds. Solzhenitsyn writes:

“He pulled the heavy mattresses back, and then hid the

things there.”

The novel is full of such instances where we find various

characters hiding their various belongings in their beds. The theme

is developed more elaborately in his next two novels.

The system is that much insensitive towards human

sufferings that only when thermometer reaches -410C the

prisoners were exempted from outdoor labour. It means that up to

-41c the weather conditions were considered quite conductive to

work. To take notice of the types of these works is also important.

It would reveal that these works are meant only to keep these

prisoners busy with not any serious work but with a malign desire

to make suffer all these people who were suspected to oppose the

Communist system in one or other way. Through Shukhov,

Solzhenitsyn reveals the futility of these works, he writes:

“Today was a fateful day: they wanted to transfer their gang-

104-from the construction of workshops to a new project, the

‘Socialist Community Centre’. The Centre was nothing but a barren

field covered with snow drifts, and before anything could be done

164

there, they would have to dig holes, erect posts and put up barbed

wire between the posts- to prevent themselves from

escaping.”(Solzhenitsyn 1990:7)

Commenting on the situation, J.M. Chauvier rightly observes:

“One Day... is, in fact, an allegory, with the camp as a

microcosm of Stalinist society, a concentration of the essence of

the system of the “socialist community”, which here takes the form

of a building-site where slaves are set to work.

(Jean Marie. Solzhenitsyn: p.56)

Though communists often talk about basic human justice but

Solzhenitsyn says, the Communist system is inhuman in practice.

There is no mercy even for the sick. Shukhov is not well. He is

very weak and unable to work. In any human system the patient

would be allowed to rest till he is fit to work. But it is not so in a

communist state. The writer exposes the communist sensitivity

through Shukhov that he is punished for not waking up in time in

spite of his sickness. Shukhov is sent to guardhouse and forced to

clean it.

The writer presents the brutality and cruelty of the system

through the mutual talks and dialogue of the characters. For

example Kilgas argues that though Shukhov has been in camps

165

for eight years, they were not special camps, out of which no one

ever come alive. Shukhov remembers his seven years in the

North, where any squad that failed to fill its timber cutting quota

was forced to stay in the forest after dark in such a hostile

atmosphere.

In the due course of the novel, Solzhenitsyn reveals that it

was a completely authoritarian rule. Exposing the dictatorial nature

of the communist regime Solzhenitsyn writes very sarcastically at

one point in the novel:

“If it is right overhead,” the captain shot back, “that means

it’s one o’ cloak, not twelve.”

“How come?” Shukhov asked. “Any old man can tell you the

sun is highest at noon.”

“That’s what the old guys say!” The captain snapped.

“But since then, there’s has been a law passed and now the

sun is highest at one.”

“Who passed the law?”

“The Soviet Government!” (Solzhenitsyn 1990:52)

This exchange between Buynovsky and Shukhov is really

very amusing. Through this dialogue the writer reveals the absurd

pompousness of the Soviet government. The remark shows that

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how a communist rule is ready to challenge even the rule of the

nature. It is the height of the dictatorship. Through Buynovsky,

Solzhenitsyn points out towards authoritarian tendency of a

communist state. Buyonosvky implies that the Soviet state

believes itself all powerful, able not only to control the lives of its

citizens but also the very laws of nature. The writer indicates

towards the true nature of the regime who even wants to control

even the movements of the nature and any disagreement with the

authorities could land you in another sentence. Drawing our

attention to the hardships of these sentences, about one of these

punishments- a sentence to a cooler cell. He writes:

“The fellows from 104 had built the place themselves and

they knew how it looked ---stone walls a concrete floor and no

window. There was a stove, but that was only enough to melt the

ice off the walls and make puddles on the floor you slept on the

bare boards and your teeth chattered all night. You got six ounces

of bread a day and they only gave you hot gruel every third day.

