In theory, the Gulag was a system of forced labor rather than a death machine. But of the 18 million people sent there between 1929 and 1953, Applebaum points to a death count of almost 3 million, which is far from a complete tabulation. Drawing on a flood of new memoirs and documents from archives, Applebaum paints a mesmerizing picture of starvation, torture, sadism and, sometimes, incredible resistance and heroism. When Nikita Khrushchev acknowledged “grave abuse” in 1956, one Politburo member argued against rehabilitating the prisoners too quickly. Otherwise, he warned, “it would be clear that the country was not being run by a legal government but by a group of gangsters.” Which is exactly the case Applebaum makes with elegant restraint, allowing the brutal record to speak for itself.
