Posted on 05/18/2004 5:27:14 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
Edited on 07/14/2004 1:00:35 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
Survivors marked the 50th anniversary of a revolt in a Stalin-era prison camp Tuesday, recalling how troops crushed the rebellion with tanks and machine guns
(Excerpt) Read more at nola.com ...
This should be as well known as the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and the revolts in the Nazi concentration camps.
Considering his own KGB background I'm sure he has personal reasons.
Bingo. Lest we forget, the KGB still rules Russia.
And they still have plenty of nukes pointed at the U.S.
What? But we have several posters on FR who, besides claiming to be conservative, tell us how great of a place Russia is today.
Many also said Russia was Utopia during the time of Stalin's purge.
LOL. I forgot all about them.
600...thats all? We got that many in the first day of Fallujah. /sarcasm
Solzhenitsyn wrote a wonderful account of the Kengir revolt ("The Forty Days of Kengir") in volume 3 of "The Gulag Archipelago". It may be the best piece of writing he ever did.
After Stalin's death and Beria's fall, the zeks (the Gulag prisoners) sensed that change would happen. After several unprovoked shootings of political prisoners (especially one religious man, a mere 3 months from release, who was shot while relieving himself on a fence), the workers went on strike.
Eventually that strike was broken, but then the Gulag administration decided to mix in common criminals with the politicals, but things had changed. It used to be that the criminals would totally intimidate the politicals and beat and rob them, but the politicals, now subject to 25-year sentences, had nothing to lose, fought back, and earned the respect of the criminals.
Effectively speaking, the alliance of prisoners took over the entire camp on May 19, 1954. They were still locked in the complex, but had control therein. They elected a group to negotiate, and that group effectively governed Kengir for forty days. They even used a mill waterfall to secretly provide hydroelectric power even after the Soviet government cut off outside power.
If Stalin and Beria were still alive, the revolt would have been crushed immediately. But those in Moscow didn't know what to do, and negotiations began. Meanwhile, the prisoners began for the likely assault from the outside. As one of them told the negotiators, "don't forget that half of those here had a hand in the capture of Berlin".
Then in late June an announcement was made that the prisoners' demands (which were not unreasonable) had been accepted. On June 25th, 1954, snipers, tanks, and troops invaded the camp. People were crushed under the tanks, unarmed people bayonetted, at least 300 were buried, though the final toll was likely higher.
Solzhenitsyn wrote of those who led the invasion: "I feel confident that their appetite that June morning left nothing to be desired and that they drank deeply. An alcoholc hum would not in the least disturb the ideological harmony in their heads. And what they had for hearts was something installed with a screwdriver."
It takes all kinds to make a Free Republic.
Then again, it only takes one kind to destroy it.
1) to live in Russia
2) he's conservative
3) he's worried Bush is destroying conservatism
...and there are quite a few who believe him.
=== Putin, however, has said he hopes the resurrected symbols will help mend deep rifts in society and evoke feelings of patriotism and optimism.
(and) When Putin speaks ...
Howdy.
He ain't the Pope.
From a recent demo in Kyiv:
(on the left) "Russia is the prison of peoples"
(on the right) MOSCOW = Militaristic, Overly bedecked with medals, Satanistic, Crooked, Breaker of promises, anti-human.
I guess I'm coming around to the Ukrainian point of view on Russians.
Go easy on the Russians, Struw.
We have a lot to learn from them yet.
It's not exactly their fault they were hung on the cross with Christ and most went mad(der than they were already).
That's a Ukrainian flag on the soldier's arm, not a Russian one.
Oh, I do remember how excited they were -- most of them -- to have their new uniforms in time for the Pope's visit ... though there still were plenty of those GIGANTICUS CAPS around.
But surely it's Soviets, though, not Russians that they hate. Plenty of those yet in Ukraine, I'll bet. At least to hear Boris tell it, if not Galina ... who got a little wiggy every time I brought up current events, Gazprom and the like.
But Stalin died in 1953.
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