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Uighur
The third volume of my Shanghai Quartet is set in a Chinese labor camp. Laogai will be a series of interlocking short stories of the men incarcerated in that place. The jailers and the jailed, the victims and the perpetrators. One of the prisoners I’ve simply called the Uighur. He works as an enforcer for…
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Gulag with Chinese Characteristics
Let’s blame the Russians. After all, they’re the ones who first lit the flame of Marxist-Leninist socialism. The 1917 revolution was just the start. Russians taught the world how to collectivize farms, quash dissent and foment worldwide revolution. As Charles Clover writes: Starting soon after the Bolshevik revolution [in 1917], Soviet leaders offered sanctuary and…