North Korean Sabre Rattling

North Korea Announces Military Attack on ‘Human Scum’ in South Korea

North Korea’s communist regime spent much of the weekend publishing vitriol against the South in its state media arms, declaring on Monday that unspecified “retaliatory measures” were on the way for Seoul. The measures will be “entrusted to our army,” Pyongyang asserted.

Last week, the regime stopped using a direct phone line established between it and the government of South Korea in 2018, insisting that diplomacy with South Korea was untenable unless South Koreans stopped sending humanitarian aid and leaflets with news about the outside world into the country.

North Korea bans citizens from consuming any media not created and approved by the communist government. To override that ban, many South Korean aid groups, including many with North Korean refugees participating, use balloons and other methods to flood the other side of the border with leaflets contradicting the false version of current events prevalent in North Korean propaganda journals. Among the falsehoods the leaflets regularly denounce are the claims that South Korea is destitute as a product of capitalism and North Korea is among the world’s wealthiest and most respected countries.

While this practice has gone on for years, Pyongyang abruptly began threatening violence in response to it this month.  The official national propaganda newspaper of North Korea, Rodong Sinmun, condemned the leftist South Korean presidential administration on Monday for its “weakness and incompetence” and threatened “retaliatory action” against the leaflets.

“We have already made a conclusion that there is no need for us to sit face to face with the south [sic] Korean authorities and discuss things with them any longer. What is left for us is to make them pay dearly for their heinous crimes,” Rodong Sinmun announced. “We have decided to take a series of retaliatory actions to punish the betrayers and human scum.”

Rodong Sinmun also announced the “destruction” of the joint liaison office between North and South Korea, which operates on their border and previously housed the direct phone line.  “As was declared, the north-south joint liaison office will come into destruction and the right to taking the next action against the enemy will be entrusted to our army,” the propaganda outlet stated. “Our invincible revolutionary armed forces will take a resolute action to take avenge on the enemies in order to allay the surging indignation of our people.”

Monday’s statement followed remarks on Saturday published by North Korean media and attributed to Kim Yo-jong, dictator Kim Jong-un’s sister, who is believed to be one of the most powerful people in the country. While it remains unclear exactly what the younger Kim’s responsibilities are in her brother’s regime, she was once known to run the “Propaganda and Agitation Department” of the communist government.

“By exercising my power authorized by the Supreme Leader, our Party and the state, I gave an instruction to the arms of the department in charge of the affairs with enemy to decisively carry out the next action,” Kim Yo-jong reportedly said. Like the Rodong Sinmun article, Kim mentioned the joint liaison office in the border town of Kaesong, asserting it would meet “complete collapse.”

“Our army, too, will determine something for cooling down our people’s resentment and surely carry out it, I believe,” Kim concluded. 

The head of North Korea’s American affairs office, Kwon Jong Gun, also issued a statement Saturday.


In a press statement, Kwon wrote:

It is really preposterous to hear the balderdash of south Korean authorities-who do not have either any qualification to discuss, or the position to poke their noses into, the matters between the DPRK [North Korea] and the U.S., to say nothing of nuclear issues – are commenting on the resumption of DPRK-U.S. dialogue and interpreting the issue of denuclearization at their own choice.

The statement went on to say that “having been long forsaken like a good-for-nothing cucumber stalk thrown into swill, they should have now been aware too well of their sad lot, but it is really pitiful that they are still irrationally mouthing denuclearization, like a monk chanting the prayers.”

Rodong Sinmun also characteristically followed Kim Yo-jong’s remarks with a column threatening “to behead and dismember the heinous provokes who insulted the dignity of our supreme leadership dearer than the life [sic].”

“As the first-stage action representing their will, we took a measure of completely cutting off all the communication and liaison lines between the north and the south. This is the first sledgehammer blow at the fools who are still dreaming a day dream [sic], not aware of the seriousness of the situation,” the column read. The column was signed by the same author as the one published Monday.

According to the conservative South Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo, the administration of leftist President Moon Jae-in held an “emergency meeting” Sunday to address Kim’s remarks. A spokesman for the presidential office confirmed the meeting but did not offer any details. On Monday, the Yonhap news agency reported that South Korean military operations on the border appear to have expanded for the prevention of any potential attack.

“We are closely monitoring North Korean military’s moves and are maintaining a firm military readiness posture. As of yet, there has been no incident to give additional explanations on,” Col. Kim Jun-rak, a spokesman for South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, said. . . . .

