WHEN in the course of human Events, it becomes necessary….
Escaping from the Gulag
byVanderleunonSeptember 8, 2018
Work Detail Execution
Even if there weren’t such camps in existence today I’m far too pessimistic to believe “never again.” If anything, I hope to be the one in the camp rather than the one running it. To that end, here are some lessons I learned from the book to help survive the Gulag.
Your best chance to escape is before you get to the Lubyanka. You’re healthy and you’ve got no walls and fewer guards than you ever will again.
Lie to your interrogators. Remember nothing at all. If you build them a story you’ll get tripped up in the details.
Sign absolutely nothing that they give to you.
Don’t trust the thieves.
Spend what time you have in the transit prison sleeping. You’ll be thankful for it after a tour of general labor.
If you want to survive your ten-ruble note then do whatever you can not to get out on general labor.
The thieves are going to get all the trustee positions.
It’s not the short ration, but the long ration that kills you. (The bonus ration is given to shock-workers who overfulfill the norm. You spend more calories earning it than you get from eating it.)
Don’t bother petitioning Stalin to release you. He wants you right where you are.
Don’t believe the rumors of a general amnesty either.
Gorky won’t tell the world about your prison conditions. Gorky depends on praising the state to maintain his livelihood.
Gorky will end his days in the camps anyway.
Tukhta: A word for the difference between the work you do and the work you tell your commissar you do.
If you get your Tukhta past the commissar then he’s going to be invested in maintaining the illusion to his bosses. He doesn’t want to end up behind the wire.
When the godfather recruits you to inform on your comrades laugh in his face.
Knife stoolies.
To escape requires constant observation, meticulous planning, and a willingness to immediately seize whatever chances fortune throws your way.
Study up on geography now; you’ll be thankful when you’re trying to cross the Kazakh steppes.
When you’re dying of thirst in the desert it doesn’t help to stab your comrade to death to drink his blood to survive a little longer. He’s also badly dehydrated and won’t bleed much at all.
Lie to the commissars. Tell them what they want to hear.
When they let you out they aren’t actually letting you out. They’ll arrest you again and slap another tenner on you.
Many children of gulag prisonerswere separated from their outcast parents and placed in orphanages—including illustrator Danzig Baldaev himself. Due to overcrowding and the general disregard for their lives, many were simply shot. The title reads “9 grams [the weight of a bullet] – Path to a happy childhood under the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.” From “Drawings from the Gulag” by Danzig Baldaev. — Illustrating the Gulag – No Marx.com
I’d say it’s also better to not live in a world with gulags, but the best one can do is keep your head on a swivel and brook no shit. Watch a lot of John Wayne. Revere your fathers. Learn woodscraft (no farking cotton!). Learn to shoot. Learn navigation. Stay honest (already said in the post).
PunditarianSeptember 8, 2018, 3:19 PM
Solzhenitsyn is good, but Varlam Shalamov’s “Kolyma Tales” is better.
DJSeptember 8, 2018, 4:46 PM
You thing I’m ever going to surrender my firearms?
Dan PattersonSeptember 8, 2018, 5:59 PM
Gritty and revealing in a way fiction cannot be. Some of us know hardship, others know poverty or depravity – the variations on a theme from “Brutality in D minor” span human experience since Eve uttered “Well, yeah, but…”. Someone with access to the newly empowered Evita/Bernie/Castro amalgam will be rewarded in the afterlife if a successful conversion from tyranny to liberty is accomplished before the rest of us are forced to pay the toll for their NewWorld Bravado.
In the meantime: I’m Cleanin’ My Gun.
ghostsniperSeptember 8, 2018, 6:05 PM
What firearms?
John A. FlemingSeptember 8, 2018, 8:51 PM
DJ, they’re going to come at you when you least expect it. You won’t be ready. You’ll have no warning. You won’t have time to gear up. Any observed non-immediate-compliance will occasion extreme prejudice. There will be no repercussions for them.
Before you go down, your second to last act should be to get the word out. “One if by land, two if by sea.” Imagine a flurry of gab.ai autoposts tagged “TheyCame”. With pix. Showing the tactics.
RickSeptember 9, 2018, 5:58 AM
I look at the photo and ask myself the same question I always do when I see situations like that. 100 people who know they are ready to be shot in the head. 6,8, 20 guards. If the prisoners suddenly attacked the guards some would surely die but most probably wouldn’t, at least not at that moment. Yet, it rarely ever happens. People stand quietly waiting for sure death.
pbirdSeptember 9, 2018, 7:58 AM
Don’t watch any John Wayne. Are you kidding? That blowhard faker. Really?
PunditarianSeptember 9, 2018, 8:51 AM
What makes you think they were going to kill all of them? They were only going to kill that one guy. Would you assault half a dozen armed guards because they were going to kill one guy whom you probably didn’t like anyway?
