The Stalinist Gulag State

S1, E2: Stalin’s rule descended into mass terror, culminating in the Great Purge. At its height from 1936 to 1938, this campaign of political repression saw an estimated 600,000 executed and millions more deported to brutal labor camps known as gulags. No one was exempt from possible denunciation and conviction. Hear some of the dark jokes that ordinary people told to cope with the uncertainty.