Percy

Yesterday we heard a lecture from a man named Percy Guravitch. He will return this afternoon to give the second part of his lecture. He is a professor of political science at Vladimir University. He is 89 years old! Not only does he have a scholar's perspective on the last century of Russian history, but he has a personal perspective. You see, Percy was a political prisoner, first of the German Nazis and then of the Soviet Union. A political prisoner is someone who is imprisoned for his or her political beliefs. Percy spoke out against the Nazis and the Communists, and received a severe punishment.

I know that you know about the Nazi concentration camps. But you might not know about the Soviet Union's Gulag. The Gulag was a prison way up in Siberia, the frozen tundra of Russia. Inmates not only had to survive the cold, but they also had to survive the work that the prison guards forced them to perform. The smallest expression of unhappiness with the government could get a person sentenced to the gulag for years and years. Sometimes, people were sent to the Gulag without even being told what they had said or done wrong. This was a system of terror, designed to keep people from protesting or rebelling when the government did unfair things. The communist party wanted total control over the people.

Russia now is a democratic country. This means people can express their views freely. The democracy here is not perfect yet, but building a system based on freedom takes much longer than building a system based on terror. I am hopeful for the future of Russia, and Percy is too!