Tag Archives: Joseph Stalin

Stalin’s Gulag – The Geography of Soviet Slavery

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This… was not written ‘so that it will not happen again’, as the cliché would have it. This… was written because it almost certainly will happen again.

                                                                Anne Applebaum, Author of Gulag: A History

The Gulag is the most poignant expression of the psychopathic nature of Stalin’s regime. In 1922, just five years after the Bolsheviks had seized power, there were already eighty-four camps dotted across Russia. Faced with the vast numbers of prisoners they had arrested in the first decade of Soviet communism, the Politburo passed a resolution in 1929 officially establishing a network of corrective labour camps for ‘the colonisation of [remote] regions and the exploitation of their natural wealth through the work of prisoners [1].’  Continue reading →

De-civilisation – Stalin in Eastern Europe

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As World War Two ended, Stalin’s occupation of eastern Europe provided him with the opportunity to impose his pathological vision upon eight separate European countries, each with a vastly different cultural, economic and political system. In doing so, he followed a clear blueprint for systematically dismantling the defences that each country had built to protect against tyranny. He began by undermining the rule of law.  Continue reading →

The Soviet Gulag – Stalin’s Slave Camps

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This… was not written ‘so that it will not happen again’, as the cliché would have it. This… was written because it almost certainly will happen again.

Anne Applebaum, Author of Gulag: A History

The Gulag is the most poignant expression of the psychopathic nature of Stalin’s regime. In 1922, just five years after the Bolsheviks had seized power, there were already eighty-four camps dotted across Russia. Faced with the vast numbers of prisoners they had arrested in the first decade of Soviet communism, the Politburo passed a resolution in 1929 officially establishing a network of corrective labour camps for ‘the colonisation of [remote] regions and the exploitation of their natural wealth through the work of prisoners[1].’      Continue reading →

Cult Leaders Aim To Detach Their Followers From Reality

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‘Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a God, but never without belief in a devil.’

For students of the human condition, Eric Hoffer is an indispensible guide. A self-educated dock labourer, Hoffer’s book ‘The True Believer’ is regarded as a classic of political psychology.

This blog post outlines Hoffer’s views on the power of mass movements, including his explanation as to why many ordinary people are willing to give up everything to sacrifice themselves to a ‘greater’ cause – even when that cause involves the slaughter of millions.

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