Winds of Change.NET: Getman's Gulag Art

September 26, 2004

Getman's Gulag Art

by Joe Katzman at September 26, 2004 7:13 AM

In 1946, an artist named Nikolai Getman was imprisoned in the Soviet Union's infamous Gulag system of Siberian concentration camps. His "crime" was that he had been present in a cafe with several fellow artists, one of whom drew a caricature of Stalin on a cigarette paper. The Jamestown Foundation further notes that:

"Upon his release in 1954, Getman commenced a public career as a politically correct painter. Secretly, however, for more than four decades, Getman labored at creating a visual record of the Gulags [paintings displayed online here] which vividly depicts all aspects of the horrendous life (and death) which so many innocent millions experienced during that infamous era.

Getman's collection is unique because it is the only visual record known to exist of this tragic phenomenon. Unlike Nazi Germany, which recorded and preserved in detail a visual history of the Holocaust, the Russians prefer not to remember what happened in the Gulags. Not a single person has been punished for the deaths of the millions who perished there. If film or other visual representations of the Soviet Gulags existed, they have been largely destroyed or suppressed. The Getman collection stands alone as a most important historical document."

Additional links mine. These haunting, deeply evocative works of art are very much worth your time for 3 reasons. First and foremost, for their human dimension. Second, they offer us a reminder of where Russia is now in relation to its past.

Last but certainly not least, they're a searing reminder of what communism really was - despite the consistent denials and evasions from many significant figures in the Western Left, too many of whom seemed to prefer onanistic radical whines about life in the hell that was Amerikkka. Some of them are still at it, and not just in Cuba. Last May, Winds of Change.NET had a long and interesting exchange about this pehnomenon with Armed Liberal, Michael Totten, Roger Simon, Francis Poretto and Caerdroia.

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Tracked: July 25, 2005 4:51 AM

THIS is a Gulag from The Fourth Rail

Excerpt: Irene Khan, Secretary General of Amnesty International has characterized the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay as “the gulag of our times”, demonstrating her utter lack of perspective or knowledge of history. Anne Applebaum, the author of GULAG:...

Comments

#1 from Gary Gunnels at 10:13 am on Sep 26, 2004

...radical whines about life in the hell that was Amerikkka.

Not to discount the horrors of the Soviet Gulags or the Nazi Concentration Camps, but life has been hell for many Americans - particularly Americans of color and other minorities, including those of varying European ethnic heritage. I mean ask yourself, wasn't life hell for the Scottsboro Boys? Or hell for James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner when they were chased, tortured, shot, and buried by a gang of barbarians in Neshoba County, Mississippi forty years ago, probably with the aid - or at least a wink and nod - from local law enforcement? Or how about the radioactive horrors commited upon unsuspecting Americans by the U.S. government?

America is not as exceptional when it comes to human rights tragedies as we would like to think that it sometimes is. We need to be slightly less triumphalist if our claim to fame is that we have been less bad the Soviets.

#2 from AMac at 12:09 pm on Sep 26, 2004

Not to discount the horrors of the Soviet Gulags or the Nazi Concentration Camps, but life has been hell for many Americans

Not to discount your point of view, Gary Gunnels, but regular readers of this web-log understand that history is tragedy, not comedy. To make any sort of morality-based evaluations is necessarily to compare one bad thing to another bad thing, acknowledging each one's badness. Insight can arise once we figure out how to avoid the nihilistic trap of "one bad, all bad, all equally bad."

Yeah yeah sure sure, everybody understands that. In abstract, vague, general terms.

For many Leftists, the devil is still in the details. As it has been for at least the past 97 years.

#3 from Joe Katzman at 6:57 pm on Sep 26, 2004

Gary, it's great to have opponents like you. All the stuff above about evasions and dishonesty in the face of appaling abuses is only words on the paper, until someone like you shows up in person to make it a 3-dimensional reality.

"Not to discount the horrors of the Soviet Gulags or the Nazi Concentration Camps"

...which is always a good signal the speaker is about to do exactly that. This one didn't break the streak.

Let's see. On the one hand, we have citizens who were hundreds of miles downwind of nuclear tests due to government negligence and secrecy. The problems were reported in a free media, and led to changes. Or, we have a case of miscarriage of justice (hmm, you might ask Ron Goldman's parents about that one while you're at it). But actually, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner had great lives. They died in a criminal act, some local cops and politicians were bought/allied, and the perp walked. I'm sure that has never happened before, anywhere.

