soviet forced labor system like labor camps and internal exile people. and large part the soviet appeal system but also a system to help political prisoners. >> when and how would pay developed? >> the first labor camp starts very early and levin uses the term concentration camp and they start playing around after the revolution of 1917 using some forced labor costs as was common at that time as a message to transform criminals. but their real expansion to what we know it as a huge multimillion principal rates

for the death of london and the rise of stolen so as he is in the midst of collected by saying agriculture taking land away from the owners to turn it over to the state to forcing the presence to become state employees, there was a lot of resistance so of say deported and large number in turn away and also are restive large numbers of people so this was the expansion of the gulag into this huge extension something to think about as a massive destitution holding political prisoners and criminals see it comes to an end after stalin dies 1953.

so they're relatively few left. maybe 10,000 but compared to what was the son numbers that are quite small. the forced labor account -- scams continue and hold primarily in part criminal. >> who did stalinist then to the gulag? >> three groups of individuals also stock or maybe somebody's saw them spell a cup of coffee of

stalin and took that as terrorists intend. this but to keep in mind that makes the gulag quite interesting is the criminals of the soviet system these are the systems that are in with the world and then the third group they don't classified political or criminal caught up in some harsh they go campaign against petty theft against absenteeism from work the number of decrees you take a few potatoes from the field during a famine to feed your family and get seven years in forced labor or show up to work habitually late and get time in the labor camp because this is called shirking good duty to work

so technically they violated the law but the mismatch between the punishment and crime is so severe that it in of think we consider them criminals but not exactly a prisoners of conscience either. >> what was the experience like? >> it was brutal they were located in the extremes of the far north fined siberia and central asia were i have done a lot of research for my a look and we should not be confused to think it was nice but temperatures reach negative 40 degrees with wind and only under the most extreme conditions that prisoners were allowed to not work for one day.

it was marked by violence and guards aimed at prisoners of place that they have too little food to survive where sexual violence was rampant and every imaginable things that could make one's life in absolute living hell that is what the gulag was life. >> host: why did you focus on cost stan? >> i was trying to do something new here is the 20th anniversary of the fall of the soviet union and as it came to an end rehab access to this system it was all classified top-secret and restart to learn a substantial number were released and it forced us to think about what the system meant so it wanted to look

at the system throughout the chronology or the multiplicity of the institutions or the labor camps or the individuals to make this something manageable within a single book the archives struck of audio to microphones the archive and it is now available in the united states in the number of different libraries it was for 1.5 million frames of microphone so you can imagine nobody can go through all of this so you have to decide how do come up with the project that is manageable but allows you to tell the story you try to

tell? i decided do this with the friday at of institutions to allow me to shape the way it went to the archival materials to get out of moscow or the united states to look at the way the individual camp tried to do with the demands but there are a number of different places one could choose to do this but i chose this city in centro, 60 and. the third largest city but a scenario built by laborers and i chose this for a number of reasons. but also because frankly well below the arctic circle

also it is just the impossible locale when it comes time to think about spending eight months going through archives the adm not being 24 hours is quite appealing. this has allowed me to tell a story that both grapples with what the gulag means has sold it to look at the specific institution to see the lives of individuals as they move through. >> host: now you have done in your academic research how accurate quasi archipelago? >> as i have worked on this i am struck it is truly amazing to think i have all of the advantages he did not have first that nobody would arrest me for the worker was

doing by have access to official information and right two without fear it and access to his work and in the midst of the difficulties he is so often right. talk about kazakhstan the prisoners managed to kick the guards and out of the camp's own and i could look at the official documentation both from moscow and in the locality across expand and read about the appraising. to write about the prisoners you seeing types but what do i find? vitter using kites to drop

leaflets on the population. what do i find? the prisoners used running water to create a power station to power the radios to broadcast their message to the local population they could get somebody from moscow to look into what they understood as a violation of the legality of the authorities but again and again they were correct for crow because of the limitations of what he had access to he is phenomenal where he could talk to participants he was wrong of the total numbers of prisoners. but how could he have known? how do extrapolate rear

experience talking to people to estimate the size of an institution now with over 5 million individual some life is he was incorrect but i am far more astounded at how much she got right. >> host: how many camps were there? was it an appointment? >> the exact number is something we cannot know because it depends on your definition. you may think of as those surrounded by walls with barbwire but if you talk about that then everything that was the camp has a huge number of seven camps such talk about these locale surge in me but the official

