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Uncompensated care is a big problem - but not the first problem in the healthcare debate. What uncompensated care does represent, however, is a great entry point into the healthcare debate.First of all, truly non-emergency visits are turned away - often - and the triage process itself (time off from work, travel, waiting) effectively minimizes those cases that are truly trivial. ER's are well skilled in determining what's life-threatening - and what needs to wait.Another important consideration is that the ER remains a large, primary source of patients that will be admitted to the hospital (payment to be determined).Relative to the larger healthcare debate, here's the chart using data from the American Hospital Association - AHA [1]:Uncompensated care across about 5,000 U.S. hospitals amounted to about $46 billion in 2012 (latest year available). As we can see - over the course of 22 years it has risen dramatically. Some of that is based on population increase - but not all of it. In 1990 - the U.S. population was about 250 million. In 2012 it was about 313 million. That's a 25% increase in the population - but a 418% increase in uncompensated care.The AHA defines uncompensated care this way:Uncompensated care is an overall measure of hospital care provided for which no payment was received from the patient or insurer. It is the sum of a hospital's "bad debt" and the charity care it provides. Charity care is care for which hospitals never expected to be reimbursed. A hospital incurs bad debt when it cannot obtain reimbursement for care provided; this happens when patients are unable to pay their bills, but do not apply for charity care, or are unwilling to pay their bills. Uncompensated care excludes other unfunded costs of care, such as underpayment from Medicaid and Medicare. [1]Last April, The Commonwealth Fund reported their findings that about 84 million non-elderly Americans are either uninsured - or underinsured [2]. Here's that chart:Beyond just uninsured or underinsured - is the sheer size of what is called "near poor." The Census Bureau was surprised when they found that there are now about 100 million Americans living at 150% (or below) of the Federal Poverty Level [3]. Key to the study was a newer measure of what constituted "near poor." Rather than simply take income as the lone measure of poverty, the Census Bureau added criteria like taxes and Government benefit to get better insight into what constituted "near poor."Moving into the actual legislation around Emergency Treatment is EMTALA - the legislation that was passed in 1986 regulating the treatment of patients who present to an Emergency Room [4]The Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) is an act of the United States Congress, passed in 1986 as part of the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA). It requires hospitals to provide emergency health care treatment to anyone needing it regardless of citizenship, legal status, or ability to pay. There are no reimbursement provisions. Participating hospitals may not transfer or discharge patients needing emergency treatment except with the informed consent or stabilization of the patient or when their condition requires transfer to a hospital better equipped to administer the treatment.EMTALA applies to "participating hospitals." The statute defines "participating hospitals" as those that accept payment from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) under the Medicare program. "Because there are very few hospitals that do not accept Medicare, the law applies to nearly all hospitals." The combined payments of Medicare and Medicaid, $602 billion in 2004, or roughly 44% of all medical expenditures in the U.S., make not participating in EMTALA impractical for nearly all hospitals. EMTALA's provisions apply to all patients, not just to Medicare patients.So - in effect - anyone who presents to an ER will receive treatment - regardless of ability to pay. The reality, of course, is that we all pay. There is NO "free healthcare."In order for hospitals to be profitable - the entire amount of uncompensated care is "shifted" to the 4 other categories of patients that do pay.Cash pay (very small %)Commercial InsurancePublic Insurance (either Medicare or Medicaid)While Medicare and Medicaid do pay - the hospital sees those payment types as negative margin relative to their balance sheet - so they too get pushed into higher costs for the remaining categories - the largest of which is commercial insurance. That chart looks like this [5]:So - while uncompensated care is a big problem - it's really just an entry point into the larger healthcare debate.Footnote: Every year I do a Top Ten Healthcare Quotes for the Year. In this year's version [6] I included a quote from a Frontline episode that actually occurred in 2012. That quote was this:“There are nearly 1 million Americans who visit the emergency room each year because of dental pain at a cost that runs into the hundreds of millions.” Miles O’Brien – Science Correspondent, PBS NewsHour [7]That's just one example using one condition - dental pain. This one is particularly bad because there is really nothing an ER can do for the #1 cause of the dental pain - an abscessed tooth. They give the patient an anti-biotic - and sometimes pain medication - but they do not have the equipment that every dentist has to fix the underlying problem. If/when it gets severe enough - they will use surgery (at a huge cost) for tooth extraction.===========================[1] PDF at AHA on Uncompensated Care[2] PDF at The Commonwealth Fund - Insuring the Future[3] ‘Near Poor’: Not Quite in Poverty, but Still Struggling[4] Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act[5] PDF at L.E.K. Consulting: Hospital Economics and Healthcare Reform: No Free Lunch[6] Top Ten Healthcare Quotes For 2013[7] Dollars and Dentists – FRONTLINE

