The Gulag Archipelago: Experiment in Literary Investigation V
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The Politics of Memory in Russia
Thomas Sherlock Confronting the Stalinist Past: The Politics of Memory in Russia Attempting to reverse the decline of the Russian state, economy, and society, President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin have paid increasing attention over the past two years to the modernization of Russia’s socioeconomic system. Aware of the importance of cultural and ideological supports for reform, both leaders are developing a ‘‘useable’’ past that promotes anti-Stalinism, challenging the anti-liberal historical narratives of Putin’s presidency from 2000—2008. This important political development was abrupt and unexpected in Russia and the West. In mid—2009, a respected journal noted in its introduction to a special issue on Russian history and politics: ‘‘turning a blind eye to the crimes of the communist regime, Russia’s political leadership is restoring, if only in part, the legacy of Soviet totalitarianism....’’1 In December 2009, Time magazine ran a story entitled ‘‘Rehabilitating Joseph Stalin.’’2 Although the conflicting interests of the regime and the opposition of conservatives are powerful obstacles to a sustained examination of Russia’s controversial Soviet past, the Kremlin has now reined in its recent efforts to burnish the historical image of Josef Stalin, one of the most brutal dictators in history. For now, Medvedev and Putin are bringing the Kremlin more in line with dominant Western assessments of Stalinism. If this initiative continues, it could help liberalize Russia’s official political culture and perhaps its political system. Yet Thomas Sherlock is Professor of Political Science at the United States Military Academy at West Point and the author of Historical Narratives in the Soviet Union and Post-Soviet Russia (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007). -
The Crime of Genocide Committed Against the Poles by the USSR Before and During World War II: an International Legal Study, 45 Case W
Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law Volume 45 | Issue 3 2012 The rC ime of Genocide Committed against the Poles by the USSR before and during World War II: An International Legal Study Karol Karski Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarlycommons.law.case.edu/jil Part of the International Law Commons Recommended Citation Karol Karski, The Crime of Genocide Committed against the Poles by the USSR before and during World War II: An International Legal Study, 45 Case W. Res. J. Int'l L. 703 (2013) Available at: https://scholarlycommons.law.case.edu/jil/vol45/iss3/4 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Journals at Case Western Reserve University School of Law Scholarly Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law by an authorized administrator of Case Western Reserve University School of Law Scholarly Commons. Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law Volume 45 Spring 2013 Issue 3 The Crime of Genocide Committed Against the Poles by the USSR Before and During WWII: An International Legal Study Karol Karski Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law·Vol. 45·2013 The Crime of Genocide Committed Against the Poles The Crime of Genocide Committed Against the Poles by the USSR Before and During World War II: An International Legal Study Karol Karski* The USSR’s genocidal activity against the Polish nation started before World War II. For instance, during the NKVD’s “Polish operation” of 1937 and 1938, the Communist regime exterminated about 85,000 Poles living at that time on the pre- war territory of the USSR. -
ABSTRACT BITCHES and THIEVES: GULAG GUARDS, ADMINISTRATORS, and PROFESSIONAL CRIMINALS in the BITCHES' WAR by Adam Richard
ABSTRACT BITCHES AND THIEVES: GULAG GUARDS, ADMINISTRATORS, AND PROFESSIONAL CRIMINALS IN THE BITCHES’ WAR by Adam Richard Rodger Amongst the professional criminals imprisoned in the Soviet Gulag, a split developed between those who kept to the Thieves’ Law and those who broke the Law and collaborated with the State. This violent schism, the Bitches’ War, raged across the entire Gulag system, becoming most heated between 1948 and 1953, and implicated the camps’ guards and administrators as much as the prisoners themselves. This research examines primary and secondary sources, heavily incorporating Gulag survivor memoirs, to investigate the culture of the Thieves-in-Law, these professional criminals, and also to uncover the involvement, intentions, and guilt of the camp administration. This study argues that the Bitches’ War sheds light on the real purpose and function of the Gulag; that it was not primarily about ideological re-education, nor was it primarily about economics and production, but that the Gulag served as a model for social control through use of power, persuasion, and violence. BITCHES AND THIEVES: GULAG GUARDS, ADMINISTRATORS, AND PROFESSIONAL CRIMINALS IN THE BITCHES’ WAR Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Miami University in partial fulfillment of Master’s Degree by Adam Richard Rodger Miami University Oxford, Ohio 2017 Advisor: Dr. Stephen Norris Reader: Dr. Dan Prior Reader: Dr. Scott Kenworthy ©2017 Adam Richard Rodger This thesis titled BITCHES AND THIEVES GULAG GUARDS, ADMINISTRATORS, AND PROFESSIONAL CRIMINALS IN THE BITCHES’ WAR by Adam Richard Rodger has been approved for publication by The College of Arts and Sciences and The Department of History ____________________________________________________ Dr. -
