Surviving The Gulag
The Soviet Union’s Gulag system was perhaps one of the most outrageous human rights violations of the 20th century.
Estimates range that between 12-25 million people were sent to these camps throughout the Soviet Union where an estimated 1.6+ million of them died. “The Gulag Archipelago” by Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn paints a picture of the injustices that those who were imprisoned faced; from beatings, starvation, forced labor, sleep deprivation, and much more. However, there was one passage in the book that stood out to me, and it surrounded the mindset of how to survive the interrogation and the Gulag.
“So what is the answer? How can you stand your ground when you are weak and sensitive to pain, when people you love are still alive, when you are unprepared?
What do you need to make you stronger than the interrogator and the whole trap?
From the moment you go to prison you must put your cozy past firmly behind you. At the very, threshold you must say to yourself: “My life is over, a little early to be sure, but there is nothing to be done about it. I shall never return to freedom. I am condemned to die - now or a little later. But later on, in truth, it will be even harder, and so the sooner the better. I no longer have any property whatsoever. For me those I love have died, and for them I have died. From today on, my body is useless and alien to me. Only my spirit and conscience remain precious and important to me.”
Confronted by such a prisoner, the interrogator will tremble.
Only the man who has renounced everything can win that victory.”
Why is this relevant?
The Soviet legal system was not just. Normal people were arrested out of the blue, tortured until they confessed to crimes they didn't commit, and promptly given a 10-25-year sentence in a trial that lasted less than 5 minutes (if there was even a trial). It was the ultimate example of an irrational system you could not beat. Those who dreamed of freedom were doomed.
We can learn a lot from the people who were subjected to this system
We can go much further than we think we can. The prisoners of The Gulag lived off bread and gruel, were forced to work through inhumane conditions, and neglected nearly every basic human right. No human should go through any of that, but knowing just how far we can go is important. The challenges that you and I face daily are incomparable to the pain and suffering that millions of people faced at the hands of the Soviet Union. When we mope and complain about those small setbacks in life we should feel embarrassed for ourselves. We live in the most prosperous country that has ever existed at a time when life is the best it has ever been.
Surviving when you are faced with seemingly insurmountable challenges is mental more often than not. Those who were sent to The Gulag were faced with the most incomprehensible challenge. You are going to be sent away to a forced labor camp for 10-25 years where you will be physically and mentally tortured.
Justice is not guaranteed. It is easy to take for granted everything that we have in the United States. Although it has its faults, we should all be thankful we live in this country. We can speak our minds without the fear of being hauled away to a remote prison camp where we are brutalized at the hands of our government. We must do what we can to protect the rights of those in this country, regardless of whether we agree with them.