Yes. Work has been done by Marxist scholars to address concerns about the empirical truth of Marxist economics.This paper analyzes several concerns and issues related to the empirical validity of Marxi’s works: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1185&context=econ_workingpaperCriticisms of Marx’s labor theory of value have also been analyzed.Did Marx have a labor theory of value?It seems absurd that one has to answer this question.It was so thoroughly answered by previous generations of economists in the affirmative[12], that it would seem unnecessary even to examine the issue. But David Harvey has recently posted a short article[6] claiming that Marx was an opponent of the labour theoryIt is widely believed that Marx adapted the labour theory of value from Ricardo as a founding concept for his studies of capital accumulation. Since the labour theory of value has been generally discredited, it is then often authoritatively stated that Marx s theories are worthless. But nowhere, in fact, did Marx declare his allegiance to the labour theory of value. That theory belonged to Ricardo, who recognized that it was deeply problematic even as he insisted that the question of value was critical to the study of political economy. On the few occasions where Marx comments directly on this matter,1 he refers to value theory and not to the labour theory of value. So what, then, was Marx s distinctive value theory and how does it differ from the labour theory of value?( [6])It is difficult to take this seriously but as Mike Roberts has done a reply, I probably should do likewise and type a brief response.Harvey claims that the labour theory of value is generally discredited. But in what sense?It is correct to say that the theory is not viewed with favour in economics departments, but that is for political reasons – the labour theory of value came, since Gray and Marx, came to be associated with socialism. Since academic economists, in general, did not want to be tainted with the socialist label they were at pains to distance themselves from the theory. But none of them ever adduced any empirical evidence to refute it. It was socially discredited but not empirically refuted.If one wants to refute a theory about the world you have to show that the theory makes incorrect empirical predictions. Eratosthenes refuted the theory that the Earth was flat and confirmed the theory that it is round by observing that when the sun was overhead in Syene it was at an angle of 7°12′ to the vertical in Alexandria, implying that the earth was curved with a circumference of 25,000 miles. If the earth had been flat the angle of the sun would not have varied as you went north.The labour theory of value predicts that the prices of commodities will vary proportionately with their labour content. Refuting this should be easy, just show that in fact their prices do not vary with labour content in this way. Did the economists opposed to the labour theory of value do this?Did they hell, they did not even bother to collect the data to do the tests. So for a century after Marx, the theory was ‘discredited’, but never empirically refuted.As soon as economists started to collect data to test the theory, which depended on reasonably good economic statistics of whole economies, what did they find?They found the Ricardo and Marx had been right all along. A whole bunch of studies[18,17,5,13,15,19,1,4,2] since the 1980s have shown that the labour theory of value is very good at predicting prices. Far from being refuted by the evidence, it has been confirmed.Harvey is like a flat-earther after Erastosthenes, denying the Earth is round on theological grounds.Harvey next complains that Marx nowhere declares his allegiance to the labour theory of value. True enough, since at the time Marx was writing, that was the only theory going. It simply was the theory of value. It was only afterwards that the alternative marginal utility or neo-classical theory of value was established. After Jevons[8] economists distinguished between the classical or labour theory of value and the neoclassical or marginalist theory of value. But it is ridiculous to expect Marx to have taken sides in a debate that only started after Capital was published(1867). At the time he was writing it was widely accepted that labour was the source of value. Even Jevons the founder of marginalism still accepted that prices were proportional to labour1, thinking that his marginal utility theory gave further support to this time honoured assumption.Harvey promises to explain what Marx’s theory of value actually is, but nowhere in his article does he do this. That is because it would be impossible to do this without revealing that the theory of value in Marx is identical in all major predictions to that of Ricardo.What did Ricardo’s theory say?Did Marx agree with him?When comparing theorists, especially ones who originally wrote in distinct languages, you should not pay too much attention to the precise vocabulary that they use. What is important is the relations between the concepts they deploy and the relationships that the theorists predict will hold in the real world. When you look at this you see that Marx followed Ricardo’s value theory very closely.There are 4 key components to their value theory on which both authors agree:The exchangeable value of commodities varies with their direct labour content2,3.The indirect labour used to make raw materials and equipment also contribute proportionately to the exchange value4,5.It is the labour actually expended not the level of pay of the workers that determines value6,7.The variation of price with labour will be modified by the formation of an equal rate of profit on stock.8,9The theories are therefore substantially identical