Certainty, Probability, and Stalin's Great Party Purge
McNair Scholars Journal Volume 8 | Issue 1 Article 3 2004 Certainty, Probability, and Stalin’s Great Party Purge Brett omkH es Grand Valley State University Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/mcnair Recommended Citation Homkes, Brett (2004) C" ertainty, Probability, and Stalin’s Great Party Purge," McNair Scholars Journal: Vol. 8: Iss. 1, Article 3. Available at: http://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/mcnair/vol8/iss1/3 Copyright © 2004 by the authors. McNair Scholars Journal is reproduced electronically by ScholarWorks@GVSU. http://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/ mcnair?utm_source=scholarworks.gvsu.edu%2Fmcnair%2Fvol8%2Fiss1%2F3&utm_medium=PDF&utm_campaign=PDFCoverPages Certainty, Probability, and Stalin’s Great Party Purge ABSTRACT In 1936, Josef Stalin, General Secretary In 1935, Stalin decided to purge his own of the Communist Party of the Soviet party to consolidate power in the Soviet Union [CPSU], initiated a Party Purge, government. Since the inception of historical the extent of which, measured by the research about this event, a debate has numbers of deaths and arrests of Party developed regarding the number of arrests members and their affiliates, has proved and deaths of Soviets ordered by Stalin. This to be highly controversial. A long- study will examine the figures calculated simmering historical debate about this by Western historians to determine where issue surprisingly deepened after the fall correlation and discrepancy exist. The of the Soviet Union brought about the importance of this research is to assess partial opening of government archives the reasons why such dramatic statistical that many thought would answer all differences exist among various historians. -
Stalin's Terror and the Long-Term Political
Stalin’s Terror and the Long-Term Political Effects of Mass Repression Yuri M. Zhukov and Roya Talibova Department of Political Science University of Michigan November 29, 2016 Abstract Can the effect of repression endure for multiple generations and erode trust in future political institutions? Yes. We examine the impact of Stalin’s Great Terror on political participation in contemporary Rus- sia. Using millions of arrest records from archival documents, we con- struct local measures of repression and match them to precinct-level data on voting in national elections between 2003-2012. To identify the effect of repression on voting, we use an instrumental variable de- sign, exploiting exogenous variation in Soviet repression due to the structure of mid-century Soviet railroads, and travel distances from each locality to Gulag camps. We find that communities more heavily repressed under Stalin are significantly less likely to vote in Russian elections today. These results challenge emerging findings that expo- sure to violence has positive effects on political participation. 1 Reflecting on his years in correctional labor camps, Soviet writer and dis- sident Varlam Shalamov said, “He who has been there will never forget” (Hosking, 1991). Between 1929 and 1953, the Soviet secret police sent an estimated 15 million citizens to prison camps (Conquest, 1997). The num- ber of inmates increased from 400,000 in 1929 (Ivanova, 2000) to 2.5 million in the early 1950s (Gregory and Lazarev, 2013). The Gulag – an acronym for “Main Directorate of Corrective Labor Camps and Labor Settlements” – was among the defining institutions of the USSR (Adler, 2005). -
The Gulag As a Reinvention of Serfdom in Soviet Russia
READING COPY ONLY NOT FOR CITATION The Gulag as a Reinvention of Serfdom in Soviet Russia By David J. Nordlander Intractable for centuries, forced labor has proven to be an enduring legacy of Russian history. What began as a gradual restriction of peasant movement in earlier times became institutionalized within a state that ultimately relied upon coercion as a chief lever of economic policy in both the tsarist and Soviet periods. The most notable measure of unfree labor, the institution of serfdom, constituted the base of a pyramid that upheld the tsarist polity. But the endemic problems of a cash-poor economy and imbalanced labor supply did not end with the Bolshevik Revolution, and thus helped shape the outlines of the Soviet era. The idealism of October quickly gave way to a harshening of labor policy, culminating in the extreme response of Stalinism that essentially led to a reenserfment of the peasantry and a pernicious expansion of the most repressive aspects of tsarism. The Gulag in particular encapsulated these trends and became the embodiment of Soviet coercion in the twentieth century. The continuities between the tsarist and Soviet epochs were both obvious and subtle. Imprisonment, exile, and restriction of movement were to be found in both eras, albeit in an even more harsh form under Stalin. While trumpeting an idealistic and 2 liberationist rhetoric, the Soviet experiment in reality soon revived and expanded upon the economic and political coercion of its tsarist predecessor. Just as significantly, social and cultural parallels also were noteworthy. In spite of their progressive cant, Soviet bosses essentially formed a new ruling elite that contentedly reshaped the privileges of power and formed a revived aristocracy. -
