Question Commander Week 2 - James

What were some of the offenses that could send you to a Gulag camp?

Many people that were sent to Gulags were real criminals that robbed and killed people but weren’t. There were many innocent people sent to work in Gulag camps just for the fact that they were late to work or they told a joke that was about a government official. During the 1932 - 1933 famine people were desperate to feed themselves and their family members. People would take small amounts of grains and potatoes from farms where they would work. Many people were caught and were sentenced to 10 years in Gulag camps. Coming to work late three times resulted in a three year sentence in a Gulag. Even after sentences were served people were exiled from the country for a certain amount of time or forever. After the Staline era people went back to russia to look for their children and family members only to never find them.

Why did the Russian government need Gulags?

The Russian government made Gulags to implement fear among citizens. Gulags were also a source of free labor for the government and for the country. People were forced to mine and build for long hours with little food in remote locations and extreme climates. Lots of people were scared of going to Gulags. This was the intention of the Stalin Dictatorship. They used fear to their advantage to rule over the population.

What are the comparisons between Gulags and Jewish concentration camps?

The largest comparison between Gulags and Jewish concentration camps is that the prisoners were both forced to do hard labor. Prisoner in both camps had little food and clothes. There was also large numbers of both camps around their country and there were infamous camps. In both camps viscous guards are always found keeping people in line. On the other hand Stalin did not want to kill a mass of people unlike hitler which wanted to eliminate the jewish community and other people which did not fit into his vision of a perfect race. In Gulags people were given food based on the amount of work they did unlike in the Jewish concentration camps where people were given small amounts of bread and soup.