The information on the Gulag has changed over time. This is due to the fact that the Soviet Union did not fall until 1991. Before the fall of the Soviet Union, the survivors and victims as well as their families were forced to remain quiet about the tragedies they had faced. The government also kept any records of the Gulag tightly sealed and hidden away from the general public. The government also worked to ensure that those who did survive were too frightened to retell their experiences. The same issues are faced even in present day when the Soviet Union has fallen. Many records are still sealed tightly but more and more records are becoming available to the public over time. With the new information being brought forth, historians can now…show more content… In 2015, Khlevniuk wrote that at this point in history, anymore information released about the Gulag will just be sharpening the facts that we have already uncovered. In other words, the information we receive will not be new, it will just boarded and add detail to the picture of the Gulag that historians have already created. While just three years prior, Stephen Norris wrote that there was still more to be discovered about the Gulag and as Russia comes to accept its past it will open more doors for historians to understand what truly occurred in the…show more content… The first is that the Gulag was seen as more than just a forced labor camp for the unfit criminals of society to be re-educated. It was an element of the society in the Soviet Union that had an overarching effect on the entire country. The effect was so strong that it still effects citizens today as on author wrote that the person they interviewed that the Gulag could still come back today. It was used politically and socially as a scare tactic and tool for repression that prevented and hindered any form of resistance to the communist dictatorship Stalin had created. It was also a key element in the USSR’s economy. Many link this theme to being one of the reasons the Gulag is left out as a tragedy in western society because the Gulag played a role in the entire structure of the country. The second theme present throughout the literature is that the silence forced upon those effected by the Gulag is another reason why western society often overlooks the tragedy of the Gulag. The victims of the Holocaust where encouraged to share their stories and to heal from their narrative, while the victims of the Gulag were forced to suppress their story while the government who imprisoned them remained in power. Unfortunately, the victims of the Gulag were continually overlooked as their country struggled to rebuild itself and create a stable government. It seems that Russian society has tried