in the empirical predictions they make, differing only slightly in terminology. Points 1,2,3 are validated by the empirical data in the studies cited earlier. Point 4 is poorly supported by or refuted by the empirical data [5,19,3] . Marx and Ricardo say the same thing where they are both right and say the same thing where they are both wrong.So yes Marx has a labour theory of value as Ricardo had. The greater part of this theory is not refuted by the evidence, it is confirmed by it.This does not mean that Marx made no contributions. Major innovations in his thought were:The point that labour only gets represented as exchange value in societies with private ownership and atomised production. Marx says exchange was absent in traditional Indian communities or the communism of the Incas. The prior economists had assumed that all societies produce commodities.The distinction between labour and labour power.The introduction of the concept of surplus value as something functionally prior to the division of surplus value between profit, interest and rent.A new theory to explain the falling rate of profit.A repudiation of Say’s law.The concept of absolute ground rent.The introduction of more modes of production than the ones Adam Smith recognised.The idea that the class struggle leads to the dictatorship of the proletariat.These are all significant innovations that did distinguish him from his predecessors. There is no need to pretend innovation by Marx in value theory, a topic where he just rigorously used Ricardo’s concepts.But what about abstract/concrete labour?Was this distinction not an innovation on Marx’s part?Well the specific phrase ‘concrete labour’ was different, but the relevant conceptual distinction between the two was present in Adam Smith’s work.Smith simply uses the term ‘labour’ unqualified where Marx sometimes says abstract labour10. Smith specifically says that when he is talking of labour in this way he is talking of labour in the abstract11. When Smith discusses the division of labour, he is discussing the division of the abstract labour into what he terms ‘varieties’ of labour12 or ‘sorts’ of labour13. This is the same distinction that Marx is making when, using the slightly different term, he talks of abstracting from concrete labours or kinds of labour14.In tabular form we have:Smith Marxvariety, kind, palpable kind, concretelabour, abstract abstract-labourThe same conceptual distinction is being made here between the different kinds of activities into which the labour is divided, and labour in the abstract, or the abstract notion of labour.References[1]W Paul Cockshott, A Cottrell, and GJ Michaelson. Testing Labour Value Theory with input/output tables. Department of Computer Science, University of Strathclyde, 1993.[2]W Paul Cockshott and Allin Cottrell. The scientific status of the labour theory of value. IWGVT conference at the Eastern Economic Association meeting, in April, 1997.[3]W Paul Cockshott and Allin Cottrell. Does marx need to transform. Marxian economics: A reappraisal, 2:70-85, 1998.[4]W Paul Cockshott and Allin F Cottrell. Labour time versus alternative value bases: a research note. Cambridge Journal of Economics, 21(4):545-549, 1997.[5]Nils Fröhlich. Labour values, prices of production and the missing equalisation tendency of profit rates: evidence from the german economy. Cambridge journal of economics, 37(5):1107-1126, 2013.[6]David Harvey. Marx’s refusal of the labour theory of value, 2018.[7]William S. Jevons. Theory of Political Economy. Sentry Press, 1871.[8]William Stanley Jevons. Brief account of a general mathematical theory of political economy, by william stanley jevons journal of the royal statistical society, london, xxix (june 1866), pp. 282-87.Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, 29:282-87, 1866.[9]Karl Marx. Value, price, and profit. CH Kerr & Company, 1910.[10]Karl Marx. Capital, volume 1. Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1954. Original English edition published in 1887.[11]Karl Marx. Capital, volume 3. Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1971.[12]Ronald L Meek. Studies in the labor theory of value, volume 428. NYU Press, 1956.[13]P. Petrovic. The deviation of production prices from labour values: some methodolog and empirical evidence. Cambridge Journal of Economics, 11:197-210, 1987.[14]David Ricardo. Principles of Political Economy and Taxation. In P. Sraffa, editor, The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo, volume 1. Cambridge, 1951.[15]A. M. Shaikh. The empirical strength of the labour theory of value. In R. Bellofiore, editor, Marxian Economics: A Reappraisal, volume 2, pages 225-251. Macmillan, 1998.[16]Adam Smith. The Wealth of Nations. 1974.[17]Lefteris Tsoulfidis and Dimitris Paitaridis. Monetary expressions of labor time and market prices: Theory and evidence from china, japan and korea. Review of Political Economy, 2016.[18]David Zachariah. Testing the labor theory of value in Sweden. http://reality.gn.apc.org/econ/DZ_article1.pdf, 2004.