Forced Labour Camps
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Forced Labour Camps - Called "joycamps" in Newspeak.
[edit] Background
Although the forced labour camps in Airstrip One aren't described in detail, the descriptions that actually can be found correspond perfectly to the situation in the USSR:
- Buying services from a prostitute might be punished with five years in a forced-labour camp. In the Soviet Union, small offenses, such as coming late for work twice or stealing some paper and pen, could also be punished with five years or more in a GULAG camp.
- There is a clear distinction between criminal and political prisoners, and the former are suspiscious or even contemptful towards the latter. The situation was basically the same in Soviet prisons and camps - the criminal prisoners were not seldom even aggressive and violent towards the political prisoners.
- It says in the novel that, "the positions of trust were given only to the common criminals, especially the gangsters and the murderers, who formed a sort of aristocracy. All the dirty jobs were done by the politicals." The situation was almost invariably exactly the same in most GULAG camps.
- It also says that, "there was bribery, favouritism, and racketeering of every kind, there was homosexuality and prostitution, there was even illicit alcohol distilled from potatoes." All of the things listed were widespread and common in GULAG camps.
Exactly how much Orwell knew about the GULAG system is unclear, but the complete correspondence between the novel and the reality in the USSR suggests that he must have studied some authentic sources.
[edit] Sources
- Gulag - A History, Anne Applebaum, Doubleday, 2003, ISBN-10: 0767900561, ISBN-13: 978-0767900560
