What is it about activists and their gulag fetish? What gives?

Russia: Rights Group Compares Current State Of Country’s Prisons To Gulags

In a new report, a group of leading Russian rights activists is accusing authorities of ignoring systemic abuses and torture in the country’s prisons. The nongovernmental movement For Human Rights compares the current prison system to the infamous gulags of the Soviet Union. The rights group is calling for new legislation allowing public oversight of detention facilities. The activists are also calling for the dismissal of the country’s top prison official

As a matter of fact, considering I’ve had to wait 2 months to get a damn DSL connection in Germany, I think I’m going to write to the German news and compare Germany to a Soviet Gulag. After all, I bet those political prisoners and slave workers didn’t have any internet, poor devils. But seriously, this article above is just another one to heap on the already huge pile of radical exaggerations and horribly misinformed comparisons that the increasingly radicalized left has been making, thus leading to their decreasing credibility. As Nathan of Registan noted

Free societies depend on oversight and they welcome informed criticism, particularly on human rights issues. But those who make such outlandish charges lose any claim to objectivity or seriousness.

Curzon has blogged extensively on this in the past. Curon posted this on the Gulags

Individuals Detained:Approximately 20 million passed through the Gulag. The population at any one time was generally around two million.

Reasons for Imprisonment:Opposition to the Soviet regime’s forced collectivization, including efforts to hide grain in cellars; owning too many cows; need for slave labor to complete massive industrialization and mining projects; political opposition to the Soviet system; being Jewish; being Finnish; being religious; being middle class; being in need of reeducation; having had contact with foreigners; refusing to sleep with the head of Soviet counterintelligence; telling a joke about Stalin.

Deaths:At least two to three million.

Typical Treatment:For the most part, Gulag prisoners provided labor for the Soviet system. Treatment varied widely, but most prisoners lived in overcrowded barracks, and prisoners occasionally killed one another in an effort to find space to sleep. Deadly dysentery and typhus outbreaks were common. Prisoners often had inadequate clothing to protect themselves from the elements, and most camps lacked running water and heat.

Though the comparison is clearly over the top, one still can’t ignore the parallels that do exist. Yet, choosing to present their case in such an extreme way is merely proof that such organizations are increasingly catering to the interests of the extreme left. While their content is important for everyone, their presentation increasingly appeals to only one side, which coincidentally is the side with little political power.

Yet, the other thing that occurs to me is whether this release was aimed more at the Russian public or the international public. The rest of the world would find this far more upsetting I would imagine as many Russians still seem to have a soft spot in their heart for the USSR and Stalin. Food for thought.

What would be the most constructive way to present such findings, whether in Russia, the US or elsewhere. Short of photos of prisoners wearing leashes or naked in piles, sensationalist claims usually don’t go far.

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