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> what it really means to live in a dictatorship with a secret police. For the urban middle/upper class it didn't mean much except if you were involved in polit

> what it really means to live in a dictatorship with a secret police. For the urban middle/upper class it didn't mean much except if you were involved in politics. 18 million people were sent to gulags. 1.6 million died. I doubt they were all "involved in politics" beyond expressing an opinion Stalin didn't allow.

lp4vn 3y ago
Do you really think that 18 million people were sent to gulags for being antagonists of Stalin? Don't you think that it's much more plausible a scenario where the regime needed a lot of cheap work and because of that kept sending people to gulags for lower crimes like petty theft or even customary crimes like not holding a job? The educated middle/high class in Moscow was probably quite critic of Stalin's policies and nothing would happen to them as long as they were not loud enough with their criticism.
- leereeves 3y ago
  Yes I really do think that the Soviets sent people to gulags for "being antagonists of Stalin". Even before Stalin, under Lenin (who was not nearly so bad as Stalin) about 100,000 people were executed for being "counter-revolutionaries" during the Red Terror.
  - PlkMarudny 3y ago
    Lenin was... As bad or worse.
- kashunstva 3y ago
  > Don't you think that it's much more plausible a scenario where the regime needed a lot of cheap work… It’s pretty clear that in at least a couple periods of Stalinist history, extreme paranoia led him to imprison or otherwise dispose of enemies in great numbers, e.g. 1937 and again with the Doctor’s Plot toward the end of his life. The late 30’s intensification is, after all, know as the Great Purge and not the great worker shortage. Anne Applebaum’s scholarly account of the gulag is a great read on the subject. I think she would probably agree that the it wasn’t an either/or issue. Labour demands for industrialization were a driver as were Stalin’s own delusions.
  - Carioca 3y ago
    I've been reading up on Soviet Rocket history and both Kurolev and Glushko were sent to Gulags for suspicion of organizing against the government. On the other hand they did do dome engineering work while there, so I suppose there were facilities that didn't conform to today's image of a Gulag
    - thriftwy 3y ago
      It was much worse - why pay scientists and engineers when you can arrest them and exploit them to work for free? It's as bad as privatized incarceration and worse.
thesz 3y ago
>18 million people were sent to gulags. 1.6 million died. Please, be aware that Solzhenitsin admitted that he lied about millions sent to Gulag on purpose. Documents from archives do not support that numbers.
- leereeves 3y ago
  The archives were destroyed: > Russia's Gulag History Museum says a researcher has discovered a secret Moscow directive in 2014 ordering the destruction of some of the last remaining documents on Soviet-era prisoners -- a move it described as "catastrophic" for historians. https://www.rferl.org/a/gilag-history-museum-says-moscow-ordered-catastrophic-destruction-prisoner-records/29281003.html https://www.rferl.org/a/gilag-history-museum-says-moscow-ord... Every source I've seen says about 18 million, including that one: > As many as 17 million people were sent to the Gulag, the notorious Soviet prison camp system, in the 1930s and 1940s, and at least 5 million of them were convicted on false testimony.
  - thesz 3y ago
    RFERL, I guess, is a Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. It is a propaganda machine, not an objective history research institution. These 18 (and up, sometimes up to 40) millions of people in GULAG (notice all caps) numbers are taken from Solzhenitsin's works, if you go through the chain of sources long enough. And Solzhenitsiin's works are not based on any facts or documents. I also wonder where does this "at least 5 millions of them were convicted on false testimony" come from? How this interesting and significant number was obtained? Did the resource you cite analyzed every and all records of these 17 (18, sometiimes up to 40) million people?

lp4vn 3y ago

Do you really think that 18 million people were sent to gulags for being antagonists of Stalin? Don't you think that it's much more plausible a scenario where the regime needed a lot of cheap work and because of that kept sending people to gulags for lower crimes like petty theft or even customary crimes like not holding a job? The educated middle/high class in Moscow was probably quite critic of Stalin's policies and nothing would happen to them as long as they were not loud enough with their criticism.

leereeves 3y ago
Yes I really do think that the Soviets sent people to gulags for "being antagonists of Stalin". Even before Stalin, under Lenin (who was not nearly so bad as Stalin) about 100,000 people were executed for being "counter-revolutionaries" during the Red Terror.
- PlkMarudny 3y ago
  Lenin was... As bad or worse.
kashunstva 3y ago
> Don't you think that it's much more plausible a scenario where the regime needed a lot of cheap work… It’s pretty clear that in at least a couple periods of Stalinist history, extreme paranoia led him to imprison or otherwise dispose of enemies in great numbers, e.g. 1937 and again with the Doctor’s Plot toward the end of his life. The late 30’s intensification is, after all, know as the Great Purge and not the great worker shortage. Anne Applebaum’s scholarly account of the gulag is a great read on the subject. I think she would probably agree that the it wasn’t an either/or issue. Labour demands for industrialization were a driver as were Stalin’s own delusions.
- Carioca 3y ago
  I've been reading up on Soviet Rocket history and both Kurolev and Glushko were sent to Gulags for suspicion of organizing against the government. On the other hand they did do dome engineering work while there, so I suppose there were facilities that didn't conform to today's image of a Gulag
  - thriftwy 3y ago
    It was much worse - why pay scientists and engineers when you can arrest them and exploit them to work for free? It's as bad as privatized incarceration and worse.

thesz 3y ago

>18 million people were sent to gulags. 1.6 million died. Please, be aware that Solzhenitsin admitted that he lied about millions sent to Gulag on purpose. Documents from archives do not support that numbers.

leereeves 3y ago
The archives were destroyed: > Russia's Gulag History Museum says a researcher has discovered a secret Moscow directive in 2014 ordering the destruction of some of the last remaining documents on Soviet-era prisoners -- a move it described as "catastrophic" for historians. https://www.rferl.org/a/gilag-history-museum-says-moscow-ordered-catastrophic-destruction-prisoner-records/29281003.html https://www.rferl.org/a/gilag-history-museum-says-moscow-ord... Every source I've seen says about 18 million, including that one: > As many as 17 million people were sent to the Gulag, the notorious Soviet prison camp system, in the 1930s and 1940s, and at least 5 million of them were convicted on false testimony.
- thesz 3y ago
  RFERL, I guess, is a Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. It is a propaganda machine, not an objective history research institution. These 18 (and up, sometimes up to 40) millions of people in GULAG (notice all caps) numbers are taken from Solzhenitsin's works, if you go through the chain of sources long enough. And Solzhenitsiin's works are not based on any facts or documents. I also wonder where does this "at least 5 millions of them were convicted on false testimony" come from? How this interesting and significant number was obtained? Did the resource you cite analyzed every and all records of these 17 (18, sometiimes up to 40) million people?