How do you know? Did you saw their probable causes? Did you saw the files of prisoners? Who tell you that?
I did. There's a museum in my country in which some files that the soviets didn't take with them when they felt that USSR was ending remain. I saw the photocopied files.
And one more thing. You can believe it or you can ignore it. I do not care. I live in Russia and no one from my big family (mom's parents have like gazillion kids, brothers and sisters and father's too) no one was sitting in the prison or camp. In fact, my great-grandad was a kulak (people like to tell that Stalin arrested all kulaks), my grandad was religious man and had a bad thoughts about Jospeh Vessarionovich. And they say that they didn't heard anything about Gulags or Camps until the 90s and so-called freedom of speech. I think that is the best example of how "Bad-bad Stalin surpression".
Guess they were either smart to keep their mouths shut or lucky enough not to have been friends with KGB agents. However, many weren't so lucky.
Funny fact, but the largest anti-soviet liar (Alexandr Solzhenitcyn) was sponsored by USA and printed in... YMCA. Great, right? Tell me more about financed propaganda =)
Might be. USSR was an enemy of the US - it would be more than logocal for them to sponsor those that oppose it. I'm not saying the US is a completely innocent, I'm saying that USSR was ruled by a totalitarian regime that disproved freedom of speech and thought.
You can base on facts when you really saw them. You can base on facts, when you have a right statistics. You can base on facts, when you was in the same situation. I mean that of course there were camps and gulags in USSR. Of course there were a people inside and I can agree that sometimes conditions wasn't royal (like in US correctional facilities lol). But it wasn't as big as you may think. And it wasn't so bloody. Nobody will arrest you just because you think different. People were arrested because of money, power and law-crossing. That's what I believe.
Sadly, I have relatives and close friends of those relatives that would say different. Some were more fortunate and were just interrogated and let go, others got to experience the conditions that "wasn't royal". They just used different words to describe that. Regarding the statistics, I base my opinions on what most of the world has agreed upon. Not sure what kind of statistics you base yours.
That is what I'm talking about! I agree with you and with your opinion about strong hand. I'm just sick of people who call Russia's strong hand as totalitarian gulag system.
I'm not talking nor was I talking about Russia's current government. I was talking about USSR.