Who created the gulag system and when. The largest depredations of the gulag. Skilled labor in the camp

In fact, GULAG is an acronym consisting of the initial letters of the Soviet institution"Main Directorate of Camps and Prisons". In this organization they were engaged in the maintenance and provision of everything necessary people those who once violated Soviet law suffered severe punishment for this.

Prison camps in Soviet Russia began to be created with 1919 years. They contained those convicted of criminal and political crimes. This institution was directly subordinate to Cheka and was located mostly in the Arkhangelsk region and with 1921 year was called "Northern Special Purpose Camps",abbreviation" Elephant". With the growth of the fifth column (which was actively fueled from abroad, just as in our time), a number of measures were taken in the young Soviet Republic as a result of which it was created in 1930 year "The Main Directorate of Forced Labor Camps". Throughout its relatively short existence in 26 served their sentences in these camps for years 8 million people. A huge number of whom were imprisoned on political charges (although most of them were imprisoned for business).
If we compare the most terrible Stalinist times and modern American democracy, it turns out that there are many more people in American prisons than in the most severe years of repression.However, for some reason no one cares about this.

Prisoners of forced labor camps took an active part in the construction of bridges, mines, canals, roads, huge industrial enterprises and even entire cities.

The most famous construction projects in which prisoners took part:

Nakhodka city

Vorkuta city

City of Komsomolsk-on-Amur

Tsimlyanskaya HPP

Tunnel to Sakhalin Island (not completed)

Nizhny Tagil Iron and Steel Works

Volga-Don Canal

White Sea-Baltic Canal

Dzhezkazgan city

Ukhta city

Sovetskaya Gavan city

Zhigulevskaya HPP

Volzhskaya HPP (deciphering Hydroelectric power station)

Railway tracks in the north of the USSR

Norilsk Mining and Metallurgical Plant

Moscow Canal

The largest GULAG assemblies

Ukhtizhemlag

Ustvymlag

Solovetsky Special Purpose Camp (SLON)

Sevzheldorlag

SVITL

Prorvlag

Perm camps (Usollag, Visheralag, Cherdynlag, Nyroblag, etc.), Pechorlag

Norilsklag (Norilsk ITL)

Kraslag

Kisellag

Intalag

Dmitrovlag (Volgolag)

Dzhezkazganlag

Vyatlag

Belbaltlag

Berlag

Bamlag

ALGERIA (transcript: Akmola camp for wives of traitors to the Motherland)

Khabarlag

Ukhtpechlag

Taezlag

Siblag

Svirlag

Peczheldorlag

Ozerlag

Lokchimlag

Kotlas ITL

Karaganda ITL (Karlag)

Dubravlag

Dzhugjurlag

Dallag

Vorkutlag (Vorkuta ITL)

Bezymyanlag

If you look at Wikipedia, you can read interesting facts there. For example, in the Gulag there was 2000 special commandant's office, 425 colonies 429 camps. Most prisoners were in 1950 year, then he was detained there 2 million 561 thousand people (for comparison in USA V 2011 were in prison for a year 2 million 261 thousand Human). The saddest year GULAG was 1941 when people died in places not so distant 352 thousands of people, which was essentially about a quarter of all convicts. For the first time, the number of prisoners in the Gulag exceeded a million people in 1939 year, which means that in a “terrible” 1937 less than a million people were imprisoned in the year, for comparison, you can take another look at the figures on the number of prisoners in the “Empire of Good” for 2011 year and be a little surprised, and also start asking liberals questions that are uncomfortable for them. The camp system included institutions for minors, where juvenile delinquents could be sent starting from 12 years.

IN 1956 year GULAG was renamed " Main Directorate of Correctional Labor Colonies", and after a short time in 1959 year was once again renamed " Main Directorate of Prisons".

