Editing Marxists Behaving Badly (section)

==== 5. The “GULAG” ====
Every country has a penal system. In my view the only sensible questions to ask about the “GULAG” are these:

* Were the persons confined in the penal system actually guilty of the crimes of which they were accused?
* What were the conditions of life and work in the penal system?

The GULAG –really the name of the penal administration (it means “Main Directorate of Camps”) –included  prisons,  labor  camps,  and  exile  settlements.  Many  of  those  in  the  exile settlements were former kulaks, peasants rich by comparison with their neighbors who employed labor.  Others  were  those  who  opposed  collectivization  with  force,  active  anticommunists,  and ordinary criminals.

Concerning the collectivization of agriculture: as the objective research of [https://history.wvu.edu/faculty-and-staff/faculty/mark-b-tauger Mark Tauger] has shown, collectivization was essential to put an end to the cycle of devastating famines that had occurred every 3-5 years in Russia and, particularly, Ukraine, for a millennium. Tauger’s research articles are now available on the Internet.<ref>(At <https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Mark_Tauger>.  -[[Grover Furr|GF]]) and [https://libgen.is/search.php?req=Mark+B.+Tauger&column=author elsewhere]. - [https://infrawiki.us/index.php/User:Euneos_Unruhe EU]</ref>

I have summarized them in Chapters One and Two of [https://libgen.is/book/index.php?md5=4F13589002A3DFA4B0139B332FEF54AD Blood Lies] (2014) and, more recently, in Chapter One of [https://libgen.is/book/index.php?md5=0FA2BE18E21402199E0A70CA6ADB223E Stalin Waiting for ... the Truth] (2019). Today we have a great deal of primary-source evidence about the GULAG. For the sake of brevity we will focus here on mortality rates. The highest mortality rates were 15.3% in 1933, 24.9% in 1942, and 22.4% in 1943.<ref>See <https://en.wikipedia.orgwiki/Gulag#Mortality_rate>.The Russian source is A.I. Kokurin and N.V. Petrov, eds., Gulag (Glavnoe upravlenie lagerei) 1917-1960. (Moscow: MDF, 200), Dok. No. 103, pp. 441-2.</ref> 1933 was the year of the great famine in which about 3 million persons died, either of starvation or, more frequently, of diseases caused or made worse by poor nutrition. 1942 and 1943 were the hardest years of the war, when millions of Soviet citizens were dying  either  in  the  military,  at  the  hands  of  the  Nazis  and  their  allies,  or  from  overwork  and undernourishment behind the lines.

Prisoners in the labor camps were paid for their work both in money and in “time off” their sentences. They were encouraged, but not forced, to remain as regular workers once they had been released, and many did.

Here are some facts about conditions of work in the GULAG. 

From the Dmitrovskii Correctional Labor Camp, or “Dmitlag,”<ref>"Also called ''Dmitrovlag''." - [[Grover Furr|GF]]</ref> regulations of October 9, 1932<ref>A.I. Kokurin, Yu.N. Morukov, eds. [https://libgen.is/book/index.php?md5=484BCD20B6E117A5EF8C043066B8568F Stalinskie stroiki GULAGa]. 1930-1953.Moscow: MDF, 2005, 61.</ref>:

* Wake-up: 5:30 a.m.
* Breakfast: 5:45 –6:30 a.m.
* Travel to work 6:30 to 7 a.m.
* Work: 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. (10hours)
* Dinner: 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.
* From 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. –cultural and education activities (KVCh, ''kul’turno-vospitatel’naia chast''’)
* From 10:05 p.m. –retreat and sleep.

The following quotation is taken from the Russian Wikipedia page on Dmitlag<ref>At <https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Дмитровлаг>.</ref>:<blockquote>In the place of the House of Culture of the Dmitrov Excavator Plant, on Bolshevik Street, until the end of the 1950s there was a club called “Dmitlag.” ... The club held festive celebrations and meetings of the leading workers. Here, in August 1934, Maxim Gorky spoke at a meeting of the leading workers of the construction of the Volga-Moscow canal. Nearby is the beautiful building of the Dmitrovsky electric grids of the Moscow Canal Management, which was built during the construction of the canal.

