Did the novel One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich have a role in Gorbachev’s reforms? If so, how?

Alexander Solzhenitsyn's book One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, which portrays life in the Soviet gulags (or forced labor camps), had a role in the reforms of an earlier Soviet Premier, Nikita Khrushchev. He permitted the book to be published in 1962 in the Soviet literary magazine Novy Mir (New World). Khrushchev's intent was to discredit the policies of Stalin, who had preceded him, as Stalin imprisoned political opponents and others in forced labor camps. Solzhenitsyn, who himself served time in a labor camp, had created what is still regarded as one of the most realistic portrayals of life in the gulags. Solzhenitsyn's other books were still banned in the Soviet Union. In 1964, Khrushchev fell from power, and hard-line attitudes returned. In 1974, Solzhenitsyn was exiled from the Soviet Union as a result of opinions in his writings that the Soviet authorities regarded as objectionable.

Solzhenitsyn settled in Vermont with his family, and he became a voice of protest against the Soviet system. When Mikhail Gorbachev became the leader of the Soviet Union in the late 1980s, he instituted the policies of glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring). One of his policies was to create greater freedom of the press, and, to this end, he allowed the publication of several works that had been previously banned. In 1989, Solzhenitsyn's works were allowed to be published again in Russia, where they became very popular, and he was again granted citizenship in his native country in 1990. He returned to Russia in 1994, and he died in 2008 in Russia.