Solzhenitsyn on Gulags: Harmless Fraternity Pranks?

[Taverner]

In light of Gitmo being just "harmless fraternity pranks" according to the Frists and Limbaughs of the world...here is an account of a gulag from someone who knows Gulags - Alexander Solzhenitsyn. His accounts of Soviet Gulag life seem eerily similar to Abu Gharab and Gitmo...

In The Gulag Solzhenitsyn writes:

Let us try to list some of the simplest methods which break the will and the character of the prisoner without leaving marks on his body Let us begin with psychological methods.....

1. First of all: night. Why is it that all the main work of breaking down human souls went on at night? Why, from their very earliest years, did the Organs select the night? Because at night, the prisoner, torn from sleep, even though he has not yet been tortured by sleepless-ness, lacks his normal daytime equanimity and common sense. He is more vulnerable.

2. Persuasion in a sincere tone is the very simplest method. Why play at cat and mouse, so to speak? After all, having spent some time among others undergoing interrogation, the prisoner has come to see what the situation is. And so the interrogator says to him in a lazily friendly way: "Look, you're going to get a prison term whatever happens. But if you resist, you'll croak right here in prison, you'll lose your health. But if you go to camp, you'll have fresh air and sunlight. So why not sign right now?" Very logical. And those who agree and sign are smart, if _ if the matter concerns only themselves! But that's rarely so. A struggle is inevitable....

<snip>

5. Preliminary humiliation was another approach. In the famous cellars of the Rostov-on-the-Don GPU (House 33), which were lit by lenslike insets of thick glass in the sidewalk above the former storage basement, prisoners awaiting interrogation were made to lie face down for several hours in the main corridor and forbidden to raise their heads or make a sound. They lay this way, like Moslems at prayer, until the guard touched a shoulder and took them off to interrogation. Another ease: At the Lubyanka, Aleksandra O_-va refused to give the testimony demanded of her. She was transferred to Lefortovo. In the admitting office, a woman jailer ordered her to undress, allegedly for a medical examination, took away her clothes, and locked her in a "box" naked. At that point the men jailers began to peer through the peephole and to appraise her female attributes with loud laughs. If one were systematically to question former prisoners, many more such examples would certainly emerge. They all had but a single purpose: to dishearten and humiliate.

<snip>

full excerpt at :

http://rempost.blogspot.com/2005/06/from-solzhenitsyns-gulag-simplest.html

[Dr.Phool]

1. It's been over 30 years since I read that book.

So what the fuck did Durbin apologize for?

[Taverner]

2. I know...and the ACLU is RIGHT on