Documentary film about the Gulag

). There were the following ITL:

Akmola camp for wives of traitors to the Motherland (ALGERIA)
Bezymyanlag
Vorkutlag (Vorkuta ITL)
Dzhezkazganlag (Steplag)
Intalag
Kotlas ITL
Kraslag
Lokchimlag
Perm camps
Pechorlag
Peczheldorlag
Prorvlag
Svirlag
Sevzheldorlag
Siblag
Solovetsky Special Purpose Camp (SLON)
Taezlag
Ustvymlag
Ukhtizhemlag

Each of the above ITLs included a number of camp points (that is, the camps themselves). The camps in Kolyma were famous for the particularly difficult living and working conditions of prisoners.

Gulag statistics

Until the end of the 1980s, official statistics on the Gulag were classified, researchers’ access to the archives was impossible, so estimates were based either on the words of former prisoners or members of their families, or on the use of mathematical and statistical methods.

After the opening of the archives, official figures became available, but the Gulag statistics are incomplete, and data from different sections often do not fit together.

According to official data, more than 2.5 million people were simultaneously detained in the system of camps, prisons and colonies of the OGPU and the NKVD in 1930-56 (the maximum was reached in the early 1950s as a result of the post-war tightening of criminal legislation and social consequences famine 1946-1947).

Certificate of mortality of prisoners in the Gulag system for the period 1930-1956.

Years	Number of deaths	% of deaths compared to the average
1930*	7980	4,2
1931*	7283	2,9
1932*	13197	4,8
1933*	67297	15,3
1934*	25187	4,28
1935**	31636	2,75
1936**	24993	2,11
1937**	31056	2,42
1938**	108654	5,35
1939***	44750	3,1
1940	41275	2,72
1941	115484	6,1
1942	352560	24,9
1943	267826	22,4
1944	114481	9,2
1945	81917	5,95
1946	30715	2,2
1947	66830	3,59
1948	50659	2,28
1949	29350	1,21
1950	24511	0,95
1951	22466	0,92
1952	20643	0,84
1953****	9628	0,67
1954	8358	0,69
1955	4842	0,53
1956	3164	0,4
Total	1606742
Only in ITL. * In correctional labor camps and places of detention (NTK, prisons). * Further in ITL and NTK. ** Without OL. (O.L. - special camps). Help prepared based on materials EURZ GULAG (GARF. F. 9414)

After the publication in the early 1990s of archival documents from leading Russian archives, primarily in State Archives Russian Federation(formerly TsGAOR USSR) and the Russian Center for Socio-Political History (formerly TsPA IML), a number of researchers have concluded that between 1930 and 1953, 6.5 million people were in forced labor colonies, of which about 1.3 million were for political reasons. , through forced labor camps for 1937-1950. About two million people were convicted under political charges.

Thus, based on the given archival data of the OGPU-NKVD-MVD of the USSR, we can conclude: during the years 1920-1953, about 10 million people passed through the ITL system, including 3.4-3.7 million people under the article of counter-revolutionary crimes .

National composition of prisoners

According to a number of studies, on January 1, 1939, in the Gulag camps, the national composition of prisoners was distributed as follows:

Russians - 830,491 (63.05%)
Ukrainians - 181,905 (13.81%)
Belarusians - 44,785 (3.40%)
Tatars - 24,894 (1.89%)
Uzbeks - 24,499 (1.86%)
Jews - 19,758 (1.50%)
Germans - 18,572 (1.41%)
Kazakhs - 17,123 (1.30%)
Poles - 16,860 (1.28%)
Georgians - 11,723 (0.89%)
Armenians - 11,064 (0.84%)
Turkmens - 9,352 (0.71%)
other nationalities - 8.06%.

According to the data given in the same work, on January 1, 1951, the number of prisoners in camps and colonies was:

Russians - 1,405,511 (805,995/599,516 - 55.59%)
Ukrainians - 506,221 (362,643/143,578 - 20.02%)
Belarusians - 96,471 (63,863/32,608 - 3.82%)
Tatars - 56,928 (28,532/28,396 - 2.25%)
Lithuanians - 43,016 (35,773/7,243 - 1.70%)
Germans - 32,269 (21,096/11,173 - 1.28%)
Uzbeks - 30029 (14,137/15,892 - 1.19%)
Latvians - 28,520 (21,689/6,831 - 1.13%)
Armenians - 26,764 (12,029/14,735 - 1.06%)
Kazakhs - 25,906 (12,554/13,352 - 1.03%)
Jews - 25,425 (14,374/11,051 - 1.01%)
Estonians - 24,618 (18,185/6,433 - 0.97%)
Azerbaijanis - 23,704 (6,703/17,001 - 0.94%)
Georgians - 23,583 (6,968/16,615 - 0.93%)
Poles - 23,527 (19,184/4,343 - 0.93%)
Moldovans - 22,725 (16,008/6,717 - 0.90%)
other nationalities - about 5%.

