http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QupijTjTQQ

Workers in a Soviet Gulag 

                                       A painting titled "Moving Out" by the artist Nikolai Getman 
                                      who was imprisoned in the Soviet forced labor camp system 

                                                          victims - starved on purpose

                                                                     Dead in the gulag

What He Did:

The torture and cruelty of the Soviets began with separating the Polish into two groups. One group would be killed immediately by being shot. During Stalin's rule over 20 million people were sent to gulags or labor camps. Malnutrition and scurvy were both common due to the diets of the people in the labor camps. Nearly half of them died while at these horrendous camps. Many prisoners of war or victims in the labor camps were underfed to the point of starvation. They were also given little clothing even during the winter months so death was likely due to the terrible living conditions. In the prisons the cells were stuffed with about twelve people when it was meant for five. Reports of victims of the heinous crimes told that it was difficult to breathe because of the crowd and because it was either scorching hot or freezing cold. The polish prisoners were forced to march for long distances with possible sudden death if they stepped to the left or right.

Works Cited-

Biography on Stalin:

http://www.biography.com/people/joseph-stalin-9491723/videos/joseph-stalin-mini-biography-2232250110

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/stalin_joseph.shtml

The Purges:

http://www.biography.com/people/joseph-stalin-9491723/videos/joseph-stalin-the-secret-police-2237394247

http://library.thinkquest.org/C0112205/stalinsrussia.html

Russia Before the Genocide:
For hundreds of years Russian farms were not able to produce enough food or bring enough food to the market place to feed the population which led to massive strife and several anti government movements including the Russian Revolution of 1917 which brought Lenin to power. Stalin did the socialist thing of spreading the wealth. 

Stalin made a rich country poor, a poor people poorer, and brought forward a reign of terror and fear that lasted decades.

Joseph Stalin was the one who decided to the Iron Curtain, which was a border line that separated East and West Germany. The government did not want Eastern Germany to see the many rights that other countries had, so they did not allow peasants to cross it.