Ghost: I don’t have any firearms, either. Certified: none at all. Also, I gave all my knives to the local homeless kitchen, and any spoons with sharp edges to a nice local organization of youths who wear black hoodies.
Real World Address for Donations, Mash Notes and Hate Mail
Gerard Van der Leun
1692 MANGROVE AVE
APT 379
Chico, Ca 95926
Green Pants Interior by Klahn
Who Am I? by Carl Sandburg
My head knocks against the stars.
My feet are on the hilltops.
My finger-tips are in the valleys and shores of universal life.
Down in the sounding foam of primal things I reach my hands and play with pebbles of destiny.
I have been to hell and back many times.
I know all about heaven, for I have talked with God.
I dabble in the blood and guts of the terrible.
I know the passionate seizure of beauty
And the marvelous rebellion of man at all signs reading “Keep Off.”
My name is Truth and I am the most elusive captive in the universe.
Duty, Beauty, Liberty, Country, Honor, Family, Faith — Plus a few simple easy to follow rules for guys
Men saw the stars at the edge of the sea
They thought great thoughts about liberty
Poets wrote down words that did fit
Writers wrote books
Thinkers thought about it
Take it where you find it
Can’t leave it alone
You will find a purpose
To carry it on
Mainly when you find it
Your heart will be strong
About it
Many’s the road I have walked upon
Many’s the hour between dusk and dawn
Many’s the time
Many’s the mile
I see it all now
Through the eyes of a child
Take it where you find it
Can’t leave it alone
You will find a purpose
To carry it on
Mainly when you find it
Your heart will be strong
About it
[Chorus]
Lost dreams and found dreams
In America
In America
In America
Lost dreams and found dreams
In America
In America
In America
And close your eyes
Leave it all for a while
Leave the world
And your worries behind
You will build on whatever is real
And wake up each day
To a new waking dream
Take it where you find it
Can’t leave it alone
You will find a purpose
To carry it on
Mainly when you find it
Your heart will be strong
About it
[Chorus]
Change, change come over
Change come over
Talkin’ about a change
Change, change
Change come over, now
Change, change, change come over
I’m gonna walk down the street
Until I see
My shining light
I’m gonna walk down the street
Until I see
My shining light
I’m gonna walk down the street
Until I see
My shining light
I’m gonna walk down the street
Until I see
My shining light
I see my light
See my light
See my shining light
I see my light
See my light
See my shining light
Many children of gulag prisoners were separated from their outcast parents and placed in orphanages—including illustrator Danzig Baldaev himself. Due to overcrowding and the general disregard for their lives, many were simply shot. The title reads “9 grams [the weight of a bullet] – Path to a happy childhood under the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.” From “Drawings from the Gulag” by Danzig Baldaev. — Illustrating the Gulag – No Marx.com
Gerard Van der Leun
Comments on this entry are closed.
I’d say it’s also better to not live in a world with gulags, but the best one can do is keep your head on a swivel and brook no shit. Watch a lot of John Wayne. Revere your fathers. Learn woodscraft (no farking cotton!). Learn to shoot. Learn navigation. Stay honest (already said in the post).
Solzhenitsyn is good, but Varlam Shalamov’s “Kolyma Tales” is better.
You thing I’m ever going to surrender my firearms?
Gritty and revealing in a way fiction cannot be. Some of us know hardship, others know poverty or depravity – the variations on a theme from “Brutality in D minor” span human experience since Eve uttered “Well, yeah, but…”. Someone with access to the newly empowered Evita/Bernie/Castro amalgam will be rewarded in the afterlife if a successful conversion from tyranny to liberty is accomplished before the rest of us are forced to pay the toll for their NewWorld Bravado.
In the meantime: I’m Cleanin’ My Gun.
What firearms?
DJ, they’re going to come at you when you least expect it. You won’t be ready. You’ll have no warning. You won’t have time to gear up. Any observed non-immediate-compliance will occasion extreme prejudice. There will be no repercussions for them.
Before you go down, your second to last act should be to get the word out. “One if by land, two if by sea.” Imagine a flurry of gab.ai autoposts tagged “TheyCame”. With pix. Showing the tactics.
I look at the photo and ask myself the same question I always do when I see situations like that. 100 people who know they are ready to be shot in the head. 6,8, 20 guards. If the prisoners suddenly attacked the guards some would surely die but most probably wouldn’t, at least not at that moment. Yet, it rarely ever happens. People stand quietly waiting for sure death.
Don’t watch any John Wayne. Are you kidding? That blowhard faker. Really?
What makes you think they were going to kill all of them? They were only going to kill that one guy. Would you assault half a dozen armed guards because they were going to kill one guy whom you probably didn’t like anyway?
pbird, calling an actor a faker. I don’t get it.
Ghost: I don’t have any firearms, either. Certified: none at all. Also, I gave all my knives to the local homeless kitchen, and any spoons with sharp edges to a nice local organization of youths who wear black hoodies.
I don’t get it either Casey.