If you had ten days in the cells here and set them out to the

end, it meant you’d be a wreck for the rest of your life. You got TB

and you’d never be out of the hospitals as long as you lived. And

167

the fellows who did fifteen days were dead and buried.”

(Solzhenitsyn 1990:133)

One more irony of the Communist system is exposed here.

The motto Work with dignity which is considered the basis of a

Communist system is also violated here. It appears that for the

camp officials and the Soviet Government the concept of work is

not sacrosanct. Work is just a commodity for them. In many ways,

this understanding of work as a measurable commodity is used as

a means of oppression against the prisoners. Work is measured

and distributed as are necessities like food and rest time.

This thing is exploited by Tyurin and such officials for their

own benefits. Commodities, foods and tobacco are used by the

prisoner to bribe others and specially the senior officials. By

showing all these happening Solzhenitsyn also reveals the

corruption prevailing in the Communist system. One example of

this the women whom Tiurin helped in from a hard labor camp to a

tailoring shop, though it is done for the good of the women but it is

done through the wrong means.

Solzhenitsyn exposes the rampant corruption in the system

very systematically. He talks through Shukhov that not only the

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ration which was distributed in the prisoners was the low quality

but was also short in weight. He writes:

“He looked at the rations, turning it, weighing it in his hands

as he moved, to see if it was the full pound due him…and though

he had never had a chance to weigh a single one of them on a

scale and he was always too shy to stick up for his rights, he and

every other prisoner had known a long time that the people who

cut up and issued your bread would not last long if they gave you

honest rations. Every ration was short. The only question was –by

how much?” (Solzhenitsyn 1990:19)

The theme of the corruption in the system is a recurring

theme in the novel. We find so many examples in the novel that

the system has completely rotten. The writer says in the Ust-Izhma

camp, Shukhov used to get packages from his home. Later

Shukhov advised her wife not to send them. He writes:

“But he wrote to his wife and told her not to send any more

because there was not much left by the time it reached him. Better

keep it for the kids.” (Solzhenitsyn 1990:109)

It is not painful that he is not receiving any packages from

his home but we feel pain for him when he desires he could.

Solzhenitsyn writes:

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“All the same every time anybody in his gang got a

package—and this was nearly every day, he felt a kind of pang

inside because it wasn’t him. Though he himself has stopped his

wife from sending him any gift, still he sometimes had the crazy

idea, somebody might run to him one day and say: “Shukhov, what

are you waiting for? You have got a package.”

(Solzhenitsyn 1990:109)

We can sense the pathos behind the statement of Shukhov

that how much he had been longing for his family of which he had

been deprived without any of his fault.

Solzhenitsyn reveals through the character of Shukhov that

though the Communist system is all determined to destroy the

individual identity of the prisoners but even then it is unable to

break people like Shukhov. Shukhov does not take work as a

punishment but rather he starts enjoying his work. For Shukhov

works primary value is, as an act. Shukhov feels a sort of self

respect in completing the work satisfactorily. He feels a sort of

pride in performing work successfully. His mental exertions in

planning and laying the blocks in the wall demonstrates his

involvement and skill. Shukhov has ironically found a new source

of pride. In an atmosphere where you have lost the very meaning

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of ownership or personal belongings, a brick wall indirectly

satisfies his long nurtured desire of something of which he can

claim as of his own. The brick wall provides him the much needed

moral support. He can look at it with pride and he can see his self

worth reflected in it. Shukhov is so much involved with the work

that he takes personal pains in completing the task. In choosing to

continue working even he was supposed to –and when many

others did- stop, Shukhov asserts his own will upon the work and

demonstrates that he is not completely controlled by the camp

authorities.

In the end for Shukhov, all work is about survival. He knows

one thing very clearly that he must work as much as possible- in

the evening to gain enough food and favors to survive. Therefore,

work beyond what is required of him by the camp is necessary to

ensure his survival. One another feature of Shukhov’s character is

important to note that Shukhov must not preserve his body but

also his mind and spirit, during his term in the camp. Taking pride

in his work provides him the much needed human dignity and self

respect to remain human under these inhuman conditions.

