As any voracious reader can tell you, once in a great while a book makes its way into your hands that really helps put your life in perspective, to change your thoughts on deep-rooted subjects, to provide you with a renewed appreciation for your life. This happened recently as I read Journey Into The Whirlwind by Eugenia Ginzburg.  This is her memoir of the drastic events that happened to her during Stalin’s purges. Recent history tends to focus on the atrocities that took place during the two great wars, or many of the smaller conflicts such as Vietnam, Korea, Iran/Iraq, Afghanistan, and the like. Outside of the former Soviet Union, stories of what happened to millions of Russian people during the reign of Joseph Stalin are not as well known.

Journey Into The Whirlwind is about the life of Eugenia Ginzburg beginning in December of 1935. She was so devoted to the Communist Party that she would give her life to save it, even though she was a loving mother of two and a faithful wife. The story begins with a call informing her that a member of the Communist Party’s General Committee had been assassinated. This elevates paranoia about the dissident political elements that were beginning to fester within the party. Many loyal party members would now be suspect and the upper echelon of the party would begin to greatly tighten its grip on society. Unfortunately for Ginzburg, her friendship with Professor Elvov would be cause enough to see her arrested, sentenced, and finally imprisoned for years to come. Elvov happened to write a chapter in a history book that some within the party would say, had Trotskyist undertones. Through false accusations, forced confessions, and complete and utter paranoia on behalf of Stalin and his minions, millions like Ginzburg, would see their lives taken from them in the middle of night. Friends, colleagues, even family members, would make up stories that would implicate others just so they could save themselves. Many were put to death, and many more, like Ginzburg, would be sent to prison/labor camps all over Russia. Once you got caught up in this “whirlwind,” your life was essentially over. It was said that less than three percent of those arrested would live to tell about these atrocities.

As devoted to the party as Ginzburg was, she was still falsely imprisoned for nearly 18 years and shipped to labor camps all over Russia including Siberia. This book chronicles her journey, letting you know what it feels like to be arrested in the middle of the night, saying goodbye to young children for perhaps the last time, letting go of your family and replacing it with another, working in forced labor camps in horrendous conditions, and being utterly betrayed by a party that you loved more than life itself!

Perhaps, this book can really help you appreciate what is going on in your own life. No matter how bad you believe your life to be, when you can compare it to Ginzburg’s, you’d likely see that you have little to complain about. More than this, you get an accurate account as to what life was like for millions during the Great Purges in Russia. Few of us know what it is like to live during an era of paranoia like Ginzburg did. How many of us have complained to friends, family, or co-workers about the government? Had we been living in the Soviet Union during the 1930’s and later, that would have been enough to end your life as you know it. Guilt by association was even enough to get you arrested. I can scarcely imagine living in such times. 

Ginzburg would tell her incredible story over the course of two books, the second being Within The Whirlwind. It is interesting to note that these two books were not published in Russia until around 1990, some 13 years after Ginzburg’s death. The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn is another fantastic account of life during Stalin’s reign. I do not cite these books as a testament to the faults of Communism, nor the support of it, but to use as a benchmark in which to compare your own life. Should you dedicate time to reading Ginzburg’s books, your faith in our capacity to endure under the most dire conditions will greatly increase. You will also see that your life, no matter how good or bad it may be, should be cherished, respected, and lived with all of your might.

Young Ginzburg

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