Posted on 06/08/2012 4:24:18 PM PDT by Olog-hai
In the Russian Arctic lies buried an unfinished railway built by prisoners of Stalin's gulags. For decades, no-one talked about it. But one woman is now telling the story of the thousands who suffered there—and there is talk of bringing back to life the abandoned railway itself. …
Lyudmila (Lipatova) and I had uncovered a tiny section of one of Joseph Stalin's cruelest and most ambitious projects—the Trans-Polar Main Line. It was (Stalin's) attempt to conquer the Arctic—part of what he called his Great Plan for the Transformation of Nature.
The scheme was supposed to link the eastern and western parts of Siberia with a 1,000-mile (1,609-km) railway stretching from the city of Inta, in Komi Autonomous Republic, through Salekhard to Igarka, on the Yenisei River. …
The labor force was almost entirely made up of "enemies of the people"—prisoners convicted of "political" offenses. Gulags 501 and 503 were created specially for the railway, and every 6-8 miles (10-12 km) along the track, there were camps. Prisoners built their own wooden barracks, but the unlucky ones in the front units had to take shelter in canvas tents. …
According to some estimates, 300,000 prisoners were enslaved on the project and nearly a third of them perished in the process. But Lyudmila says that the real death toll and exact number of camps and prisoners are not known since no accurate records were kept.
By the time Stalin died in 1953, over 370 miles (600 km) had been built, but it was never completed. … The tracks sank back into the tundra. The railway to nowhere, with its huge cost in human lives, became known as the Dead Road. …
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.co.uk ...
What makes Obama and Clinton supporters think this would not happen to them. They rule by fear and they will make examples.
Stalin also tried to build a canal from the Baltic to the Black Sea. He sent hundreds of thousands to die, digging in frozen ground, often without tools. In the end there was nothing but a big weed choked ditch.
Yeah, just like the Romans, you gotta go in and crucify a few people.
Uncle Joe was stark,raving mad.
I knew a girl from Salekhard. She said that during the commie days there were active coal mines up there, past the Arctic circle. Another girl I knew in Omsk grew up in a city in the Kolyma, also way up north. She said the only way in and out was by aircraft and in the wintertime the stores were often bare. Once the CCCP went belly up, everyone got the heck out.
See, even nature itself bows down to the 5 year plan...to laugh in its face.
Well, no one died in Buffalo building the light rail, but it goes to the same place.
Not a surprise, especially if the government never quite got round to handing out property to the residents. In China, the government has kept most of the rural population in place by granting the functional equivalent of ownership (70-year leaseholds*) to many tenant farmers. These leaseholds can be bought and sold, so many have been leaving the more remote areas after "selling" their plots of land, but the mere fact of property ownership (of a kind) has kept many farmers in place instead of surging towards the big cities.
* These leaseholds don't require any lease payments, but the land reverts to the government after 70 years dating from when they were granted, sometime after the Chinese regime began to allow private business activity starting in 1979.
Stalin was one evil dude
Even sicker, we had people like Walter Duranty (NY Times) who refused to report on Stalin’s atrocities in the 1930’s...that far back we had many in the USA who supported Stalinism...sick
Oh $hit! Sounds like Hollywood should make a movie about the “Railroad of Death”. Everyone knows all about Hitler’s evil crimes. But equally sinister crimes committed by Stalin is often ignored and forgotten.....
.that far back we had many in the USA who supported Stalinism...sick
&&&
Still some supporting it.
Read Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s “Gulag Archipelago” Vols. I-III. It is a tremendous, eye opening, first person account of Stalin’s 700 “destructive” labor camps throughout the Soviet Union, designed for one purpose, death to enemies of the state. Solzhenitsyn himself, an officer is the Soviet Army during the Second World War, made the mistake of criticizing Stalin in a letter home to his family. The KGB reviewed mail of personnel from time to time, came across his letter, and sent him to Siberia, expecting him to die. He survived. Another great book, later made into a movie about the same experience, was “Onr Day in the life of Ivan Denisovich” talk about depressing. A tiresome defender of Christianity and Freedom, who paid his dues and is now residing with his Redeemer. RIP.
Written by a survivor of Stalin's political paranoia. Funny thing is, many of the political prisoners were still praising Stalin as they were being shipped off in box cars to slave labor camps. Great conditioning.
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