In presenting Shukhov working even after the end of the

work day to finish the wall, Solzhenitsyn is not only condemning

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the communist system but also raising certain basic questions

about the implementation of these policies by the Stalinists. In a

communist system the worker is paramount, but here it appears

that work is being given more importance then the workers. The

workers are only being exploited in the name of service to the

society. Solzhenitsyn depicts the workers solidarity by presenting

Shukhov and Senka working together even after the scheduled

time. Shukhov and Senka are idealized views of the communist

worker that was originally heart of the communist ideology.

For Solzhenitsyn, the tragedies of individual men and women

as found in forced labor camps are not decreed by fate or by

heaven. They were the product of the system. Trotsky provided a

central theoretical foundation for this resort to forced labour.

Trotsky propagates:

“We are now heading towards the type of labour that is

socially regulated on the basis of an economic plan, obligatory for

the whole country, compulsory for every worker. This is the basis

of socialism…The militarization of labour, in this fundamental

sense of which I have spoken, is the indispensable basic method

for the organization of our labour forces…Is it true that compulsory

labour is always unproductive?...This is the most wretched and

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miserable liberal prejudice: chattel slavery, too was

productive…Compulsory serf labour did not grow out of the feudal

lords’ ill will. It was (in this time) a progressive phenomenon…”

( Deutscher. 1954, 338-9)

Solzhenitsyn then depicts that how the system has

broken the solidarity of the workers and that how they have

become puppets at the hands of the authorities. The authorities

which govern this system depend upon the mistrust among the

workers. In effect they are subverting the very foundation upon

which the communist ideology is built. The Marxist concept of

revolution is based upon the strength of united workers.

Solzhenitsyn describes the Communist society as in the form of

the Stalinist prison camp system where workers have lost their

significance and are being exploited. They are in need of another

revolution to free its workers from oppression. Man’s inhumanity to

Man is a recurring theme in almost all the writings of Solzhenitsyn.

The theme of zek against zek is repeated by Solzhenitsyn

again and again throughout the novel, from his depiction of

squealers whose throats are cut, to the competition for food and

cigarettes, to the antagonism between squads and columns.

Solzhenitsyn feels that this antagonism though contrary to the

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basic ideology of communism, is deliberately created by the

system so that they can control them easily.

Solzhenitsyn continues the theme of finding freedom through

the act of working throughout the novel. The prisoners are angry

that they are forced to wait and return to camp so late in the

evening not only that they have lost their free time during the day

but more specifically “there would be no time now to do anything of

their own in camp.” though this is a forced labor camp but the

attitude of Shukhov towards work is different that he no longer

takes work as a punishment but rather uses it as an only creative

activity in the confinement .Solzhenitsyn and his protagonist find

merit in the act of work though Solzhenitsyn has always

condemned the imposition of work through force.

As the day progresses Solzhenitsyn tries to reveal some

more naked truth of the functioning of a communist state through

the activities of Shukhov and his observations. Solzhenitsyn

makes effective use of understatements in the later part of the

novel. Solzhenitsyn uses simple, factual statements and in doing

so communicates the extreme effects of camp life on the life of

Shukhov and other prisoners. Shukhov had a deep love for his

family but the hard and insensitive life of the camp had compelled

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him to forget all those pleasant moments of his life. Solzhenitsyn

writes:

“There were fewer and fewer occasions to recall the village

of Temgenovo and the hut where he and his family lived. Here, life

pursued him from reveille to lights out, and there was no free time

for reminiscing.”(Solzhenitsyn 1990:134)

In Shukhov and his fellow prisoners Solzhenitsyn creates a

depiction of humanity in extremes. In their Extreme situation,

truths, emotions, and meanings become more pronounced. The

forced imprisonment had completely changed their mentality. The

survival has become the sole motto for them. Shukhov does not

hope for any immediate release or an easy prison term. His all

efforts are meant for survival. In the given circumstances and

hostile atmosphere it is of utmost important to survive. Ten days in

the guardhouse with poor rations can make a man so sick that he

will never recover to be released. Survival is the only thing for

which Shukhov can hope for, and that is the only thing which is

keeping him alive for such a long time in such an inhuman

environment.

