this post was submitted on 11 Dec 2024
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You are factually incorrect in the very first statement. "Gulag" means "главное управление исправительно-трудовых лагерей" and is a name of a state agency directly operating a network of concentration/forced labor camps. Each of the camps had their name, control and command structures and operated under direct oversight of some best Stalin's chaps.
Also, it wasn't just 'prison'. Each of them was a concentration camp for politically it otherwise unsound elements, that provided Stalin with supply of free slave labor.
"It wasn't a prison! It was [definition of prison]"
I'll direct you to @RedWizard@hexbear.net in his comment here going over the Soviet prison system, along with myth-dispelling surrounding the Soviet prison labor system.
You didn't need to direct me anywhere to accept that you made a clear factual mistake.
The Gulag system was the Prison system of the USSR for much of its existence. No, it did not translate directly into "prison," but that doesn't change that it was the prison system, and moreover the conditions of many gulags were favorable compared to American prisons. It's worth reading RedWizard's comment because he dispelled a lot of the myths you perpetuate.