The chief of South Korea’s national police announced officials would also implement a 24-hour monitoring system to prevent South Koreans from sending aid North on Monday.  “We cannot allow a situation where the public feels threatened by North Korea as a result of [activists] sending provocative material to the North through balloons and other means,” Police Commissioner Min Gap-ryong insisted.

North Korea’s latest threats Monday come on the 20-year anniversary of a historic meeting between leaders of North and South Korea, which resulted in the signing of a joint statement expanding dialogue between the two countries.

Fertile Group for Psy-Ops

What Ordinary North Koreans Think of Their Neighbours

If one is unfortunate enough to live as a hermit the risks of developing ideas and world-views that are far from reality are high.  The population of North Korea, the Hermit Kingdom, provide an example.  

Here are some of the myths that have developed in North Korea.

Now, what do North Koreans think of China?  I am not sure about what the North Korean government thinks of China.  But most ordinary North Koreans don't like China that much.  North Koreans know that China has a better economy than North Korea.  But North Koreans think Koreans are more civilized and cultured people, with better manners than the Chinese.  North Koreans have this notion that Chinese people take a bath only once a year, don't keep their houses clean, wear shoes inside their house and so on--for these reasons, North Koreans think Chinese are filthy and therefore, less civilized than Koreans.

While South Korea is a heavenly place to North Koreans, North Koreans wouldn't ever want to live in China.  Mot of the time, North Koreans think China is worse than North Korea.  In North Korea, one can find derogatory terms and racial slurs referring to the Chinese and Japanese.  But no derogatory terms about South Koreans exist in North Korea.

Among South Korea, China, and Japan, the North Korean government may hate the South the most.  But ordinary North Koreans?  They hate Japan the most, with China second only to Japan.  But oh boy, North Koreans love South Korea and its pop culture and want to live there!  [Daniel Tudor (ed.) Ask a North Korean: Defectors Talk About Their Lives Inside the World's Most Secretive Nation (Tokyo: Tuttle Publishing, 2017), p. 121f.]

Knowing that the world-view of the Kim regime is radically divergent in some aspects from the world-view held by a large percentage of the general population is intriguing.  It should provide plenty of fertile ground for what the professionals once called psy-ops. 

Guilt By Association

Injustice on Steroids

Being just and and practising justice is a divine attribute.  As it says in Deuteronomy:

For I will proclaim the name of the Lord;
    ascribe greatness to our God!
The Rock, his work is perfect,
    for all his ways are justice.
A God of faithfulness and without iniquity,
    just and upright is he.  [Deuteronomy 32: 3-4]

The opposite is also true: depraved humanity manifests injustice.  The more depraved, the more injustice. 

Few nations have reached the nadir of perversity and injustice achieved by North Korea.  One attribute in particular of the Kim tyranny illustrates this--namely, the law of "guilt-by-association". 

North Korea has long had a law of guilt-by-association, and punishes its people accordingly.  I cannot think of any other government that utilizes such a savage and cruel system.  When I was living in North Korea, if someone defected, it was inevitable that their family, including distant relatives, would be jailed and sent to a camp.  Because of this barbaric law, no one in North Korea ever thought about opposing the government through real action. 

So why do they need this system?  In North Korea, there is no one more aware of the absurdity and irrationality of the North Korean system than the diplomats themselves.  In this respect, the government is well aware that brainwashing diplomats and asking for their loyalty will be ineffective in reining them in.  Alternatively, the authorities use parents' love for their children as leverage.  As such, it is obligatory for North Korean diplomats to leave at least one of their children at home when going abroad.   Those children who stay at home are then looked after by relatives.  [Ji-min Kang, quoted in Ask a North Korean, edited by Daniel Tudor (Tokyo: Tuttle Publishing, 2017), p. 174f.]

For those of us privileged to live in relatively free societies with power divided and spread amongst a variety of powers such depravity is difficult to comprehend.  North Korea truly has become a nation of slaves--like Pharaoh holding Israel under the whip. 

Freshly Cut Grass

The Things We Take for Granted

We continue to make our way through Ask A North Korean (see below).  The various contributors to the volume are now all ex-pat--that is, they have fled North Korea.  If recaptured they would doubtless be thrown into the Gulag. 

In this matter, North Korea is acting in a manner consistent with all totalitarian states.  Their walls exist to keep the people in, not to protect citizens from outside threats. 