numbers various but it makes it sound far less expensive. there are run by the secret police some of the more well-known kgb and run by the institutions being the head of the camp might have been a position somebody would have as a stepping stone to something better the there was tremendous danger if there are too many escapes you could wind up arrested yourself. one commander was arrested december 1938 and executed for all allowing too many escapes' or discipline and it is a frightening position

to be in. but if you go down one more level like the employees employees, not a position most people want to have if it is 40 below it is 40 below even if you are a guard you are still outside in the weather and the face the possibility of criminal prosecution if one of them escapes so they had to provide tremendous inducement to have a salary boost and we will let you choose your next position as a you can return to your home. they often turn demobilized soldiers to the soviet union iran have the fried choice sometimes they told you this

was your job and you said yes, sir, and tried to keep your head low and not be noticed. >> host: when did the gulag system collapsing and house? >> it reaches its largest in terms of population in the late stolid years after world war ii late 1940's march 1953 staal and dies literally three weeks later they have a massive amnesty to release over 1 million prisoners nearly half of the labor camp population at that time. they did this because they came to understand this was not a financial benefit but cost incredible amounts of money to run the system. unskilled labor in the horrible conditions had to provide some amount of food and a whole system of

classified material to pay for the guard and the administrator and understood it costs them tremendously. says the notorious head of the police after stalin dies to say we have lots of people you are not really a danger to the soviet state. they are a result of the harsh legal campaign to say we have to change a weird doing and proposes the amnesty those with short sentences for the revolutionary crimes and he says if you don't change so this is of beginning of the gulag system then this is

caught up in did de-stalinization to become the supreme leader and part of his strategy's was to move away from the worst of the violence and start the process of releasing the prisoners with the latter half of the 1950's the thinking of it as a forced labor camp system and never goes away. rich just turns its attention exclusively toward the hard and criminals. there are still a number that becomes say relatively small part and frankly looking at the former soviet union today and the different locations, you

will find using prisoners and forced labor has not gone away entirely even today. >> host: you're watching booktv on c-span 2 on the campus of george mason university fairfax virginia talking with their professors here who have also written books currently talking with steven barnes "death and redemption" the gulag and the shaping of modern society." professor, i have you done more research in the soviet gulag archives than anybody else? >> i don't know if it is more than anyone else but there are russian scholars who have been doing work since the late 1980's but i am certainly one of those who have done the most. it is terrific because it is a subject we need to know more about there is a lot of

young scholars coming along today who are doing work on this today. month-end ed davis center a few years ago we had well over 78 applications who are doing the kind their research that we need to understand this system. it is a very important contribution only begins to address to go into mourning death to think about the literature that is out there and no marinara this information available on the soviet and those that are employed by the camp system system, and need to know more about these localities

and said different types of scams a labor sphere and these are critical program so pleased there are flying young scholars working on this today. >> where do come up with the term for your title the gulag and the shaping of modern society"? >> tavis trying to come to terms with the fact it represents two important things that even by official statistics which are probably too low in the labor camps alone well over 1 million prisoners die it could be as many as 25% of from any given year. what we have always known this was brutal but what surprised us when we got access to official information is the prisoners that were released every year no less than 20% that

least 115,000 prisoners every year have been million people. so that raises questions what it meant. how do they chairman who is getting out in to the soviets care about what they were becoming and so what i tried to understand is to think of it as the attempt by the individual prisoner to be a part of that 20 percent that is released every year to be part of those that wind up with redemption and to take part it is more surprising to people that they are getting out rican never fully

understand and without taking the massive number of deaths but they did not care of millions of people were dying of that is what it tuck as they understood to build the utopian communist society then so be it what is a few million if you talk about have been on earth? you have to understand these together and what it was all about. >> steven barnes, ed "death and redemption" the gulag and the shaping of modern society" this is the book we have been talking about. thank you very much

