The Soviet system used psychiatry as a weapon by diagnosing political opponents as mentally ill in order to confine them as patients instead of trying them in court. Anyone who challenged the state such as dissidents, writers, would-be emigrants, religious believers, or human rights activists could be branded with fabricated disorders like sluggish schizophrenia. This turned normal political disagreement into supposed medical pathology and allowed the state to present dissent as insanity.
Once labeled in this way, people were placed in psychiatric hospitals where they could be held for long periods without legal protections. Harsh treatments were often used to break their resolve. The collaboration between state security organs and compliant psychiatrists created a system where political imprisonment was disguised as medical care, letting the Soviet regime suppress opposition while pretending it was addressing illness rather than silencing critics.
In America black people are diagnosed schizophrenic or psychotic because they talk about institutional racism to white clinicians that don’t believe them
The Soviet Union at its height had the largest percentage of incarcerated individuals, more than double the USA’s percentage of the population today. These were hard labor camps, too, where millions worked until they died.
this is only true for the stalin years i think.
in any case, living in a country without due process kinda sucks
Yeah it actually got better even before Stalin died, but yeah.
and yet people romanticise and justify that shit
I’ve had a Tankie write me a 10 page essay comment, with citations, about how great the 1930s economy was. The middle of a famine.
Ikr I was in a similar debate. I just gave up. I was going to type this — usually said when a person just doesn’t like to find a middle ground and keeps screaming that they are right:
“ठीके बाबा. तूम्ही महान, आम्ही लहान. तुम्हाला चार पाय, आम्हाला दोन पाय. तुम्ही गाढव आम्ही माणूस.”
Translation: Ok bro. You are great, I am not. You have 4 legs, I have 2. You are a donkey, I am a human.
incarcerated
What an ugly word! Oh no no no they were being cured of their mental illnesses in dedicated institutions and provided with advanced education in special schools.
The school of digging frozen turf in Siberia while starving for instance or the hospital of getting beaten with a phonebook
Link to source?
How about
“The History of the Gulag: From Collectivization to the Great Terror
Oleg V. Khlevniuk
Translated by Vadim A. Staklo”
https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt5vkt98Or
The Encyclopedia Britannica
https://www.britannica.com/place/GulagThe book estimates 4,000,000 in gulag after the great purge in addition to another 2,000,000 corrective labor programs equaling 6,000,000 total, while the enyclopedia estimates 5,000,000 total. The 1939 USSR population historical data was 170,557,093.
This is wrong and you’re a shitbag liar. Don’t think people don’t see you out here spending your free time floating thread-to-thread just to shit on socialism.
Peak U.S. incarceration rate in 2008 (it’s highest) was about 760 per 100,000 people in the total population. The average imprisonment rate in the Soviet Union during the Gulag era was 714 per 100,000 residents. Some Soviet incarceration rates between 1934 and 1953 were likely the highest ever recorded for a modern nation. More than six million people in the U.S. are now under some form of correctional supervision—more than the number imprisoned in the Gulag at its peak.
Some sources:
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Gopnik, Adam (30 January 2012). The Caging of America. The New Yorker.
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Applebaum, Anne (2003). Gulag: a history. By Anne Applebaum. ISBN 978-0-7679-0056-0.
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Liptak, Adam (28 Feb 2008). 1 in 100 U.S. Adults Behind Bars, New Study Says. The New York Times.
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Getty, J. Arch; Rittersporn, Gabor T.; Zemskov, Viktor N. “Victims of the Soviet Penal System in the Pre-war Years: A First Approach on the Basis of Archival Evidence”.
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Rosefielde, Steven (2007). The Russian economy: from Lenin to Putin. By Steven Rosefielde. ISBN 978-1-4051-1337-3.
Peak U.S. incarceration rate
The average imprisonment rate in the Soviet Union
Uh-huh. Not like that rings the statistics manipulation alarm at all or anything.
«Is normal, ignore that товарисщ»
Some Soviet incarceration rates between 1934 and 1953 were likely the highest ever recorded for a modern nation.
Did uhhh… did you mean to paste this bit or forget to trim it before you posted? Is the US not a “modern nation?” Aren’t you calling the guy who said “soviets locked up more % than current US” a “shitbag liar” while posting evidence that supports his point? The fuck is going on, were you trained on shit data? You need a better prompt or something?
Uh-huh. Not like that rings the statistics manipulation alarm at all or anything.
Not really; if you read (lmao) more into it, you’d find that those scholars that I cited argue that it’s preferable to use averages rather than try to get precise YoY level numbers because it’s difficult to source consistent data for several chunks of time and regions.
