Corey Teves
HST 324-7101
Dr. Paula Noversa
04 May 2018
Week 7 Essay
A Garrison State in short cares more about its military and strength rather than its people, which also makes the state’s control come the military as well. The Garrison State is a state in which the country is dominated by the military-industrial complex, such as the modern United States, North Korea or like in the article the Soviet Union during the Cold War. The military-industrial complex became a force consuming most the United States federal budget on the expense of infrastructure, educational or health spending, spreading fear among the populace and looking for enemies to replace the Soviet Union after the end of the Cold War.
In the Garrison State article is speaks on how the garrison state effected the Leninist Soviet Union and the history behind the two ideas. The articles states that in 1917 in the Soviet Union came the Bolshevik revolution which created a rapid concentration of political power, this new power/regime provided a high expectation of violence and enemies which shows its need for a “garrison state.” At this time in the Soviet Union’s history this particular “garrison state” could be described as Leninist, because to a point all of the characteristics are similar and provide a foundation for each other, which would create the rise of the garrison state in the Leninist Soviet Union.
As the Bolsheviks prepared to seize power, Lenin at this time saw the rise of the garrison state, but his idea of the garrison state was in the form of a dictatorship. In 1905 in a speech to the third congress, Lenin described his idea of a dictatorship as an “organization of war” rather than of order.
The military, economic and administrative aspects of the Soviet Union in 1918 and 1921 are the Lenin garrison state and the policies are known as war communism. This was an attempt by the Bolshevik leadership to substitute command in the operation of the economy. Eventually Lenin’s conflict nature led him to embrace terror. The secret police in the Soviet Union and the forced labor camps were the work of Lenin rather than of Stalin. And this led to Lenin confiscating church valuables for raising funds. Lenin took the idea of a Garrison State and how it is rule by the military and created a dictatorship that made his own people suffer from the labor camps to the confiscation of their goods.
In the novel One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn, it depicts life in the Soviet Union labor camps. While reading the book and summarizing it, the effects of Lenin’s garrison state were evident and created a hard life for Ivan Denisovich Shukhov.
The main character of the novel is Ivan Denisovich Shukhov. The novel follows a day in the labor camp and it starts with Ivan waking up at 5:00 am feeling sick. Now Ivan Denisovich Shukhov is not an innocent man he is serving out a sentence for crime. The problem is the sentence is being served in a gulag, which was a forced labor prison camp. Since Shukhov didn’t feel good he thought it was best to not get out of bed and he stayed in bed longer than usual and because of this he was punished by the warden for not getting out of bed at the correct time. He was told that the punishment would be time in what was called “the hole” or solitary confinement but instead he had to wash a floor in the wardens' office.
One he finished his punishment he rushed to get to breakfast and once he finished he proceeded to go to the sickbay. But they inform him that he's not that sick and he must go to work.
After the work day ended and the roll call was conducted; back at the camp Shukhov picked up a package for a fellow inmate hoping that he would get something out of it and Shukhov ends up getting to have some of the guy’s dinner as a reward. After dinner Shukhov returned to his hut and helped the inmate hide his package during another roll call, and as some reward or thanks for helping, Shukhov was given some food. Shukhov ends up going to bed not having too bad of a day.
This story follows the life of Ivan Denisovich Shukhov in a forced labor camp in the Soviet Union. Now the story ends with him believing that he had an okay day, but as you follow the story you realize that his life is heavily controlled by the people who ran the gulag, which was clear when he was punished for not waking up on time. He may have been serving a sentence but this way of “prison” is more inhumane than the current system and it gave the people no sense of humanity. This type of forced labor camp was what was present during the time of Lenin while he was creating his “garrison state.”