In Dmitlag, up to ten newspapers and magazines were published simultaneously, including several different languages of the peoples of the USSR. A library fund and its own film studio functioned. There were sports and educational sections and divisions, as well as its own brass bands and theater. Construction teams engaged in  non-mechanized  heavy  physical  work  and  performing  scheduled  tasks  were provided with a five-day rest in February-April 1935, and the fight against parasites (lice and nits) was conducted.</blockquote>Nikita Petrov, a fire-breathing anticommunist and anti-Stalin writer and top officer of the “Memorial” Society (see above), nevertheless writes as follows about the recreational facilities in one labor camp:<blockquote>1935: On January 14, Order No. 39 declared the composition of the sections of the Dynamo  camp  society:  rifle,  ski,  speed  skating,  hockey,  auto-section,  horse, gymnastic, “defense and attack” (wrestling), hunting, chess and checkers, medical control, campaign propaganda sector.<ref>Nikita Petrov, “Istoriia GULAGA –2.”At <[https://web.archive.orgweb/20081231111957/ https://web.archive.org/web/20081231111957/] and http://vif2ne.ru/nvk/forum/arhprint/228541></ref></blockquote>Of course, abuses occurred, as they do in every penal system. We know about these abuses from the materials compiled during the investigations of abuses by central authorities.<ref>"An example is the Nazino Island affair of 1933, sensationalized by anticommunist French author Nicolas Werth as “Cannibal Island.” Werth’s documentation is that of thecontemporary Soviet investigation. The English Wikipedia page carries a picture of Stalin, to suggest that he was responsible. The Russian Wikipedia page has no such picture." - [[Grover Furr|GF]]</ref>

As  discussed  above,  during  the  period  between  July  1937  and  November  1938  Nikolai Yezhov was leading a conspiracy aimed at overthrowing the Soviet government and Party. In his confessions of August 2 and August 4, 1939, Yezhov admitted putting his men in charge of the labor  camps  and  creating  good  conditions  for  criminals  and  anyone  loyal  to  himself,  and  bad conditions for other prisoners.<ref>For [[Nikolai Yezhov Interrogation Transcripts|Yezhov’s interrogation]] of August 2, 1939, see <https://msuweb.montclair.edu/~furrg/research/ezhovinterrogs.html> (Scroll down to “Ezhov interrogation 08.02.39 by Rodos.”) For Yezhov’s August 4, 1939 confession go here: <https://msuweb.montclair.edu/~furrg/research/ezhov080439eng.html>.</ref>

[[Nikolai Yezhov Interrogation Transcripts|Yezhov’s confessions]] have long been available. I have reproduced them as an appendix to my 2010 article. I also discuss this and other confessions in Chapters 13 and 14 of my book [https://libgen.is/book/index.php?md5=10D697104A7831F0301673DA86AB2536 Yezhov vs Stalin]. However, I have never yet encountered a book by a mainstream scholar of Soviet history who mentions, let alone quotes, any of these passages from Yezhov’s confessions about his use of the GULAG in his conspiracy. The camps are simply assumed to be evidence of “Stalinist terror.” But this is incorrect, a result of the confirmation bias that attends what I have termed the “anti-Stalin paradigm” in Soviet history.

Accounts of the GULAG agree that conditions in the camps were bad during 1937-1938 and  improved  immediately  when  Lavrentii  P.  Beria‘s  took  over  the  NKVD  from  Yezhov  in November, 1938. Arch Getty, a respected mainstream scholar of the Stalin period, writes:<blockquote>Evgeniia Ginzburg, who was in Iaroslavl’ Prison and who saw no newspapers, said that the prisoners could tell when Yezhovfell: The draconian regime in the prisons (frequent solitary confinement and deprivation of all privileges) was relaxed one day. The timing was confirmed a few days later when Beria’s name began to appear on official prison notices.<ref>[[J. Arch Getty]]. [https://libgen.is/book/index.php?md5=202D73A751817E9D047121E74D02671C Origins of the Great Purges. The Soviet Communist Party Reconsidered, 1933-1938]. New York and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985, 189.</ref></blockquote>