Stalin and His Creation of a Gulag - 1548 Words

One of the most brutal mistakes made by Stalin was the creation of a GULAG. It is difficult to give a precise characterization of its purpose. The aim of this work is to answer the question, â€Å"Can we generalize why certain people were able to survive the Gulag more than others?† To survive the Gulag, many prisoners had to fight with others for food, shelter, and simple medical care. Certain prisoners went into religious and intellectual meditations to preserve at least the appearance of intelligence. The survival required willpower, strength of mind, skills, mercilessness, and a lot of luck. Every former Gulag prisoner explained his/her survival as a result of many insignificant strategies. A variety of memoirists claimed that the only reason why they have survived was due to their spiritual life. To distract themselves for the physical sufferings, many prisoners created mental exercises: religious rituals, music, art, cards, chess, and literature. Prisoners used to write and read poetry to each other, told stories, discussed philosophy and history. Under such harsh conditions, the prisoners were required to have an extraordinary imagination. To play cards or paint, they had to use anything that was easy to hide from the regular raids in the barracks. The tree core was used as a canvas and any blood was used as paint. The Soviet Union created a system that forced prisoners to constantly fight with each other. Being imprisoned led up to despair. Many were driven to commitShow MoreRelatedThe Soviet Prison Labor Camp System1251 Words   |  6 Pagestried to hide the gulags behind by telling his story of his time in the gulags. Reading his book gave the reader the sense of reading a forbidden text, something surrounded in secrecy. Solzhenitsyn develops themes throughout the book. These fetid and morbid â€Å"islands† would see millions of unfortunate visitors forced to slave away at one of the world’s largest and fastest infrastructure and industrialization builds in the history of mankind perpetuated by the will of Stalin and his secret police theRead MoreNazi Germany And The Soviet Union Under The Rule Of Adolf Hitler1226 Words   |  5 PagesJoseph Stalin and Nazi Germany under the rule of Adolf Hitler. To control the population and to expand the message of the country, propaganda w as an excellent weapon. The media is governed by the state and the free press does not exist. Both dictators also do not allow public consultation, public opinion and disagreement is flattened through a that regularly kills dissidents. Both dictators exploit the usage of forced labor camps where many died in either concentration camps in Germany and Gulag campsRead MoreHow Far Was the Use of Show Trials the Most Important Way in Which Stalin Kept Control of Russia?782 Words   |  4 PagesHow far was the use of show trials the most important way in which Stalin kept control of Russia? The Show trials were one of the most important ways by which Stalin kept control over Russia, however the work of the Secret Police, the creation of the cult of Stalin and his use of socialist realism were also significant. The show trials were was very important in Stalin’s control of Russia; by killing all the Bolsheviks that might oppose him he was able to rule freely. The Bolsheviks that wereRead MoreHow Far Had the Bolsheviks Created a Totalitarian State by 1924?1066 Words   |  5 Pagescontrol over the media. This is important to establish social control over the state. Lenins described free speech as bourgeois prejudice, and thus ensured strict control over the media and speech. Understanding the role of propaganda to strengthen his rule, he established the Pravda. The Pravda controlled what media was available to the public and who could utilize it. The Bolsheviks were in reality the only group aloud to publish propaganda, and groups such as the Mensheviks, were not aloud to publishRead MoreJoseph Stalin And The Cult Of The Soviet Union1539 Words   |  7 PagesRhiannon Wademan Professor Prykhodoko CENS 201 15 December 2015 Joseph Stalin and The Personality Cult of the USSR Joseph Stalin is the face of the Soviet Union, and the shift from monarchy to communism, a system that promised equality and order. The Soviet Union, or the USSR, as discussed in lecture, was the first communist society, a society that emphasized the collective effort over individuality. Communism had the vision of social equality by eliminating class division, the emancipation ofRead MoreFor The Third Engaged Activity, I Decided To Attend A Lecture1235 Words   |  5 Pageslecture was titled â€Å"The Yugoslav Gulag: The Goli otok (Barren Island) Labor Camp, 1949-1956.† Previsic’s lecture revolved around the time period of the â€Å"Tito-Stalin split†, which was an era marked as being the end of mutual relations between the Soviet Union and the former country of Yugoslavia. The spit, initially occurring shortly after WWII in 1948, was caused due to conflicting political interests of Yugoslavia’s leader Josip Tito and the Soviet Union’s Joseph S talin. Though they had relations priorRead MoreThe Transmission Of Universal And Timeless Issues Through Experiences During The Soviet Gulag Camps1526 Words   |  7 PagesTransmission of Universal and Timeless Issues through Experiences in the Soviet Gulag Camps. Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s novel One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich follows exactly as its title suggests, a day in the life of Ivan Denisovich, a prisoner of the Soviet Gulag camps, and the tribulations that he and his fellow prisoners encounter in their daily lives. Having personally experienced the horrific conditions of the Gulag camp system, Alexander Solzhenitsyn wrote the novel as a means to communicateRead MoreEssay on Communism809 Words   |  4 Pagesclasses, of guaranteed employment, quot;The creation of a comprehensive social security and welfare system for all citizens that would end the misery of workers once and for all.quot; Lenins own interpretation of the Marxian critique was that to achieve Communism there would first have to be a socialist dictatorship to first suppress any dissent or protest. Through coercive tactics this new government seized power and in 1917 Lenin came to power. Under his quot;rulequot; Russia underwent radicalRead MoreStalins Metho ds for Removing the Opposition802 Words   |  3 Pagesremoving opposition is effective, compared to tsarist and other communist leaders, his methods of suppression alongside the tsars and other communists are assessed to see how successful they were in defeating opposition without evoking further opposition in their regimes. Therefore, Stalin’s reforms of collectivisation, Five-Year-Plans, Gulags, and labour camps etc. have been successful in appeasing opposition with his increased and radicalized input of terror compared to Lenin’s use of terror duringRead MoreStalin Was More Effective Than Any Other Ruler of Russia in the Period 1855 – 1964 in Dealing with Opposition. How Far Do You Agree?1007 Words   |  5 PagesStalin was more effective than any other ruler of Russia in the period 1855 – 1964 in dealing with opposition. How far do you agree? During the second half of the 1920s, Joseph Stalin set the stage for gaining absolute power by employing police repression against opposition elements within the Communist Party. The machinery of coercion had previously been used only against opponents of Bolshevism, not against party members themselves. The first victims were Politburo members Leon Trotskii, Grigorii