The 50's USSR Becomes Today's USA
Stalin didn't create a seamless terror state Dictator repressed nonexistent conspiracies
Say what you will about Joseph Stalin, but at least the man ran a top-notch crime control apparatus. Freed of the petty constraints of due process and human rights, the crack investigative team at the KGB ran down leads swiftly and diligently. When they found someone with information, they tortured him, quickly generating accurate information and keeping the authorities ahead of the curve. Stalin's Soviet Union had its problems: bad weather, economic deprivation, a certain absence of political freedom, etc. But the criminal justice system -- that was solid.
Well, no.
It wasn't like that at all. Pervasive surveillance, an absence of due process and widespread use of torture, shockingly enough, didn't create an effective law enforcement system. Instead, you got the madness of the Great Purge. Thousands upon thousands of supposed traitors and saboteurs were arrested and sent away to the gulag for, essentially, no reason at all. Rather than the Soviet security forces serving as a hyper-effective mechanism for rooting out a conspiracy, the utter absence of restraint on those forces led to mass repression of a conspiracy that didn't even exist.
Full Article, SF Chronicle, September 24, 2006--Well worth taking a few minutes to finish reading
Say what you will about Joseph Stalin, but at least the man ran a top-notch crime control apparatus. Freed of the petty constraints of due process and human rights, the crack investigative team at the KGB ran down leads swiftly and diligently. When they found someone with information, they tortured him, quickly generating accurate information and keeping the authorities ahead of the curve. Stalin's Soviet Union had its problems: bad weather, economic deprivation, a certain absence of political freedom, etc. But the criminal justice system -- that was solid.
Well, no.
It wasn't like that at all. Pervasive surveillance, an absence of due process and widespread use of torture, shockingly enough, didn't create an effective law enforcement system. Instead, you got the madness of the Great Purge. Thousands upon thousands of supposed traitors and saboteurs were arrested and sent away to the gulag for, essentially, no reason at all. Rather than the Soviet security forces serving as a hyper-effective mechanism for rooting out a conspiracy, the utter absence of restraint on those forces led to mass repression of a conspiracy that didn't even exist.
Full Article, SF Chronicle, September 24, 2006--Well worth taking a few minutes to finish reading
posted by TLC's Place at 10:23 PM
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