Early reviews [of One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich], even in the most orthodox of Soviet sources, were overwhelmingly favorable. Pravda remarked on Solzhenitsyn's "profound humanity, because people remained people even in an atmosphere of mockery." Zhores Medvedev, who was later to write Ten Years after Ivan Denisovich, emphasized the artistry of the novel. But most responses, in keeping with Khrushchev's motivation for allowing publication, centered on the book's political significance. Importantly, most Western reviews also emphasized the political dimension; the book's publication was viewed as an event illustrating the increasing thaw within the Soviet Union, thus auguring well for future East-West relations. So from the beginning Solzhenitsyn's work was viewed through the wrong lens.

A political approach does not penetrate to the heart of One Day. The novel is not, in its essence, about Stalin's inhumanity to man; it is about man's inhumanity to man...