The Foreign Service Journal, December 2003

tinue the exhaustive historical dissec- tion of both the dictator and the van- ished Soviet state. The more successful is Gulag: A History , Anne Applebaum’s masterful portrait of Stalin’s extensive network of labor camps. Having culled thousands of memoirs and Soviet records, Applebaum (a Washington Post columnist) has distilled their essence into three sections of elegant prose (two chronological, one thematic), using such chapter headings as Life in the Camps, Punishment and Reward, and The Dying. As she explains, Stalin began his massive expansion of smaller-scale political camps in 1929, using forced labor to speed up industrialization of the Soviet state and excavate natural resources in the barely habitable far north. His psychotic vision had its occasional successes, such as the con- struction of the White Sea Canal, but the camps were inefficient, poorly administered, and counterproductive. By 1953, an estimated 18 million people, including Russians, non- Russian Soviets, Eastern Europeans, and even a few Westerners, had passed through the system over the previous quarter-century, under sen- tences for a vast range of crimes (many spurious). At the gulags’ peak in 1950, they contained more than 2.5 million D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 3 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 75 B O O K S At the gulags’ peak in 1950, they contained more than 2.5 million prisoners. SHORT TERM FURNISHED APARTMENTS AVAILABLE columbia plaza apartments Capital Living With Comfort and Convenience Beautiful, Spacious Efficiencies, 1 and 2 Bedrooms SEVEN MINUTES TO STATE DEPARTMENT Utilities Included Complimentary Voice Mail Courtyard Style Plaza Polished Hardwood Floors Private Balconies Huge Walk-In Closets 24 Hour Front Desk Garage Parking Available Shopping on Site Cardkey Entry/Access River Views Minutes to Fine Dining Walk to the Kennedy Center and Georgetown Minutes to Foggy Bottom Metro (202) 293-2000 2400 Virginia Ave., N.W. Washington, D.C., 20037 Managed by Polinger, Shannon & Luchs Co.