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The Wrath of Kan: A Soviet-Born Anthropologist on Stalin’s Gulag

Uncommon Knowledge

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How to Rehabilitate People in Soviet Prisons

The Gulak system at its height, which I think would be 1940s, was a major part of Soviet economy. They had their own theater, but they also had horrible places for torturing people. And when delegations of Soviet writers come, they're presented with this Potomkin villages where they are making a movie and athletic competitions. But eventually they kind of dropped the rehabilitation part, or at least lowered the importance of that, whereas they have free labor.

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