This powerful and controversial film about the first Soviet prison camp was made a full three years before the collapse of the Soviet regime-and played a role in that collapse. Established in a fifteenth-century monastery on a remote White Sea island in 1923, Solovky operated under the Leninist motto “We will drive mankind to happiness with an iron hand.” In the film, survivors of the camp offer a devastating account of the brutality and injustice prisoners endured. Unique archival footage including a 1928 promotional documentary, miraculously survived letters and personal photos, and stories told by former inmates create a portrait of the camp that was the model for the dreaded gulag archipelago. Goldovskaya's film was a revelation here as it was in Russia. “Of course the film is painful, but the dominant feeling is of liberation” (Amy Taubin, Village Voice). “First-rate film journalism of historical importance” (Vincent Canby, New York Times).