Gulag - Bino lets start up the discussion!

[binö]

Also in the gulag, my goal would be to be a "shock worker" and get extra food and chum up with administration to a point where I could somehow flee or escape.

That's what I don't get, why didn't these THOUSANDS of prisoners all collectively rise up on the guards? They were under prepared in most cases to deal with so many people, if they all collectively rose up couldn't they have free'd themselves?

Also, mind blowing to think that this took place in the 1950s.. when our parents were alive here in the US growing up in suburbia (in some cases) those people were getting fucked up by another world "super power"

as i'm learning about the stakhonites (shock workers) they died.
the bigger ration meant death, cause the work level eventually killed them
also most the shock workers were scammers (tufka i think it's spelled)...that's how one survived, by inflating work numbers.

and the reason they didn't rise up is because they were broken by the time they got to camp.
interrogation, transport, and degrading treatment killed them long before hunger did...
were would you escape to if you were in the koylma? no where to go, you'd die of cold

 

[Lestat]

as i'm learning about the stakhonites (shock workers) they died.
the bigger ration meant death, cause the work level eventually killed them
also most the shock workers were scammers (tufka i think it's spelled)...that's how one survived, by inflating work numbers.

and the reason they didn't rise up is because they were broken by the time they got to camp.
interrogation, transport, and degrading treatment killed them long before hunger did...
were would you escape to if you were in the koylma? no where to go, you'd die of cold

good points, i gotta read more of this thing

 

[binö]

putting on muscle mass in the gulag woulda been hard, esp eating 10oz's of bread and a thin ladel of dishwater gruel a day

 

[Lestat]

putting on muscle mass in the gulag woulda been hard, esp eating 10oz's of bread and a thin ladel of dishwater gruel a day

yeah, i can't believe they could do any sort of physical activity on that died.

I'm about 1/3 way though, on the part about camp life.

I find it annoying that this author oftem times will say something and end it with "as we will see later..."

also there is some repitition where she'll return to an earlier point, its probably to go with the complaint above, but there were so many camps, and such diversity, I wouldn't bother with the same detail twice. Seems like a lot of the material was pulled from a handful of the better written memoirs.

 

[binö]

yeah, i can't believe they could do any sort of physical activity on that died.

I'm about 1/3 way though, on the part about camp life.

I find it annoying that this author oftem times will say something and end it with "as we will see later..."

also there is some repitition where she'll return to an earlier point, its probably to go with the complaint above, but there were so many camps, and such diversity, I wouldn't bother with the same detail twice. Seems like a lot of the material was pulled from a handful of the better written memoirs.

she is a pretty highly touted russian historian (though i think she is american)
and investigating such a thing as the gulag is not easy at all...not a lot of reliable info, considering how long the clamp down lasted. most peeps are long dead.
really she coulda wrote a 32 book series on the camps...but she had to cram a sheetload into one book for the masses to find interesting
i didn't really focus too much on her writing style, i was too wrapped up in imagining the gulag experience.
but the books i'm reading now, the gulag archelago series, is from an acutal prisoner, one of the more highly touted russian writers of the 20th century.

 

[binö]

so lestat, give your final anaylsis on the book
like it/dislike it?

 

[Lestat]

I'm over halfway through now. Got bogged down in the "women and children" chapter.

I do enjoy the book, its a good one for sure. Educational, and educational about a topic that most people know VERY little about.

its tough to do a single book on the entire gulag though. Each camp was different, in some cases they were COMPLETELY different.

Also, depending on the time period (e.g. 1917 vs 1938) the adminsitration and "rules" were completely different.

I am not done so these are not my final thoughts per se, but what it has really shown me is that putting people in prison for their beliefs of affiliation is ridiculous.

The merging of their criminal and political prisoners makes sense economically, but totally fucks the political prisoners.

I don't fault the guards much at all as they were victims of the same system that the prisoners were.

Stalin was mentally ill.

 

[binö]

stalin was a gangsta and i believe all soviet employees are to blame, even the guards
in any criminal org everyone has blood on their hands
if the guards would've rebelled the gulag and stalin would've collapsed

 

[Lestat]

stalin was a gangsta and i believe all soviet employees are to blame, even the guards
in any criminal org everyone has blood on their hands
if the guards would've rebelled the gulag and stalin would've collapsed

The guards were, in many cases, former prisoners (of the criminal type), also, Stalin had his leading men killed more than once to prevent any sort of overthrow of power.

If I am going to blame the guards, then I must put equal blame on the prisoners themselves for not all rising up. I haven't read the chapter on escapes yet though. Still if everyone in the camp rose up, they could easily overthrow the whole thing.

 

[binö]

The guards were, in many cases, former prisoners (of the criminal type), also, Stalin had his leading men killed more than once to prevent any sort of overthrow of power.

If I am going to blame the guards, then I must put equal blame on the prisoners themselves for not all rising up. I haven't read the chapter on escapes yet though. Still if everyone in the camp rose up, they could easily overthrow the whole thing.

and those ex-prisoners turned guards got there positions by being snitches/bitches/thieves.
and yeah, the prisoners never rose up...the book i'm reading right now by the premier russian gulag historian goes in depth on this.
military heros, war badasses, didn't do shit for rising up.
they were beaten down, both physically and mentally, before they even got to the camps