Polish-Jewish Relations: 1,300 Keyword-Phrase-Indexed Book Reviews (by Jan Peczkis)

Labor Camp Socialism: The Gulag in the Soviet Totalitarian System, by Galina Mikhailovna Ivanova. 2000. M. E. Sharpe, New York, London

Gulag Deaths Obfuscated. The Essential Criminality of Communism. Soviet Archives Unreliable. Soviets Subjugate Poland: A Perceptive Russian View 

Nowadays, the criminality of Communism is ignored, downplayed, or swept under the rug. Too many authors treat Communism as little more than a bad cold. Publications today spell Communism with a small “c”; an obvious Orwellian minimization. All this fits the program of Holocaust supremacists by making it easier to keep the Holocaust elevated over the sufferings of all other peoples. For all these reasons, this book is as relevant as ever.

SOVIET ARCHIVAL INFORMATION

Soviet archives, accepted uncritically by too many historians, admit only about 400,000 Poles deported into the interior of the USSR in 1939-1941, while other sources speak of 1.0-1.5 million. See:

https://www.jewsandpolesdatabase.org/2020/08/22/gulag-numbers-poles-1939-1941-1-25-million-affirmed-soviet-archives-unreliable-ablamowicz/

Although the author does not discuss this specific issue, she does provide eye-opening information on one aspect of the unreliability of Soviet archives.

GULAG DEATHS OBFUSCATED: HIDING GULAG DEATHS IN OFFICIAL SOVIET RECORDS

As per the old saying, “Figures don’t lie but liars figure” is quite true of Soviet archives. Untruthful information is not as prominent as omitted or obfuscated information. For instance, Ivanova comments, “The mortality statistics in the Gulag were so idiosyncratic (there are separate columns for deaths in the camps, hospitals, colonies, at work, in prison, while attempting to escape, etc.) that it is still impossible to establish the precise number of prisoners who died in the camps; the official data do not give the total number of deaths among the prisoners of the Gulag.” (p. 117)

In other words, Soviet data is not so much mendacious as it is skimpy and decidedly non-transparent. She explains, “It is extremely difficult to determine the precise overall number of people who passed through the hell that was the camps. The documents that have been preserved contain a large volume of statistical data, but due to the differences in record-keeping practices at different periods, many data cannot be compared. Often the documents contain incomplete information, and the numerous reference summaries compiled by the Gulag apparatus are not free of error.” (p. 187).

For more on the creative ways that Soviet archival information was falsified, see:

https://www.jewsandpolesdatabase.org/2024/07/17/the-odd-official-gulag-statistics-falsified/

GULAG DEATHS OBFUSCATED, WITH AT LEAST 20 MILLION VICTIMS OF THE GULAGS

Ivanova concludes, “In the author’s opinion, which is based on an analysis of data on the number of prisoners convicted by judicial and extrajudicial organs, the overall number of victims of the Gulag between the end of the 1920s and the middle of the 1950s was no less than 20 million people.” (p. 188).

Note that the 20 million Gulag victims dwarf the 6 million Jews that we always hear about. In fact, in some ways, Soviet Communism was worse than German Nazism. Ivanova remarks, “Concentration camps have served as an integral part of all totalitarian regimes. In terms of longevity, sheer scale, and number of victims, the notorious Gulag of the USSR claims sad priority of place.” (p. xxi; See also p. 185).

THE GULAG: AN INTRINSIC PART OF COMMUNIST TERROR: BEYOND GULAG DEATHS OBFUSCATED

The author writes, “The Gulag allowed the higher authorities to institute a wide variety of extraordinary measures in society, to hold the people in blind submission and slavish obedience, and to destroy the rare sprouts of dissidence and freethinking before they had a chance to bloom…Finally, the Gulag served as a convenient instrument for revenge that allowed the authorities to settle scores with individuals as well as with entire peoples.” (p. 38).

COMMUNISM WAS CRIMINAL: THE GULAGS DOUBLY SO

It turns out that “ordinary” criminals ran the gulags. Ivanova writes, “From the very beginning it was the criminal world that held the real power over prisoners in the camps of the Gulag. The ‘thieves’ had their own system of laws that controlled all aspects of the life in the camps. They occupied management positions, confiscated the prisoners’ belongings and money, forced them to work for them, and, above all, murdered them senselessly, violently, and, after 1947, with impunity.” (p. 59).

THE COMMUNIST “WORKER”S PARADISE” SHAFTED THE WORKERS

Ivanova comments, “The Gulag instilled in Soviet society the thought that people could work without receiving any reward for their labor and trained the Soviet people, particularly scientists and specialists, to reconcile themselves to beggars’ wages and not to demand acceptable working conditions.” (p. 125). So much for Communists as the champions of the working class!

Thanks to Communism, corruption became the norm. The author adds, “The Gulag’s baneful influence extended beyond purely material losses. The camp economy instilled a negative attitude toward labor in millions of Soviet citizens. ‘Chiseling’ (tufta–decoded by the zeks as ‘techniques for recording fictitious labor’)–became the norm for production activity not only in the Gulag but in the country as a whole.” (p. 125). Later, this became expanded by the adage, “The pretend to pay us, and we pretend to work.”

THE SOVIET COMMUNIST SUBJUGATION OF POLAND RE-AFFIRMED

Russian author Ivanova recognizes the magnitude of Soviet rule over Poland. (pp. 158-159). She fully appreciates the fact that that the Polish Communist U. B. (Bezpieka) was directly modeled on the Soviet NKVD, and that the Communists engaged in massive repression in order to force a Communist puppet government on Poland. (p. 158).

All this started with the gulag deaths obfuscated.