An eye-opening look inside Stalin’s think-tank prisons
Marfino is a sharashka located just outside of Moscow. The inmates there are primarily working on projects of an auditory nature. Stalin has ordered a coding device to scramble top secret telephone conversations that can only be unscrambled by the listener. (This takes place in 1949, so they are trying to accomplish this with pre-digital technology.) Another zek (prisoner) is working on using sonographs of human speech to identify the speaker in a treasonous phone call intercepted by the MGB (a precursor to the KGB). The zeks work side by side with “free workers,” non-prisoners who act as guards while also collaborating on research projects. Though deprived of their freedom, separated from their loved ones, and denied anything approaching the luxuries of life, the prisoners in this sharashka know they are better off than those sentenced to a Siberian gulag. In Solzhenitsyn’s depiction of Marfino, there is no violence, but all the prisoners know that if they don’t cooperate they may at any time be shipped off to a gulag where they may be frozen, starved, or shot.
Despite such depressing subject matter, Solzhenitsyn injects a gallows humor throughout. The absurd excesses of injustice under Stalin’s regime is frequently discussed in a sarcastic tone, likely the only defense mechanism available to those inevitably forced to resign themselves to having their lives taken away. Solzhenitsyn often shows the zeks’ trying to circumvent rules and get away with whatever they can. Such transgressions are not depicted with the goofiness of Hogan’s Heroes’ capers, but rather with a mixture of humor and poignancy reminiscent of M*A*S*H. The narrative of the novel is not confined to the prison, but also covers the lives of prisoner’s wives, free workers, and prison officials outside the walls of Marfino.
The main problem with In the First Circle is its inordinate length, 96 chapters in all. The fact that a book is long doesn’t make it bad, but lengthiness is unjustified when the narrative becomes repetitive and tedious. After a while it feels like you’re reading the same cell-block debates on the pros and cons of Communism over and over again. (Some zeks still believe wholeheartedly in Communism, despite their treatment by the government.) At first it seems as if the novel will focus on a few prisoners, but the cast quickly expands to the point at which it’s difficult to tell all the minor characters apart. Even after the 80th chapter, Solzhenitsyn keeps introducing new characters, whose stories aren’t that much different from those he’s already profiled. When one zek has an affair with a female free worker, it feels realistic; when two or three risk such romances, it feels like overkill.
Nevertheless, Solzhenitsyn populates this novel with compelling characters and provides a truly eye-opening look at life under Stalin. Westerners will come away from this novel with a much more informed and vivid understanding of Soviet society. After dozens of chapters, the book starts to feel like hard work, but for those interested in this subject, the work is worth it.
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