What is remarkable is that the facts about this monstrous system so well documented in Applebaum's book are still so poorly known and even, by some, contested. For decades, academic historians have gravitated away from event-focused history and toward social history. Yet, the social history of the gulag somehow has escaped notice. Compared with the volumes and volumes written about the Holocaust, the literature on the gulag is thin.
In one meticulously researched and well-written account, Applebaum's book makes an enormous contribution to filling the void. But rather than the last word, Gulag should serve as a foundation for a new literature. The book begins to answer many important questions, but more must be said.
Did Stalin really believe that the camps might re-educate enemies of the state into productive socialist citizens? Why were Stalin and his henchmen so obsessed with obtaining confessions? Why did they take so seriously judicial procedures? And all the classic debates about the Holocaust need to be asked systematically again with this case (and hopefully by others about camps in China, Cambodia and contemporary North Korea). How could the guards have been so cruel? What did these conspirators in genocide actually believe they were doing? Why did those interned in the camps not revolt? And in contrast to Hitler's death camps, why were so many gulag inmates released?
Applebaum advances our understanding of all these questions but also sets the stage for future scholars to take the analysis one step further. In academic circles, there can be no more excuses for neglect.
Nor in political circles. Bush should take Applebaum's book with him to his ranch this August. After reading it, he could never travel to Russia again without remembering the victims of Soviet concentration camps. If Solovetsky is too hard to get to, he might at least make the 10-minute drive from the Kremlin to the offices of Memorial, the Russian group dedicated to preserving the memory of Stalin's victims. From their modest offices, he might call upon the civilized world to "never forget."
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