One contributor to this collection of essays upon North Korea comments upon her experiences in a free country--in this case the US.  She writes:

Rulers Who Are Evil in the Extreme

We Must Never Forget Them

A copy of an unusual book has crossed the desk.  It is based upon a popular blog called "Ask a North Korean".  The subtitle is "Defectors talk about their lives inside the world's most secretive nation".  (Tuttle Publishing: Tokyo, 2017)

The object is to provide commentary and insights from a number of North Korean defectors on a variety of everyday practices in North Korea.  It gets beyond talking about the Kims and discusses what living in North Korea is actually like.

In a section entitled, "The Powers That Be" the question is asked, What does the average person know about political prison camps?"

One North Korean refugee explains it this way:

Developments in North Korea

Emerging Duplicity

Reports are coming out that North Korea has never stopped its nuclear weapons development.  It threw the US administration some "bones" and whilst there was much barking and happy salutations in the kennels, way in the back blocks Kim Jong Un was busy on another even more advanced, secret development.  

North Korea has been keen to show it has been conforming to both the spirit and the word of the agreement its leader, Kim Jong-un, reached with US President Donald Trump in Singapore earlier this year.   Media and investigators have been invited to oversee the dismantling of missile test sites and facilities. 

But new commercial satellite photos obtained by CNN reveal that as he's been dismantling with one hand, he's been rapidly assembling with the other, reports news.com.au."Whatever Kim says about his desire for denuclearisation, North Korea continues to produce and deploy nuclear armed missiles, " an analyst for the US Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey says.  [NZ Herald]

The heat begins to be turned upon the US administration.  President Trump,  it may be argued, is a great showman.   Throw this circus dog a bone and he will happily scamper around the ring.  At least it appears pretty clear that such is the view Kim Jong Un holds with respect to the US President.  For all the bluster and big-noting, it appears that the North Korean leader may well be emerging the winner.  That is not something anyone should take a perverse pleasure in, regardless of the opinions which they hold about the US President.

North Korea Tops World Rankings

"No Rival On Earth"

Dr Thomas D. Williams
Breitbart News

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence excoriated North Korea’s record of human rights violations Thursday, asserting that the nation’s persecution of Christians is the worst on the planet.
“North Korea’s persecution of Christians has no rival on the Earth,” Pence told leaders gathered in Washington, DC, for the State Department’s Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom. “It is unforgiving, systematic, unyielding and often fatal.”

“The mere possession of a Christian Bible is a capital offense,” Pence noted, and “Christians are regularly executed or condemned with their families to North Korea’s gulags.”  Mr. Pence’s words echoed the findings of watchdog groups monitoring Christian persecution, which consistently place North Korea at the top of the list of nations where it is most dangerous to be a Christian.

This year, one such organization, Open Doors, which publishes an annual World Watch List (WWL) about Christian persecution, noted that North Korea has been considered “the worst place for Christians” for 16 consecutive years, since 2002.

In his address Thursday, the vice president said that while Americans all hope relations between the United States and North Korea will continue to improve, “there is no escaping the plain fact that North Korea’s leadership has exacted unparalleled privation and cruelty upon its people for decades,” a cruelty that has included “torture, mass starvation, public executions, murders, and even forced abortions, and industrial-scale slave labor.”

Appearing with Mr. Pence at the Ministerial was a North Korean Christian woman named Ji Hyeona, whom he met when in the region this year.

Deliverance

North Korea Survivor Tells Of Starvation, Torture

‘You Cannot Imagine What Life Without Freedom Is Like’

Juliana Knot
The Federalist

Grace Jo’s first memory of North Korea is sitting by her grandmother, selling a bucket of dried fish in the marketplace. Her grandmother raised her and her four siblings, because her parents were often gone trying to find food, whether by scavenging for wild vegetables in the mountains or by bartering, at times nearly begging, in the market.

More than two decades later, Jo told her story this week at  George Mason University’s Arlington campus. The Fund for American Studies hosted the event.

“Here in America, it’s difficult to understand. You cannot imagine what life without freedom is like,” Jo said. Jo then walked the crowd through her family’s story. Her grandmother, as well as her two younger brothers, eventually succumbed to starvation in North Korea.

Her older sister went missing after going to China to find food. The Jo family doesn’t know for certain but assumes she was either forced into sex trafficking or sold as a bride to a Chinese farmer.

