Of course there were labor camps, but you wouldn't get sent to one for, oh, reading Solzhenitsyn. (On the other hand, possessing officially verboten texts like that would complicate things for you if you were investigated for a crime -- it would be adduced as evidence of an anti-Soviet attitude.) Everybody listed to the Voice of America (which was 90% propaganda).
I know a guy, a good friend actually, who had a part time job at a hotel during the Moscow Olympics. The KGB asked him to keep tabs on what the foreigners were saying and to say good things about the Soviet Union if asked.
I am still stuck, with increasingly dwindling money, trying to convince the gov. that I am not a criminal or an American spy. This is ridiculous.
>From: "pms" <laflame at aaahawk.com>
>Reply-To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
>To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com>
>Subject: Re: anti-stalinism
>Date: Sun, 14 Jul 2002 10:17:20 -0400
>
>So how do the folks who were harrasssed by the KGB feel about the past and
>the present under KGB-er Putin? Are you saying there were no labor camps
>and stuff like that? Just a mirror-image of the McCarthy era? 'Course
>that
>was bad enough.
>
>And what's up wid you? Are you still stuck? I hope you're getting paid to
>be stuck.
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: Chris Doss <itschris13 at hotmail.com>
>To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com>
>Sent: Sunday, July 14, 2002 6:18 AM
>Subject: Re: anti-stalinism
>
>
> >
> > > I see you are still placing totalitarianism in scare quotes.
> >
> > ---
> >
> > Carrol presumably puts 'totalitarianism' in scare quotes because there
>is
>no
> > such animal as the Arendtian conception of the total state stifling any
>and
> > all dissent, at any and all levels, at the service of ideology. This is
>a
> > caracture. It didn't even happen under Stalin.
> >
> > In my opinion, calling the post-Stalin USSR totalitarian is iffy at
>best.
> > (And I know people who were harrassed by the KGB -- as well as people
>who
> > worked for the KGB. They are everywhere in the FSU. The owner of a nice
> > art-fart cafe in downtown Moscow is ex-KGB.)
> >
> > _________________________________________________________________
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> >
> >
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