In the twentieth century there was no single country in the world where as many citizens have been sent to prison as Russia. Ninety-two and a half million people had been exterminated in the USSR from 1917 to 1987; 40 million of them died in the GULAG.
About the scope and consequences of this continuous slaughter one can judge by such a demographic indicator as the gap in the average life expectancy of men and women: it made up not less than 10 years even long after the end of the World War II...