Through Shukhov, Solzhenitsyn ascertains the value of faith

in the life of a common man. Solzhenitsyn says that one’s faith is

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the most crucial in rising against any injustice and to keep you

alive in difficulties. That’s why, all the authoritarian rules, whatever

name they may assume communism or socialism always try to

destroy this very essence of human being.

Solzhenitsyn is completely against the atheism of the

communism. According to him, the spiritual development is the

most important for a human being. Rather the meaning of Human

Existence lies in the spiritual development and not in the

attainment of human comfort, material well being or even

happiness. As stated in his Harvard commencement speech:

“If, as claim d by humanism, man were born only to be happy,

he would not be born to die. Since his body is doomed to death,

his task on earth evidently must be more spiritual: not a total

engrossment of everyday life, not a search for the best ways to

obtain material goods and then their carefree consumption. It has

to be the fulfillment of a permanent earnest duty so that one’s life

journey may become above all an experience of moral growth: “to

live life as a better human being than one started it.”

(Berman, 1980, 19)

This quest for spiritual development in the confines of a

material world is a theme in the most of Solzhenitsyn’s works. This

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theme is also explored in A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovch. In

the end of the novel, Alyoshka says to Shukhov:

“Ivan Denisovich, you must not pray for somebody to send

you a package or foe an extra helping of gruel. Things that people

set store by are base in the sight of the Lord. You must pray for the

things of the spirit so that the Lord will take evil things from our

hearts.” (Solzhenitsyn 1990:140)

The communist used to consider religion as a negative factor

for the development of human beings but Solzhenitsyn points out

through the character of Shukhov that true happiness lays in the

spiritual development and not in acquiring materialistic pleasures.

Marx used to see religion as opium and a constraint in seeing the

truth. Contrary to it, Solzhenitsyn asserted the importance of faith.

The character of Shukhov is evolved in the company of Alyoshka,

the Baptist. In the end of the novel we find Shukhov a changed

man. In the beginning of the novel we find Shukhov a very

ordinary person doing all the woks out of the greed of getting

something in return but in the end of the novel Shukhov has

become a better human being. He appears helping others not in

the hope of receiving something but with the sole motto of helping

others. Shukhov is not thoroughly religious, but he experiences a

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moral rebirth during his theological conversation with Alyoshka.

After this conversation, Shukhov performs his first truly generous

act in the novel; he gives one of his precious biscuits to Alyoshka.

This gift to Alyoshka is selfless, not calculated. This is the first

illustration in the novel when we find Shukhov as a giver, doing

something without any calculation. Solzhenitsyn conveys the

message, that how he has become a new person after suffering a

lot, in the company of Alyoshka, the Baptist.

He has used the character of Alyoshka to show the other

ironies of a communist state. People are forced to hide their faith

and beliefs, for example, Alyoshka, the Baptist, has to hide his

note book in which he has copied half of the New Testament in the

wall and he can read it only secretly. The devout Alyoshka

continues to pray though it is forbidden. The statement that

“Alyoshka was a champion at one thing.” gives an idea of how he

is seen by the rest of the work gang. The people are made

helpless without any faith. Asserting the importance of the faith in

human-beings life, Solzhenitsyn used to say, he could survive in

such hostile circumstances just because of his strong faith in God.

This theme is developed more extensively in his novel, The First

Circle.

