I am about half way through GULAG, A History by Anne Applebaum, and I must confess I am getting a little bored. The book is becoming increasingly repetitive, but I guess there is only so much you can say about the Soviet work camps.
Occasionally there is a brilliant gem of wisdom, like this suspiciously capitalist sounding idea from Stalin:
Could we not think of some other form of reward for their work –medals or such like? We are acting incorrectly, we are disturbing the work of the camp. Freeing these people may be necessary, but from the point of view of the national economy, it is a mistake… we will free the best people and leave the worst.
Brilliant gems of wisdom aside, the book drones on: They were not death camps, death was just an unpleasant side effect of poor organization, poor planning, poor weather conditions. They didn’t want to kill you, they wanted to you to work and meet quotas. Never mind the quotas were unreasonable and the working conditions were less than ideal (perhaps a bit of an understatement).
This is hardly surprising in a country that had every intention of finishing several of Stalin’s great Five Year Plans in FOUR years (or less). Comrade Squishy and I used to joke about the Five Year plans. Five Year plans should take five years (as the name implies), leave it to the communists to want to do it in four.
Thus far, the book has evoked in me very little sympathy for those in the soviet system of work camps. Although Applebaum describes the squalid living, working, transportation, and other conditions, citing sources and diaries of those who experienced it all, the facts just become statistics, oh, another camp had poor living conditions, why am I not surprised?
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