Why We Must Remember the Gulags of the USSR.
I’m currently reading The Gulag Archipelago by: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and it is shocking. I expected to be uncomfortable reading it, however nothing could have prepared me for what I was about to find on the pages. Born in 1979, growing up in the 1980’s, I watched the Berlin wall fall. Although I was young, I knew that what was unfolding on the TV before me was an important part of history. Years later I went on to earn a BA in Political Science, studied communism, and focused on international relations. Nonetheless it wasn’t until I started reading The Gulag Archipelago that I learned the atrocities that ensued under Lenin and Stalin. As I read, it dawned on me the lack of knowledge that younger generations have regarding political ideology. As the Cold War ended Communism was seen as evil and yet now, somehow, it’s become almost welcome as an acceptable alternative.
What changed? As the cold war came to an end in 1991, the Berlin wall was literally torn down by German citizens. They showed the world that Communism was a failure. However, when we fast forward 32 years to today we see large parts of our society leaning into dependance on the state. We have gotten so soft, so comfortable that we see any inconvenience as a tragedy against us. Everything offends us and upsets us. We are upset when our door dasher forgets our drink, even though we overlook the convenience of having food delivered to our front porch (yes, I’m guilty of this myself). We are outraged when someone disagrees with whatever opinion of ours, we are expressing. We have to take a mental health break when someone at work says we performed poorly (even when many times we did). We are both mentally and physically wea. What happened to us as a nation? How did we become so complacent?
To find the answer all we have to do is look back to the Second World War. Between December 7th, 1941, and September 11th, 2001, there wasn’t a single attack on U.S soil. For 60 years the United States lived in a bubble of “safety”. After World War two any war that we fought in, financed, or gave aid to occurred outside the United States. One of the reasons that September 11th, 2001, was so devastating was because it happened on U.S soil. It’s easy to lose track of what our service men and women are doing overseas. Unless you have a family member in the armed forces most of us don’t pay attention to what is going on. When, however, you have loved ones flying for work, or leisure and their plane suddenly crashes into a building the feeling of safety dissipates. Nonetheless time allows people to forget. Memories fade away and what once shocked us, becomes an afterthought. September 11th, 2001 was twenty-two years ago. There are generations of adults that either weren’t alive when it happened or were too young to understand the significance.
Even directly after the Twin Towers fell our lives didn’t change significantly, but our society began to slowly change. I believe the change started innocently enough when The Patriot Act was established to keep Americans safe from terrorists and signed into agreement in 2001 following the September 11th attacks.
The Patriot Act is legislation passed in 2001 to improve the abilities of U.S. law enforcement to detect and deter terrorism. The act’s official title is, “Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism,” or USA-PATRIOT. Though the Patriot Act was modified in 2015 to help ensure the Constitutional rights of ordinary Americans, some provisions of the law remain controversial. (Editors, 2023)
When the Patriot Act first came out, I was absolutely fine with it. I think that most Americans were. After witnessing the collapse of the world trade towers Americans were terrified. I remember thinking “let them tap my phone, I haven’t done anything wrong”. Unfortunately, the problem with that thought process is that it legally allows the government access into each individual’s life. What starts off as “protection” can very quickly become “corruption”.
The first chapter of Gulag talks about when, where, and how civilians were arrested. Essentially anyone could be arrested at any time for anything at all. Civilians were rounded up like cattle and sent to prison. Entire towns were arrested at one time. But that’s not the part that terrifies me. Governments have been enacting control over their citizens for as long as Governments have existed. The truly terrifying part is that 99% of the citizens arrested simply followed the arresting officer into the Gulag without demanding to know what they were being arrested for. There was no trial, there was no jury, there was only obedience. They obeyed, they complied, they did exactly what they were told to do and because of their failure to act many of them died for nothing. Why would they do this, one might ask? Why wouldn’t they say no, put up a fight or in the very least demand to know what they were being arrested for. I do not know, however I’m sure fear had a lot to do with it. When one is that afraid of your government you don’t put up a fight.
The younger generation of Americans can’t comprehend the complete lack of power the USSR’s citizens had. How can they understand when they live in a society where they have everything they need? When society placated and coddled them? Many grew up in one parent households where the parents weren’t equipped to raise a family on their own, so they turned to the state for help. If they were lucky enough to have both parents around, many times both parents worked and they were put into daycare, then grade school and public high school.
