Posted on 06/08/2012 4:24:18 PM PDT by Olog-hai
In the Russian Arctic lies buried an unfinished railway built by prisoners of Stalin's gulags. For decades, no-one talked about it. But one woman is now telling the story of the thousands who suffered there—and there is talk of bringing back to life the abandoned railway itself. …
Lyudmila (Lipatova) and I had uncovered a tiny section of one of Joseph Stalin's cruelest and most ambitious projects—the Trans-Polar Main Line. It was (Stalin's) attempt to conquer the Arctic—part of what he called his Great Plan for the Transformation of Nature.
The scheme was supposed to link the eastern and western parts of Siberia with a 1,000-mile (1,609-km) railway stretching from the city of Inta, in Komi Autonomous Republic, through Salekhard to Igarka, on the Yenisei River. …
The labor force was almost entirely made up of "enemies of the people"—prisoners convicted of "political" offenses. Gulags 501 and 503 were created specially for the railway, and every 6-8 miles (10-12 km) along the track, there were camps. Prisoners built their own wooden barracks, but the unlucky ones in the front units had to take shelter in canvas tents. …
According to some estimates, 300,000 prisoners were enslaved on the project and nearly a third of them perished in the process. But Lyudmila says that the real death toll and exact number of camps and prisoners are not known since no accurate records were kept.
By the time Stalin died in 1953, over 370 miles (600 km) had been built, but it was never completed. … The tracks sank back into the tundra. The railway to nowhere, with its huge cost in human lives, became known as the Dead Road. …
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.co.uk ...
What makes Obama and Clinton supporters think this would not happen to them. They rule by fear and they will make examples.
Stalin also tried to build a canal from the Baltic to the Black Sea. He sent hundreds of thousands to die, digging in frozen ground, often without tools. In the end there was nothing but a big weed choked ditch.
Yeah, just like the Romans, you gotta go in and crucify a few people.
Uncle Joe was stark,raving mad.
I knew a girl from Salekhard. She said that during the commie days there were active coal mines up there, past the Arctic circle. Another girl I knew in Omsk grew up in a city in the Kolyma, also way up north. She said the only way in and out was by aircraft and in the wintertime the stores were often bare. Once the CCCP went belly up, everyone got the heck out.
See, even nature itself bows down to the 5 year plan...to laugh in its face.
Well, no one died in Buffalo building the light rail, but it goes to the same place.
Not a surprise, especially if the government never quite got round to handing out property to the residents. In China, the government has kept most of the rural population in place by granting the functional equivalent of ownership (70-year leaseholds*) to many tenant farmers. These leaseholds can be bought and sold, so many have been leaving the more remote areas after "selling" their plots of land, but the mere fact of property ownership (of a kind) has kept many farmers in place instead of surging towards the big cities.
* These leaseholds don't require any lease payments, but the land reverts to the government after 70 years dating from when they were granted, sometime after the Chinese regime began to allow private business activity starting in 1979.
Stalin was one evil dude
Even sicker, we had people like Walter Duranty (NY Times) who refused to report on Stalin’s atrocities in the 1930’s...that far back we had many in the USA who supported Stalinism...sick
Oh $hit! Sounds like Hollywood should make a movie about the “Railroad of Death”. Everyone knows all about Hitler’s evil crimes. But equally sinister crimes committed by Stalin is often ignored and forgotten.....
.that far back we had many in the USA who supported Stalinism...sick
&&&
Still some supporting it.
Read Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s “Gulag Archipelago” Vols. I-III. It is a tremendous, eye opening, first person account of Stalin’s 700 “destructive” labor camps throughout the Soviet Union, designed for one purpose, death to enemies of the state. Solzhenitsyn himself, an officer is the Soviet Army during the Second World War, made the mistake of criticizing Stalin in a letter home to his family. The KGB reviewed mail of personnel from time to time, came across his letter, and sent him to Siberia, expecting him to die. He survived. Another great book, later made into a movie about the same experience, was “Onr Day in the life of Ivan Denisovich” talk about depressing. A tiresome defender of Christianity and Freedom, who paid his dues and is now residing with his Redeemer. RIP.
Written by a survivor of Stalin's political paranoia. Funny thing is, many of the political prisoners were still praising Stalin as they were being shipped off in box cars to slave labor camps. Great conditioning.
Freep-mail me to get on or off my pro-life and Catholic List:
Please ping me to note-worthy Pro-Life or Catholic threads, or other threads of general interest.
Translation: “Railway” = “Railroad” in American English
I would have called him "tireless" myself.
Hmm. As in “Norfolk & Western Railway”, “Southern Railway”, “Chicago and North Western Railway” . . . ?
I’ve said for years, in fact, so long that I can almost claim I’ve said for decades; “The world is awash with oil”.
The evidence for the truth of that statement keeps piling up.