History of the organization

First stage

On April 15, 1919, the RSFSR issued a decree “On forced labor camps.” From the very beginning of the existence of Soviet power, the management of most places of detention was entrusted to the department of execution of punishments of the People's Commissariat of Justice, formed in May 1918. The Main Directorate of Compulsory Labor under the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs was partially involved in these same issues.

After October 1917 and until 1934, general prisons were administered by the Republican People's Commissariats of Justice and were part of the system of the Main Directorate of Correctional Labor Institutions.

On August 3, 1933, a resolution of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR was approved, prescribing various aspects of the functioning of the ITL. In particular, the code prescribes the use of prison labor and legitimizes the practice of counting two days of hard work for three days, which was widely used to motivate prisoners during the construction of the White Sea Canal.

The period after Stalin's death

The departmental affiliation of the Gulag changed only once after 1934 - in March the Gulag was transferred to the jurisdiction of the USSR Ministry of Justice, but in January it was returned to the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs.

The next organizational change in the penitentiary system in the USSR was the creation in October 1956 of the Main Directorate of Correctional Labor Colonies, which in March was renamed the Main Directorate of Prisons.

When the NKVD was divided into two independent people's commissariats - the NKVD and the NKGB - this department was renamed Prison Department NKVD. In 1954, by decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, the Prison Administration was transformed into Prison department Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR. In March 1959, the Prison Department was reorganized and included in the system of the Main Directorate of Prisons of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs.

Gulag leadership

Heads of the Department

The first leaders of the Gulag, Fyodor Eichmans, Lazar Kogan, Matvey Berman, Israel Pliner, among other prominent security officers, died during the years of the “Great Terror”. In 1937-1938 they were arrested and soon shot.

Role in the economy

Already by the beginning of the 1930s, the labor of prisoners in the USSR was considered an economic resource. A resolution of the Council of People's Commissars in 1929 ordered the OGPU to organize new camps for the reception of prisoners in remote areas of the country

In the 1930s-50s, Gulag prisoners carried out the construction of a number of large industrial and transport facilities:

canals (White Sea-Baltic Canal named after Stalin, Canal named after Moscow, Volga-Don Canal named after Lenin);
HPPs (Volzhskaya, Zhigulevskaya, Uglichskaya, Rybinskaya, Kuibyshevskaya, Nizhnetulomskaya, Ust-Kamenogorskaya, Tsimlyanskaya, etc.);
metallurgical enterprises (Norilsk and Nizhny Tagil MK, etc.);
objects of the Soviet nuclear program;
a number of railways (Transpolar Railway, Kola Railway, tunnel to Sakhalin, Karaganda-Mointy-Balkhash, Pechora Mainline, second tracks of the Siberian Mainline, Taishet-Lena (beginning of BAM), etc.) and highways (Moscow - Minsk, Magadan - Susuman - Ust-Nera)

A number of Soviet cities were founded and built by Gulag institutions (Komsomolsk-on-Amur, Sovetskaya Gavan, Magadan, Dudinka, Vorkuta, Ukhta, Inta, Pechora, Molotovsk, Dubna, Nakhodka)

Prisoner labor was also used in agriculture, mining, and logging. According to some historians, the Gulag accounted for an average of three percent of the gross national product.

