The Soviet system of forced labor camps was first established in 1919 under the Cheka; however, in the early 1930’s camps had reached outrageous numbers. In 1934 the Gulag had several million prisoners. The prisoners ranged from innocent pro-Bolsheviks to guilty Trotsky’s. Conditions were harsh, filthy, and prisoners received inadequate food rations and poor clothing. Over the period of the Stalin dictatorship many people experienced violations of their basic human rights, three in particular were Natasha Petrovskaya, Mikhail Belov, and Olga Andreyeva.
Initially, the first human right that Stalin violated during his reign as dictator of the Soviet Union was everyone is entitled to fair and public hearing by an impartial tribunal. Natasha Petrovskaya was tried three times and still convicted guilty. The judges were biased and were not at all interested. Mikhail Belov was tried by a court of three pro-Bolshevik judges, a troika, and it took 10 minutes to figure out his sentence. Olga Andreyeva was treated unfairly as she did not even get a trial she was simply given 10 years in the G...
This demonstrates that the prisoners are part of a system where the needs of the collective are far more important than the needs of the individual (in both communism and in the prison.) It also reveals the corruption of the Soviet Union because it while it claims that everyone should be equal, the life of the prisoners in the camp are not valued at all. This could be due to the fact that prisoners in the camps aren’t viewed as people, but rather as animals that are being worked to their death.
Linking this back to my previous statement, the accused needed to be trialed. The first problem that arises is the fact that the judges can rule how they please towards the accused. We all have times when we feel better than others and this can affect our reasoning as well as our attitude towards certain aspects of life. This statement also applies to the judges when they are in court. Naturally they are supposed to determine whether the accused is guilty of the crime that has happened and come up with a reasonable and suitable punishment but some judges let their personal affairs get in the way. While this might sound strictly unjust to the accused, the judge displays signs of inequality when he or she lets signs of weakness from the victim affect their final verdict. The judge is there to assign a verdict as well as give out the proper punishment that is associated with the crime that was committed. If the judge changes their decision based on their point of view as well as how they feel towards the accused this means that the judge is bias. This creates an inequality between the accused members because if different people have been accused of the same crime and get the same judge they might get different verdicts depending on what the judge thinks and feels about them. Beccaria states that ‘‘we see the same court
Bardach, Janusz, and Kathleen Gleeson. Man Is Wolf to Man: Surviving the Gulag. Berkeley, CA: University of California, 1998. Print.
“Concentration camps (Konzentrationslager; abbreviated as KL or KZ) were an integral feature of the regime in Nazi Germany between 1933 and 1945. The term concentration camp refers to a camp in which people are detained or confined, usually under harsh conditions and without regard to legal norms of arrest and imprisonment that are acceptable in a constitutional democracy” (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum). The living conditions in these camps were absolutely horrible. The amount of people being kept in one space, amongst being unsanitary, was harsh on the body. “A typical concentration camp consisted of barracks that were secured from escape by barbed wire, watchtowers and guards.
When most people hear the name Joseph Stalin, they usually associate the name with a man who was part of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and was responsible for the deaths of millions of people. He was willingly to do anything to improve the power of the Soviet Union’s economy and military, even if it meant executing tens of millions of innocent people (Frankforter, A. Daniel., and W. M. Spellman 655). In chapter three of Sheila Fitzpatrick’s book, Everyday Stalinism, she argues that since citizens believed the propaganda of “a radiant future” (67), they were able to be manipulated by the Party in the transformation of the Soviet Union. This allowed the Soviet government to expand its power, which ultimately was very disastrous for the people.
Political prisoners and criminals alike were subject to brutal conditions in the Soviet gulags at Kolyma in the 20th century. In Varlam Shalamov’s Kolyma Tales, the stories of many different prisoners are told and much is revealed about how humans react under these pressures, both naturally and socially. Being in an extreme environment not only takes a toll on one’s physical well-being, but on one’s mental and emotional state as well. The stories show that humans can be reduced to a fragile, animalistic state while in the Kolyma work camps because the extreme conditions force many men to focus solely on self-preservation.
Chinese labor camps were created in the 1950s by the Kuomintang as a way to get free labor out of Chinese civilians. When civilians were sent to prison, some would stay in prison and others would go to the labor camps. Prisoners were sent to the labor camps as a way to become reformed through a system they called, “re-education through labor.” In the 1950s, prisoners were sent to Chinese labor camps in order to get a “re-education through labor” and hopefully, come out of the system as better and more productive members of society; but after learning about the Laogai system more in depth, they have not become better and more productive members of society. There were approximately 350 Chinese labor camps . The Kuomintang would sentence Chinese civilians who had committed minor offenses and could be reformed to become a better person for the society. The camps that the prisoners had to live in were very unsanitary. Diseases spread like wildfire and their diets were horrendous. Although no one had spoken up and tried to stop the labor camps, the Laogai system violated The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).