Accusations Against Stalin Regarding the Great Purge and the Establishment of the Gulags
International Court of Justice Accusations against Stalin regarding the Great Purge and the establishment of the Gulags Director: Alvaro Ricós Moderator: Carlos Colchero INTRODUCTION The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is the principal judicial organ of the United Nations (UN). It was founded in 1945 by the Charter of the United Nations and began work in 1946. The Court’s duty is to advise on legal questions referred to it by other UN organs or agencies (The Court ICG, n.d.). The Court is composed of 15 judges who are elected by the UN General Assembly and the Security Council. The Court is located in the Netherlands, and is therefore the only UN organ that is not located in New York. There are two types of cases involving the ICJ, either legal disputes called Contentious Cases, or advisory opinions on legal questions, which is the case in the upcoming trial. Other UN organs request trials to discuss and determine the legality of specific situations, so the most suitable states are chosen in order to provide the most informed verdict as possible. Furthermore, written and oral proceedings usually take place in order to inform the court of the case and then withdraw a public advisory decision. (The Court ICG, n.d.). First off, once the proceedings begin, the member States are required to file and exchange pleadings signaling their position and a detailed statement of laws or facts leading them to such position during what’s known as the written phase. After that, the State representatives are required to do oral proceedings addressing the court and thus looking forward to reaching a verdict. -
What Was Distinctive About Katyn: the Massacres in Context, 44 Case W
View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Case Western Reserve University School of Law Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law Volume 44 | Issue 3 2012 What Was Distinctive about Katyn: The aM ssacres in Context Mark Kramer Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarlycommons.law.case.edu/jil Part of the International Law Commons Recommended Citation Mark Kramer, What Was Distinctive about Katyn: The Massacres in Context, 44 Case W. Res. J. Int'l L. 569 (2012) Available at: https://scholarlycommons.law.case.edu/jil/vol44/iss3/21 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Journals at Case Western Reserve University School of Law Scholarly Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law by an authorized administrator of Case Western Reserve University School of Law Scholarly Commons. File: Kramer 2 Created on: 8/8/2012 3:23:00 PM Last Printed: 9/1/2012 4:27:00 PM WHAT WAS DISTINCTIVE ABOUT KATYN?: THE MASSACRES IN CONTEXT Mark Kramer I. INTRODUCTION .................................................................................... 569 II. UNTANGLING THE COVER-UP .............................................................. 572 III. THE IMPORTANCE OF HISTORICAL JUSTICE ......................................... 574 I. INTRODUCTION The Katyn massacres must be understood in their proper historical context: the context not only of Soviet domestic politics, but also of Soviet occupation policy in -
Western Influence in the Cover-Up of the Holodomor
City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works School of Arts & Sciences Theses Hunter College Fall 1-3-2020 Western Influence in the Cover-up of the Holodomor Michael Galka-Giaquinto CUNY Hunter College How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/hc_sas_etds/555 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] Western Influence in the Cover-up of the Holodomor by Michael Galka-Giaquinto Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in History, Hunter College The City University of New York Fall 2019 01/03/2020 Prof. Elidor Mëhilli Date Thesis Sponsor 01/03/2020 Prof. Benjamin Hett Date Second Reader Western Influence in the Cover-up of the Holodomor | Michael Galka-Giaquinto Table of Contents Abstract: p. 2 Preface: p. 2 Introduction: pp. 3-6 Chapter 1 - A Coveted Land: pp. 6-8 Chapter 2 - Bolshevik Extremism in Ukraine: pp. 8-15 Chapter 3 - Walter Duranty: pp. 15-17 Chapter 4 - Elitism, NEP, and Misinformation: pp. 17-23 Chapter 5 - The Foreign Press and the Cover-up of the Holodomor: pp. 23-34 Chapter 6 - The British Foreign Office, Diplomacy, and the Famine: pp. 34-47 Conclusion: pp. 48-50 Bibliography: pp. 51-56 1 Western Influence in the Cover-up of the Holodomor | Michael Galka-Giaquinto Abstract This paper discusses how the Holodomor (Ukrainian Genocide of 1932-1933) was effectively covered up by Stalin with the help of compliant actors in the West. -
Unwritten: the Hidden History of the Holodomor