And you choose to compare this, to.... let's see... political prisoners taken to Siberia without adequate food or shelter or clothing, and forced to mine uranium until they dropped dead of radiation poisoning (which is, in fact, what the above picture shows - click on it and see). Unless, of course, starvation or a guard's bullet got them first. Or several million human beings arrested for their political beliefs, tortured, and murdered by the state in a campaign that was openly organized and continued for over 60 years. While all the while, western "political pilgrims" paraded by, praising the country's jailers and torturers. Still do, in some places.

If you can't see the dif then there's nothing I can do to help you... and nothing I want to do.

Back to Lileks' Labour Day post, quoting idiotarian Art Spiegelman:

"Q. Do you consider yourself a victim of September 11?

A. "Exactly so. From the time that the Twin Towers fell, it seems as if I've been living in internal exile, or like a political dissident confined to an island. I no longer feel in harmony with American culture, especially now that the entire media has become conservative and tremendously timid."

You want political dissidents confined to an island? You want hell? Drop the posers and flip though Getman's paintings, and recover your moral bearings about what the words really mean.

#4 from Gary Gunnels at 1:09 am on Sep 28, 2004

AMAC,

To make any sort of morality-based evaluations is necessarily to compare one bad thing to another bad thing, acknowledging each one's badness.

The original blog piece did not state anything so nuanced; which was of course the point of my statement.

For many Leftists, the devil is still in the details. As it has been for at least the past 97 years.

Well, I'm not a leftist, so I don't understand the nature of this comment.

Joe Katzman,

The only person evading anything is you.

...which is always a good signal the speaker is about to do exactly that. This one didn't break the streak.

I am not discounting it at all. The horrors of the Soviet gulags are well known and are well worth pondering because they demonstrate how simply horrible any form of collectivism can be. Please, instead of spinning bullshit, address my argument. I mean, how can anyone take you seriously when your primary mode of argumentation is to create arguments out of whole clothe for people; and thereby avoid a true argument, and opt for demonizing them? I will never, ever discount the horrors of the Soviet gulags; and your lame-ass attempt to argue otherwise simply diminishes any credibility you might have.

Let's see. On the one hand, we have citizens who were hundreds of miles downwind of nuclear tests due to government negligence and secrecy.

#5 from Gary Gunnels at 1:12 am on Sep 28, 2004

Joe Katzman,

Drop the posers and flip though Getman's paintings, and recover your moral bearings about what the words really mean.

The only person who has lost his moral bearings is an individual who could say what you said about Cheney, et. al. That was one of the most vile and despicable things I've yet to see here.

#6 from Gary Gunnels at 1:40 am on Sep 28, 2004

Joe Katzman,

Also, I have to admit that I am quite disturbed by your attempt to paint me as an apologist for the Soviet gulags, and thereby avoid the meat of my statements. One wonders why you perfer to create red herrings instead.

#7 from Gary Gunnels at 2:10 am on Sep 28, 2004

Joe Katzman,

Just to disabuse you of your ignorance on the matter of radiation experiments on human subjects in the U.S., see the following:

http://www.eh.doe.gov/ohre/

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/radiation/

http://www.cnn.com/US/9712/31/radioactive.oatmeal/ (On the MIT & Quaker Oatmeal study)

I am sure that you can google more links.

If you're intriqued, try also:

Andrew Goliszek, In the Name of Science: A History of Secret Programs, Medical Research, and Human Experimentation (collects the arguments of the primary investigators)

Linda Hunt, Secret Agenda: The United States Government, Nazi Scientists, and Project Paperclip, 1945 to 1990. (goes into detail regarding the Edgewood, Maryland experiments, where thousands of U.S. soldiers were experimented on - without their consent - with LSD and other chemicals)

You can also read Eileen Welsome's The Plutoniuum Files: America's Secret Medical Experiments in the Cold War.

#8 from T. J. Madison at 3:47 am on Sep 28, 2004

Gary, Joe, before things get too heated here, I would recommend that everybody calm down and read up on the monkeysphere assuming you haven't already.

(It's probably worthy of a front page link in it's own right, and states things far more clearly than I possibly could.)

#9 from Gary Gunnels at 4:29 am on Sep 28, 2004

T. J. Madison,

I enjoyed that. :)

#10 from Joe Katzman at 4:29 pm on Sep 28, 2004

T.J., the 150 limit is well known, and has applications in all sorts of places. Interesting tag for it.

Gary, justice is imperfect and people can be corrupt. This does not change with time or place, it is a fact of the human condition. They were bright kids with promising futures, their lives were good lives lived in freedom and material security, and their death is a tragedy. If the USA didn't have the kind of rights and requirements it has in its criminal justice system, we could go after the racists who probably did it and punish them. But it does have those safeguards, so we're S.O.L.

Read that again, and try to understand. What's blocking retribution for the crime you cite is the PRESENCE of citizen rights.

