What is so political about "A Day in the life of Ivan Denisovich"?

Question: What is so political about "A Day in the life of Ivan Denisovich"!?
Best Answer - Chosen by Asker:

A Day in the Life is political precisely because of its _lack_ of overt politics!. You have a spectrum of humanity--all of whom were prisoners of the Soviet state, because of various things (crimes, religion (Alyosha being a Baptist), military snafus (the Captain), social dissidence (Kilgas, if I recall correctly)--and who are forced to work for the state in the work-camp environment!. In that, it's not just _criminals_ working--and that makes it distinctly different than a book about prison workers in the US!.

Secondly, it's political because of the history--it's an indictment of Stalinist Soviet Russia, and the inhumanity by which those prisoners were treated--it's political because it _shows_ a point, not because it discusses that point--just like Uncle Tom's Cabin shows readers what slavery is like, Ivan Denisovich shows readers what the prison camps are like!.

Solzhenitsyn also wrote many indictments of the gulag camps, because he lived in them for years--and Ivan Denisovich shows in a fictional setting what book two of The Gulag Archipelago shows in a nonfictional setting!.

As far as boring books, man, if you think a 100-page book about a prison camp is boring, good luck with bricks like Faulkner or Rand!.!.!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

Up until 1989 or so, the Cold War (the war on Communism, particularly in Russia) was a foremost issue in the U!.S!. Communism looks good on paper, but human nature being what it is, it works out very poorly in practice!.

In Russia, a careless word said to the wrong person might bring the KGB knocking down your door in the middle of the night to haul you off to a labor camp, never to be seen or heard from again!. Many defectors (Solzhenitsen, the author of "A Day!.!.!." for one) have spoken in interviews and written in autobiographies about such things!.

I remember in the 1980s reading about a ballet dancer who tried to defect, failed, had both his legs broken, and "disappeared!."

Russia, of course, denied everything!. Not just that one time, but that such things ever happened at all!. "Secrecy" was the key word!. They didn't want the world to know (but it did, of course)!.

Now I know I'm getting old! I feel like my parents talking about World War II: "If you didn't live through it, you won't understand!."Www@QuestionHome@Com

It describes his day in the Russian labor camps, the Gulag, and it was written by a man who had been the camps!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

I had to read that book at school!. Ofcourse i feel sorry for our Ivan, but that is the most boring book in the history of mankind!Www@QuestionHome@Com