The Gulag Archipelago: Part 1, Chapter 2: The History of Our Sewage Disposal System Summary & Analysis

Solzhenitsyn describes the various waves of arrests in Soviet history, which moved relentlessly and struck every sector of society. While 1937 and 1938 were infamous for political repression, these years represent only one of many surges that filled the prisons and camps. Earlier, in 1929-1930, an enormous wave uprooted around 15 million peasants, exiling them to the taiga and tundra without trial. Village councils and local Soviet authorities issue exile orders, often condemning entire families. Soviet authorities tore residents of these rural communities from their homes and scattered them across uninhabitable regions. These victims left behind no records, memoirs, or formal protests. This wave aimed to eradicate independent farmers and enforce collectivization, marking one of the deadliest moments in Soviet history.

Another major wave followed World War. Between 1944 and 1946, authorities targeted entire ethnic groups, accusing them of disloyalty. Crimean Tatars, Chechens, Kalmyks, and other minority populations were forcibly deported en masse. Soviet soldiers and civilians returning from German captivity were treated as traitors. The authorities imprison millions, accusing them of betraying the state simply because they were captured. This effort to “cauterize” war wounds aimed to suppress future unrest and ensure the Soviet Union’s recovery by neutralizing perceived threats.

Between 1937 and 1938 (a period known as the "Great Terror" or the "Great Purge”), arrests targeted people with political ties, Party connections, or public influence. These people left behind memoirs and writings, which is why history remembers these years best. Arrests followed strict quotas, with each region and military unit receiving a target number of arrests. Local officials scrambled to meet these quotas by reclassifying petty criminals as political offenders and seizing innocent civilians.

Religious believers became a constant target. The government arrested monks, priests, nuns, and laypeople who refuse to accept state control over religious life. Authorities closed churches and arrested people who resisted the “Living Church,” a state-sponsored religious organization. Teaching children religious values was classified as counterrevolutionary propaganda, and parents raising their children in the faith faced exile or imprisonment. Religious prisoners received long sentences and were often barred from returning to their families even after release.

During World War II, soldiers and civilians endure a new wave of repression. Soldiers trapped behind enemy lines or captured by the Germans faced suspicion upon their return. The authorities treated them as traitors, stripping them of honors and sending them to prison camps. Civilians forced into labor in Europe met a similar fate: the authorities punished them for exposure to foreign lifestyles. The Soviet government also arrested entire communities in newly annexed regions like Western Ukraine and the Baltic states.

Even soldiers and sailors returning from internment in neutral countries were not spared. For example, a group of sailors held in Sweden during the war enjoyed freedom briefly, only to be arrested for treason upon returning to the Soviet Union. Soviet officials staged a press conference for Western journalists, presenting the sailors as well-treated citizens. Once the journalists left, the sailors return to the camps, narrowly avoiding worse punishment because they cooperated with the charade.

Stalin’s paranoia deepened after the war, triggering another wave of arrests in 1948. Survivors from the 1937 purges, many of whom had just finished their sentences, were rearrested without new charges. Stalin also targeted the children of former prisoners, fearing they might seek revenge. Ethnic groups like the Greeks near the Black Sea face deportation and were punished without clear reason. Stalin’s personal obsessions drove these actions, with political logic giving way to paranoia and cruelty.

Even as the regime celebrated in the aftermath of World War II, arrests continue. An entire jazz orchestra in Tambov was imprisoned on vague accusations of anti-Soviet activity. Allied governments, including the United States and Britain, forcibly returned thousands of Soviet refugees who sought shelter in the West, handing them over to Soviet authorities for imprisonment or execution. The prisons remained full, with new waves of prisoners constantly replacing those perished or were transferred deeper into the camps. Arrests persisted until Stalin’s death in 1953, leaving no part of society untouched.