A more effective Dec 1941 preemptive attack on the USA

[Escuadrilla Azul]

I think it's important to understand that GULag was not only an instrument of industrialization -- which you're absolutely right, it was -- but that it was also an instrument of maximizing the utility, to the state, of enemies of the state, after which the lives were discarded.

Of course he's not the most accurate writer on the matter, because 1) his purview was necessarily limited and 2) he has an understandable bias. I do think that he's right in extending the concept of GULag back to 1918 or so even if it wasn't a legal statement of corrective labor camps; such camps seem to have been a tool of Soviet governance almost from the point of their seizure of power.

My point was just that labor camps and extermination camps aren't mutually exclusive, not in Germany, and not in the USSR. I wouldn't doubt that China has some similar sort of thing going on nowadays, either.

Indeed it seems that China have forced labour camps for uigurs:

China Uighurs 'moved into factory forced labour' for foreign brands

A report says China has moved minority Muslims into factory jobs, where their freedom is restricted.

www.bbc.com

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

Indeed it seems that China have forced labour camps for uigurs:

China Uighurs 'moved into factory forced labour' for foreign brands

A report says China has moved minority Muslims into factory jobs, where their freedom is restricted.

www.bbc.com

I don't think those are exterminating their victims, but I wouldn't put much past that regime. I do know that they are practicing forced sterilizations and "re-education".

Anyway, that's about as much as I'll offer on this side discussion.