“One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich”by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and “Zhivago's Children: The Last Russian Intelligentsia” by Valdislav Zubok, meet each other at the perfect level of realism and fiction to effectively explain the multiple layers of powers in a post-Stalinist society. With “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” set in a Stalinist-era labor camp, it quite literally and figuratively gives us an efficient introduction into the layers of power which might have been introduced to the post-Stalinist world. Zubok’s work follows up with an actual, gripping account of how the layers of power really did work in a post-Stalinist society, especially among the intelligentsia, and between the intelligentsia and the state. Together, these two works explore their own multifaceted dimensions of power, including state, social power, and personal power, giving …show more content…
“He looked around, and his eyes fell on the face of the squad leader, who had marched among the last five. Tiurin was a broad-shouldered man, broad in the face too. He looked morose as he stood there. He had no jokes or smiles for his squad, but he took pains to see they got better rations. He was serving his second term; he was a true son of the GULAG7 and knew camp ways through and through.” (49) Just like Tiurin is respected in the camp because he is a veteran of the system and knows his way around the camp, people like Ehrenburg and Father Men were also respected because they had they had learned “the camp ways through and through” in the camp of Stalinism and tried to bring about change in a post-Stalinist setting, sticking to their core values and their desires to see a different environment post-Stalin, thus gaining an immense amount of respect – this ultimately made them powerful