ABSTRACT
In May and June 1954, the greatest uprising in the GULAG system occurred in special camp in Karaganda Province. The first reforms of the GULAG system did not affect political prisoners. The GULAG was that one reality to which the young could not reconcile themselves; and the older generation did not find the moral absolutism of youth to be a satisfactory judgment on its relationship to the GULAG. Although the psychological alienation of the refugees from the GULAG was overcome only with difficulty, the difficulty was a natural part of rehabilitation itself. The conventional part of the population found the unfortunates from the GULAG to be shy and embarrassed. Rehabilitation was in fact more like an expiation of sins, a product of an exalted mercifulness. It was, however, liberation, and those benefiting from it did not at first feel its incompleteness.