[19]David Zachariah. Labour Value and Equalisation of Profit Rates. Indian Development Review, 4(1):1-21, 2006.Footnotes:1“thus we have proved that commodities will exchange in any market in the ratio of the quantities produced by the same quantity of labour.” ([7]page 187)2“If the quantity of labour realized in commodities, regulate their exchangeable value, every increase of the quantity of labour must augment the value of that commodity on which it is exercised, as every diminution must lower it.” [14]Chap. 1 , Sec. 13“If we consider commodities as values, we consider them exclusively under the single aspect of realized, fixed, or, if you like, crystallized social labour. In this respect they can differ only by representing greater or smaller quantities of labour, as, for example, a greater amount of labour may be worked up in a silken handkerchief than in a brick. But how does one measure quantities of labour? By the time the labour lasts, in measuring the labour by the hour, the day, etc. Of course, to apply this measure, all sorts of labour are reduced to average or simple labour as their unit. We arrive, therefore, at this conclusion. A commodity has a value, because it is a crystallization of social labour. The greatness of its value, or its relative value, depends upon the greater or less amount of that social substance contained in it; that is to say, on the relative mass of labour necessary for its production. The relative values of commodities are, therefore, determined by the respective quantities or amounts of labour, worked up, realized, fixed in them. The correlative quantities of commodities which can be produced in the same time of labour are equal. Or the value of one commodity is to the value of another commodity as the quantity of labour fixed in the one is to the quantity of labour fixed in the other.” ([9], Sec. VI)4“Not only the labour applied immediately to commodities affect their value, but the labour also which is bestowed on the implements, tools, and buildings, with which much labour is assisted”[14]Chap. 1 Sec. 25“In calculating the exchangeable value of a commodity we must add to the quantity of labour previously worked up in the raw material of the commodity, and the labour bestowed on the implements, tools, machinery, and buildings, with which such labour is assisted.”(Marx op. cit)6See Ricardo’s criticism of Adam Smith for confusing the labour content of commodities for the labour that a commodity will exchange against.7The whole argument of [9] is devoted to showing that trades unions can raise wages and raise the wage share and that such rises in wages will not simply result in higher prices.8[14]Chap. 1, Sec. 49[11] Part II10“A use value, or useful article, therefore, has value only because human labour in the abstract has been embodied or materialised in it. How, then, is the magnitude of this value to be measured? Plainly, by the quantity of the value-creating substance, the labour, contained in the article. The quantity of labour, however, is measured by its duration, and labour time in its turn finds its standard in weeks, days, and hours.”([10], page 23 MIA pdf version)11“The greater part of people, too, understand what is means by a quantity of a particular commodity, than by a quantity of labour. The one is a plain palpable object; the other an abstract notion, which though it can be made sufficiently intelligible, is not altogether so natural and obvious.” ([16], page 23 Kindle edition)12“What a variety of labour, too, is necessary in order to produce the tools of the meanest of theose workmen! To say nothing of such compicated machines as the ship of the sailr, the mill of the fuller, or even the loom of the weaver, let us consider only what a variety of labour is requisite in order to form tat very simple machine, the shears with which the shepherd clips the wool. The miner, the builder of the furnace for smelting the ore, the feller of the timber, the burner of the charcoal to be made use of in the smelting-house, the brickmaker, the bricklayer, the workmen who attend the furnace, the millwright, the forger the smith, must all of them join their different arts in order to produce them.” .([16], page 12-13 Kindle edition)13“The spinner is almost always a distinct person from the weaver; but the ploughman, the harrower, the sower of the seed, and the reaper of the corn, are often the same. The occasions for those different sorts of labour returning with the different seasons of the year, it is impossible that one man should be constantly employed in any one of them. This impossibility of making so complet and entire a separation of all the different branches of labour employed in agriculture, is perhaps the reason why the improvement of the productive powers of labour, in this art, does not always keep pace with their improvement in manufactures.”[16], page 9-10 Kindle edition)14“If then we leave out of consideration the use value of commodities, they have only one common property left, that of being products of labour. But even the product of labour itself has undergone a change in our hands. If we make abstraction from its use value, we make abstraction at the same time from the material elements and shapes that make the product a use value; we see in it no longer a table, a house, yarn, or any other useful thing. Its existence as a material thing is put out of sight. Neither can it any longer be regarded as the product of the labour of the joiner, the mason, the spinner, or of any other definite kind of productive labour. Along with the useful qualities of the products themselves, we put out of sight both the useful character of the various kinds of labour embodied in them, and the concrete forms of that labour; there is nothing left but what is common to them all; all are reduced to one and the same sort of labour, human labour in the abstract.”([10], page 28 MIA pdf version)Source: Did Marx have a labour theory of value?

