Red Empire

The Death Factories of World Communism

This effective persuasive leaflet was distributed by the San Francisco-based Crusade for Truth, Inc. in the early 1950s. Dozens of slave labor camps across the Soviet Union are boldly and authoritatively identified with thick black dots, whereas the nearby cities (reliant on the camps for Stalin’s ambitious industrialization plans) are also shown.

The verso presents compelling text about the system of confinement for political prisoners and other ‘enemies of the people’, estimated at between 15 and 18 million people total. Ongoing peace talks are dismissed out of hand – “the free world prefers to negotiate for an uncertain peace with the leaders of the Red world conspiracy, for a ‘peace at any price’, even if that price includes millions and millions of human lives.”

At the time of issue, the Soviet Gulag system did indeed encompass millions of prisoners. Following WWII, the camp population swelled as Stalin repatriated former POWs, “cleansed” newly annexed territories (like the Baltics), and clamped down hard on political dissent. Inmates were forced to mine gold in Kolyma, cut timber in the Urals, and build massive infrastructure projects like the Volga-Don Canal.