From a long, long ago reading of Alexandr Solzhenitsyn’s grim The Gulag Archipelago, I still remember one particular scene. A high Party apparatchik was extolling the pretended glories of Stalin’s communist regime to an assembled (volutuntarily? Who knows?) group in a large room. At the end of the speech, everyone rose to applaud. And applaud. And applaud. This went on for several minutes, everyone afraid to be the first stop clapping. Hands were tiring, even beginning to burn, Solzhenitsyn tells us. Finally, one person stops clapping. He is immediately arrested by Stalin’s secret police, the NKVD. He protests: “Someone had to stop clapping!”
“That is very true,” the arresting officer replies. “Just never let it be you.”
Let us all, especially a servile GOP and its supporters, stop clapping.
John Rachal's Blog
Stop Clapping
January 26, 2026 at 11:47 am (Political Commentary)
From a long, long ago reading of Alexandr Solzhenitsyn’s grim The Gulag Archipelago, I still remember one particular scene. A high Party apparatchik was extolling the pretended glories of Stalin’s communist regime to an assembled (volutuntarily? Who knows?) group in a large room. At the end of the speech, everyone rose to applaud. And applaud. And applaud. This went on for several minutes, everyone afraid to be the first stop clapping. Hands were tiring, even beginning to burn, Solzhenitsyn tells us. Finally, one person stops clapping. He is immediately arrested by Stalin’s secret police, the NKVD. He protests: “Someone had to stop clapping!”
“That is very true,” the arresting officer replies. “Just never let it be you.”
Let us all, especially a servile GOP and its supporters, stop clapping.
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