>> hello. >> i am from the interest did the race ago the executiveaom director of western writers of america i

will be speaking with robert morgan of course, he is known widely for his poetrytry and his fiction and also known knownl widely as a historian coming over intoi the role does well best known probably for his novel gappedes buckweed -- gapped creek and he tells me as a warm personal friend of both pro. [laughter] he loves her a lot after this. [laughter] also picked up by the zero her of book club shows lourdes discernment because it is the author who is responsible for the quality of the work and into the history world when he did hid is biography of daniel boonehe went through fiveor printingse and still going

and the current book is called lyons of the westhist which is a history of the period of manifest destinywhe when america fell thet continental destinyof becoming the nation thatme we know today but of course, the price that makes some peopleittl a little uneasy when they talk about how they achieved that greatness. fifth we will have the conversation floor at about 30 minutes then open it upivale. then for all those who do make this a premier event

for with this base to enjoy

it and to proselytize and discredit all over the world. there is a reason he is some of thatt amount to rush more and he is right at this critical time. >> he has the vision of the future coming into being. researching this book was ai new education but reading his letters and about him i found all kinds of interesting facts i did not know before and know he was the tallest 1 inch taller than washington perhaps 6-foot 3 inches and some historians have said he stood tall on the heights of head inlo with hisd the halth clouds but james madia had the amount amazingi ability to bring him back to

reality. the great streamer andeat imagination and madison as a great legal thinker had a wonderful relationo between them and they encouragedat l each other and as a great legalalso mind jefferson was the beauchemin the inspiration for the book was the expansion then to the west after the settlement of kentucky my publisher invited me to talk about a abo biography and decided there were was those as is said to myi

publisher and editor the founding father who was most concerned about expandingco the country and learning about the mountains and r rivers and the of languages was jefferson. the man who acquired the west in mexico city was jefferson's grandson and law and my publisher said it is "all in the family." [laughter] so we decided on a book with that beginning and in then to link the biographies of jackson in houston rocket and pulled andchousc winfield scott as the story unfolds deciding to end with the

nemesis the president to oppose most vigorously the expansion into the southwest john quincy adams to was not against it but did not want to expandp slavery that wases an interesting part of theti story. >> all of your characters are very inquisitive which is the american trade to has jefferson lays his hands upon that i guess it is all right but certainly other people claim all of the territory that year he rose moving into and there are consequences for those thceelivehat we live with today it is all set in motion of the manifest

destiny starting with a jefferson writing to clark81, and continue with his commission for the french bought and is asking him to explore the mississippi but -- valley and nobody knew what was beyond that. then of course, the qwest floor the west culminates the purchase of louisiana and then great commission 80 new three telling him what he wants to know about the west which is basically everything. i did not know that the mexican government sent an an army to cut off lewis and clark to not let them get tohing

the west and it seemed to persuade to me had to steady mexicanme history because i came to see it was a part of our stories who i had the pleasure of reading mexicane historians anda history tois tell the story i am glad that i did because i learned a lot that they did not know about the republics south of the border and day very complicated relationship between the united states and the republic of mexico. >> the intellectual hero but the kind of person and that's the way it did rs us theand ivee liberty and economic growth was is a andrew jackson. itj is evident you're not

quite as find a of jacksonn. as you're of jeffersoni referring to him as a bully and the saint of westward expansion as thes embodiment of the spirit both the power and ref miss it they do admire him quite a bit one of the greatest military hero is but he is a complicated mcmahon and one interviewers said that heroes and villains which are the villains? all of them. not to johnny appleseed you is the exception. is jackson is the perfectof example of somebody who was the st. in of a job i thinkten

he has had a bad reputation as the indian killer the person whor removed fed cherokees he believed it was the only way to prevent the extermination in the east and he did believe that but also true he wanted the land for white settlement he can be brutal and the bully and violent but to the people who knew him he was slightly he was very protective and also in nikola said andrew had more of who will mended his natured and and the man he had never met.hi very kind sympathetic he did

not hate in the hands. to raise as his son but would not let in the nation stand in the way of flight submit and westernnsio expansion. that is a great paradox nobody could be climate -- kinder if you stood in his way you were in trouble. and maybe the most popular military leader and with enormous prestige that it is troubleet got inh and it cost him his seat in congress and his life at the alamoth because he wast

supposed to be further easedhe because houston was arew protege of andrew jacksonja end. the politicalso rivalry from the state followed crockett andn houston here to texas. but i feel divided withad great admiration and great reservationousl about figuresurs like andrew jackson. >> surge in a jackson wasi our last president towel personally shoot otherully people in duels. [laughter] i think with political old this port -- discourse and -- and debate if you knew the back story of old hickory.ohnn [laughter] . .