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 A readable book of horrific times September 29, 2008
This is a book I probably wouldn't have read at all, but it was a book club selection at our local university, Ferris State. Considering the awful and primitive conditions of Ginzburg's 20-year ordeal, the writing is very genteel, and even peppered with quotations from various Soviet poets and writers, and even some original verse from the author herself, which she composed to break the monotony and dreariness of her two years of solitary. The 18 yrs she spent subsequently in the Siberian labor camps of the Stalinist era is given less attention, but the horrors and the dangers - of starvation, rape and all manner of brutalizations - are made clear enough. I found it odd, and surprisingly refreshing, that, in spite of its subject, the language of the book remains G-rated, perhaps because of when the book was written (first published in 1967), but more probably because it is, as Ginzburg states at the close of her narrative, "the story of an ordinary Communist woman during the period of the 'personality cult'." There is nothing ordinary about Eugenia Ginzburg though; to pampered westerners like us, her story is nothing short of extraordinary. She survived several brushes with death and remained a loyal Communist, living into her 80s. - Tim Bazzett, author of Love, War & Polio
 An Analysis of "Journey into the Whirlwind" August 4, 2008
The mindset and belief system of the early Soviet Union, as defined by the Bolsheviks' neurotic obsession with the ideals of perpetual revolution and the existence of nigh-infinite capitalist and ideological foes that constantly threatened the continued subsistence of the Soviet entity, cannot realistically be classed as rational or conducive to internal stability; with nervous eyes turned forever to the capitalist West, it was only a matter of time before terror of internal enemies gripped the Soviet hierarchy. When, in 1934, Sergey Kirov, a top Party official in Leningrad, was assassinated under dubious and mysterious circumstances, Josef Stalin, then leader of the Soviet Union, took advantage of the killing in order to brew an intense horror in the hearts of the Russian people; no longer simply assailed by their external Capitalist foes, Stalin led the people to believe that they were also threatened by more dangerous enemies with the Communist Party itself. Using the killing of Kirov and the ideal of internal foes, Stalin was able to launch a brutal and hideous campaign to eliminate dissenters with the Party, while numerous innocent Party members found their lives obliterated as they were caught in what has become known as the "Great Purge." First thrown out of the Party on charges most often both false and ludicrous, these unfortunate souls then found themselves jailed under horrific circumstances, many being sent to perish in labor camps in remote Siberia; by the time of Stalin's death, roughly 5 million Party members had been detained in such a way. Eugenia Ginzburg, an editor for a newspaper in Kazan, was one such victim of Stalin's senseless purges; arrested in 1937 following years of police harassment, Ginzburg was sent to numerous prisons where she endured abysmal treatment before finally being detained in Siberia until 1953. In documenting her horrific ordeal, Ginzburg amply addressed not only the confusion of the purges and the inhumanity of the prisons, but also explored the sheer motivating power of fear in the actions of all classes and ranks; irrational fear, it is shown, was what ultimately fueled the escalating madness and accusations, and destroyed forever the lives of so many.
