Σημερα, την στιγμη που μιλαμε, κρατουνται στις αμερικανικες φυλακες 2.3 εκατομμυρια ανθρωποι. Καθε συγκριση με τα 18 εκατομμυρια στα 20 χρονια που διηρκησε ο θεσμος των γκουλαγκ ειναι επιεικως αστεια.The camp population grew from 179,000 in 1929 to 2,468,524 in 1953 (reaching its height in
1950 with 2,525,146 inmates).
• Perhaps 18 million persons in total were incarcerated in the Gulag in this period.
• While numbers are sketchy, of the much larger number of gulag inmates plus exiled “special settlers” and labor colonists (often youth detention facilities) that totaled 26 million in these years, perhaps 1.5 million perished. It is important to remember, however, that in most years more people were amnestied from the Gulag than died in it. Excepting the brutal war years, the most common experience of the Gulag was surviving it.
Despite large numbers of political incarcerations by the secret police in this period (for
instance, over 1.5 million were sent to the Gulag in the 1930s for “counter revolution”), the vast
majority of inmates were incarcerated under non-political criteria (such as the draconian laws
concerning “labor desertion” and “theft of socialist property”).
• Some of the “crimes” that landed one in the Gulag included unexcused absences from work,
petty theft, conveying an anti-government joke or being a prisoner of war.
Επιλογος:
https://www.nps.gov/malu/learn/news/upl ... _sheet.pdfFollowing Khrushchev’s “Thaw” period (1956-1964), forced labor was again used to punish
political dissent, usually under the laws against “anti-Soviet propaganda” (from 1968-1986
2,468 were sentenced to hard labor under this law).
• All political prisoners were pardoned and released by Mikhail Gorbachev in 1986 (288 in total).
