Customer Reviews

Stalin's Slave Ships: Kolyma, the Gulag Fleet, and the Role of the West

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I'm the author. I appreciate Raymond W. Jensen's kind remarks and his positive review of my book. A few mistakes crept into his review regarding the loss of the ship Indigirka in 1939. Let me correct them, just to keep the record straight: Indigirka was sold to the Soviets in early 1938 (not 1930) and it was returning from Kolyma, not traveling to it, when it ran aground.

Thanks again for the review, Mr. Jensen.

P.S.: Amazon forces me to rate my own book in order to post this. Therefore, please disregard my review of "5" as hopelessly biased.

As an undergraduate in a modern Russian literature course, I read "Kolyma Streetcar" which was about an incident that ocurred on one of the "slave ships" which is documented in this book. As gruesome and disgusting as that account was, I had no idea that it was only the tip of the iceberg.

For example, in "Stalin's Slave Ships," it is documented that:
1. The "Indigirka," a ship carrying around 1000 slaves to the icy domain of Kolyma, capsized off the Japanes coast, around 1939. Approximately 750 prisoners drowned. Many could have been saved, had the crew not been so hesitant to expose a big secret to the Japanese rescuers. Incidentally, the Indigirka was built in Manitowoc, Wisconsin and was sold to the Soviets in 1930.
2. Many "lend-lease" ships lent to the Soviets by the US during WW2 (but never returned) were used as slave ships. Yes, US tax money helped finance the Soviet gulag system.
3. On one occasion, a riot broke out amongst the prisoners in the crowded hold on a slave ship. The guards quelled the riot using seawater-which in the Sea of Okhotsk at the time was at or below freezing. The ship arrived at its destination, Magadan, with a giant ice cube in its cargo hold, dead prisoners trapped within.
4. To relieve themselves while on these ships, prisoners had to use barrels, which often toppled over on the high seas. Many had to sleep on the floor.
5. While at port in Seattle, a slave ship was undergoing repairs for use in "lend-lease" shipments of supplies from the US to the Soviet Union, again, courtesy of the US taxpayer. Workers complained of foul odors coming from the hold of the ship. Of course, they did not know what these odors were from.
6. One source tells of a contingent of US prisoners of war, from World War 2, who were being sent to gulag labor camps. A cleaning woman in a camp risked her life (and ultimately lost it) by getting names of American POWs written down, to smuggle out of the country. The document was not discovered until recently, and it turns out that some of the badly mis-spelled names matched known US POWs.
7. Once at their destination, prisoners could expect a slow and cold death. One account documents a "procession of phantoms," "not human," heading for a boat in Magadan. Many were without noses, arms, legs. They were said to be taken out to sea and drowned. When temperatures go down to 50 below and prisoners are given inadequate shelter and clothing, severe frostbite takes its toll.
8. One account (from Solzhenitsyn) claims that several starving prisoners came across specimens of ancient creatures frozen in the permafrost, creatures like never before seen. What did the prisoners do? They "promptly ate them."
9. Some recent accounts tell of mass graves, tourguides even offering skulls and bones as souvenirs.

Bollinger offers some very solid research in this book. There is no exaggeration of figures, and whenever questionable accounts are given, they are labeled as such. I hate to use the old cliche, "this ought to be required reading in schools" but it ought to be. Perhaps you will agree with me.

First, in the interest of full disclosure, the author of the book is one of my business partners -- a business that has nothing to do with the subject matter of this book. I would like to believe the author and I have the sort of relationship that allows me to be honest about what I think of his book. I must however momentarily stop and think about the wisdom of that belief. The author is considerably more senior than I am in our firm, and he commands substantial respect from his fellow senior partners. The influence he has on the portion of my career that has not yet occurred is not lost on me. I'm certain he appreciates honesty, but perhaps he may not appreciate such public honesty -- on the internet which is both very public and very permanent.

At this point, I've no doubt led you to believe that I found the book factually inaccurate, uninteresting, or simply poorly written. I must admit that I was in fact hoping that would be the case, but alas, it is not. Some background and context appears in order. I've known the author, as my business partner, for a number of years, but did not know he was the author of a book. I learned of this accomplishment while we, as part of a small group, were touring the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis Maryland. While being told about various ships and the commanders who took them into battle, I casually inquired of the author whether he knew much about maritime history. With perfect fluidity and timing, and while maintaining his gaze in a direction other than mine, he casually remarked that he had written a book on the subject. When I further inquired how he found the time and energy for this type of endeavor, he replied simply that "I don't golf." This short exchange motivated me to get my hands on the book so that I could identify and point out what I hoped was its many shortfalls.

Well, that's the context; here's my review. First, for those who care about data, I was quite simply amazed at the depth of research in the book. I cannot vouch for accuracy of the data, but knowing the author quite well, I would find it hard to believe he would pen his name on a book that didn't undergo considerable review and rigorous critique. This book is the perfect gift for the loved one in your life who desires facts about tonnage, displacement, or the exact placement of the mast on a particular ship that no longer exists. I must confess that I find this type of data, and the people who find it interesting, to be rather uninteresting. There is a time and place for learning these facts, but -- to use the words of my favorite living writer, Joseph Epstein -- that time and place is reserved for some knotty pine bench in hell.

