Monument to Fallen Miners

Gulag | Wikipedia audio article

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00:04:05 1 Brief history
00:08:39 2 Contemporary word usage and other terminology
00:10:33 3 History
00:10:42 3.1 Background
00:16:35 3.2 Formation and expansion under Stalin
00:20:39 3.3 The early years of Stalin's Gulag (1929–1931)
00:25:12 3.4 During World War II
00:25:21 3.4.1 Political role
00:29:06 3.4.2 Economic role
00:36:37 3.5 After World War II
00:43:33 4 Death toll
00:46:49 5 Gulag administrators
00:46:59 6 Conditions
00:52:48 6.1 Gulag and famine (1932–1933)
00:55:11 6.2 Social conditions
00:56:12 7 Geography
01:04:31 8 Special institutions
01:05:27 9 Historiography
01:05:37 9.1 Origins and functions of the Gulag
01:11:19 9.2 Archival documents
01:19:35 9.3 History of Gulag population estimates
01:25:39 10 Influence
01:25:49 10.1 Culture
01:27:46 10.1.1 Literature
01:38:09 10.2 Colonization
01:39:39 10.3 Life after term served
01:40:32 11 Gulag memorials
01:41:12 12 Gulag Museum
01:41:38 13 See also



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- Socrates


SUMMARY
=======
The Gulag (, UK also ; Russian: ГУЛаг [ɡʊˈlak] (listen), acronym of Main Administration of Camps) was the government agency in charge of the Soviet forced-labor camp-system that was set up under Vladimir Lenin and reached its peak during Joseph Stalin's rule from the 1930s to the early 1950s. English-language speakers also use the word gulag to refer to any forced-labor camp in the Soviet Union, including camps which existed in post-Stalin times. The camps housed a wide range of convicts, from petty criminals to political prisoners. Large numbers were convicted by simplified procedures, such as by NKVD troikas or by other instruments of extrajudicial punishment. The Gulag is recognized by many as a major instrument of political repression in the Soviet Union.
The agency was first administered by the GPU, later by the NKVD and in the final years by the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD). The Solovki prison camp, the first corrective labor camp constructed after the revolution, was established in 1918 and legalized by a decree On the creation of the forced-labor camps on April 15, 1919. The internment system grew rapidly, reaching a population of 100,000 in the 1920s. According to Nicolas Werth, author of The Black Book of Communism, the yearly mortality rate in the Soviet concentration camps strongly varied, reaching 5% (1933) and 20% (1942–1943) while dropping considerably in the post-war years (about 1 to 3% per year at the beginning of the 1950s). The emergent consensus among scholars who utilize official archival data is that of the 18 million who were sent to the Gulag from 1930 to 1953, roughly 1.5 to 1.7 million perished there or as a result of their detention. However, some historians who question the reliability of such data and instead rely heavily on literary sources come to higher estimations. Archival researchers have found no plan of destruction of the gulag population and no statement of official intent to kill them, and prisoner releases vastly exceeded the number of deaths in the Gulag.Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, who survived eight years of Gulag incarceration, gave the term its international repute with the publication of The Gulag Archipelago in 1973. The author likened the scattered camps to a chain of islands, and as an eyewitness he described the Gulag as a system where people were worked to death.
In March 1940, there were 53 Gulag camp directorates (colloquially referred to as simply camps) and 423 labor colonies in the Soviet Union. Many mining and industrial towns and cities in northern and eastern Russia and in Kazakhstan such as Karaganda, Norilsk, Vorkuta and Magadan, were originally blocks of camps built by prisoners and subsequently run by ex-prisoners.

Dissolution of the Soviet Union | Wikipedia audio article

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Dissolution of the Soviet Union

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The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.
- Socrates



SUMMARY
=======
The dissolution of the Soviet Union occurred on 26 December 1991, officially granting self-governing independence to the Republics of the Soviet Union (USSR). It was a result of the declaration number 142-Н of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union. The declaration acknowledged the independence of the former Soviet republics and created the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), although five of the signatories ratified it much later or did not do so at all. On the previous day, 25 December, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, the eighth and final leader of the Soviet Union, resigned, declared his office extinct and handed over its powers—including control of the Soviet nuclear missile launching codes—to Russian President Boris Yeltsin. That evening at 7:32 p.m., the Soviet flag was lowered from the Kremlin for the last time and replaced with the pre-revolutionary Russian flag.Previously, from August to December all the individual republics, including Russia itself, had either seceded from the union or at the very least denounced the Treaty on the Creation of the USSR. The week before formal dissolution, eleven republics signed the Alma-Ata Protocol formally establishing the CIS and declaring that the USSR had ceased to exist. Both the Revolutions of 1989 and the dissolution of the USSR also marked the end of the Cold War.
Several of the former Soviet republics have retained close links with the Russian Federation and formed multilateral organizations such as the Commonwealth of Independent States, Eurasian Economic Community, the Union State, the Eurasian Customs Union and the Eurasian Economic Union to enhance economic and security cooperation. On the other hand, the Baltic states have joined NATO and the European Union.

Dissolution of the Soviet Union | Wikipedia audio article

This is an audio version of the Wikipedia Article:
Dissolution of the Soviet Union

Listening is a more natural way of learning, when compared to reading. Written language only began at around 3200 BC, but spoken language has existed long ago.

Learning by listening is a great way to:
- increases imagination and understanding
- improves your listening skills
- improves your own spoken accent
- learn while on the move
- reduce eye strain

Now learn the vast amount of general knowledge available on Wikipedia through audio (audio article). You could even learn subconsciously by playing the audio while you are sleeping! If you are planning to listen a lot, you could try using a bone conduction headphone, or a standard speaker instead of an earphone.

You can find other Wikipedia audio articles too at:


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The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.
- Socrates



SUMMARY
=======
The dissolution of the Soviet Union occurred on 26 December 1991, officially granting self-governing independence to the Republics of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). It was a result of the declaration number 142-Н of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union. The declaration acknowledged the independence of the former Soviet republics and created the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), although five of the signatories ratified it much later or did not do so at all. On the previous day, 25 December, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, the eighth and final leader of the USSR, resigned, declared his office extinct and handed over its powers—including control of the Soviet nuclear missile launching codes—to Russian President Boris Yeltsin. That evening at 7:32 p.m., the Soviet flag was lowered from the Kremlin for the last time and replaced with the pre-revolutionary Russian flag.Previously, from August to December all the individual republics, including Russia itself, had either seceded from the union or at the very least denounced the Treaty on the Creation of the USSR. The week before formal dissolution, eleven republics signed the Alma-Ata Protocol formally establishing the CIS and declaring that the USSR had ceased to exist. Both the Revolutions of 1989 and the dissolution of the USSR also marked the end of the Cold War.
Several of the former Soviet republics have retained close links with the Russian Federation and formed multilateral organizations such as the Commonwealth of Independent States, Eurasian Economic Community, the Union State, the Eurasian Customs Union and the Eurasian Economic Union to enhance economic and security cooperation. On the other hand, the Baltic states have joined NATO and the European Union.