Trump mass arrests are right out of 'Gulag Archipelago'; read excerpts here to see comparison of Stalin's Communism to MAGA's America now

Gulag prisoners

(The Trump coup keeps playing out like the 1917 Communist takeover of Russia, to me. So as USA imprisons more humans without due process**, I'm running another short excerpt from The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, continuing with Part One, The Prison Industry. As I read, I'm learning Donald Trump is a lot like Josef Stalin starting with these arrests, and threats of retribution for anyone critical of the President; plus AS's words are poetic and evocative, with subtle humor in the placement of a word, which makes his writing timeless. This series comparing Trump to Stalin through  Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn continues at City of Angels Blog.)

A continuation of

Arrest, where the gulag begins 

TUESDAY, MARCH 18, 2025

By Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Some obscure ordinary Mortal, scared to death by epidemic arrests all around him and already depressed for a week by Sinister glances from his chief, is suddenly summoned to the local Party Committee where he is beamingly presented with a vacation ticket to a fancy sanatorium..

The rabbit is overwhelmed and immediately concludes that his fears were groundless. After expressing his gratitude, he hurries home triumphant to pack his suitcase; it is only 2 hours until train time, and he scolds his wife for being too slow.

He arrives at the station with time to spare and there in the waiting room or at the bar he is hailed by an extraordinarily Pleasant young man.

Don't you remember me? Pivanich Ivanich?

It is difficult remembering, well not exactly, you see-

The young man however is overflowing with friendly concern.

'Come now how can that be? I'll have to remind you.'

And he bowed respectfully to p's wife, 'you must forgive us. I'll keep him only one minute.'

The wife accedes and trustingly the husband lets himself be led away by the arm forever or for 10 years. 

They take you from a military hospital with a temperature of 102 as they did with ANS berstein; and the doctor will not raise a peep about your arrest. Just let him try.

They'll take you right off the operating table as they took NM VF, a school inspector, in 1936, in the middle of an operation for stomach ulcer, and drag you off to a cell as they did him half alive and all bloody, as konish recollects.

Or like Nadia levitskaya. You try to get information about your mother's sentence and they give it to you; but it turns out to be a confrontation and your own arrest in the gastronome, the fancy food store. You are invited to the special order department and arrested there.

Or you are arrested by a religious Pilgrim whom you have put up for the night for the sake of Christ. You are arrested by a meter man who has come to read your electric meter. You are arrested by a bicyclist who has run into you on the Street, by a railway conductor, a taxi driver, a savings bank teller, the manager of a movie theater. Any one of them can arrest you. 

END OF EXCERPT

**BACKGROUND**'

Trump’s America: Where Even U.S. Citizens Can Now Be Dragged Away Without a Trial

First, they came for the immigrants. Now, they’re coming for legal residents, tourists, and even citizens. Are you paying attention now?

THOM HARTMANN

MAR 19, 2025 

https://hartmannreport.com/p/trumps-america-where-even-us-citizens-616?utm_campaign=email-half-post&r=3lzdw1&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

See previous and upcoming posts for more comparisons of Trump to Stalin, including 

This is what Stalinism looks like VIDEO

an ongoing theme here at City of Angels Blog by kay ebeling 

=ke