It’s almost inconceivable that between 10-40 million people, mostly Russian citizens, perished through a state organized and brutal gulag system. Volume 1 focuses on the background of imprisonment and arrests, through the accounts of victims and Solzhenitsyn (the author) himself. Exceptionally detailed, each account portrays a system designed to create total loyalty to a single leader, instill fear in those with thoughts and intentions contrary to the objectives and plans of the state, and maybe most importantly, create a massive workforce of slave labor.