victims of communism Archives - Euromaidan Press

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6 minute read

Does the Kremlin fear repeats of 1962 Novocherkassk events – and would it react equally brutally?

Reports that Russian police are training to suppress working class risings appear especially ominous given that they come…

byPaul A. Goble

Magadan Hills, a painting by Mykola Hetman, a former GULAG prisoner, born December 23, 1917 in Kharkov, Ukraine. Background of the picture: In 1932, members of a Soviet geological expedition discovered gold at the mouth of the Utinny River in Siberia. A GULAG settlement was built between the villages of Balaganny and Ola, the hills there destroyed, piers built, and the settlement named Magadan after a nearby stream. Forced laborers were brought in to build roads from Magadan to the gold. Building the roads was incredibly harsh labor in the permafrost. The prisoners were poorly fed and worked for long hours under fierce conditions with rudimentary tools. The sentiment expressed here is that the roads were built on human bones—that every hill, every gully, and every path in Magadan represents human lives and could be the site of a human grave. The sun is eclipsed to symbolize the darkness and evil that cast its shadow over the people of the Soviet Union. The cross represents the enormous burdens the prisoners had to bear. It also symbolizes Christ's trek up the hill of Golgotha, which the artist likens to the prisoners' journey. (Source: thegulag.org)

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9 minute read

Why do many Westerners show sympathy to Russia and Communism – but not to their victims?

Those who study the post-Soviet world and especially its non-Russian parts are often struck by the fact that…

byPaul A. Goble