People under communism; Terror as a system of power, part three

But if you add the hours we were walking to and from the hours we were waiting for the Morning Call call and for the evening roll call in the cold in the snow. You could say that we were on our feet 15 16 a sometimes 17 hours a day. Will you tell us how you were fed Mr. Glickman. Our food depended on our output each function had it for each smallest function in the camp was calculated in the daily quota that he called norm which had to be fulfilled in if fulfilled gives you 100 percent but devoted to this who cannot fulfill it and the quarter was so high that the great majority of prisoners with their best will quit at best perform 50 60 percent of the quota. Where there are criminals in the camp this is one of the worst features of our camp. The professional criminals they are in the minority in the camp and they are the real bosses of the camp they are privileged by the administration. They are

called to build the most reliable most truth Worsley by the administration. They occupy all both the administration of the camp gives to the prisoners almost all forced are occupied by these hardened criminals. Even the administration. I was frightened a little of them and they used to take advantage of their privileged position and many many sufferings are caused not by the administration but the criminal prisoners with whom we had to live day and night together. And one final question Mr. Glickman. How did you obtain your release from the camp. I got made at least before my sentence was over that action political prisoners vote is to long get released even if their sentence is up. Camp authorities had no I to lead a prison not even if his files show that he sent and what's up. And sometimes an order for the

extension of the camp down with calm for another 5 8 or 10 years. The publisher for leaving The Post business was to organize the Polish army against the Germans but this army did not fight and decided to front and so we left for Persia Persia was the first free country we had after Russia and then through Europe. I came to the United States after the war. Thank you Mr. Glickman for your precise account of what it means to be a victim of a terrible system of political control through you your millions of fellow sufferers have been able as the title of your own book says to tell the West. Since the end of the war information concerning the activities of the MGB has not been plentiful. Mass deportations of the native populations from the Baltic States and other

border areas of European Russia have been reported. The Soviet press has also during this period carried on campaigns against collective farm abuses and noted cases of corruption in the bureaucracy and in industry. It has also carried accounts of purges in the party and among intellectuals. Although there have been no indications of mass arrests on the scale of the 937 just you know the MGB continues to claim its victims and forced labor has become an integral feature of the Soviet totalitarian system. At the beginning of this program some idea of the pervasive influence of the secret police on Soviet life was briefly sketched. Dr. M. famed sot of Harvard University well sum up for us the significance of the use of terror as a system of power. Now Dr. Fein saw by the use of tear the dictator eliminates actual or suspected rivals but terror achieves a more indirect goal. It paralyzes within the

minds of members of the governing elite itself. Those thoughts of rivalry and independence which might lead eventually to concrete challenges to the dictator's absolute rule the terror also acts as a broom by sweeping out of office one group of individuals it automatically sweeps in ambitious individuals from the lower echelons. There is circulation but no permanence no possibility that is for the development of positions of power. Too strong for the dictator to destroy. But meanwhile the removal of thousands of skilled individuals from the life of the country inevitably weakens it. The manipulation of terror as a system of power is a delicate art. A dictator in command of modern armaments in a secret police can transform his subjects into robots an

automaton. But if he succeeds too well he runs the risk of destroying the sources of creative initiative on which the survival of his own regime depends. This is a problem which the Soviet dictatorship cannot evade over the long run. It may well turn out to be the rock on which the Soviet system will founder style Lina's shown an awareness of the problem. He needs terror to safeguard his monopoly of power but he also knows that he cannot depend on terror alone. His is a system of rule in which incentives and indoctrination also have their appointed place. There is room for the carrot as well as a stick for the positive lure of privileges and rewards as well as the negative threat of the forced labor camp. A residue of insecurity

remains which even the most skillful manipulation cannot eliminate. The dictator tries to build his security on the insecurity of his subjects because he faces the constant problem of liquidating all actual or potential competitors. His dependence on the secret police is absolute. The secret police follows its own laws of growth. It thrives on crisis and lives by emphasizing sinister threats at home and abroad. The atmosphere of universal suspicion which it breeds envelops the ruling group itself the dictator becomes the victim of the Frankenstein's monster which he has created the ultimate hazard of terror as a system of power is that it ends by terrorizing the master as well as a

slave. To. Loans. You have just heard. Tara as a system of power. One in a transcribed series of full hour programs. People under communism based on documented evidence and expert knowledge about the power and intention of the Soviet Union. Materials for this broadcast were supplied by Dr. Merle Fein side professor of Government at Harvard University and director of political studies at the Russian Research Center. This series as a whole was prepared in consultation with scholars from the Russian Institute of Columbia University. The Hoover Institute in library at Stanford University. And the Russian Research Center at Harvard University. As a system

of power. It was written by David Driscoll and narrated by Alexander scurvy. This program was produced and directed by Frank Pak. These programs are prepared and distributed by the National Association of educational broadcasters. And are made possible under a grant from the fund for adult education an independent organization established by the Ford Foundation. This is the network.