View source for The Gulag Archipelago

==The Progressive Doctrine==
30 years into the [[leftist]] [[multicultural]] experiment called the [[Soviet Union]], [[Alexander Solzhenitsyn]] did an extensive study of the Progressive Doctrine in Volume II of ''The Gulag Archipelago''. Solzhenitsyn wrote, {{quotebox|In this study, if nothing prevents us, we intend to make an important scientific discovery. In the development of our [[hypothesis]] we would in no way wish to come into conflict with the Progressive Teaching. The author of these lines, attracted by the enigma of the native tribe populating the Archipelago, undertook a lengthy scientific expedition there and collected abundant material. And as a result it is very easy to prove that the ''zeks'' [prisoners of the [[gulag]]]<ref>''zek'' is a Russian slang term similar to "''con''" in English to refer to convicts, however many ''zeks'' were opponents of [[Socialism]], not criminals.</ref> of the Archipelago [[Dialectical materialism|constitute a class]] of society. For, after all, this multitudinous group (of many millions) has a single (common to them all) relationship to production (namely: subordinate, attached, and without any right to direct that production). It also has a single common relationship to the distribution of the products of labor (namely: no relationship at all, receiving only that insignificant share of the products required for the meager support of their own existence). And, in addition, all their labor is [[Macroeconomics|no small thing]], but one of the principal constituents of the [[Central planning|whole state economy]].<ref>Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn (1973). ''[https://archive.org/stream/TheGulagArchipelago-Threevolumes/The-Gulag-Archipelago__vol2__III-IV__Solzhenitsyn#page/n2/mode/2up The Gulag Archipelago]'' (1st ed.) Harper & Row, page 502. </ref>}} Solzhenitsyn explains the role of thieves and criminals in a socialist society.  As oppressed victims of the propertied oppressor 
class, thieves were "socially friendly" or "class allies" of progressives in the [[class war]] between "the haves and have nots". {{quotebox|The fathers of the Archipelago, having, in accordance with the Progressive Doctrine, multiplied these socially friendly elements beyond all rhyme and reason...How many citizens who were robbed knew that the police, didn't even bother to look for the criminals, didn't even set a case in motion, so as not to spoil their record of completed cases - why should they sweat to catch a thief if he would be given only six months, and then be given three months off for good behavior?  And anyway, it wasn't certain that the bandits would even be tried when caught.  After all, prosecutors "lowered the crime rate"—something demanded of them at every conference—by the curious method of simply quashing cases, especially if they foresaw that there would be many defendants.  Finally, sentences were bound to be reduced, and of course for habitual criminals especially.  Watch out there now .. witness in the courtroom! They will all be back soon, and it'll be a knife in the back of anyone who gave testimony! Therefore, if you see someone crawling through a window, or slitting a pocket, or your neighbor's suitcase being ripped open—shut your eyes! Walk by! You didn't see anything! That's how the thieves have trained us—the thieves and our laws!

The·thieves flourished because they were encouraged.<ref>''Gulag, Vol. II'', Page 422, 425 ''et seqq.''</ref>}}
Elsewhere Solzhenitsyn documents how [[slavery|forced labor]], a cruelty of Czarist times that led to the [[Russian Revolution]], was adapted to Progressive Doctrine.<ref>''Gulag, Vol. II'', page 76.</ref>

Solzhenitsyn goes into some detail how progressives deal with political opposition and dissenters in socialist re-education camps (gulags):
{{quotebox|It has been known for centuries that Hunger . . . rules the world! (And all your Progressive Doctrine is, incidentally, built on Hunger, on the thesis that hungry people will inevitably revolt against the well-fed.) Hunger rules every hungry human being, unless he has himself consciously decided to die. Hunger, which forces an honest person to reach out and steal ("When the belly rumbles, conscience flees"). Hunger, which compels the most unselfish person to look with envy into someone else's bowl, and to try painfuIly to estimate what weight of ration his neighbor is receiving. Hunger, which darkens the brain and refuses to allow it to be distracted by anything else at all, or to think about anything else at all, or to speak about anything else at all except food, food, and food.  Hunger, from which it is impossible to escape even in dreams—dreams are about food, and insomnia is over food.  And soon—just insomnia.  Hunger, after which one cannot even eat up; the man has by then turned into a one-way pipe, and everything emerges from him in exactly the same state in which it was swallowed.<ref>Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn (1973). ''The Gulag Archipelago'' (1st ed.) Harper & Row, page 209.</ref>}}
Solzhenitsyn anticipated the response of his critics:
{{quotebox|All you freedom-loving "left-wing" thinkers in the West! You left [[British Labour Party|laborites!]] You progressive American, German, and French students! As far as you are concerned, none of this amounts to much. As far as you are concerned, this whole book of mine is a waste of effort. You may suddenly understand it all someday - but only when you yourselves hear "hands behind your backs there!" and step ashore on our Archipelago.<ref>''Gulag Vol. III'', page 518.</ref>}}