The USSR had no ovens for cremating victims exterminated for the “crime” of having Jewish ancestry.Nazi physicians did human experiments in RwandaAnne Frank, a young girl and her entire family except her father were killed for being Jewish.Hitler:The black-haired Jewish youth lies in wait for hours on end, satanically glaring at and spying on the unsuspicious girl whom he plans to seduce, adulterating her blood and removing her from the bosom of her own people. The Jew uses every possible means to undermine the racial foundations of a subjugated people. In his systematic efforts to ruin girls and women he strives to break down the last barriers of discrimination between him and other peoples. The Jews were responsible for bringing Negroes into the Rhineland, with the ultimate idea of bastardizing the white race which they hate and thus lowering its cultural and political level so that the Jew might dominate. For as long as a people remain racially pure and are conscious of the treasure of their blood, they can never be overcome by the Jew. Never in this world can the Jew become master of any people except a bastardized people.The Germany of today is a National Socialist State. The ideology that dominates us is in diametrical contradiction to that of Soviet Russia. National Socialism is a doctrine that has reference exclusively to the German people. Bolshevism lays stress on international mission. We National Socialists believe a man can, in the long run, be happy only among his own people. We are convinced the happiness and achievements of Europe are indissolubly tied up with the continuation of the system of independent and free national States. Bolshevism preaches the establishment of a world empire and recognizes only section of a central international. We National Socialists grant each people the right to its own inner life according to its needs and its own nature. Bolshevism, on the other hand, establishes doctrinal theories that are to be accepted by all peoples, regardless of their particular essence, their special nature, traditions, etc. National Socialism speaks up for the solution of social problems, issues and tensions in their own nation, with methods that are consistent with our common human, spiritual, cultural and economic beliefs, traditions and conditions. Bolshevism preaches the international class struggle, the international world revolution with the weapons of the terror and the violence. National Socialism fights for the reconciliation and consequent adjustment of the differences in life and the union of all for common benefits. Bolshevism teaches the overcoming of an alleged class rule by the dictatorship of the power of a different class. National Socialism does not attach importance to a only theoretical rule of the working class, but especially on the practical improvement of their living conditions and standard of living. Bolshevism fights for a theory and, for it, sacrifices millions of people, immense values of traditional culture and traditions, and achieves, compared with us, only a very low standard of living for all. As National Socialists, our hearts are full with admiration and respect for the great achievements of the past, not only in our own people but also far beyond. We are happy to belong to an European cultural community that has so tremendously embossed today's world with a stamp of its mind. Bolshevism rejects this cultural achievement of mankind, claiming that has found the beginning of the real cultural and human history in the year of birth of Marxism. We, National Socialists, do not want to be of the same opinion as our church organizations in this or that organizational question. But we never want a lack of belief in religion or any faith, and do not wish that our churches become club-houses or cinemas. Bolshevism teaches the godlessness and acts accordingly. We National Socialists see in private property a higher level of human economic development that according to the differences in performance controls the management of what has been accomplished enabling and guaranteeing the advantage of a higher standard of living for everyone. Bolshevism destroys not only private property but also private initiative and the readiness to shoulder responsibility. It has not been able to save millions of human beings from starvation in Russia, the greatest Agrarian State in the world. It would be unthinkable to transfer such a catastrophe into Germany, because, at the of the day, in Russia there are 10 city dwellers for every 90 country dwellers, but in Germany for only 25 farmers there are 75 city dwellers. National Socialists and Bolshevists both are convinced they are a world apart from each other and their differences can never be bridged. Apart from that, there were thousands of our people slain and maimed in the fight against Bolshevism. If Russia likes Bolshevism it is not our affair, but if Bolshevism casts its nets over to Germany, then we will fight it tooth and nail.Speech made at the Reichstag (21 May 1935) Found in Translation of Herr Hitler's Speech to the German Reichstag on May 21, 1935 Foreign Office Press. [page needed] German versionStalin:National and racial chauvinism is a vestige of the misanthropic customs characteristic of the period of cannibalism. Anti-Semitism, as an extreme form of racial chauvinism, is the most dangerous vestige of cannibalism. Anti-semitism is of advantage to the exploiters as a lightning conductor that deflects the blows aimed by the working people at capitalism. Anti-Semitism is dangerous for the toilers, for it is a false track which diverts them from the proper road and leads them into the jungle. Hence, Communists, as consistent internationalists, cannot but be irreconcilable and bitter enemies of anti-Semitism. In the U.S.S.R., anti-Semitism is strictly prosecuted as a phenomenon hostile to the Soviet system. According to the laws of the U.S.S.R. active anti-Semites are punished with death."Anti-Semitism: Reply to an inquiry of the Jewish News Agency in the United States" (12 January 1931)Soviet troops liberate AuschwitzSoviet troops opening the gates of AuschwitzNazi propagandaAnti-Semitic film “The Eternal Jew”Films in particular played an important role in disseminating racial antisemitism, the superiority of German military power, and the intrinsic evil of the enemies as defined by Nazi ideology. Nazi films portrayed Jews as "subhuman" creatures infiltrating Aryan society. For example, The Eternal Jew (1940), directed by Fritz Hippler, portrayed Jews as wandering cultural parasites, consumed