Did uhhh… did you mean to paste this bit or forget to trim it before you posted? Is the US not a “modern nation?”
The “modern nation” reference was talking about the group of post-industrial nations at the time in which the USSR existed. I.e. “for all modernized, non-developing nations at that time”.
But I hear you, fam. Fair criticism. I used two different adjectives to describe the relative parity between the two countries. Silly of me.
But since you also clearly prefer to fling shit rather read a fucking book or two, I’ll distill a line for you that’ll hopefully stick:
At its peak in 1953, the estimated incarceration rate in the USSR was around 1,558 per 100,000.[1]
That’s less than the 2022 US rate calculated by the USBJ statistics I quoted in a separate post. Certainly not double the US’s current incarceration rate. I suppose you’ll removed about me comparing current US rate to the 1953 rate, but that’s why it’s a fucking rate/per population. Moreover, the point I was making is that the US has gotten worse than the days of the USSR’s Gulags.
But sure. It’s entirely possible I’m just manipulating statistics and providing citations to nefariously dispute—** checks notes **—the guy who spams Stalin memes, gets banned from communities for calling people tankies, and who spouted a random take without any attempt whatsoever to provide supporting evidence.
«Is normal, ignore that товарисщ» Go fuck yourself, patriot. :)
[1] E. Belova, P.R. Gregory. “Political economy of crime and punishment under Stalin”. Publ. Choice, 140 (3–4) (2009), pp. 463-478.
Sure, averages are better, but nonetheless instead of being consistent and using the average for both, you use the “peak” of one and “average” of another, as if that doesn’t look suspicious.
I’m not even saying the US doesn’t incarcerate more people per capita, I’m saying using “peak v avg” is a bad system because at best it makes you look like a liar.
Also I’m saying you’re probably a tankie if you’re on lemmy defending the USSR, yeah. Walks like a duck and talks like a duck and all.
Ёб твою мать.
>> ignores explicit response to original claim with the requested follow-up statistic
>> conflates objection to whitewashing the American carceral state with pro USSR sentiment
>> repeats childish insult for which OP was being called out
>> makes duck analogies mid chirping
>> hurls misogynistic insult to “fuck your mom” in Russian
You’re not beating the illiteracy accusation.
I s’pose you’re right. Walks like a chauvinistic Russian Nazi, talks like a chauvinistic Russian Nazi and all. 😗
I’m literally reading and writing lmao, that beats the illiteracy argument. Would be a lot more effective and worth arguing against if we were speaking instead of communicating via the written word, but as that is not the case it isn’t worth my time to refute the ad hominem attack, until I want to call you a fucking idiot for trying it that is, you fucking idiot.
You’re just mad I noticed, stay mad дебип.
Oh I’m so mad. Big big mad. You’re so right, king. 😗🧠🐦
Estimates of the 1938 Gulag Population and other corrective labor programs, from the book
“The History of the Gulag: From Collectivization to the Great Terror
Oleg V. Khlevniuk
Translated by Vadim A. Staklo”
Are about 6,000,000 total.That’s 3.5% of the total population of the USSR in 1939.
Encyclopedia Britannica estimates a much more conservative 5,000,000.
The USA’s 0.7% doesn’t come anywhere close. Even if you ignore the numbers after The Great Purge you’re still looking at neck and neck numbers from the two, with USSR’s 1.4M being over 0.8%.
Why are you comparing the peak year of the usa numbers with an average rate over a longer period for the ussr? Insulting others also doesn’t help your credibility. Nothing you said disproves the assertion of the person that you’re calling a liar.
Can yall please pretty please stop fucking supporting horrible regimes and then also trying to use them as examples of socialism? You’re not helping anyone. You’re literally only hurting the appearance of socialism.
Its like you don’t get that you actually have to sell people on the idea. You certainly won’t convince people with bashing people over the head with delusional or pedantic at best history rewritings/retellings about horrible people.
Those people were bad, socialism is good. Separate the ideas. Everything is better this way.
It’s because some parts of Lemmy are actually just psyops for Russia and China, just like all those facebook groups during the 2016 elections and all those foreign maga influencers outed during a recent leak.
There is also the question if you are working for some group. Hcf has provided numbers that refute your statement. Is there a reason why they can be doubted or do I have to assume that your statement was made-up?
I already responded to HCF’s claims.
And before you (or anyone else) nitpicks about “BuT tHaT wAS 2008”—that’s because I’m comparing peak periods.
If you want the latest estimates available, and if you really start digging, it looks much worse for the US. The total correctional population in 2022 was estimated to be 5.4 million people (according to the US Bureau of Justice Statistics report). The estimated US adult population in 2022 was 260.6 million.