At the time of Kirov's assassination, Eugenia Ginzburg was leading a successful life as a member of the Communist Party, even marrying a top Communist official of Kazan. As she so eloquently and persistently notes throughout the account of her struggles, Ginzburg was nothing save a loyal and dedicated Communist, adhering to and accepting the Party's line of policy. Such an upstanding member of society surely could not have been dragged into the insanity of the purges, yet she was; although she amply demonstrates her loyalty to the Party and complies fully with her early accusers, vying to convince them of her ideological orthodoxy, she is nonetheless made the recipient of increasingly outlandish charges. This is pivotal, as the reader begins to understand all along that the purges were not, as popular rhetoric espoused, an attack upon dissenting and criminal elements within the party, but a monstrous, all-consuming, bloodletting of the entire Party in which any and all could become victims; even the officials that prosecuted the accused and the guards who abused them often found themselves becoming victims themselves and sharing prisons with those they had wrongly imprisoned. Even the wife who, out of blind loyalty to the Party, denounces her husband when he is arrested as a traitor is herself later accused and jailed. Similarly disturbing is the fact that mere association, however indirect, with anyone suspected of being a traitor was enough to end one's life and lead to one's arrest; Ginzburg's brief association with Elvov, who was himself wrongly accused of treachery, was the key factor in her expulsion from the Party and subsequent sufferings. As such accusations by association continued, the purges assumed the heir and hysteria of a witch hunt, with friend turning against friend in desperate self-preservation; Ginzburg is herself forced to endure the treachery of one of her greatest friends, who under pressure and in looking after her own interests validates the charges leveled against Ginzburg. It is perhaps one of Ginzburg's most admirable qualities to never herself accuse any innocents in the way she was denounced. Gripped by such extreme levels of terror and paranoia, the Communist Party simply turned its aggressions upon itself, fueling a terrible madness that only grew in intensity and senselessness the longer it continued. Indeed, these purges served only to weaken the Communist party, greatly harm the economy and agriculture, and, more vitally, to drive away potential members who were horrified at the thought of being caught in the killings. Far from strengthening the Party by eliminating its enemies, Stalins purges only weakened it and left it with a cloying odor of death and suspicion. The pervasive influence of fear is evident throughout the account, and it is quite apparent the even the most vile interrogators or guards likely act as they do out of fear for their own lives, often to no avail. So it was that Stalin's terrorism against his own people drove those within his own government to new heights of irrationality, cruelty, and falseness.
In detailing her early troubles before her arrest, Ginzburg, despite her continued assertions of loyalty and railings against the absurdity of the suspicion laid upon her, is accused of increasingly severe charges ranging from "lack of vigilance" to a later accusation of being the ringleader of a terrorist network; yet all the while Ginzburg remains devoted to the Party, refusing the advice of her mother and friends to flee, desperately believing that she could clear her name through the legal practice. This naivety, or refusal to recognize the reality of the situation or to see fault with the Party, led ultimately to Ginzburg's travails; most commonly, those wrongly accused believed their case merely to be a correctable mistake, while the innumerable others locked away must surely have been truly guilty. In her continued astonishment at the absurdity and irrationality of the process of the purges, Gunzburg vividly illustrates the clash of a ration mind with an inherently irrational and violent system. The level of ignorance toward the intent of the purges is perhaps best illustrated when Ginzburg learns that the vans she sees throughout city do not carry milk as he had believed, but instead contained prisoners; the unwillingness to see or believe in impending doom led many to their demise in this period. Even Ginzburg's disdain for Stalin, the worship of whom by the persons around him genuinely disturbing her, was not enough to overcome her deadly faith in the Party.
Of particular note throughout Ginzburg's account is the juxtaposition of the illegal and immoral force, coercion, and violence of the purges with the absurd pursuit of legality by the interrogators. Although the interrogators and other accusers know the charges leveled again those such as Ginzburg are false, or that their "confessions" are similarly falsified, they nonetheless insist upon obtaining real signatures for said false documents. When the prisoners refuse, they are subjected to various forms of physical and mental abuse, ranging from extended periods of intense interrogation with food or rest to more wrenching mentions of the prisoners' families. Many interrogators work themselves into murderous rages in pursuit of signatures for their false confessions, perhaps out of fear of not obtaining them or out of sheer contradictory nature. One cannot but be amazed at the level of bureaucratization of the purges, an essentially illogical and illegal proceeding; like the Holocaust, it is disturbingly evident that the central government held no reservations for their actions, nor any desire to bury them away. It is the ability to carry on such an open and grand persecution that perhaps best illustrates Stalin's immense dominion at the time, a dominion he gained through overt terror such as that which Ginzburg encounters.
Although Ginzburg wrote her account of her imprisonment and travails, during which she learned that relationships formed in such horrific circumstances often proved closer than any others and that when reduced to such a state all people must be accepted, her memory of complex events and names astounds the reader; names of those that Ginzburg only ephemerally interacted with decades ago are still fresh in her mind, as are conversations and poems. One may deduce that such extreme and trying events as those experienced by Ginzburg indelibly imprint themselves upon the mind forever, as evidenced the Ginzburg's ability to produce entire sections of books from her mind at command; one could simply never forget such vivid suffering or trial. That, then, is the most important aspect of Ginzburg's account. The Soviet purges, a terrible period of internal destruction and death on a massive scale, is here presented in all its horror and grittiness from the perspective of one who endured them personally; in this way, such a monstrous and massive event becomes personal, thus far more moving and instructional.