In 1934, Sergey Kirov a rival to Stalin was murdered. Stalin is believed to have been behind the assassination, he used it as a pretext to arrest thousands of his other opponents who in his words might have been responsible for Kirov’s murder. These purges not only affected those who openly opposed Stalin but ordinary people too. During the rule of Stain o...
The domination of political control must be all encompassing and commands authority from the public and private lives of citizens to the functions of social and economic institutions in order to be distinguished as a totalitarian state. Through the study of Juan Linz, Hannah Arendt and other political philosophers, we are able to define the Soviet Union under Stalin’s control as a true totalitarian regime. The simultaneous components of the center of power surrounding Stalin and his Central Committee, a Stalinist ideology manipulated from Marxist and Leninist philosophy, and the mobilization of the population to participate in collectivization and the Five-Year Plans are parallel to Linz’s three basic characteristics a totalitarian system: a monistic centre of power, an ruling ideology and an active participation of citizens for social tasks. The terror legitimized by this ideology, the propaganda surrounding Stalin’s “personality cult”, the millions of citizens purged in the 1930’s and the constant fear of internal enemies and surveillance by both the secret police and friends and neighbours defines totalitarianism as Arendt’s “novel form of government.” A totalitarian movement reaches deep into every aspect of society with a monopolized power that attempts to control every citizen's thoughts and actions. It spawns from the myth of total unity or as Stalin describes, unity of a “living organism.” The vision of the party members and citizens must completely align with those of the great leader as they are working towards a collective future and while total immersion is expected, surveillance and terror will promise to oust any hidden dissidents. Stalin as a leader functioned ruthlessly and efficiently to develop the Soviet Union ...
His next trial was the seventeenth one which was in January 1937. That one included Pyatakov, Serebryakov, Muralov, Sokolnikov, and Radek. The twenty-first trial was the final one, and that one was very important. It 's important because it involved the Red Army generals. The generals were Rykov, Bukharin, Krestinsky, Rakovsky, and Yagoda.
As a dictator Stalin was very strict about his policies, especially working. For instance. Stalin had set quotas very high , as they were very unrealistic. The workers had very long days, and under the rule of Stalin most people worked many hours in overtime, and resulting in no pay. Stalin treated workers very, very harshly. Those who did not work were exiled to Siberia or killed. Some may say you got what you deserved in Stalin’s time. Those who worked very hard for Stalin sometimes got bonuses such as trips, or goods likes televisions and refrigerators. The workers had to conform to Stalin’s policies . Stalin’s harsh treatment of workers received a very unwelcoming response, but in fact the liberal amount of goods that the workers had made, had in fact
"Gulag: Soviet Forced Labor Camps and the Struggle for Freedom." Gulag: Soviet Forced Labor Camps and the Struggle for Freedom. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Mar. 2014. .
Introduction One of the main reasons why human rights have been put in place is to protect the public life and public space of every individual being. One fundamental characteristic of human rights is that they are equal rights; they are aimed at providing protection to every person in an equal way. These rights have been entrenched through laws that are passed by states and international conventions. Human rights laws have evolved over time, and have been shaped by several factors, including philosophical theories in the past. This paper looks at the theories of two philosophers, Emmanuel Kant and John Stuart Mills, and how their teachings can be used to explain the sources of human rights.
The Nazis are a group that didn’t care about anyone but themselves, there was a unit called unit 731 committed by the commander Shiro Ishii and a couple of others under his command. The Nazis would deliberately infect prisoners with syphilis and gonorrhea via rape. The Soviets tested several deadly poisons on prisoners in the gulag, including mustard gas, ricin, digitoxin and several others. The Soviets wanted and tried hard to find a tasteless and odorless chemical so that it could not be detected before it had taken effect. The poison was given to the prisoners by food or a drink as medication....
Indubitably, all human beings are equally entitled human rights without discrimination. It is very important as it is inherent to all human beings and it enables effective functioning of the administration and dispensation of justice. If the authority or respect for law is weakened, then the public will diminish their confidence in the administration of justice. If the courts authority is not adhered to in court administration of legal proceedings, then it reduces the chances for a fair trial for the persons involved in the case. Hence, the courts reserves the right to punish those preside or wilfully interfere with its authority.