Moving along to the quality of the writing, I must unfortunately confess I found the book very interesting -- in fact a proverbial page-turner. It is, and I do hate saying this, extremely well written. The fact that the aforementioned data and facts are weaved into such a well-written story makes the writing remarkable. The author captured my interest from the start, and held my occasionally morbid curiosity, throughout the book. Being a linear reader who does not look ahead to the end of a book, I was surprised and disappointed when I came upon the end of the story with considerable pages remaining in the book. The remainder of the book being reserved for those who desire even more data and further evidence that the author had in fact derived all that data from scholarly sources.

Overall and on a very serious note, the real story in this book is unfortunately that there is sadly no shortage of mind-bending evil in this world. As a child of holocaust survivors, I tend to avoid books and movies on that particular subject and era. This aversion is due in part to my father telling me that words and pictures cannot come close to depicting the horror he experienced, but is mostly due to the anger it generates in me. The evil and resulting horrors described in this book are less personal, but do not invoke less anger. Stones that witnessed the atrocities do in fact cry, and the ships that played such a huge role in the evil have indeed left wakes. It is important to understand this evil and learn from it -- especially today, as we learn to make sense of a world that has to some degree lost both its mind and humanity. The author has done an excellent job applying his well-known wit and keen articulation to create a factual story that enables us to learn from our past so we can better deal with our present to create an improved future for the children we will leave behind. Well done Mr. Bollinger.

This is a well researched book, relatively short with extensive appendix material on individual ships. It provides compelling evidence the US was duped into supporting the convict labor camps in Siberia. It isn't able to answer the question of whether of not people in the US knew this was happening, but some of the circumstantial evidence is, to say the least, intriguing. The only downside is that the author takes a scholary tone to the work which understates the dramatic elements of the story. But overall a fascinating tale, and very well documented.

Most students of the Stalin era are aware of the transportation of criminals and political dissidents to Siberia via the Soviet train system. What is not so well know is that from 1932 through 1953 a fleet of Russian cargo ships were pressed into the service of carrying approximately one million forced laborers to the Soviet Gulag in Kolyma, one of the most infamous of the Soviet gulags and located along the Arctic Circle in far northeastern Siberia. Now for the first time, that obscure aspect of Soviet history is thoroughly described and fully documented in "Stalin's Slave Ships: Kolyma, The Gulag Fleet, And The Role Of The West" by Martin J. Bollinger and published by the Naval Institute Press. Of special note is the previously unrecognized role of the American government in this horrific activity as U.S. shipyards constructed most of the Soviet Gulag fleet -- and even overhauled many of these ships free of charge. Drawing from private and public records from both American and Russian archives, as well as firsthand testimony from those directly involved in these transport operations, "Stalin's Slave Ships" reveals just how much Washington knew about the use of American ships by the Russians to transport slave laborers to their gulag destination. Superbly documented, "Stalin's Slave Ships" is an essential, core addition to academic library Soviet Studies and 20th Century Russian History reference collections and supplemental reading lists.

In the 1930s and 40s the Soviet shipped hundreds of thousands of men and women to the vast arctic wasteland of Kolyma. Their crime? Some were indeed criminals but the majority were victims of Stalin's secret police, thrown into the Gulag system on the slimmest evidence of "counter-revolutionary activity" or "wrecking" but sometimes were sent to labor camps on no evidence at all.

Kolyma was one of the worst outposts in the Gulag system, and considering the horrors of the Communist slave labor camps that is saying much. Those earmarked for Kolyma faced an arduous trip on the Trans-Siberian Railway, indefinite detention at Vladivostok and a voyage across arctic waters aboard a freighter slightly modified for the carriage of slave laborers.

Few of the ships were built in the USSR. The Soviets had almost no merchant ships available to them following WWI, the Revolution and the Civil War. Other countries obligingly sold them ships... including the United States. Later the U.S. would GIVE ships to its Soviet ally during WWII, and these no doubt carried human beings on their one-way trip to the goldfields of Kolyma.

Sometimes a little repetitious but otherwise a great read on this tragic chapter in history. This book shows the consequences when you make a deal with the devil.

I read this book with interest and have found it informative. Unfortunately, the book contains many, many errors, which are very annoying. Virtually every Russian name (in Cyrillic) is misspelled or used incorrectly (which makes me wonder--couldn't the author have asked a Russian historian to check the spelling of the Russian names?) There are numerous typos and errors in grammar and vocabulary (such as the use of the word "emigrate" for "immigrate"--twice!). Such errors may be acceptable for a work of fiction but are rather sloppy for someone writing a historical account--especially a rather critical one. But perhaps the biggest disappointment is the sources used to piece together the events the author describes. There are very, very few first-hand accounts--the book is largely based on second-, third-, and probably twenty-fifth-hand account of events; numerous claims have no references at all. Bottom line--the author's claims may very well be true--but relying on second-rate data may not be the best way to persuade the reader of the validity of these claims.

I purchase many books from Amazon & Amazon Kindle. I rely a lot on my fellow readers to guide me in my purchase decisions. I ordered Stalins Slave Ships for My Kindle I downloaded the free introductory read. The free introductory read was enjoyable reading, but when I dowloaded the rest it beagan to read in an encyclopedic manner about the Gulag fleet. Therefore I would recommend this book to those who need to look up Gulag ships on a reference basis. I have one I would sell cheap, however I am to lazy to do the work involved.