Very personal , very good! May 15, 2008
This was a very good book, one of the best I had read about people sentenced to prison. Most of the books in this genre have been written by men, it was nice to see Eugenia Ginzburg give a woman's perspective. She tells a very touching tale & every page you feel closer to this brave / intelligent woman. The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn was the most recent book I have read on the same topic. This is also a very good book but I would say I preferred "Journey into the Whirlwind" a little more just because it was one person's personal tale & I think her translator did a very good book translating this book into English.
I did have a few minor questions & if you haven't read this book you may want to stop reading here ....
What I wanted to know as I was reading the book & never did find out by the end of the story was : 1) She mentions her husband countless times through the book but you never find out what happens to him. 2) She has two children that she is separated from while they are young - you never do hear what happens to them & how they get together (if they do). She does mention in the epilogue that she wrote things intending to give them to her grandchildren so I assume she gets reunited with her children & lives to see her grandchildren. 3) She is sentenced to a 10 term & 417 out of 418 pages total are dedicated to her first three years in captivity - the last page is an epilogue that says she ended up serving 18 years in total. It doesn't say why she ended up serving 8 extra years & really 15 of her 18 years in captivity aren't even mentioned in the story.
If you haven't read this book don't let these last few points stop you from reading her story - you would be missing out on a great read.
A Must-Read May 14, 2008
This book reminded me of Holocaust accounts and the novel 1984, but it surpassed both of them in terms of what humanity is capable of. It is simply unthinkable that Ginzburg could be put into jail and tortured by the party that she was devoutly loyal to, and that she could hold out hope and stick to her moral values for so long. The stories of some of the prisoners are heart wrenching- escaping the Gestapo only to be sent to the gulag, or having your son raised essentially his entire life in jail after jail. This memoir illustrates the whole range of human capability from the evil party leaders, the spiteful accusers (life-ruiners), the brainwashed party followers, and the disillusioned survivors.
"No luck today, my lady Death..." September 18, 2006
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
Eugenia "Genie" Semyonovna Ginzburg spent seventeen years in the Soviet prison system, escaping death, unlike millions of others. She never again saw her husband after being imprisoned. The Gulag Archipelago by Solzhenitsyn, Man is Wolf to Man by Bardach, Kolyma Tales by Shalamov and Journey into the Whirlwind all include overlapping and similar information, but differ in format and style (although hers is most similar to Man is Wolf to Man in its telling). Her memoir of life in the Gulag is one of few written by women and so provides a unique and interesting perspective. All are fantastic books, well-written, often unbelievable and mesmerizing, but there is a noticeable difference between the multi-volume The Gulag Archipelago and Journey into the Whirlwind (seemingly short at just over 400 pages).
Genie is first brought in for questioning in 1934. With her young children in the other room and her husband away on business, she takes the call. Her beliefs at that time are such that she would willingly die for the party. Soon thereafter, she is incarcerated at Black Lake and is eventually sentenced to ten years of solitary confinement for not denouncing a coworker who had written an article offensive to the party.
During her interrogation sessions, in which she repeatedly refuses to "denounce" that is, lie, about the activities of acquaintances facing the same fate, she comes face to face with people who she thought were friends, but who have willingly denounced her in hopes of receiving special treatment, or lighter sentences. She herself never caves. Some of the interesting and different information found in her telling of life in the prison system during Stalin's rule, she is able to provide information about life within prison and receive information about the outside world using (coded) "Aesopian Language." Prisoners also use a system of knocks to communicate messages to one another and keep track of goings on within the prison and the status of their prison mates. Although it's a boring, lonely, (she has one cell mate most of the time), damp, horrible, hungry life, she survives long enough to be sent to Kolyma, where she realizes just how "good" she'd had it in solitary confinement. What she recounts from Kolyma is similar in many instances to the recollections of other Gulag prisoners, except for anecdotes referring specifically to life among the women.
Readers who enjoyed the aforementioned books should include Gulag: A History by Anne Applebaum, which provides a general overview of the prison system, in their list of companion reads.
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