Throughout the period of Stalin’s rule there existed a prison system named the Gulag archipelago. This chain of camps contained an immense amount of suffering and unjust cruelty that inflicted its prisoners. Due to the Soviet regime’s paranoia during the Purges many prisoners were in fact innocent and wrongly convicted. This is shown by author Alexander Solzhenitsyn, in his novel “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich,” through his illustration of the nature of these prison camps. This broke barriers since the conditions of the Gulags were not discussed publicly in the Soviet Union at that time. The type of society within these camps included cruelty from the guards, lack of proper resources, and the importance of self-respect.
Many prisoners
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The prisoners face punishment for certain acts of behavior that are outright harsh and unusual. The purpose of this is to diminish their spirit and to force them into submission. A specific example of this punishment for a certain act of behavior is when a prisoner walks past a guard. Some guards do not follow this rule but others enforce it with emphasis. The rule is that when a prisoner walks past a guard they must take off their hat “five paces before passing him” and “replace it two paces after.” This is an example of a rule that’s sole purpose is to prove the guards dominance over them since the prisoners are not committing a truly immoral act. Another example of unjust cruelty is the sentencing of the prisoner Buinovsky to ten days in the hole for wearing a flannel vest for the purpose of keeping himself warm. The guards want the prisoners to suffer so Buinovsky’s attempt to help keep himself warm against the cold weather is stricken down with consequence. All of these instances test the mindset of the prisoners. However the guards’ cruelty is not the only factor that comes into play in sustaining this dismal prison