Goddamn that is one bigass country in landmass. How are these idiots ever going to defend every inch of that 50 years from now given their imploding birthrate?
Kindly old Uncle Joe, FDR’s buddy and Alger Hiss’ idol, also built canals to hell, gold mines to hell, factories to hell, etc., etc.
But "Ivan" is a 2-evening read -- maximum -- and it is a remarkable book.
Given the political climate in Hollywood, you'll likely hear the Dixie Chicks sing I'm No Communist before you see that movie made. That's why Darkness at Noon, Arthur Koestler's novel about Stalinist repression, Out of the Night, Jan Valtin's riveting account of his life as a Communist agent, and the story of Whittaker Chanbers and Alger Hiss were never made into movies.
You are correct. Long week and blurry brain is my temporary affliction.
In this country, rail companies tend to use the term "railway," probably because it's a broader term that covers street cars, subways, monorails and other forms of rail transportation.
http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/pearl/www.geocities.com/Pentagon/6315/fdr.html
Thanks Olog-hai.
From the National Guardian
March 16, 1953
On Stalin
By W.E.B. DuBois
Joseph Stalin was a great man; few other men of the 20th century approach his stature. He was simple, calm and courageous. He seldom lost his poise; pondered his problems slowly, made his decisions clearly and firmly; never yielded to ostentation nor coyly refrained from holding his rightful place with dignity. He was the son of a serf but stood calmly before the great without hesitation or nerves. But also - and this was the highest proof of his greatness - he knew the common man, felt his problems, followed his fate.
Stalin was not a man of conventional learning; he was much more than that: he was a man who thought deeply, read understandingly and listened to wisdom, no matter whence it came. He was attacked and slandered as few men of power have been; yet he seldom lost his courtesy and balance; nor did he let attack drive him from his convictions nor induce him to surrender positions which he knew were correct. As one of the despised minorities of man, he first set Russia on the road to conquer race prejudice and make one nation out of its 140 groups without destroying their individuality.
His judgment of men was profound. He early saw through the flamboyance and exhibitionism of Trotsky, who fooled the world, and especially America. The whole ill-bred and insulting attitude of Liberals in the U.S. today began with our naive acceptance of Trotsky’s magnificent lying propaganda, which he carried around the world. Against it, Stalin stood like a rock and moved neither right nor left, as he continued to advance toward a real socialism instead of the sham Trotsky offered.
Three great decisions faced Stalin in power and he met them magnificently: first, the problem of the peasants, then the West European attack, and last the Second World War. The poor Russian peasant was the lowest victim of tsarism, capitalism and the Orthodox Church. He surrendered the Little White Father easily; he turned less readily but perceptibly from his ikons; but his kulaks clung tenaciously to capitalism and were near wrecking the revolution when Stalin risked a second revolution and drove out the rural bloodsuckers...
http://www.mltranslations.org/Miscellaneous/DuBoisJVS.htm
Good find!
““One Day in the life of Ivan Denisovich””
People can say what they will about Putin, but he’s requiring all high school students to read that book. I only wish that American kids were also required to read it.
The book is absolutely legendary. Once it came out (when Khrushchev backed off a bit on censorship), it ended the concept of the Gulag (at least on anything near the scale that Stalin did it). The people now knew the truth and simply would not put up with that crap anymore.
>>>>>>>>>>>I knew a girl from Salekhard. She said that during the commie days there were active coal mines up there, past the Arctic circle. Another girl I knew in Omsk grew up in a city in the Kolyma, also way up north. She said the only way in and out was by aircraft and in the wintertime the stores were often bare. Once the CCCP went belly up, everyone got the heck out.>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
In fact Russian North is alive and well. Salekhard is a capital of Yanao federal district, one of the wealthiest in Russia in both average corporate and household income.
Now comes the boy-king whistling his esses, whispering to Medvedev of flexibility before fascism.Anita Dunne swooned over Mao, and Frank Marshall Davis extolled the glorious Red Army.
Ayers not only did not repent of his little bomb episode, hiding behind women.
He also forecast eliminating twenty-five million who would resist the revolution.
Which we'll suffer if boy-king gets the greenlight.
The new trilateral: Putinburg, Beijing, the Red House.
Hurry, November.
Khrushchev denounced Stalin but was replaced by Brezhnev for pursuing detente with Kennedy.
Clinton broke with the Technicolor Catastrophe but is back--perhaps The Beard was looking at unemployment.
Phil, you sure do have a way with words...!
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2893282/posts?page=41#41
That’s art. Really good!
You are right. It was the White Sea, not the Black Sea.
>>>>>>>>>>>Goddamn that is one bigass country in landmass. How are these idiots ever going to defend every inch of that 50 years from now given their imploding birthrate?>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Well, they have a world’s second largest illegal alien population of more than 10 million people from Cenrtal Asia, China and Vietnam and these people are breeding like rabbits on welfare.
.
.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.