It will fundamentally change how you view that system.
It shows that the Bolshevik Revolution really was bottom up. They implemented the teachings of Marx down to the letter. The violence and death was considered necessary by Marx himself.
The gulags started under Lenin and were simply continued under Stalin.
Most interestingly, people were so indoctrinated into the Marxist religion that they could be charged for a crime they knew they didn’t commit, be tortured for the required 6-9 months, sentenced to 10-25 years in a Gulag, find out that almost everyone else was innocent (often just captured to fulfill the prison quota), somehow survive the process, and come out the other side still singing the praises of the people and system that did all this to them.
Marxism is the most dangerous cult the world has ever seen and is responsible for more death and suffering than any other organization that has ever existed.