I grew up in the exact situation I speak of. When my parents divorced my sister, and I were primarily raised by my mother. Although I knew my father and he contributed financially we did not receive the guidance of both parents’ day in and day out. Years later I myself had to rely on government assistance to put my own children into daycare while I worked as their father refused to contribute in any way. I don’t fault single parents; we are all trying to get through the day the best we can.
As easy as it would be to do, we can’t blame our weakmindedness' on the breakdown of traditional values. Children that grew up with a “traditional family” were also done a true disservice. Sadly, I believe the culprit has been the past 70 years of prosperity that have created our weak society. Because the vast majority of Americans had their basic needs met and more, we never had to work for anything. Our parents wanted to give us everything that they didn’t have themselves when they grew up. It came from a place of love, what parent doesn’t want to give their children a better life than they had? But it spiraled out of control. We give our kids trophies for participating instead of winning, we enable them to the point where they return home continuing to live off of us instead of forging a life of their own. We teach them their feelings are more important than reality, telling them they are healthy and beautiful no matter what they look like or how unhealthy they really are. The intentions are good, but we all know that the road to hell is paved by good intentions. This was done in an effort to make kids feel good, and now they rely on everyone else including the government to take care of them.
Wait a moment though…. What’s wrong with the government taking care of us? Isn’t that the role of our government? We have to remember that when you trust an entity to keep you secure you are forced to give up freedom. In order to keep citizens, secure the government has to take away certain freedoms. For example, driving a car wouldn’t be safe if traffic laws didn’t exist. If anyone was allowed to drive at any age people would be dying all the time. Imagine an 11-year-old behind the wheel of a car. Or if an electrician didn’t need schooling but could work on any faulty powerline just to get a paycheck. Imagine the deaths that could occur. Laws and guidelines keep people safe. But where do we draw the line?
The government will take care of our children. It will take care of us all. It will give us shelter, keep us safe, provide health care for the diseases we have given ourselves as we ingest the prepared and processed food the government provides. The government is more than happy to give us all of these things and many more for a very small price. The price for all of these government provisions is simply our freedom. It is very simple; society can’t be free and secure at the same time.
Today’s security has far surpassed basic security measures. Forget driver’s licenses and electrician certifications. Our society is making sure that everyone’s feelings are secure. What a tragedy it would be if someone felt sad or not good enough. Society can’t allow that! These days if you speak the English language correctly by addressing someone with their proper pronoun, or if you say you aren’t attracted to a woman who is 350lbs you are a misogynist. You must go along with and agree to what anyone says they are or aren’t. Truth and reality don’t matter, but feelings do. You can’t prefer one thing over another, you have to like everything exactly the same. Women are exactly the same as men and can do whatever they want, unless they want to stay at home and raise children. If you want that as a woman you are pathetic and a fascist. The government promotes and allows this to happen. It does so by mandating a certain number of jobs to specific groups of people even if they are less qualified. It does this by not allowing certain races into colleges. The list goes on and on.
What kind of security is this? Are we safe? Are our children safe? Are we all getting along, living in one utopian country? We are not. As much as the government and society try to make everyone happy and equal it is impossible. Feelings will be hurt; life isn’t fair and dictating the way people should speak or act never works. Who is society and the government protecting? Are they protecting you for your own good or their own good? As we the people continue to allow the government to dictate what we say, the way we live our lives and raise our children, we are handing over our freedom for fake, unrealistic, and unattainable security.
The United States Government is growing larger every year. It is taking more control of our lives. We pay higher taxes, we pay higher healthcare premiums, we eat more processed food, we buy from corporations instead of small businesses because it’s easy and convenient. We ignore truth and reality all in the name of altruism. The family system is breaking down because we are told that we are all the same and that we don’t need men. The truth is that we do need men just as much as we need women. It is our differences that make us perfect. We forget or have never been taught that sacrificing oneself for the greater good is the root of communism, tyranny, and death. The Gulag’s need to be remembered. The books need to be read. History is doomed to repeat itself if it is not taught from one generation to the next.
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