Her father is also dead. After realizing that there was no food for his family in his country, he made the perilous journey into China to ask for a bag of rice from relatives. On his third trip, someone reported him to government officials, who promptly arrested him.

Not So Fast . . .

Grading the Singapore Summit

By Jonah Goldberg
National Review Online


How to grade the Singapore summit? I think the most fair-minded answer is that it’s too soon to tell, but there’s every reason in the world to be deeply skeptical that Kim will make good on his commitments to “de-nuclearize.” Why? Because: North Korea has promised to do exactly that — with far more specificity — in the past. The actual paper agreement that Trump and Kim signed is not just worthless on its own, it’s less than worthless given that it literally recycles past worthless promises as if they are new ones.

That’s contrary to the opinions of a lot of people on Twitter and TV who think — and feel — that this is Trump’s masterstroke. This isn’t a criticism of Trump. It’s just a simple recognition of reality. The Norks have bamboozled everyone else who extracted promises from them. By all means, let’s hope for the best. But North Korean duplicity is normal.

Moreover, there’s good reason to believe that if Kim were sincere about getting rid of his nukes, his own regime would kill him.

The End of the Beginning?

Coming Up Trumps

Trump proved the media and the Left wrong.  He apparently achieved far more than they had ever thought possible in his session with North Korea's  Kim Jong-un.  

Kim's acceptance of complete de-nuclearisation was a concession many thought was impossible.  Now, however, will come the long dark road of proving up on the promises.  Trump has also indicated that North Korea is going to move on human rights issues.

Later, responding to a direct question from John Roberts of Fox News about human rights, Trump said that the issue had been discussed — though he admitted it had not been as prominent as denuclearization. “They will be doing things” to improve the country’s human rights situation, he said.

He also said later that he would not remove sanctions on North Korea without “significant improvement” on human rights.  The president also said that the issue of kidnapped Japanese citizens had been discussed but had not been included in the document signed by both sides due to time constraints.  [Breitbart]

This, to  our minds, is as critical as the nuclear threat.

Running It Tough

Trump, Kim, and the Boys in the Camps

By Jay Nordlinger
National Review Online




President Trump did an excellent thing at the State of the Union address last January. He honored Ji Seong-ho, an almost superhuman defector from North Korea. Ji escaped the country on crutches. I saw him at the Oslo Freedom Forum a couple of weeks ago. As I wrote, “he projects an air of ebullience. I can’t help thinking he is happy to be alive.”

Trump has said some shocking things in recent hours. For example, he said the following about Kim Jong-un: “He is very talented. Anybody who takes over a situation like he did at 26 years of age and is able to run it, and run it tough. I don’t say he was nice or say anything about it. He ran it, few people at that age — you could take one out of 10,000, could not do it.”

It is unclear how old Kim is. Probably, he was 28 when he inherited the dictatorship. But that is a triviality.

He has certainly “run it tough,” if that’s the way you want to characterize Kim’s rule over North Korea. His father chose him for his dictatorial mettle.

Kim Jong-Un Has Little Room to Move

The "Idi Amin" Solution May Beckon

An interesting piece out of Australia has appeared in our local rag.  It is quite some time since we read about the dire internal threats facing North Korea.  Yet, the fact remains that Kim Jong-un is between the proverbial rock and a very hard place.  He faces a threat that historically, in the past one hundred years, has brought down more dictatorships than anything else.

That threat has not been war (although all totalitarian states place their countries on a permanent war footing).  The threat has been people power.  Their own people.  Totalitarian states, those that have imposed secular atheism by force throughout the twentieth century, have ended not with the a bang, but the proverbial whimper.

The article quotes Professor Kim Dong-yup, director of research at the Institute for Far Eastern Studies, who has personal experience dealing with North Korea's negotiating tactics, having taken part in previous military talks between the North and South.

Prof Kim said the country's people, brutally oppressed by the regime for so long, are becoming more aware of the outside world and harder to control, so are less likely to tolerate continued economic malaise.  "Given the context, that the North Korean people have access to five million mobile phones and numerous markets where they can access information, the regime simply cannot be sustained through control and oppression," he said.  "The biggest thing Kim Jong-un is fearful of is not the pressure from the outside world it is his people. So he has made the strategic decision that by keeping nuclear weapons, he will not make his people happy and will not ensure his regime's survival.  [NZ Herald.  Emphasis, ours.]

The last thirty years of the previous century teache us what happens when countries build walls not for defence, but to keep their people inside the stockade.

