When people look back at history, and events that have taken place they can see the horrors people faced. An example is the trail of tears, the armenian genocide, etc. One of the most horrific era was the Stalin era, in which he ruled from 1929-1953. The Stalin era was a horrific one because of the Gulags, and Arbitrary Imprisonment. The Gulags are defined as a system of labor camps, in which prisoners were sent to, well do labor. Arbitrary Imprisonment is when an individual is arrested, and there isn’t any evidence that the individual committed the crime, but still sent to prison. For this very reason the rule of Joseph Stalin over the U.S.S.R was one of the most horrific eras ever.
Gulags as mentioned before are labor camps where prisoners are sent to work, but most of the time prisoners died in the camps because of malnourishment. The guards and those in charge of running the Gulags buried the bodies on top of each other, and soon they would be bodies on top of bodies decomposing in the dirt, which they walked on. In most cases women prisoners were raped multiple times in the prisoners barracks, since theres was little to no supervision in the barracks. Gulags were never intentionally death camps, but the conditions such as the weather, which was “freezing” and conditions mentioned, death was inevitable. One thing that may be running through your mind is “how did the prisoners end up at the Gulags, and what kind of criminals were sent there?” Well not all the prisoners were actual criminals per se. (Joseph Stalin Red Terror)
The prisoners the Gulags contained had a lot of different kind of criminals. People who commit crimes such as stealing(from a candy bar to a bank) and murders(from 1 to 100 people) were sent to the camps, but ordinary people were also sent, which’s main purpose was to demonstration people that they (they meaning law enforcement) will put anyone in these camps. Sometimes certain people didn’t have to do with the political system at all but the paranoia of Joseph Stalin was the factor of being sent to the Gulags. The Soviet union gulags was a great use to Joseph Stalin for getting rid of political leaders who he believed were informers for other countries. These prisoners were called Political Prisoners, and under article 58 from the Soviet criminal code states that the politicians can be charged with counter-revolutionary and anti-Soviet acts. These terms however were so vague that sometimes officers could charge people with smiling like in the great terror from 1936-1938. (Gulag: Soviet Forced Labor Camps and the Struggle for Freedom)
The great terror (or purge) was an era of political suppression if you were a political figure in an organization you were more likely to get arrested. Certain examples are people who were arrested for smiling in a certain manner to the drunken soldiers, or the cook who applied for a job in the japanese embassy and was arrested for espionage. People who were arrested under the article 58 were forced to confess to crimes they sometimes they’ve never committed. Another perfect example would be Stalin’s comrades, in which some were killed off because of Stalin’s paranoia. Although the gulags were forced labor camp where falsely imprisoned, and wrongly imprisoned people were worked to death, the gulags helped the economy. For instance the prisoners in the gulags mined one third of gold that the soviet union possessed at the time. (Gulag: Soviet Forced Labor Camps and the Struggle for Freedom)
Even though the Gulags was a really appalling camp, it helped kick start the industrial revolution in the U.S.S.R. The prisoners were forced to work with no pay of course because they’re prisoners, and they were malnourished. If a prisoner died the authorities in the camp would care less because they would be another prisoner ready take the deceased place, you could see how the U.S.S.R benefited from the Gulags. The U.S.S.R economy at the time depended on the Gulags. Things that the prisoners produced were missile, leather goods, car parts, and other things such as gold and coal. (Gulag: Soviet Forced Labor Camps and the Struggle for Freedom)
After the Stalin era however the Gulags had given out many pardons for people that were arrested, and imprisoned unfairly. Although this was too late, since very often 5 years of imprisonment turned to 10, or perhaps even longer. 1 million prisoners died every year at the height of the Stalin era. This ladies and gentleman was one of the most horrific eras there ever was because it carried on for so long, and the happens mentioned happened almost everyday in the era.
Citations
Gulag: Soviet Forced Labor Camps and the Struggle for Freedom,http://gulaghistory.org/nps/
http://gulaghistory.org/nps/
“Joseph Stalin Red Terror”, BBC
By Juan Villalba
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