The Prisoner in the Gulag: Arrival Part 2

The introduction to this series of posts considering whether The Prisoner could reference Soviet Russia may be found here: https://culttvblog.substack.com/p/the-prisoner-in-the-gulag-introduction

Part 1 of this post may be found here: https://culttvblog.substack.com/p/the-prisoner-in-the-gulag-arrival?r=1q6qo6

Nor is it easy from the information given in the interview to make to most obvious identification of Number 6’s character in the Soviet Union: as a political dissident. He has clearly had a position of authority and resigned from it for reasons the authorities don’t know and are keen to ask him. I think probably the more typical dissident in the Soviet Union would never have been in such a trusted position and would certainly have been in much more trouble over a longer time.

The entire purpose of the regime in the Soviet Union was to get the entire population working as far as possible to meet the requirements of the current Five Year Plan and serve the Party. Frankly the depiction of the Village as a sort of retirement park with a bit of torture included again rather militates against the identification of The Village with any feature of life in the Soviet Union. Yes, people were put in psychiatric hospitals or gulags for ever, but also political dissidents just disappeared and there was a preference for hard labour for prisoners to meet the plan. There was no flouncing around in funny clothes to a brass band.

Since Rover is one of the more overtly science fiction elements of the show I don’t think any blogger can reasonably be expected to find a reference to the Soviet Union in it, apart from the obvious ones of control and cruelty.

The Labour Exchange scene is much more wasy to reference to Soviet Union in that Number 6 is given his role by authorities, assessed and pigeon holed by them.

Back in his cottage, Number 6 finds that his memories have been manufactured for him. Possibly the tins of Village Food are one of the best suggestions of communism, since it reflects the state owning the means of production and thus everything that comes out of it, rather than a capitalist system where producers compete and there would be different brand names in the cupboard.

You could interpret the avenue of heads as referencing the common statues of Lenin, Stalin, or whatever was the current ideal for the Party that were found in the Soviet Union. In fact I am disproportionately pleased with this idea, because I have always wondered who the heads were and normally there is no suggestion that they have significance but are just a set of meaningless heads.

I have no doubt that dissidents did fall out of windows in the Soviet Union however it is tragic that the scene where Number 6 is set up to believe Cobb has fallen out of a window remains reminiscent of Putin’s favourite method of making the opposition disappear. However the scene does reflect how friends would turn against each other in a heavily policed society.

Similarly Number 6 is right to be suspicious of Number 9 and her escape plan. This scene does have strong reminiscences of dissidents meeting in a naturally suspicious situation in the Soviet Union.

Of course The Village’s control prevents Number 6 leaving.

So to summarise: so far there have been some possible references to the Soviet Union and Communism: collectivism, the state owning the means of production, propaganda, heavy information gathering by whoever, and so on. However the absence of an obvious ideological driver for events in The Village is a clear shortcoming in this reference.

At this stage, although I do like the idea of the show referencing the Soviet Union or Communism, the identification is difficult, as it has been with every comparison I have tried. I continue to be of the opinion that no one interpretation fits the show perfectly.

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