No assessments have been made of the overall economic efficiency of the Gulag system. The head of the Gulag, Nasedkin, wrote on May 13, 1941: “A comparison of the cost of agricultural products in the camps and state farms of the NKSH USSR showed that the cost of production in the camps significantly exceeds the state farm.” After the war, Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs Chernyshov wrote in a special note that the Gulag simply needed to be transferred to a system similar to the civilian economy. But despite the introduction of new incentives, detailed elaboration of tariff schedules, and production standards, self-sufficiency of the Gulag could not be achieved; Labor productivity of prisoners was lower than that of civilian workers, and the cost of maintaining the system of camps and colonies increased.

After Stalin's death and a mass amnesty in 1953, the number of prisoners in the camps was halved, and the construction of a number of facilities was stopped. For several years after this, the Gulag system was systematically collapsed and finally ceased to exist in 1960.

Conditions

Organization of camps

In the ITL, three categories of prisoner detention regime were established: strict, enhanced and general.

At the end of the quarantine, medical labor commissions established categories of physical labor for prisoners.

Physically healthy prisoners were assigned the first category of working ability, allowing them to be used for heavy physical work.
Prisoners who had minor physical disabilities (low fatness, non-organic functional disorders) belonged to the second category of working ability and were used in moderately difficult work.
Prisoners who had obvious physical disabilities and diseases, such as: decompensated heart disease, chronic disease of the kidneys, liver and other organs, however, did not cause deep disorders of the body, belonged to the third category of working ability and were used for light physical work and individual physical labor. .
Prisoners who had severe physical disabilities that precluded their employment were classified in the fourth category - the category of disabled people.

From here, all work processes characteristic of the productive profile of a particular camp were divided by severity into: heavy, medium and light.

For the prisoners of each camp in the Gulag system, there was a standard system for recording prisoners based on their labor use, introduced in 1935. All working prisoners were divided into two groups. The main labor contingent that performed production, construction or other tasks of this camp constituted group “A”. In addition to him, a certain group of prisoners was always busy with work that arose within the camp or camp administration. These, mainly administrative, managerial and service personnel, were classified as group “B”. Non-working prisoners were also divided into two categories: group “B” included those who did not work due to illness, and all other non-working prisoners, accordingly, were combined into group “G”. This group seemed to be the most heterogeneous: some of these prisoners were only temporarily not working due to external circumstances - due to their being in transit or in quarantine, due to the failure of the camp administration to provide work, due to the intra-camp transfer of labor, etc. , - but it should also include “refuseniks” and prisoners held in isolation wards and punishment cells.

The share of group “A” - that is, the main labor force, rarely reached 70%. In addition, the labor of free-hired workers was widely used (comprising 20-70% of group “A” (at different times and in different camps)).

Work standards were about 270-300 working days per year (varied in different camps and in different years, excluding, of course, the war years). Working day - up to 10-12 hours maximum. In case of severe climatic conditions work was cancelled.

Food standard No. 1 (basic) for a Gulag prisoner in 1948 (per person per day in grams):

Bread 700 (800 for those engaged in heavy work)
Wheat flour 10
Various cereals 110
Pasta and vermicelli 10
Meat 20
Fish 60
Fats 13
Potatoes and vegetables 650
Sugar 17
Salt 20
Surrogate tea 2
Tomato puree 10
Pepper 0.1
Bay leaf 0,1

Despite the existence of certain standards for the detention of prisoners, the results of inspections of the camps showed their systematic violation:

A large percentage of mortality falls on colds and exhaustion; colds are explained by the fact that there are prisoners who go to work poorly dressed and with shoes; the barracks are often not heated due to lack of fuel, as a result of which those who are frozen under open air prisoners are not warmed up in cold barracks, which leads to flu, pneumonia, and other colds

Until the end of the 1940s, when living conditions improved somewhat, the mortality rate of prisoners in the Gulag camps exceeded the national average, and in some years (1942-43) reached 20% of the average number of prisoners. According to official documents, over the years of the existence of the Gulag, more than 1.1 million people died in it (more than 600 thousand died in prisons and colonies). A number of researchers, for example V.V. Tsaplin, noted noticeable discrepancies in the available statistics, but at the moment these comments are fragmentary and cannot be used to characterize it as a whole.

Offenses

At the moment, in connection with the discovery of official documentation and internal orders, previously inaccessible to historians, there is a number of materials confirming repressions, carried out by virtue of decrees and resolutions of executive and legislative authorities.