That’d mean that the latest numbers are about 2,072 in 100,000 people.
But sure, shitting on the USSR is a neat trick for downplaying how completely abysmal the US has become.
USA population in 2022 was about 333,287,557
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The Soviet Union at its height
“Its height” is a very soft way of saying “during the Nazi invasion that ended up in the death of 25 million Soviet citizens”
These were hard labor camps, too
False. The GULAG system was simply a prison system. Soviets believed in work as a manner of reintegration into society, correctional labor is not hard labor camp. The vast majority of prisons were near big cities like Moscow or Leningrad.
where millions worked until they died
As far as I know, the number of Gulag deaths is about 700k, not “millions”, but I’m quoting this from memory so feel free to correct me with actual data if you have it. It’s easily disproven that Gulags were labor death camps by looking at the death rate over time:
You can see a peak death rate during the famine occasioned by the Nazi invasion (again in a period where 25 million Soviet citizens died). People died of hunger inside and outside prisons, albeit logically at a higher rate inside them.
The Famine was caused by the soviets policy changes decentralizing aggriculture in the assumption that farmers would still grow enough for everyone.
We know that this is true because the Chinese tried the same damn thing and got the same damn results during their own revolution.
You don’t know what you’re talking about and it shows. The famine you’re referring to happened in 1931-1933, not WW2. By the late 1930s, agriculture in the USSR was collectivized almost wholly and producing better crop yields than ever in history in the region due to the rapid industrialization and usage of tractors and fertilizers.
This rapid industrialization (main reason why the Soviets pushed for rapid collectivization in the late 20s and early 30s) was driven by the geopolitical need to create a heavy industry + military machinery to fight Nazism. If it had not been for the rapid industrialization (which admittedly led to around 5 million deaths in 1930-1934 from hunger), the Soviet Union would have fallen to Nazism and tens of millions more would have been exterminated, remember that the Nazi Generalplan Ost was the extermination of the non Germans between Berlin and the Urals.
You literally blamed the famine on the Nazis in your previous comment!
You can see a peak death rate during the famine occasioned by the Nazi invasion (again in a period where 25 million Soviet citizens died). People died of hunger inside and outside prisons, albeit logically at a higher rate inside them.
Yes, the 1940s WW2 famine, a whole 10 years later
Any non government funded, non check bock journalism funded sources for us?
Go check the other comments below.
Somewhat relatedly, the W Bush administration expanded mental health screening and recordskeepint, and broadened the use of somewhat dangerous antipsychotics for non psychotic conditions in the wake of the Patriot Act.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Freedom_Commission_on_Mental_Health
Pretty sure America does that.
So it’s like lemmy.ml
Oh you mean like they want to do with trump derangemnt syndrome? Yeah, it’s out of the dictatorship playbook.
The problem is psychiatry in general. Always been a tool for hegemonic control.
From the article, western sources claim some 15k people affected over the entirety of the Soviet Union. So yeah, something that did happen, but still quite a minor thing for a country with 300 million people over 70+ years of existence.
For comparison, over 700k people experience homelessness today in the USA, which is arguably at least as damaging to mental (let alone physical health), and if we count the number of people who have experienced homelessness over the past 70 years in the USA it’s several million if not tens of millions.
Sounds oddly familiar to “If you’re against the online safety act you’re siding with pedophiles.”
Only considered it?
May want to check out what’s happening in USA and UK.
Fucking Trump wants to deport citizens for disagreeing with him.
I live in the UK. Being against the UK government is not considered a mental illness.
Don’t let this distract you from the fact that America and capitalism and the CIA are all bad and this is all ultimately their fault
In the US, they do that today. Also if you’re old
Reminder that they are trying to make antisemitism a mental illness. Not racism, not homophobia, not transphobia. Just antisemitism
Sounds like “Trump derangement syndrome”
No -ism is immune to hubris. I still believe in people sharing in the profit of their labor, and appreciate this post clarifying one of the many ways dissent can be crushed, albeit temporarily.
If one’s idea is genuinely good, it better be able to handle dissent. Once gulags get involved, you’ve long ago lost the people’s belief, and are on a timer.
Evil never perseveres. Never has, never will.
Evil never perseveres. Never has, never will.
Huh? Have you not been paying attention for the last several decades?
Seriously. Its on the level of delusion of the super stonk bros covered in “This is Financial Advice”.
Try reading a book 😎
Amen for [real] democracy.
Try be a dissident in democracy, and you’re just doing more democracy.
You should check out the history of USA sometime.
Nah.
Humanity is on a hard fought, slow, and with many setbacks, trend towards a better world. Evil is pushed out by good but not without the blood, sweat, and tears of many good people.
