ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses one of Sigmund Freud's basic hypotheses regarding the cause and treatment of mental disorders in individuals. Freud's hypothesis is being appropriated for use in the social and political arena. The "return of the repressed" refers to the victims of the Soviet system who were repressed by the state, incarcerated in the Gulag, and then returned to Soviet society. Return to Soviet society began at the moment of release, but the reception that awaited the returnees varied with the historical period. The chapter explores a number of stories about the returnee experience in exile. It presents unvarnished stories of exile that speak eloquently about the impact of the "ex-prisoner" status on the lives of these returnees. One of the reasons for the contradictions and inconsistencies in the Soviet system of repression was that while it used laws to repress people, the system was less a rule of law than of men.
