One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

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One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

• Russian History and Background Presentation

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Russian History a la Ms. Minor

• 1917--Czar Nicholas II is ousted and later killed
• 1918Civil War between Bolsheviks (communists)
  led by Lenin and Mensheviks (land owners)
• Nikolai Lenin emerges as the leader of Russia,
  with Trotsky and Stalin as possible successors.

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Photos of the Revolution

• Lenin speaking to revolutionaries

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Casualties of the Revolution
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Tenets of Marxist Communism

• From each according to his ability, to each
  according to his need.
• An egalitarian, classless society, in which the
  people rule themselves.
• Religion is the opiate of the people
• A bloody revolution is the only means to spread
  communism.
• Communism cannot survive in isolation

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Lenins Rule
                               Lenin with
Stalin. Lenin warned that Stalin was becoming too
powerful and called for him to be removed.
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Lenin Dies and Stalin Emerges

• 1924 Lenin dies, leaving Trotsky and Stalin to
  vie for power.
• Stalin wins Trotsky leaves the country and is
  killed.
• Stalin rules with an iron fist (alleged to have
  killed 20 million people or more) Reign of
  Terror, Five-Year Plan, Kulak Uprising, Gulags.

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Stalin and his buddies
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Stalins Reign of Terror

• Rewrote Soviet histories rewritten to reflect
  well on him
• Allowed no one to oppose his decisions jailed
  (sent to Gulags) or executed most of those who
  helped him rise to power.
• Used fear as motivator to industrialize.
• Russia went from third world to a military and
  industrial power in twenty years.

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Stalins Five-Year Plan

• 1928Forced Collectivization of Industry and
  Farming
• Results
• Production levels rose dramatically  Appalling
  human cost
• discipline (sacked if late)
• secret police
• slave labor
• labor camps (for those who made mistakes)
• accidents deaths (100,000 workers died
  building the Belomor Canal)
• few consumer goods
• poor housing
• wages FELL
• no human rights
•      

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Kulak Uprising

• Kulaks, peasant families, were forced to
  surrender grain to government.
• In protest, kulaks burned their crops.
• Stalin ordered the military to burn or seize the
  crops and sent millions of kulaks to labor camps.
• This caused a massive famine that killed 7
  million.

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The Gulag System

• The Gulag was the government agency that
  administered the penal labor camps of the Soviet
  Union.
• "Gulag, through metonymy, began to stand for the
  entire penal labor system in the USSR.
• People could be imprisoned in a Gulag camp for
  crimes such as unexcused absences from work,
  petty theft, or anti-government jokes.
• About half of the political prisoners were sent
  to Gulag prison camps without trial.

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Soviet Show Trial
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More Gulag Please?

• There were at least 476 separate camps, some of
  them comprising hundreds, even thousands of camp
  units.
• The most infamous complexes were those in
  Siberia. regions.
• More than 14 million (with some authors like
  Solzhenitsyn estimating the total at more than 40
  million) people passed through the Gulag from
  1929 to 1953, with a further 6 to 7 million being
  deported to remote areas of the USSR.
• According to Soviet data, a total of 1,053,829
  people died in the GULAG from 1934 to 1953, not
  counting those who died in labor colonies.
• The total population of the camps varied from
  510,307 (in 1934) to 1,727,970 (in 1953).

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Life in the Gulag

• Gulag dormitory

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No place like home..
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Gulag buildings
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Prisoners working in Siberian Camp
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Dorm in early morning
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Working on a chain gang
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Solzhenitsyn

• Born in Southern Russia in 1918.
• Fought in WWII as a commissioned artillery
  officer behind German lines twice decorated for
  his bravery
• 1945 arrested and sentenced without trial for
  having criticized Stalin in some letters to a
  friend
• Spent next 8 years in prisons and gulags.