by sex and money. Some films, such as The Triumph of the Will (1935) by Leni Riefenstahl, glorified Hitler and the National Socialist movement. Two other Riefenstahl works, Festival of the Nationsand Festival of Beauty (1938), depicted the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games and promoted national pride in the successes of the Nazi regime at the Olympics.The Role of NewspapersNewspapers in Germany, above all Der Stürmer (The Attacker), printed cartoons that used antisemitic caricatures to depict Jews. After the Germans began World War II with the invasion of Poland in September 1939, the Nazi regime employed propaganda to impress upon German civilians and soldiers that the Jews were not only subhuman, but also dangerous enemies of the German Reich. The regime aimed to elicit support, or at least acquiescence, for policies aimed at removing Jews permanently from areas of German settlement.Outdoor display of the antisemitic newspaper Der StürmerA German couple reads an outdoor display of the antisemitic newspaper Der Stürmer (The Attacker). Germany, 1935.Nederlands Instituut voor OorlogsdocumentatieCovering up Atrocities and Mass MurderDuring the implementation of the "Final Solution," the mass murder of European Jews, SS officials at killing centers compelled the victims of the Holocaust to maintain the deception necessary to deport the Jews from Germany and occupied Europe as smoothly as possible. Concentration camp and killing center officials compelled prisoners, many of whom would soon die in the gas chambers, to send postcards home stating that they were being treated well and living in good conditions. Here, the camp authorities used propaganda to cover up atrocities and mass murder.In June 1944, the German Security Police permitted an International Red Cross team to inspect the Theresienstadt camp-ghetto, located in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (today: Czech Republic). The SS and police had established Theresienstadt in November 1941 as an instrument of propaganda for domestic consumption in the German Reich. The camp-ghetto was used as an explanation for Germans who were puzzled by the deportation of German and Austrian Jews who were elderly, disabled war veterans, or locally known artists and musicians “to the East” for “labor.” In preparation for the 1944 visit, the ghetto underwent a “beautification” program. In the wake of the inspection, SS officials in the Protectorate produced a film using ghetto residents as a demonstration of the benevolent treatment the Jewish “residents” of Theresienstadt supposedly enjoyed. When the film was completed, SS officials deported most of the "cast" to the Auschwitz-Birkenaukilling center.TheresienstadtIn response to growing international awareness of Nazi atrocities, the Nazis decided to allow a Red Cross investigation committee to visit the Theresienstadt ghetto in Czechoslovakia. Elaborate measures were taken to disguise conditions in the ghetto and to portray an atmosphere of normalcy. This footage, showing an orchestral performance, is part of a German propaganda film made following the Red Cross visit to Theresienstadt.Bundesarchiv FilmarchivView Archival DetailsMobilizing the PopulationThe Nazi regime used propaganda effectively to mobilize the German population to support its wars of conquest until the very end of the regime. Nazi propaganda was likewise essential to motivating those who implemented the mass murder of the European Jews and of other victims of the Nazi regime. It also served to secure the acquiescence of millions of others—as bystanders—to racially targeted persecution and mass murder.Source: Nazi PropagandaSoviet propagandaDeath to Capitalism; Against the White Terror and the Threat of WarNotice how the propaganda is clearly different. One is a prosocial message, the other is built entirely on building hate. Nazi Germany was built on the idea that those who were “genetically inferior” were corrupting the morals of the society and the only path forward was to exterminate them. In the Soviet Union the enemies of the society were those who chose to engage in antisocial behavior.The Soviet Union and its leader, Stalin, were indeed diametrically opposed to the notion of genetic superiority.Still others think that war should be organised by a "superior race," say, the German "race," against an "inferior race," primarily against the Slavs; that only such a war can provide a way out of the situation, for it is the mission of the "superior race" to render the "inferior race" fruitful and to rule over it. Let us assume that this queer theory, which is as far removed from science as the sky from the earth, let us assume that this queer theory is put into practice. What may be the result of that? It is well known that ancient Rome looked upon the ancestors of the present-day Germans and French in the same way as the representatives of the "superior race" now look upon the Slav races. It is well known that ancient Rome treated them as an "inferior race," as "barbarians," destined to live in eternal subordination to the "superior race," to "great Rome", and, between ourselves be it said, ancient Rome had some grounds for this, which cannot be said of the representatives of the "superior race" of today. (Thunderous applause.) But what was the upshot of this? The upshot was that the non-Romans, i.e., all the "barbarians," united against the common enemy and brought Rome down with a crash. The question arises: What guarantee is there that the claims of the representatives of the "superior race" of today will not lead to the same lamentable results? What guarantee is there that the fascist literary politicians in Berlin will be more fortunate than the old and experienced conquerors in Rome? Would it not be more correct to assume that the opposite will be the case?Report