What did Foucault have to say about the Gulag Question?

In the late 1970s, as the revelations of the brutality of the Gulags in the USSR became common knowledge, some Leftists attempted to use French Philosopher Michel Foucault’s writings on the prison system to explain away the reality of the Gulag. They would claim, “Everyone has their own Gulag, the Gulag is here at our door, in our cities, our hospitals, our prisons, it’s here in our heads.” While Foucault agreed that the technologies of the Gulag share a history with other forms of incarceration in the West, the politics which lead to the creation of the Gulags were very different than other forms of incarceration. Foucault believes the the problem of the Gulag is a unique to socialist states, and therefore, it requires a critique of the very principles of socialism.

Drawings from the Gulag by Danzig Baldaev.

Citations:

Foucault, Michel. Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972-1977. Buy here!

Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Buy here!

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