What does totalitarianism look like? Ask leftist corporate media in this last month of the presidential election, and you’ll get one answer. “New fears that Trump threatens democracy,” reports CNN. “Trump Is a Threat to Democracy,” declares New York Magazine. Rolling Stone offers “A Guide to Trump’s Fascist Rhetoric.”
There is a certain absurdity to this alarmism, given that former President Donald Trump was already a democratically elected president, vacated the White House, and is once again competing in an election in which his ticket will be beholden to a bureaucratic process guided by thousands upon thousands of election officials. That certainly doesn’t sound like authoritarian behavior.
Perhaps it would be worthwhile to revisit the tenor and texture of actual authoritarianism. The 50th anniversary of Russian author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago circulating throughout the former Soviet Union offers an extensive, disturbing lesson on how coercive, unaccountable governments can vitiate human freedom and flourishing.
The ‘Best Nonfiction Book of the Twentieth Century’
It is difficult to overstate the importance of The Gulag Archipelago, written by one of the most important writers of the 20th century. Solzhenitsyn, once an ardent communist and atheist, who was twice decorated while commanding an artillery battery during World War II, became increasingly disenchanted with Stalin and the brutality of the Red Army during his service in East Prussia. Private letters criticizing the Soviet regime were uncovered, and Solzhenitsyn was convicted of “founding a hostile organization” and sentenced to an eight-year term in a labor
