J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings follows the hobbit Frodo and his friends across Middle-earth to destroy the One Ring. The One Ring was created by Sauron, who wants to use it to enslave the entirety of Middle-earth and have everyone there under his control. Frodo’s encounters with Sauron’s men show that they have an authoritarian goal and mindset, therefore expressing similar totalitarian themes with the Soviet Union in Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago.
In the end of the 1st book and the beginning of the 2nd the plot of The Lord of the Rings is still focused on Frodo and his friend’s journey. They are saved by multiple people in the travels, such as Tom Bombadil and the Strider. Eventually, the fellowship reached the elven city of Rivendell, where they are reunited with Gandalf and Bilbo. The group then continued their travels to destroy the ring, where they enter an old mine. They encountered a group of orcs, which they narrowly escape from. The group pays a price though, with the disappearance of Gandalf who stays behind. The orcs and the Black Riders are shown as “the enemy” in this book. They attack the fellowship ruthlessly, trying to satisfy Sauron in every way possible. In the first chapter of the second book, Tolkien states that the Black Riders “are the Ringwraiths, the Nine Servants of the Lord of the Rings. But I (Gandalf) did not know that they had arisen again or I should have fled with you at once” (220). This line is included to show the fear that powerful people like Gandalf have for the Black Riders. Their blind loyalty to the ring makes them dangerous, as shown in Gandalf’s reaction.
The second part of Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago begins with a discussion of technology and how that affected the Soviet Union’s power. Solzhenitsyn wrote about how trains, ports, and bathrooms are used to keep political prisoners, and average citizens, under the control of the Soviet Union. In the second part’s first chapter, Solzhenitsyn states that “A sentenced prisoner is a laboring soldier of socialism, so why should he be tortured” (151)? This relates to The Lord of the Rings because Frodo is a “sentenced prisoner” of the One Ring. The Black Riders, who hunt anywhere for the ring, know Frodo is the one who has it. Frodo is still attacked and almost killed by the Black Riders, like how the Soviet Union still tortured their citizens for information. Both the Black Riders and the secret police prosecuted those for their own goals and the goals of the “higher power,” showing the totalitarian nature of both groups.