===The role of organizers===
Two of the most famous [[community organizer|organizers]] in contemporary America are [[Barack Hussein Obama]] and [[Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez]]. Solzhenitsyn repeatedly refers to the organizers who ran the camps. In this excerpt, Solzhenitsyn describes how progressive organizers break the will of Article 58 resisters (political prisoners were sentenced under Article 58 of the Soviet Constitution and referred to  as 58's). The attempt to organize resistance to the progressive takeover itself was a crime. 58's were shipped off to the gulag to be housed along with thieves and murderers.
{{quotebox|Having passed through the meat grinder of political interrogation, the human being was physically crushed in body: he had been starved, he hadn't slept, he had frozen in punishment cells, he had lain there a beaten man. But it wasn't only his body. His soul was crushed too. Over and over he had been told and had had demonstrated to him that his views, and his conduct in life, and his relationships with people had all been wrong because they had brought him to ruin. All that was left in that scrunched-up wad the engine room [a metaphor for interrogation room] of the law had spewed out into the prisoner transport was a  greed for life, and no understanding whatever. To crush him once and for all and to cut him off from all others once and for all - that was the function of interrogation under Article 58. The convicted prisoner had to learn that his worst guilt out in freedom had been his attempt somehow to get together or unite with others by any route but the Party organizer, the trade-union organizer, or the administration. In prison this fear went so far as to become fear of all kinds of [[collective]] action: two voices uttering the same complaint or two prisoners signing a complaint on one piece of paper. Gun-shy now and for a  good long time to come of any and every kind of collaboration or unification, the pseudo politicals were not prepared to unite even against the thieves. Nor would they even think of bringing along a weapon - a knife or a bludgeon - for the Stolypin car<ref>A Stolypin car is a railway car similar to a Pullman car converted for prisoner transport.</ref> or the transit prison. In the first place, why have one? And against whom? In the second place, if  you did use it, then, considering the aggravating circumstance of your malevolent Article 58, you might be shot when you were retried. In the third place, even before that, your punishment for having a knife when they searched you would be very different from the thief's. For him to have a knife was mere misbehavior, tradition, he didn't know any better. But for you to have one was "terrorism."}}
A parallel might be found in the Progressive use of modern technology for political repression - in Soviet times it was the use of railways for mass deportation to gulags, in contemporary times it is the use of [[social media]] to isolate and ban dissenters of Progressive thought.

===Putting people first===
In the socialist ''[[utopia]]'' of the Soviet Union,the exploitation of one's labor by private capitalists was outlawed, and all jobs were guaranteed by the state. [[Unemployment]], a feature of capitalism, was outlawed. Initially, so was [[money]], a feature of [[bourgeois]] society and the profit motive. People before profits, with the government guaranteeing all workers' jobs and sustenance. 

Any sort of private enterprise or [[entrepreneurship]] in the [[black market]] or underground economy was not considered merely [[tax evasion]], but [[treason]] (anti-Soviet activity), a political crime that attacked the very underpinnings of Socialism and foundation of the state.  One person could not employ another (exploiting their labor); the government owned the means of production and only the government (i.e. [[single party control|party members]] and [[civil service system|civil servants]]) could hire people or make a profit.

With the profit motive removed, government [[economic planner]]s established production quotas, or "work norms." Additionally, with the profit motive and money banned, no one wanted to work - especially young men of marriageable age who wanted to impress a girl and court her for a wife.  With unemployment outlawed, prison camps were expanded beyond anything recognizable from the Czarist era to create employment for the millions of ''shirkers'' of socialist ideals and to provide profit for the state, overseeing the economy.  Critics of the system were classified as Article 58 political prisoners, and imprisoned alongside the shirkers.  Common thieves, who were considered victims of the bourgeois class and not as enemies of collectivism, enjoyed special privileges and were scattered among political prisoners and shirkers to sow chaos and mistrust between dissenters to prevent them from organizing.