to the Seventeenth Party Congress on the Work of the Central Committee of the C.P.S.U. (B.) (January 26, 1934)The Gulag—Solzhenitsyn was full of shit. Even his wife said so:In her 1974 memoir, ''Sanya: My Life with Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn'' (Bobbs-Merrill), she wrote that she was ''perplexed'' that the West had accepted ''The Gulag Archipelago'' as ''the solemn, ultimate truth,'' saying its significance had been ''overestimated and wrongly appraised.''Pointing out that the book's subtitle is ''An Experiment in Literary Investigation,'' she said that her husband did not regard the work as ''historical research, or scientific research.'' She contended that it was, rather, a collection of ''camp folklore,'' containing ''raw material'' which her husband was planning to use in his future productions.Natalya Alekseyevna Reshetovskaya was born at Novocherkassk in 1919 and studied at the universities of Rostov and Moscow. She first married Mr. Solzhenitsyn in 1940, four years after they had met as students.From the start, she wrote, there was tension between them over Mr. Solzhenitsyn's refusal to have children out of fear that they would interfere with his work.[1]The Conditions of the PrisonsA 1957 CIA document titled “Forced Labor Camps in the USSR: Transfer of Prisoners between Camps” reveals the following information about the Soviet Gulag in pages two to six:1. Until 1952, the prisoners were given a guaranteed amount food, plus extra food for over-fulfillment of quotas2. From 1952 onward, the Gulag system operated upon “economic accountability” such that the more the prisoners worked, the more they were paid.3. For over-fulfilling the norms by 105%, one day of sentence was counted as two, thus reducing the time spent in the Gulag by one day.4. Furthermore, because of the socialist reconstruction post-war, the Soviet government had more funds and so they increased prisoners’ food supplies.5. Until 1954, the prisoners worked 10 hours per day, whereas the free workers worked 8 hours per day. From 1954 onward, both prisoners and free workers worked 8 hours per day.6. A CIA study of a sample camp showed that 95% of the prisoners were actual criminals.7. In 1953, amnesty was given to 70% of the “ordinary criminals” of a sample camp studied by the CIA. Within the next 3 months, most of them were re-arrested for committing new crimes.The following are excerpts of the CIA document, underlined and put together for the reader:These facts negate the narrative that Gulag prisoners were unpaid. The labour was indeed forced; however, material rewards were provided. The prisoners were paid from 1952 onward, and rewarded by food prior to 1952.According to bourgeois fantasies, the Soviet “regime” sought to deliberately starve the Gulag populations. However, as a matter of fact, there indeed were Soviet efforts to increase the food supply of prisoners, after World War II.The fact that the working day was only two hours more than that of the free workers until 1954, and equal to that of the free worker from 1954 onward is a clear demonstration of the egalitarian tendencies of the Soviet State.All the while, the noteworthy fact is that criminals, not “pro-democracy revolutionaries” were sent to the Gulags. Like all justice systems, there certainly were errors and some innocent people were sent to the prisons; the point though is that this fact has been exaggerated by the imperial press.Let’s compare the Soviet system to that of the United States. The 13th amendment permits prison slavery, with many prisoners victimized by racial profiling. Even the Clinton Dynasty had slaves in the Arkansas Province (News 2017).The NumbersAccording to page four of another CIA (1989) document titled “The Soviet Labour System: An Update,” the number of Gulag prisoners “grew to about 2 million” during Stalin’s time.These figures match Soviet statistics as well, from declassified Soviet achieves. The following is a 1954 declassified Soviet archival document (Pyakhov), an excerpt of which is translated into English:“During the period from 1921 to the present time for counterrevolutionary crimes were convicted 3,777,380 people, including to capital punishment – 642,980 people to the conent in the camps and prisons for a period of 25 years old and under – 2,369,220 into exile and expulsion – 765,190 people.“Of the total number of convicts, approximately convicted: 2,900,000 people – College of OGPU, NKVD and triples Special meeting and 877,000 people – courts by military tribunals, and Spetskollegiev Military Collegium.“It should be noted… that established by Decree … on November 3, 1934 Special Meeting of the NKVD which lasted until September 1, 1953 – 442,531 people were convicted, including to capital punishment – 10,101 people to prison – 360,921 people to exile and expulsion (within the country) – 57,539 people and other punishments (offset time in detention, deportation abroad, compulsory treatment) – 3,970 people…Attorney General R. RudenkoInterior Minister S. KruglovJustice Minister K. Gorshenin”The Soviet archives remained declassified for decades, only to be released near or after the collapse of the Soviet Union. In addition, after Stalin died, the pro-Stalin head of the NKVD (Soviet interior ministry) Lavrenty Beria had already been executed by Khrushchev, a staunch anti-Stalinist (History in an hour 2010). These facts make it very unlikely that the Soviet intelligence would have a pro-Stalin bias.The Italian-American historian Michael Parenti (1997, pp. 79-80) further analyzes the data provided from the Soviet archives:“In 1993, for the first time, several historians gained access to previously secret Soviet police archives and were able to establish well-documented estimates of prison and labor camp populations. They found that the total population of the entire gulag as of January 1939, near the end of the Great Purges, was 2,022,976. At about that time, there began a purge of the purgers, including many intelligence and secret police (NKVD) officials and members of the judiciary and other investigative committees, who were suddenly held responsible for the excesses of the terror despite their protestations of fidelity to the regime.