When ignoring the period of 1941-1944 (nazi occupation of the soviet union and ww2) where 70% of all deaths in gulags occurred, the program actually had an incredibly low death rate for its time. By 1953 the gulag system had a lower death rate than current modern day US prisons have. Fact.
According to this study the gulag deaths were approximately 830,000 from 1934 to 1953. As said above however, it is important to know that 70% of all these deaths occurred between 1941 and 1944 (included) so they can be attributed to difficulties from the War Period and nazi occupation. Also, it's important to note that antibiotics didn't become available until after WW2, this contributes significantly to earlier higher death figures.
To put things into perspective. Using the same source as above for the USSR, and this report from the Bureau of Justice Statistics we can say that Mortality in the gulag in 1953 (236 deaths per 100,000 prisoners) was lower than mortality in US prisons today, both in state prisons (303 deaths per 100,000 prisoners) and federal prisons (252 deaths per 100,000 prisoners). Also the deathrate is likely much much higher than this report right now because of covid.
US prisons kill more currently than the Soviet prisons(known as the gulag system) did post ww2.
:rat-salute-2:
Edit: Were prisoners in gulags paid for their labor?
“Cheburekin, a former Norillag inmate, wrote that wages were introduced for inmates “at northern rates, but 30 percent lower than for free workers. They withheld only for ‘room and board,’ and the rest went into my bank account. I could take up to 250 rubles a month for my expenses. . . . I received 1,200 rubles a month, and after all the deductions something was left over, and accumulated in the account. Some professional drivers . . . earned up to 5,000 a month!” A. A. Gayevsky, an engineer, remembered the following: “When I was released from the camp in 1947, I got hu 2,561 rubles and kopeks of the money that I had earned, and I was issued a cotton blanket, a lumpy mattress, a sheet and a pillowcase.” After Gayevsky received his certificate of release, which stated that he was to go to his “chosen” place of residence— the settlement of Norilsk in Krasnoyarsk Krai (which wasn’t yet a city in 1947)—he remained at the plant in the same job, though in the new capacity of free worker. But since his sentence had stripped him of his rights for five years, he did not receive the benefits for the workers in the far north”
I think the average wage at the time was around 4000 rubles, but I'm not sure.
Also, they were compensated via a shortening of their sentence if they exceeded production targets.
Honestly, the more I read about the Gulag system, the more I'm actually jealous of it. Even in highly pedagogical prison systems like in Scandinavia, where they try to reform rather than punish, they are still lagging behind even the Gulags of the 40's. Having impromptu People's Courts that have the authority to mediate and fine offenders surely kept many people out of the prison system, and guaranteeing a reduction in your already very short sentences for going above and beyond in the work ensures that there's not an incentive to exploit your inmates too much, since they'll just get out faster. The amount of freedom in the Soviet penal system far outshines the Scandinavian model, where isolation is used liberally and recidivism or continued anti-social behaviour is still a big problem post-incarceration. You can get up to 17 years in prison if you are given a life-sentence in Denmark, the absolute max in the Gulag was 10 years...
Cuba's model is very similar with some changes, they still take 30% for room and board, but because the Cuban prisons aren't in insanely remote regions that are being developed, you're mostly just working as a farmhand for like 3 months to 5 years and are still allowed visitations and freedom to participate in the community (though you have to wear a shirt that lets everyone know you're a prisoner).
There's also a huge focus on education, both political and industrial, and participation in this programs can continually reduce your sentence.
You can get up to 17 years in prison if you are given a life-sentence in Denmark
In Denmark a life sentence means you can get out on early release no earlier than after 16 years but there's no guarantee of that happening and there are examples of prisoners being held for more than 30 years. The quadruple cop killer Palle Sørensen was in prison for 34 years as nobody in the carceral bureaucracy wanted to piss off the pigs by releasing him.
You can get up to 17 years in prison if you are given a life-sentence in Denmark, the absolute max in the Gulag was 10 years…
I always forget how incredibly, incredibly, incredibly cruel and deliberately torturous the US prison system is even compared to the US prior to "sentence reform" in the 70s or 80s or whatever.