For example, by virtue of GKO Resolution No. 634/ss of September 6, 1941, 170 political prisoners were executed in the Oryol prison of the GUGB. This decision was explained by the fact that the movement of convicts from this prison was not possible. Most of those serving sentences in such cases were released or assigned to retreating military units. The most dangerous prisoners were liquidated in a number of cases.

A notable fact was the publication on March 5, 1948 of the so-called “additional decree of the thieves’ law for prisoners,” which determined the main provisions of the system of relations between privileged prisoners - “thieves”, prisoners - “men” and some personnel from among the prisoners:

This law caused very negative consequences for the unprivileged prisoners of camps and prisons, as a result of which certain groups of “men” began to resist, organize protests against the “thieves” and the relevant laws, including committing acts of disobedience, raising uprisings, and starting arson. In a number of institutions, control over prisoners, which de facto belonged and was carried out by criminal groups of “thieves”, was lost; the camp leadership turned directly to higher authorities with a request to allocate additionally the most authoritative “thieves” to restore order and restore control, which sometimes caused some loss controllability of places of deprivation of liberty, gave criminal groups a reason to control the very mechanism of serving punishment, dictating their terms of cooperation. .

Labor incentive system in the Gulag

Prisoners who refused to work were subject to transfer to a penal regime, and “malicious refuseniks, whose actions corrupted labor discipline in the camp,” were subject to criminal liability. Penalties were imposed on prisoners for violations of labor discipline. Depending on the nature of such violations, the following penalties could be imposed:

deprivation of visits, correspondence, transfers for up to 6 months, restriction of the right to use personal money for up to 3 months and compensation for damage caused;
transfer to general work;
transfer to a penal camp for up to 6 months;
transfer to a punishment cell for up to 20 days;
transfer to worse material and living conditions (penal ration, less comfortable barracks, etc.)

For prisoners who complied with the regime, performed well at work, or exceeded the established norm, the following incentive measures could be applied by the camp leadership:

declaration of gratitude before the formation or in an order with entry into a personal file;
issuing a bonus (cash or in kind);
granting an extraordinary visit;
granting the right to receive parcels and transfers without restrictions;
granting the right to transfer money to relatives in an amount not exceeding 100 rubles. per month;
transfer to a more qualified job.

In addition, the foreman, in relation to a well-working prisoner, could petition the foreman or the head of the camp to provide the prisoner with the benefits provided for Stakhanovites.

Prisoners who worked using “Stakhanov labor methods” were provided with a number of special, additional benefits, in particular:

accommodation in more comfortable barracks, equipped with trestle beds or beds and provided with bedding, a cultural room and a radio;
special improved ration;
private dining room or individual tables in a common dining room with priority service;
clothing allowance in the first place;
priority right to use the camp stall;
priority receipt of books, newspapers and magazines from the camp library;
permanent club ticket for classes best place for watching films, artistic productions and literary evenings;
secondment to courses within the camp to obtain or improve the relevant qualifications (driver, tractor driver, machinist, etc.)

Similar incentive measures were taken for prisoners who had the rank of shock workers.

Along with this incentive system, there were others that consisted only of components that encouraged high productivity of the prisoner (and did not have a “punitive” component). One of them is related to the practice of counting to a prisoner one working day worked in excess of the established norm for one and a half, two (or even more) days of his sentence. The result of this practice was the early release of prisoners who showed positive results at work. In 1939, this practice was abolished, and the system of “early release” itself was reduced to replacing confinement in a camp with forced settlement. Thus, according to the decree of November 22, 1938 “On additional benefits for prisoners released early for shock work on the construction of 2 tracks “Karymskaya - Khabarovsk”, 8,900 prisoners - shock workers were released early, with transfer to free residence in the BAM construction area until end of the sentence. During the war, liberations began to be practiced on the basis of decrees of the State Defense Committee with the transfer of those released to the Red Army, and then on the basis of Decrees of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR (so-called amnesties).