That is not the same, morally or practically, as the deliberate, organized murder and enslavement of millions due the absolute deprivation of those rights by the state at its highest levels. By equating the two, you do in fact work to trivialize the Soviet evil. I'm sorry if you find that reality unpleasant to deal with.

RE: Radiation experiments. Your first post had sweeping generalizations so vague that they could refer to anything. Your second post has more information - but did you really read the list?

Some of these experiments were therapies, and precursors of therapies in wide use today. Some were conducted with consent, on employees of the labs in question. Some were conducted on terminally ill patients. Some were improper (though once again, your myopic hostility shows itself - injecting mental patients with radiation is bad, but no, it is not the same as dissecting living human beings), and action by a Congressman led to DOE compiling the site you cite with all of its documentation. U.S. Courts awarded damages in some cases.

One wonders what damages have been awarded to Gulag prisoners by Soviet courts? Or what "Freedom of Information Act" was available to the relatives of the people Getman paints? But perhaps the Soviet system was superior, actually... after all, you can ask for the information about your relatives, and instead of handing out useless stacks of paper they'll ship you to the Kolya Mones so you can experience the answer for yourself!

Knowing that to be true, and living in that environment, is not the same thing as living in the United States - an imperfect country, as all countries are, with a pretty impressive set of safeguards and real rights.

Your point that America is hell, and the implicit equation with the crimes of the Gulag, is what's despicable here. Your points are not even substantiated by your own examples - and I'll leave it to the readers to follow the debate abd judge the things I've said about you here. I see no reason to take any of them back.

#11 from T. J. Madison at 5:04 am on Sep 29, 2004

I'm gonna have to side with Joe here. Scale matters. 40 million killed is much greater than even the extremely liberal USG democide estimate of 5 million during the 20th century. (It's probably not that bad)

For the 19th century, USG democide is likely much worse in both relative and absolute terms. But that was a very long time ago.

The USG is a horrible, corrupt, and inefficient extortionist mafia, but the Soviet system was much, much worse How much worse depends on whether people outside the US count. If they don't count, the USSR was 4 or 5 orders of magnitude worse. If they DO count, than it's much close to one order of magnitude worse. Which is still a whole lot worse.

This said, we have a lot more influence (which is to say hardly any at all) over the USG, whereas we had essentially no influence over the USSR. This certainly made constant complaining about the USSR seem a bit odd.

#12 from Joe Katzman at 5:14 am on Sep 29, 2004

[ sound of Joe hitting floor as he loses consciousness ]

TJ: "I'm gonna have to side with Joe here."

#13 from T. J. Madison at 5:48 am on Sep 29, 2004

Joe, this is how the monkeysphere fits in. I have an very abnormal way of rating how important other people are.

Here's how most people's scales (including yours?) seem to work:

You: 1
Family Member: Between 2 and 0.5
Squadmates: 1
Friends: Between 1 and 0.1
Neighbor: 0.05
Same City: 0.001
Same State: 0.0005
Fellow Americans: 0.0004
Anglosphere: 0.0002
Ad-Hoc Ally: 0.0001
Some Random Guy: 0.00005 (you) or 0 (most people)

Here's how my scale seems to work:

Norman Borlaug: 500
Me: 1
Family Member: 0.2
Squadmates: 0.2
Friends: 0.2
Neighbor: 0.0002
Some Random American: 0.0002
GW Bush: 0.0002
Some Random Guy: 0.0002
Osama bin Laden: 0.0002 * (1 - X), where X is the number of likely future victims of bin Laden.

Here's Jesus's scale:

Jesus: 1
Disciples: 1
Some Random Guy: 1
Crucifiers of Jesus: 1
Prostitutes, Thieves, Murderers: 1

Most of the visceral heat that I (and Noam for that matter) seem to take around here seems to stem from the difference in scale factor. I can't really defend my scale on objective grounds, except to True Christians, who should really have a scale more proportional to mine. It's easy to see how I could be considered unAmerican, as 0.0002 < 0.0004 in the above table.

#14 from Joe De Bolt at 11:47 am on May 14, 2005

The statement by Bill Geimer in the piece on Getman is not true: "Getman's collection is unique because it is the only visual record known to exist of this tragic phenomina (the GULAG)". I know of other visual presentations of the GULAG, I have seen them, and I know where they are housed. Geimer's statement has been plastered far and wide, both on the internet(on the Jamestown.org web site) and in a collection of Getman's works that Geimer's Jamestown Foundation published. It has been spread further by others on the web. Getman's work is important, but others should not be deprived of recognition.

#15 from Joe Katzman at 5:05 pm on May 14, 2005

Joe De Bolt, we'd be happy to correct that. Just drop us a comment telling us where these other collections are housed and we'll modify the post to set that record straight.

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