Making the Most Out of Failure

Propaganda, Faux-Reality, And Truth

In the past few days, the North Korean regime has been snake-oiling prodigiously.  Its propaganda machine has been operating at peak capacity.  It has been trumpeting its universal good-citizenship.  It has decided to destroy forever its underground nuclear testing site.  This surely must "prove" its good faith in the upcoming talks with the United States.  

Sadly, in a regime so out of touch with truth, lying is perpetual.

North Koreans May Copy the East German Precedent

When Citizens Face Imprisoning Fences

There are a few examples in recent history of nation-states ceasing to exist almost overnight.  One of these is East Germany.  On one occasion, whilst gingerly feeling its way forward, East Germany opened its borders to West Germany for a day.  The authorities expected that a few East Germans would wander across, look around out of curiosity, and return to the East.  Some indeed did the sight-seeing trip.  But thousands crossed the border that day and did not return.  It was the end of the new beginning.  The German Democratic Republic itself was in its death throes.  And everybody knew it. 

A significant component of this event was that citizens on both sides of the border viewed themselves fundamentally as Germans.  It was their racial, ethnic identity.  We are now confronted with another possible people led re-unification--namely, Korea.  There are several salient similarities with the case of people-led German re-unification.  The ethnic, racial, cultural and historical ties that link the two as one are an example.  Both North and South view themselves as Koreans.

There is lots that we do not know.  But by all accounts the state of life and the suffering of the common people in North Korea is atrocious.  Meanwhile, over the border, down south, there is a rapidly modernising, peaceful, prosperous Asian Tiger.

The North Korean regime is typical of totalitarian dictatorships.  It long ago lost touch with reality and can no longer distinguish reality from propaganda.

A Story of Two Korean Refugees

They escaped Kim Jong Un

Starting Over in New Zealand

Lincoln Tan
NZ Herald


A woman who says she was once picked as a potential sex slave to North Korea's political elite and another who claims she was trafficked for four years in China have come to New Zealand with dreams of starting new lives.

Bora Choe, 24, and Sue Park, 26 - who are being housed in a secret location in Auckland - are among a group of five women brought here by a Christian group Love Your Neighbour Charity Trust. . . . Choe dreams of becoming a bible teacher and Park wants to be a nurse, and described their lives back in Kim Jong Un's North Korea as a "living hell" and remain cynical about the regime's intentions.

Standing at a height of almost 1.7m, the attractive Choe is considered tall by North Korean standards. At 14, she was selected at school by Kim's government officials to become one of the "nation's brides".  North Korea's sex slavery practice recently made the news when it was claimed that its 230 strong all-female cheerleading squad at the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics are also forced to provide sexual services to Kim's top aides.

Choe was born in Chŏngjin, the capital of Hamgyong Province and the country's third largest city. She said officials would come to schools there selecting girls based on their height and beauty.  "Like the other girls I actually don't know what they have chosen us for except that it is to work for the nation," Choe said.  "As a young girl at that time I felt happy and honoured to be selected."

Choe went through assessments for her beauty, skin and health but was dropped when officials found out that her grandfather was Chinese. Her mother had also defected to South Korea.

Every North Korean is expected to show allegiance to Kim's Workers Party of Korea.

PIxie Dust

What Could Go Wrong?

Wow.  Let's cast all the pixie dust we can find into the air.  Magic is what's happening; magic is what we need.  North Korea is going to join with South Korea as One Team in the forthcoming Winter Olympics.

In addition to marching together under the unified flag, South Korea will send some of its athletes to train at a ski resort in North Korea and attend some kind of cultural event. South and North Korea will also jointly form a women’s ice hockey team. North Korea is also sending 230 cheerleaders to the Olympics. Even more bizarre, according to The New York Times, “negotiators agreed that supporters of both Koreas would root together for athletes for both countries.”  [The Federalist]

What could possibly go wrong?  What's to lose?

Well, anything is possible.  Here's a scenario that would be well within reasonable expectations:

1.  Some of the South Korean athletes sent to train at the North Korean ski resort "defect" to the North.

2.  Some of the South Korean team members of the joint women's ice hockey team disappear, and then suddenly reappear in North Korea.

All the "missing" South Koreans then gather together for a public TV presentation in which they announce their defections to the North and their shared belief that South Korea ought to surrender to North Korea.  Then, they disappear into the ether.

In fact, they end up in the Gulag, never to be see again.