“Soviet labor camps were not death camps like those the Nazis built across Europe. There was no systematic extermination of inmates, no gas chambers or crematoria to dispose of millions of bodies…. [T]he great majority of gulag inmates survived and eventually returned to society when granted amnesty or when their terms were finished. In any given year, 20 to 40 percent of the inmates were released, according to archive records. Oblivious to these facts, the Moscow correspondent of the New York Times (7/31/96) continues to describe the gulag as ‘the largest system of death camps in modern history’.“Almost a million gulag prisoners were released during World War II to serve in the military. The archives reveal that more than half of all gulag deaths for the 1934-53 period occurred during the war years (1941-45), mostly from malnutrition, when severe privation was the common lot of the entire Soviet population. (Some 22 million Soviet citizens perished in the war.) In 1944, for instance, the labor-camp death rate was 92 per 1000. By 1953, with the postwar recovery, camp deaths had declined to 3 per 1000.“Should all gulag inmates be considered innocent victims of Red repression? Contrary to what we have been led to believe, those arrested for political crimes (‘counterrevolutionary offenses’) numbered from 12 to 33 percent of the prison population, varying from year to year. The vast majority of inmates were charged with nonpolitical offenses: murder, assault, theft, banditry, smuggling, swindling, and other violations punishable in any society.”Thus, according to the CIA, approximately two million people were sent to the Gulag in the 1930s, whereas according to declassified Soviet archives, 2,369,220 up until 1954. When compared to the population of the USSR at the time, as well as the statistics of a country like the United States, the Gulag percent population in the USSR throughout its history was lower than that of the United States today or since the 1990s. In fact, based on Sousa’s (1998)research, there was a larger percentage of prisoners (relative to the whole population) in the US, than there ever was in the USSR:“In a rather small news item appearing in the newspapers of August 1997, the FLT-AP news agency reported that in the US there had never previously been so many people in the prison system as the 5.5 million held in 1996. This represents an increase of 200,000 people since 1995 and means that the number of criminals in the US equals 2.8% of the adult population. These data are available to all those who are part of the North American department of justice…. The number of convicts in the US today is 3 million higher than the maximum number ever held in the Soviet Union! In the Soviet Union, there was a maximum of 2.4% of the adult population in prison for their crimes – in the US the figure is 2.8% and rising! According to a press release put out by the US department of justice on 18 January 1998, the number of convicts in the US in 1997 rose by 96,100.”ConclusionSeeing the USSR as a major ideological challenge, the Western imperial bourgeoisie demonized Stalin and the Soviet Union. Yet after decades of propaganda, declassified archives from both the US and USSR together debunk these anti-Soviet slanders. Worth our attention is the fact that the CIA – a fiercely anti-Soviet source – has published declassified documents debunking the very anti-Soviet myths it promoted and continues to promote in the mainstream media. Together with declassified Soviet archives, the CIA files have demonstrated that the bourgeois press has lied about the Gulags.[2]Notes13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Abolition of Slavery. (n.d.). Retrieved August 28, 2018, from 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Abolition of SlaveryCentral Intelligence Agency (CIA). (1989). THE SOVIET FORCED LABOR SYSTEM: AN UPDATE (GI-M 87-20081). Retrieved February 12, 2018, http://fromhttps://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/DOC_0000500615.pdfCentral Intelligence Agency (CIA). (2010, February 22). 1. FORCED LABOR CAMPS IN THE USSR 2. TRANSFER OF PRISONERS BETWEEN CAMPS 3. DECREES ON RELEASE FROM FORCED LABOR 4. ATTITUDE OF SOVIET PRISON OFFICIALS TOWARD SUSPECTS 1945 TO THE END OF 1955. Retrieved January 5, 2018, from https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP80T00246A032000400001-1.pdfHillary and Bill used ‘slave labour’. (2017, June 08). Retrieved June 10, 2017, from Hillary and Bill used ‘slave labour’Игорь, П. (n.d.). Книга: За что сажали при Сталине. Невинны ли «жертвы репрессий»? Retrieved August 28, 2018, from Книга: За что сажали при Сталине. Невинны ли "жертвы репрессий"?Parenti, M. (1997). Blackshirts and reds: Rational fascism and the overthrow of communism. San Francisco, Calif: City Lights Books.Sousa, M. (1998, June 15). Lies concerning the history of the Soviet Union. Retrieved August 27, 2018, from Lies concerning the history of the Soviet UnionThe Death of Lavrenty Beria. (2015, December 23). Retrieved August 31, 2018, from http://www.historyinanhour.com/2010/12/23/lavrenty-beria-summaryTracy, J. F. (2018, January 30). The CIA and the Media: 50 Facts the World Needs to Know. Retrieved August 28, 2018, http://fromhttps://www.globalresearch.ca/the-cia-and-the-media-50-facts-the-world-needs-to-know/5471956Footnotes[1] Natalya Reshetovskaya, 84, Is Dead; Solzhenitsyn's Wife Questioned 'Gulag'[2] The Truth about the Soviet Gulag – Surprisingly Revealed by the CIA