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The loss of religion, which might otherwise provide a

panacea for the hopelessness of the camps, is another example of

Stalinist system’s abuse not only of human bodies but also of

human souls. Solzhenitsyn writes:

“There, at one table, before dipping in his spoon, a young

man was crossing himself. That meant a western Ukrainian and a

new arrival. As for the Russians, they had even forgotten which

hand to cross themselves with.” (Solzhenitsyn 1990:16)

Solzhenitsyn raises the question of importance of faith in

someone’s life. He negated the very base of the Communist

ideology.

“At its roots, Marxism-Leninism is atheistic materialistic.

Marxism denied the existence and the reality of any deity. Marx

explicitly distinguished his communism from previous “utopian”,

religious or ethical socialism. In his early writings Marx viewed

religion as a deliberate distraction meant to lead the oppressed to

divert their attention to what viewed as fabricated otherworldly

concerns rather than the address the exploitation that resulted

from capitalism and previous class based models of society such

as feudalism and slave society.” (Raines 2002:8)

179

Contrary to the Marxism, Solzhenitsyn asserts again and

again that true human happiness cannot be achieved without faith

(religion).

The Christian faith is rooted in the belief that God created

everything. According to Christian belief, God has a plan for his

creation, and therefore there is no need to be pessimistic. At first,

this Christian view appears an unlikely fit with Solzhenitsyn’s

prison-camp based novel. But then in the due course of the novel

we find many examples through which Sozhenitsyn appears

discussing the importance of faith in the life of an ordinary human

being. In one such instance, while Ivan Denisovich is working, he

asks his captain about moon and its phrases. Shukhov tells the

officer:

“Where I come from, they used to say God breaks up the old

moon to make stars (Solzhenitsyn 1990:116) The captain is

amused and calls Shukhov a savage for believing in God. Shukhov

is surprised by the response and answers:“How can anybody not

believe in God when it thunders?”(Solzhenitsyn 1990:116)

The nature of evil, from the Christian stand point, is that all

evils come from man’s sin. This makes evil a personal force, rather

than something abstract. Schmemann describes the Christian idea

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of evil as a fall. He states that evil is “this fall from on high and the

horror, grief and suffering it evokes”(41).Evil or sin is controlled by

the individual. Each person has the ability to choose between the

right and wrong. In many parts of the novel, prisoners must decide

whether or not to help their prison mates. When Shukhov goes to

infirmary, his fellow prisoners save his rations, so he may eat later.

Similarly the Russian authorities and guards have made the

decision to carry out the injustices of the prison camp.

Finally, Solzhenitsyn’s novel expresses one of the most

important Christian principles, hope for the future. Christians have

faith that Christ will return some day and that there will be a

heaven. In Christianity, since Christ paid the price for the sins of

the world, there are no lost causes. Solzhenitsyn has always

believed that faith in God is necessary to live meaningfully, and

this faithlessness is responsible for many of the ills of the modern

civilization.

The Christian faith of Solzhenitsyn is reflected in the

concluding part of the novel. It is best reflected in the conversation

between Alyoshka and Shukhov. Alyoshka is the representing

character of Christianity. Alyoshka says:

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“Look here, Ivan denisovich, your soul wants to pray to god,

so why don’t you let it have its way?”

The reply of Shukhov is equally interesting. He says:

“I’ll tell you why, Alyoshka. Because all these prayers are like the

complaints we do to the higher ups ---either they don’t get there or

they come back to you marked ‘rejected’.”

The doubts of Shukhov about the existence of God are

answered beautifully by Alyoshka. He says:

“The trouble is, Ivan Denisovich, you don’t pray hard enough

and that’s why your prayers don’t work out. You must pray

unceasing! And if you have faith and tell the mountain to move, it

will move.”(Solzhenitsyn 1990:139)

The character of Shukhov is more impressive in the sense

that he is not only keeping himself physically alive but also keeping

his morality intact in an amoral atmosphere. Solzhenitsyn created

some other such characters also with a view to inspire the people

to stand up against a system where human dignity is at stake and

that should be preserved at any cost. The character of prisoner U-

81 exemplifies dignity in his behavior. Despite the years of

sufferings and prison sentence upon prison sentence, this old man

is dignified in both his actions- sitting straight, bringing his spoon

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up to his mouth----, and his appearance heavily lined skin,

hardened hands. Though his physical appearance- bald and

without teeth – tells us of the ravages of the prison system. It is

clear that his dignity has survived intact. Thus he is not an object

of pity. He represents humanity’s difficult struggle to overcome

attempts to destroy it.