Americans don't do breadlines. They privatized the breadlines ages ago. Now they just staff a thousand offices with ten thousand bureaucrats who have the job of saying "No soup for you!"
tbf the food stamp people are usually much quicker and more helpful than, say, unemployment people, food stamps would be alright if 1) everyone got them all the time it wasn't means tested bullshit and 2) it wasn't such a pathetic allotment. With no income I got like $300 a month in stamps, for some reason idk I was supposed to get $250, so like thanks government for ensuring I don't strictly starve, but...
Universal food stamps would be dope, it would remove the stigma and literally everyone but the rich would come out ahead
yeah that's why they don't do it, means testing it keeps people divided against it
theres breadlines but theyre not breadlines anymore so its fine. mcdonalds and burger king operate like fucking social services in alabama
yeah but we're the Good Guys™ haven't you seen movies?
what do you mean "pentagon control over scripts"
The person in the replies saying they personally knew people put in a soviet gulag for "Ukrainian activism"
:soviet-hmm:
Idk about the quality, but U S. certainly put more of a percentage of their population in prison for the crime of 'not having a house' or 'taking food'.
Kinda tells on herself that she calls it her "thesis" and not say "doctoral research". Probably referring to an undergrad senior paper, which is basically just making up any shit you want.
no shot the first one isn't an undergrad thesis and the second one isn't an aggressively lib master's thesis
Why does everyone who is trying to look smart do that thing where they use an acronym, and then spell out what the acronym is for right after?
It doesn't make you look smart. It makes you look like you don't know what acronyms are for.
"I am an educated individual who is aware of this acronym that I consider to be niche. I realize that you, being an uneducated swine, will be unfamiliar with it though, so I'll be gracious and spell it out for you."
No, that's actually good practice. One shouldn't use an acronym (unless it's extremely common) without first writing it in full. However, it should be written out first and then followed by the acronym in parentheses. Like so:
Automated Teller Machine (ATM)
After this, the acronym may be used freely. But if you're just going to use the phrase once, you should just not use an acronym.
Was taught in uni to give the full word out before writing it as a acronym when writing a paper eg. Methicilin resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).
I guess some people do it in, like, tweets and shit to sound intellectual.
I think things like this do have a place, but need to work in teams of a sort.
Hyperbole works to rile people up and gain attention to a topic as long as your correction still demonstably looks worse than America. For example "Yeah this is an exaggeration but current modern american prisons do kill more than the gulag did [sources etc]."
The response "oh shit that's bad" and the original hyperbole doesn't undermine it.
This obviously hinges upon a good number of people being able to do the correction though.
If you described Guantanamo Bay to a naive kid who just graduated high school back in the 90s, I'd call your claims wildly hyperbolic and would dismiss you as incredulous.
If you waxed poetic about the relatively humane and egalitarian Soviet prison system, I'd call you a Konfusnik and politely ask you to leave my company. Then I'd find out where you worked and try to get you fired. Or SWAT you, as a joke.
The important thing is that I'd demonstrate a fierce blind loyalty to the United States of America, the best country on God's Green Earth. Because I know better than to trust anything you might say to the contrary.
Its just not something reasonable people would find credible.
Real first hand information on the GULAG system
Plus pictures of the chapter out of my book. sorry they're disorganized so pay attention to the page numbers at the bottom of each page
Wait so her first thesis wasn't even on the Soviet prison system? It was on their archiving system? Lady, no one wanted to compare soviet versus US libraries.
Maria is correct though.
Gulags were at least 100,000 times more humane than current day American prisons.
I feel like a lot of people don't know how bad US prisons are. Which is somewhat fair because I think a lot of people would struggle to accept that conditions like that would be allowed to exist.
Take a third of the Ukrainian flags. Now add the Canadian flags. That's how many Canadians were in that thread.
and you can do the same with American flags! Just add up the Ukraine + USA flags and multiply that number by 10 and that's how many feds participated in the thread
