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From: berman@psuvax1.UUCP (Piotr Berman)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: "We will bury you." -Khruschev
Message-ID: <1933@psuvax1.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 18-Dec-85 15:31:29 EST
Article-I.D.: psuvax1.1933
Posted: Wed Dec 18 15:31:29 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 20-Dec-85 03:47:50 EST
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Organization: Pennsylvania State Univ.
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> Some of the people in the government now [USSR] were those sent to Labor
> camps under Stalin.  Those people do not wish to return to such a system.
> After Khruschev was deposed however new less brutal methods of
> repression were put into place: the use of psychiatric hospitals
> to deal with dissent, exile and isolation, demotions from prestigious
> posts.  That the USSR is different now than in Stalin's time is
> shown by the treatment accorded Khruschev himself: although he
> was ousted from power, he was allowed to continue living in his
> dacha.  Stalin, on the other hand, sent assassins halfway around the
> world to kill his old rival, Trotsky.
>
>          tim sevener   whuxn!orb

Tim is right that USSR is a better place now.  But I would ask
him to give an example of a government person who was in a prison/camp.
(Especially Kolyma camps, where huge masses of people starved and freezed
to death, no monument though).
Accidently, such people were frequently in Stalin government: some
officers purged in 1937 were returned to service and became marshals.
Concerning less brutal repressions: another view is that once Russians
got Pavlovian fear instilled, the full scale brutalities are no longer
necessary (if they ever were) to extinguish any intellectual challenge
to autorities (let alone political opposition).

Piotr Berman