Liberty University Unwritten: The Hidden History of the Holodomor A Thesis Submitted to the Department of History by Amy Whisman Vineland, New Jersey April 2018 Abstract Between 1930 and 1933, Joseph Stalin unleashed an assault on Ukraine that resulted in the starvation of 5 million people. Their story went untold for decades. The fact that Soviet propaganda was largely successful in suppressing the truth speaks less to its sophistication than to the gullibility and complicity of Westerners. Although there were truth-tellers from Great Britain, the United States, and even Europe who accurately reported on the Ukrainian famine, Stalin understood that such voices could be effectively neutralized. Because the story of the Holodomor remained essentially unwritten, the West did not recognize it as the legitimate offspring of Communist ideology. The oversight allowed space and time for Communist doctrine to proliferate outside the bounds of historical judgment. Western intellectuals espoused and promoted Soviet ideology, granting it a measure of acceptability that would have been precluded by the accurate historical account of Communism as a conveyer of immeasurable injustice and suffering. ii Statement of Purpose Philosophy was once considered the handmaiden of theology. Unfortunately, it reached a state of autonomy in the modern era and unleashed all manner of untenable thought systems that are inconsistent with man’s actual experience of the world. It is necessary, therefore, to drive these false ideologies to their logical conclusions by identifying the real-world consequences they have produced. In other words, by writing their history. Jesus said that wisdom is proved right by her children; it must be that history serves as the handmaiden to theology. -
6 the Economy of the Gulag
6 THE ECONOMY OF THE GULAG Oleg Khlevnyuk After World War II a certain number of documents that the Hitlerites had taken from Soviet archives found their way to the United States. They included the plan for development of the USSR national economy for 1941 (without the secret appendixes). For a long time this document was the only archival source that allowed specialists to draw any conclu- sions about the economics of forced labor in the USSR.1 Nonethe- less, several specialized studies on forced labor were written in the West on the basis of various available materials. It is noteworthy that one of the first such works, the book by D. Dallin and B. Nicolaevsky, soon after its publication was translated into Rus- sian in the research department of the USSR MVD (Ministry of Internal Affairs) and was typed up in four copies for the leader- ship of Soviet punitive bodies.2 Other than this publication of four copies, not a single work on the economy of the Gulag was issued in the USSR until Gorbachev’s perestroika. This was a completely forbidden topic for Soviet historians. As for specific facts, the most valuable part of the first publica- Translated by Steven Shabad. 1. N. Jasny, ‘‘Labour and Output in Soviet Concentration Camps,’’ Journal of Political Economy, October 1951. 2. D. J. Dallin and B. P. Nicolaevsky, Forced Labor in Soviet Russia (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1947). See State Archive of the Russian Federa- tion (GARF), f. R-9414, op. 1, d. 1800. ................. 8732$$ $CH6 03-22-07 07:10:56 PS 112 Oleg Khlevnyuk tions both about the Gulag as a whole and about its economy was the testimony of former inmates of Stalin’s camps.3 But most of the other data (especially statistics) suffered from imprecision and, most important, could not be verified without access to the archives. -
Download a PDF of the Curriculum Unit
GULAG: SOVIET PRISON CAMPS AND THEIR LEGACY By David Hosford, Pamela Kachurin and Thomas Lamont A Project of the National Park Service and the National Resource Center for Russian, East European and Central Asian Studies, Harvard University NAME ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The authors would like to thank the National Park Service and the Bradley Foundation for underwriting this important project. We would like to personally thank Martin Blatt, Louis Hutchins, and Kathy Tevyaw of the National Park Service for their assistance and insight. Special thanks to Mary Giles, for her always cheerful assistance. This curriculum unit is dedi- cated to all those imprisoned in the GULAG system. T ABLE OF CONTENTS Day 1 Content Essay: 1 The Establishment and Scope of the GULAG System Day 1 Class Exercises and Homework 12 Day 2 Content Essay: 15 Daily Life in the Camps Day 2 Class Exercises and Homework 28 Day 3 Content Essay: 33 Coming to Terms with the GULAG Then and Now Day 3 Class Exercises and Homework 42 Biographical Sketches 43 Appendix: Excerpt from Dr. Jerzy Gliksman’s Testimony 53 to the United Nations Additional Resources for Teaching the GULAG 58 GULAG: SOVIET PRISON CAMPS AND THEIR LEGACY DAY ONE NAME ▲ 1 GULAG: SOVIET PRISON CAMPS AND THEIR LEGACY GULAG locations across Soviet Union ost countries have prison systems where those DEFINITION OF GULAG: NUMBERS DEBATE Mconvicted of crimes serve out their sentences. State Camp Administration A 1990 report by the Moscow Citizens of these countries believe that people who commit News stated that between crimes should be punished by being separated from the 1931 and 1953, 3,778,234 people rest of society and deprived of some of their freedoms.