Released after eight long years he is finally able to recount the experience of being transported to and between prisons, interactions and friendships with other prisoners, the day to day drudgery of trying to stay alive under horrendous conditions which involved trying to meet ridiculously high work quotas for extremely strenuous jobs while in a constant state of starvation and often, sickness.

    Shattering a half-century of silence, From Under the Rubble constitutes a devastating attack on the Soviet regime, a moral indictment of the liberal West, and a Christian manifesto calling for a new society — one whose dominant values would be spiritual rather than economic. Personally edited by the Nobel Prize-winning author, fired by his own substantial contributions, From Under the Rubble articulates Solzhenitsyn’s most fervent call to action. His daring, and the remarkable courage of his colleagues, is testament to the seriousness of their demand for a revolution in which one does not kill one’s enemies, but in which “one puts oneself in danger for the sake of the nation!” With an introduction by Max Hayward, and translated under the direction of Michael Scammell. The contributors: Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Mikhail Agursky, Evgeny Barabanov, Vadim Borisov, F. Korsakov, A.B., Igor Shafarevich.

    Many of the pedagogical principles maintained by Jan Komenski and John Locke (17th century), Jean Jacques Rousseau (18th century), Johann Pestalozzi (end 18th - beginning 19th century), Johann Herbart, Friedrich Deisterweg and K. Ushinsky (19th century), are invaluable contributions to the treasure house of world pedagogical thought. The views of these outstanding educators and thinkers determined in considerable measure the development of the theory and practice of education over the course of decades and even centuries. In the middle of the twentieth century the same role is played by the pedagogical heritage of Anton Makarenko, the Soviet practising educator, theoretician and writer. The name of this remarkable man, who has greatly furthered the development of Soviet pedagogy and practice of communist education, is well known not only in the Soviet Union but also far beyond its boundaries. Makarenko's educational novels The Road to Life and Learning to Live are read with absorbing interest in different parts of the world. Makarenko's Problems of Soviet School Education which is a generalisation of his vast pedagogical experience and which contains profound theoretical conclusions, has long been the bible of Soviet teachers. It is a series of lectures read by Makarenko for the staff of the People's Commissariat of Education, R.S.F.S.R., in January 1938.

    Serge had direct access to Trotsky's personal archives.