Will this actually happen?  Who knows.  But who amongst us would be able to affirm without doubt that it would never happen.  Who would be willing to argue that such a scenario would be no more credible than proposing the moon is made of green cheese.

Lest We Forget

Persecution in North Korea

Christians Face Beatings, Rape, Torture for Professing Faith

Frances Martel
Breitbart News

Christian North Koreans who have escaped the brutal regime tell of outrageous human rights abuses against anyone suspected of professing the faith, including routine beatings and rapes and specialized torture for those involved in underground prayer.

In a report Wednesday, Fox News profiled North Korean defector Choi Kwanghyuk, who was arrested after founding an underground house church. Choi escaped a labor camp shortly before he believes the regime was ready to transfer him to a concentration camp to end his life.  Before he escaped, however, he asserted that he was tortured and witnessed the torture of many others.

“I decided to escape because I thought that once they sent me to the other camp, they could eventually send me to the concentration camp or kill me,” Choi told Fox News. “I was traveling back and forth between China and North Korea, but they kept searching for me, and I knew it could put my friends in danger too, so I left.”

According to Fox, Choi witnessed a wide variety of torture:

Dealing With The Regime

America Must First Understand the North Korean Regime

Nicholas Eberstadt
National Review Online

EDITOR’S NOTE: On January 31, 2017, Nicholas Eberstadt testified before members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee about the threat posed by North Korea. The following is adapted from his testimony with permission.

Our seemingly unending inability to fathom Pyongyang’s true objectives, and our attendant proclivity for being taken by surprise over and over again by North Korean actions, is not just a matter of succumbing to Pyongyang’s strategic deceptions, assiduous as those efforts may be.

The trouble, rather, is that even our top foreign-policy experts and our most sophisticated diplomatists are creatures of our own cultural heritage and intellectual environment. We Americans are, so to speak, children of the Enlightenment, steeped in the precepts of our highly globalized era. Which is to say: We have absolutely no common point of reference with the worldview, or moral compass, or first premises of the closed-society decision makers who control the North Korean state. Americans’ first instincts are to misunderstand practically everything the North Korean state is really about.

The DPRK is a project pulled by tides and shaped by sensibilities all but forgotten to the contemporary West. North Korea is a hereditary Asian dynasty (currently on its third Kim) — but one maintained by Marxist-Leninist police-state powers unimaginable to earlier epochs of Asian despots and supported by a recently invented and quasi-religious ideology.

And exactly what is that ideology?

Reverse Sarcasm

Media Appeasement

Have you ever had the experience of reading something where you go back and forth wondering whether it is sarcasm or a straight up piece?  If you haven't, the following has had us going back and forth, asking "Is This a Joke, or What?"

It comes from the Associated Press and we think it has to be a Monty-Pythonesque joke.  It reads the tea leaves on Kim Jong Un's recent criticisms of Donald Trump.  It argues that things have changed in US-North Korean relationships.  Trump has crossed a line and it's clear (apparently) that Kim Jong Un has had enough.

The piece takes the mien of a mocking teenager taking the mickey out of a blustering bully, with comments like "Ooooh, we're scared", and "We're shaking ourselves into a fever."  It's clear that the alleged author, AP White House reporter Josh Lederman is having fun at Kim Jong Un's expense.

Lest We Forget

Man's Inhumanity to Man

It is not for reason of masochism we have been reading recently Anne Applebaum's Gulag: A History of the Soviet Camps (London: Penguin Books, 2004).  To say that the work is depressing is an understatement--yet we reckon that most of our readers will have already known that.

Why write such a history, then, let alone read it?  Lest we forget, is one appropriate response.  Removing the Gulag out of its Sitz im Leben--its actual life setting--we can acknowledge its importance in making clear, once again, man's inhumanity to man.  This is an evil which has dogged all men, all civilizations from the Garden onwards.  None is exempt--only the degree of inhumanity varies.  The Gulag, then, is not isolated.  Nor is it distinctly Russian, nor Soviet.

The Gulag--the system of slave labour camps in the Soviet Union--existed from the very beginnings of the Soviet Union right through to the early 1980's.  The most systematic and brutal of Soviet dictators who used the camps both as a means of increasing Russian economic output, and as a means of murdering and purging actual and imagined political opponents was Joseph Stalin.

But Stalin's predecessor (Lenin) and his successors used the labour camps as well-and that takes us well into living memory.