Review of The Unknown Gulag
The Lost World of Stalin's Special Settlements - Lynne Viola
This book about Soviet 'dekulakization' practices and the fate of the peasant forced labor settlements is an important look into Russian history.
The Unknown Gulag: The Lost World of Stalin’s Special Settlements
Lynne Viola
Oxford University Press
278 pages
Lynne Viola, a history professor at the University of Toronto, has written a book that reveals the geography of a previously unexplored region of Russian history. Capitalist peasants, kulaks, special settlers, or enemies of the Soviet state – whatever they should now be called, hundreds of thousands of them were sent unwilling into Russia’s harsh wilderness to provide a labor force for a totalitarian government that lacked foresight, competence, and mercy. In The Unknown Gulag: The Lost World of Stalin’s Special Settlements, Viola maps the chronology of the process wherein peasant families were rounded up on arbitrary grounds and sent to “special settlements” that became isolated islands of disease, starvation, stigma, misery, and death.
On an academic level, this book is extremely important. Not only does it give voice to those who were silenced for so long (it was not until 1991, when Yeltsin opened up the Soviet archives and the special settlers exonerated of their “crimes,” that this segment of Stalin’s victimized population could even gain acknowledgement for their suffering), but it is an exceedingly useful book. The narration is clean, highly organized, and balances personal testimony with evidence from soviet documentation. A glossary of terms, a chronology of the period in question (primarily the 1920s and 1930s), as well as an appendix and extensive notes supplement the text itself.
On the level of reader engagement, Viola also succeeds. While maintaining an ever-professional tone, her anger towards those who caused needless suffering for literally countless numbers of mostly simple people is palpable and justified. Identifying the human faces behind the so-called “dekulakization” of the peasantry, as well as the humanitarian efforts of a sympathetic population and the rare government official, makes the story she tells accessible as well as educational. Most poignant of all are the personal testimonials of special settlers themselves. Elderly by the time they gained the ability to speak out about their imprisonment and the inhumane conditions experienced at the industrial settlements, the needless ruination of lives is central to former special settlers’ continued feelings of horror towards the deliberate “liquidation” of their class.
The book is really worthwhile for any student of Soviet history. It is slender enough to be read in a few days and the information – if not the topic – is easily digestible. The Unknown Gulag will be most readers’ first brush with the concept of dekulakization and the special settlements meant to propel Russia into competitive industrialization. The book will also augment any previously gained knowledge about Stalinist purges, Soviet apathy, and the disastrous Five-Year Plans.
Book can be purchased from Amazon.com.
Also visit the author's mini blog at Oxford University Press for insight into how the book came to be written.
