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Browse: Home / History and Politics

Was the West aware of the Soviet gulag system?

Question by : Was the West aware of the Soviet gulag system while it was operating?
Or was it a crime that they only found out about after Stalinism ended?

Answers and Views:

Answer by Ratz
Not until ‘One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich’ by Solzhenitsyn (1962), which strangely the Soviet Union allowed to be published and discussed. Though the scope really wasn’t known until after the collapse.

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Comments ( 4 )

  1. Don't Believe The Hype says

    Actually, the right answer is when the Atheist Grinches in the USSR finally made themselves public they also told the world of the gulag system.

    Reply
  2. Captain Smartass says

    They did know, but they probably didn’t want to do anything in case Russia retaliated.

    Reply
  3. Derek says

    Of course they knew. But what were they going to do? United Nations Veto’s meant that nothing ever happened when the subject was brought up. Like Russia again today and the mess in Syria. One Veto and nothing happens.

    Reply
  4. Bilbo says

    Yes thanks to Alexander Solzhenitsyn – most of his work appeared in the west in the 1960’s although much is older (Ivan Denisovitch is from 1950)

    A Storm in the Mountains
    One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
    An Incident at Krechetovka Station
    Matryona’s Place
    For the Good of the Cause
    The First Circle
    Cancer Ward
    The Prisoner and the Camp Hooker or The Tenderfoot and the Tart.
    August 1914 (1971). The beginning of a history of the birth of the USSR in an historical novel. The novel centers on the disastrous loss in the Battle of Tannenberg in August 1914, and the ineptitude of the military leadership. Other works, similarly titled, follow the story: see The Red Wheel (overall title).
    The Gulag Archipelago (three volumes) (1973–1978), not a memoir, but a history of the entire process of developing and administering a police state in the Soviet Union.

    Reply

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