mbs
From: "Chris Doss" <itschris13 at hotmail.com>
I just read that during the worst years of Stalin only 2.5% of the Soviet population was in prison. This CAN'T be true, can it?
Your stay in the GULAG could be short for one of two reasons, remember.
What's the current guess of deaths during the collectivization of agriculture? 5 million? What proportion of the 5 million "displaced persons" returned to the Soviet Union after World War II ever made it home? Half? Perhaps 1 million shot by the NKVD during the Great Terror itself who never made it to the GULAG.
I do remember being struck that *both* of Gorbachev's grandparents were arrested during the 1930s (although both survived): his paternal grandfather for failing to meet production targets, and his maternal grandfather for being a right-wing Trotskyist. Stalin was much harder on Communists than on peasants and workers, and the closer you got to Stalin, the lower your chances of surviving became...
Brad DeLong