The Soviet authorities are presented as a true authoritarian

system, which does not bother about any sort of privacy or liberty.

The prisoners are not allowed to claim anything as their own. They

are forced to work even on Sundays. Shukhov says:

“Again there wasn’t going to be a Sunday this week; again

they were going to steal one of their Sundays”.

(Solzhenitsyn 1990:139)

The prisoners value their free time and see this time as

something they own. It is in this time they do their extra necessary

work like trading, working, bribing etc. on their own to survive. The

authorities have taken from them not only the opportunity to take a

nap but also the much esteemed free time which defines them as

men and as an individual which determines their physical and

spiritual survival.

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The whole novel is a reflection of the difficult situation in a

totalitarian state that how authorities could control almost all the

activities of the common men. The regulations were made with the

motto to “rob them of their last shred of freedom.”

Solzhenitsyn also reveals certain secrets of human

psychology while discussing the functioning of the system. Though

the whole book is full of such illustrations, some of them are really

interesting. For example at one point in the novel when Shukhov

returns after his medical checkup and the doctor refuses to admit

him, though he does not feel well, he feels:

“When you are in cold, don’t expect sympathy from someone

who is warm.” (Solzhenitsyn 1990:18)

This is a very intelligent remark about the system that

generally people sitting at the higher levels do not understand the

problems of the common people.

The ending of the novel is very sarcastic. Shukhov’s

contentment that “It was almost a happy day” is surprising when

contrasted with the misery of the novel’s early moments. The

statement of Shukhov has many more connotations then only the

reminder of the theme of the Divine Comedy. Shukhov”s trajectory

in the novel, from abject misery to hard work to contentment and

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religion at the end, mimics Dante’s religious epic poem “The Divine

Comedy”, which influenced Solzhenitsyn deeply. Solzhenitsyn

writes:

“Shukhov went to sleep, and he was happy. He had a lot of

luck today. They had not put him in a cooler. The gang had not

been chased out to work in the Socialist Community Development.

He’d finagled an extra bowl of mush at noon. The boss had gotten

them good rates for their work. He found a broken hacksaw blade

which could serve him as a knife. Caesar had paid him off in the

evening. He had bought some tobacco. And he had gotten over

that sickness.” (Solzhenitsyn 1990:144)

The passage is of course deeply ironic. If this day with all its

hardships, counts as a good day in Ivan”s life, we are left to think

on what a bad day must be like.

Like his other works, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

also deals with the struggle for survival under inhuman conditions.

What must a man or a woman do to get out of such a camp alive?

Is survival the only and most important goal, are there limits to

what a person can and should do to stay alive? Is religious faith

necessary or vital for survival? The writer tries to resolve and

contemplate all these issues in this novel.

185

Apart from all these social and literal meanings, the novel

has something more to tell us. The theme of the fate of the modern

man, who must make a sense of a universe whose operations he

does not understand, is the prime concern of the novel. He

appears to raise the question that according to what principles

should one live in a seemingly absurd universe, controlled by

forces which one cannot understand and over which one has no

control?

Shukov’s fate closely resembles that of Josef K in Franz

Kafka’s The Trial. Josef K is arrested one morning without

knowing why, and he attempts to find out reasons. In his search,

he encounters a cruel court bureaucracy which operates according

to incomprehensible rules; lawyers and priest cannot provide him

with reasonable answers for his fate, and so he finally concludes

that he must be guilty. Accordingly, he willingly submits to his

execution.

