GUŁag – zniewolenie poprzez pracę

Abstract

The enslaving labor of the prisoners of Gulag, which benefited the Soviet economy, was not the goal of the system, but a way of putting into effect the fundamental idea of totalitarian communism, which was to form a new man in a new society. Labor was accompanied by slogans of a new order of existence and a new order of values, bom on the soil of atheistic materialism. These changes are visible in assigning new functions to labor, which contradict its character as defined by the Christian philosophy of man and values. Economic, social and political functions of labor became subjugated to anthropological aims: the formation of a new man. This applies both to forced labor, and the so called free labor, which – according to Lenin's suggestion – soon loses the attribute of freedom as it is focused on individual needs. Soviet labor camp was not a mistake or a warp, as the most essential features of communist totalitarianism are frequently described on grounds of ethical or ideological relativism or on the basis of Marxist revisionism. Labor camp was from the beginning manifestation of totalitarianism, while communism, already in its origins, was totalitarian in character. In 1918 totalitarian communism introduced labor camp in its structure as one of the more brutal forms of the so called resocialization, the famous “pieriekovka” (transformation) of souls. This idea was but enhanced in communist totalitarianism as the most perfect instrument of “pieriekovka”, which brought about Gulag. Forced labor as a punishment, and at the same time, the transformation of souls, was a reflection of totalitarian mechanism closely united with communist utopia, which rejected the value of a human being and freedom in the name of a new man and an ideal society.