One Day In the Life of Denisovich

From the years 1927 - 1953, the people of the Soviet Union experienced the Stalinist era. This was different, a more radical type of government than what the Russians were used to. Now dictators, such as Stalin, ran governments. Many were put into Communist labor camps, which were just like other concentration camps during their era. Throughout this paper, the reasons why the Communist labor camps were like other concentration camps will be mentioned, as well as how people of this camp demonstrated the characteristics of totalitarian regime, and how people's behavior brought out the effect of Stalin's Communist regime on the Soviet Union during this period will be dicussed.

Concentration camps were large detention centers where many people that belonged to groups that the leader of that country opposed were sent. Many were "slave laborers in the camp," but others were just killed right away (McKay 986). The slave laborers were sent to labor camps to do forced labor.

Soviet Union - FDC European U-18 Football Champion...

English: Joseph Stalin

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksand...

The ones that were killed right away were in extermination camps because they were going to be exterminated, or wiped out of society. In the book A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, the character Tiurin mentioned being in a situation of being brought into a labor camp just because of belonging to a certain class. He said that he was, "a kulak's son" (Solzhenitsyn). Kulaks were basically the "better off peasants. People who were referred to as kulak were accused of being against the new system" (McKay 960).

In concentration camps, prisoners were usually woken up bright and early in the morning. The time was usually around five in the morning. During the winter, no one would really want to get up that early because of the fact that the weather was so freezing cold and...