Shukhov is also arrested and sent to prison camps for

absurd reasons. He does not understand the legalities of his case.

He is after all a simple worker. He meets only cruel, minor officials

of the system, who only obey orders but do not give explanations.

The intellectuals around him do not seem to have right answers.

186

Solzhenitsyn appears rejecting all the theories of communism, as

absurd.

Giorgio Agamben finds these concentration camps as the

direct result of totalitarian mentality, where law is suspended for

indefinite time. Agamben connects Greek political philosophy

through to the concentration camps of the 20th century fascism,

and even further, to detainment camps in the likes of Guantanamo

Bay or immigration detention centers, such as Bari, Italy. In these

kinds of camps, entire zones of exception are formed. The state of

exception becomes a status under which certain categories of

people live, a capture of life by right. Sovereign law makes it

possible to create entire areas in which the application of law itself

is held suspended. The concentration camps of Stalin era are no

different. Agamben finds the example of this state of exception

even in modern times also. Talking about the military order of

President George W. Bush on 13, Nov. 2001, Agamben writes:

“What is new about President Bush order is that it radically

erases any legal status of the individual, thus producing a legally

unnamable unclassifiable being. Not only do the Taliban captured

in Afghanistan not enjoy the status POW’s as defined by the

187

Geneva Convention, they do not have even the status of people

charged with a crime according to American laws”

(Agamben G. 2005: 3)

Like the authors of other prison novels, Solzhenitsyn

concludes that it is the duty of a human being not to resign and

give up the struggle for survival. However, it is wrong to

concentrate on what one must do to survive. It is better to establish

a personal code of behavior which dictates what one will not do

just to preserve one’s physical existence.

Solzhenitsyn discusses that how we can overcome these

wretched social conditions. It is clear that Solzhenitsyn sees as

little possibility for a successful overthrow of the Soviet regime.

The real hope is that the corrupt, inefficient will destroy itself from

within, and that Russia will return to a system which is founded on

the qualities, which Ivan represents: hard work without too much

reliance on technology. Even if it appears that conditions will not

change so soon, the actions of the Russian people should be

designed to survive with dignity and pride, like Shukhov and not

with groveling and crawling as Fetyukov in the novel.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn has completely shattered the myth of

communism and the triumphant socialism in his novel One Day...

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by presenting the pathetic and pitiable conditions of an ordinary

working man in a so called heaven of the working people

Solzhenitsyn has raised many doubts about the future of the

communism. Against the propaganda of the glorious communist

future, he presents an ordinary human being, a carpenter,

Shukhov, who struggles pathetically to maintain his honesty, self

respect, and pride in a hopeless battle with mysterious forces that

seem determined –to destroy his human dignity, to deny him his

right to love country, and to render meaningless the work of his

hands. Solzhenitsyn seriously doubted the excuse that the

atrocities happened due to “the period of the personality cult”.

Solzhenitsyn just rejected all the notions like “honest communism”

or “honest communists”. Solzhenitsyn exposed the bare truth

before the world that how millions of nameless people paid with

their freedom and with life itself for the “construction of socialism”.

The researcher concludes the chapter with the observations

of scholar J. M. Chauvier on the novel. He says:

“One Day… exposed what most Communists had refused to

admit until then- the existence of concentrations camps in the land

of socialism. The documentary aspect of the story is nevertheless

very secondary. Shalanov and Ginzburg have given much more

189

detailed descriptions of the world of exiles. One Day in the Life of

Ivan Denisovich is an ordinary day. In contrast to the accounts

which lay stress on atrocities and tortures, the horror of the

concentration camp life is here epitomized in this stripping- bare,

this perfectly ordinary, routine, political task of dehumanization, of

disintegration of human personality for which the camp serves as

instrument.”

(Jean, Marie Chauvier.1974, vol. II, 52)

190

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