Gulags Like Nazi Death Camps Herling

A World Apart, by Gustaw Herling-Grudziński, Andrzej Ciolkosz (Translator), Anne Applebaum (Introduction). 2005

Double Genocide. Some Gulag Camps Had the 100% Mortality of the Nazi Death Camps

This book, originally published in 1951, is one of the first, if not the first, English-language account by a Polish inmate from the early-WWII (1939-1941) period. In the Preface (pp. ix-x), eminent British philosopher Bertrand Russell condemns the Communist apologists for their denials of the Soviet concentration camp system.

Herling had been caught trying to flee Poland during her 1939 dismemberment by the Soviets and Germans. Since Nazi Germany was than an ally of the USSR, his desire to continue fighting the Germans was treated as an anti-Soviet act. He ended up at Yercevo, the Kargopol camp, located at Archangel, on the White Sea. He summarized his experiences (pp. 254-256) in refutation of Gulag-deniers.

THE PSYCHOLOGICAL MANIPULATIONS OF COMMUNISM

One prominent feature of this book is its insight into the psychology of both the tormentors and the tormented. We learn, for example, that Communist tortures were designed not merely to make the victims sign a confession of guilt, but to destroy their very personality. (p. 65). [This lives on as the PEDAGOGIKA WSTYDU]. Previous inmates of the Gulags who now served as overseers were often extremely harsh to current inmates. (p. 108). (This is reminiscent of Bruno Bettelheim’s testimony about the conduct of long-term inmates of Nazi concentration camps towards newer prisoners.). Those inmates who planned escapes and stored food for them did not actually try to escape–which they knew was almost impossible. Their efforts were simply to build hope for the future. (pp. 124-125). Some Communists who now were incarcerated continued to cling to Communism because otherwise they would have nothing else to live for. (p. 185).

HOLOCAUST SUPREMACISM AND THE ATTEMPT TO BELITTLE THE GULAGS

It has fallaciously been argued that there was no Soviet equivalent to the Nazi death camps–no camp to which admission absolutely guaranteed death. In fact, there were. Herling himself was directly aware of the 100% mortality in certain logging camps: “I never came across a prisoner who had worked in the forest for more than two years. As a rule they left after a year, with incurable disease of the heart, and were transferred to brigades engaged in lighter work; from these they soon `retired’-to the mortuary.” (p. 41).

Recently, some revisionists have cited Soviet documents that allege that the number of Gulag victims was quite small. In actuality, even official Soviet documents commonly omit or greatly downgrade things according to personal preference or ideology. Referring to a Mr. Sadovsky, a Communist official who fell out of favor and was incarcerated with him, Herling comments: “I suppose that before his arrest he did indeed hold a high position in the party hierarchy, for he once told me of the faked official statistics which had wiped out of existence several national minorities in Russia, including the Polish.” (p. 186).