The Gulag Archipelago Vol. 2 An Experiment in Literary Investigation - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

The Trusties I 287
floor of our building, in other words, as if on the roof. And from
there we prisoners had a panoramic view of Moscow.
On one side were the Sparrow Hills,· still open and clear. The
future Lenin Prospekt had just been projected !lD-d outlined but
did not exist. The insane asylum-''Kanatchikova dacha"-could
be seen in its pristine, original state. In the opposite direction were
the cupola of the Novodevichi Monastery, the carcass, of the
Frunze Academy, and in a violet haze far, far ahead, beyond the
bustling streets, was the Kremlin, where all they had to do was
merely sign that amnesty which had already been, prepared for
us. We, the doomed, were tempted by the sight of this world which
in its riches and glory was virtually at our feet,' yet at the same
time forever unattainable.
But no.matter how much of a greenhorn I was in champing at
the bit to be out "in freedom," this city did not arouse in me envy
or the wish to soar down onto its streets. All the evil holding us
prisoner had been woven here. This arrogant city had never before
provided such a justification as it did now after the war for the
saying:
'
"Moscow turns ~ts back on tears! ....
9. And now, from 'time to time, I take advantage of this opportunity-a
rare for a former zek-to visit his own camp. Each time I am excited and
nervous. It is so useful for measuring the relative dimensions of lifo-to immerse
oneself in the inescapable past, to feel again wluu one was belore. Where
the mess hall. the stage, and the Cultural and Educational Section were be-,
fore, the "Spartak Store"·is now. Righf1here at the surviving trolleybus stop was
the external gatehouse. Right there on the third floor is the. window of our
chamber of monstrosities. Right there was the line-up line. -Right there Napolnaya's
turret crane used to rise. Over there was where M. flitted over to 801'­
shader. Along the asphalt courtyard people walk, promenade, talk about petty
things. They do not know they are walking on corpses, on our recollections.
They could not imagine that this courtyard might once have not been part of
Moscow, twenty minutes' drive from the center, but a tiny islet of the savage
Archipelago, more closely tied to Norilsk and the Kolyma than to Moscow;
But I cannot now go up on the roof where we used to go freely and I cannot
now enter thOse a~nts in which I used to putty doors and lay floors. I
put my hands behmd my back as I used to do and I pace back and forth in
the compound, imagining that I cannot leave here, that I can pace only from
here to there and back again, and that I do not know where they will send me
tomorrow. And those asme trees in the Neskucbny Park, no longer fenced off
by the compound fence, testify to me that they remember it all, that they remember
me too, and that that is really how it was. .
I pace in a prisoner's straight back-and-forth, with turns at each end, and as
I do so aU the complexities of life todal! gradually begin to melt away ~
wax.
1 cannot restrain myself, I play the hooligan: I climb up the stairs and on a
white windowsill, half a flight below the ,office of the camp chief, I write in
bljlCk: "Camp Sector 121." People will pass this way and read it--and perhaps
. they will ponder lL
288 I THE GULAG ARCHIPELAGO
•
Although we were trustiel!. we were work trusties and our room
wasn't the main room-up above us there was another one just
like it where the compound trusties lived, and whence the triumvirate
of the bookkeeper Solomonov, the stock clerk Bershader,
and the work assigner Burshtein ruled our camp. Right there the
reorganization was decided on: Pavlov to be removed from his
position as works manager and. replaced by K. And so one day
this new prime minister came to live in our room. (And just before
that Pravdin, despite all his attempts to curry favor, had been
hauled off on a prisoner transport.) They didn't suffer me around
much longer; they kicked me out of norm-setting work and out
of that room as well. (In camp when you fall in social position,
you rise to the upper level on a multiple bunk.) But while I was
still there I had time to observe K., who filled out our small'
''model" not at all badly with one additional important postrevolu-,
tionary variety of the intellectual.
Aleksandr Fyodorovich K., a thirty-five-year-old calculating
and grasping businessman (in other words, "a brilliant organizer").
was a construction engineer by profession. (But'somehow
he showed very little professional skill and merely fussed about
with a slide rule.) He had received ten years under the terms of
the law of August 7, had already served three years, had thoroughly
oriented himself in camp. and felt himself as free and easy
here as out in freedom. It was as if general work did not threaten
him in the least. All the less, therefore, was he inclined to take
pity on the untalented masses doomed precisely to this general
work. He was one of those prisoners whose actions put more fear
into the zeks than the actions of· the Archipelago'S inveterate
bOS$es; once he had grabbed you by the throat he would never let
go or relax his grip. He got reduction of rations (by increasing the
differentials), deprivation of visits fro~ relatives, and dispatch of
more prisoners out on transports-anything to squeeze more out
of the prisoners. Both the camp and the construction were equally
delighted with him. '.,
But here was what was interesting: All those devices were
clearly and obviously methods predatiDg· camp. That is how he
had learned to lead out in freedom, and it turned out that his
do~em of leadership was exactly what was wanted in the camps.