The third system of stimulating labor in the camps consisted of differentiated payments to prisoners for the work they performed. This money is in administrative documents initially and until the end of the 1940s. were designated by the terms “cash incentive” or “cash bonus”. The concept of “salary” was also sometimes used, but this name was officially introduced only in 1950. Cash bonuses were paid to prisoners “for all work performed in forced labor camps,” while prisoners could receive the money they earned in their hands in an amount not exceeding 150 rubles at a time. Money in excess of this amount was credited to their personal accounts and issued as the previously issued money was spent. Those who did not work and did not comply with standards did not receive money. At the same time, “... even a slight overfulfillment of production standards by individual groups of workers...” could cause a large increase in the amount actually paid, which, in turn, could lead to a disproportionate development of the bonus fund in relation to the implementation of the capital work plan. prisoners temporarily released from work due to illness and other reasons, during the period of release from work wage was not accrued, but the cost of guaranteed food and clothing allowances was also not deducted from them. Activated disabled people employed in piecework work were paid according to the piecework rates established for prisoners for the amount of work actually completed by them.

Memories of survivors

The famous Moroz, the head of the Ukhta camps, stated that he did not need either cars or horses: “give more s/k - and he will build a railway not only to Vorkuta, but also through the North Pole.” This figure was ready to pave the swamps with prisoners, he easily left them to work in the cold winter taiga without tents - they would warm themselves by the fire! - without boilers for cooking food - they will do without hot food! But since no one held him accountable for “losses in manpower,” he for the time being enjoyed the reputation of an energetic, proactive figure. I saw Moroz near the locomotive - the first-born of the future movement, which had just been unloaded from the pontoon IN HANDS. Frost hovered before the retinue - it was urgent, they say, to separate the couples so that immediately - before the laying of the rails! - announce the surrounding area with a locomotive whistle. The order was immediately given: pour water into the boiler and light the firebox!”

Children in the Gulag

In the field of combating juvenile delinquency, punitive corrective measures prevailed. On July 16, 1939, the NKVD of the USSR issued an order “With the announcement of the regulations on the NKVD OTC detention center for minors,” which approved the “Regulations on the detention center for minors,” ordering the placement in detention centers of adolescents aged 12 to 16 years, sentenced by the court to various terms of imprisonment and not amenable to other measures of re-education and correction. This measure could be carried out with the sanction of the prosecutor; the period of detention in the detention center was limited to six months.

Beginning in mid-1947, sentences for minors convicted of theft of state or public property were increased to 10 - 25 years. The Decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of November 25, 1935 “On amending the current legislation of the RSFSR on measures to combat juvenile delinquency, child homelessness and neglect” abolished the possibility of reducing the sentence for minors aged 14 - 18 years, and the regime was significantly tightened keeping children in places of deprivation of liberty.

In the secret monograph “Main Directorate of Corrective Labor Camps and Colonies of the NKVD of the USSR” written in 1940, there is a separate chapter “Working with minors and street children”:

“In the Gulag system, work with juvenile delinquents and homeless people is organizationally separate.
By decision of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR on May 31, 1935, the Department of Labor Colonies was created in the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs, which has as its task the organization of reception centers, isolation wards and labor colonies for homeless minors and criminals.

This decision of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the Council of People's Commissars provided for the re-education of homeless and neglected children through cultural, educational and production work with them and their further sending them to work in industry and Agriculture.

Reception centers carry out the process of removing homeless and neglected children from the streets, keep the children in their homes for one month, and then, after establishing the necessary information about them and their parents, give them appropriate further direction. The 162 reception centers operating in the GULAG system during the four and a half years of their work admitted 952,834 teenagers, who were sent both to children's institutions of the People's Commissariat for Education, People's Commissariat of Health and People's Commissariat of Security, and to the labor colonies of the NKVD Gulag. Currently, there are 50 closed and open labor colonies operating in the Gulag system.

In open-type colonies there are juvenile offenders with one criminal record, and in closed-type colonies, under special regime conditions, juvenile offenders from 12 to 18 years old are kept a large number of convictions and several convictions.

Since the decision of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the Council of People's Commissars, 155,506 teenagers aged 12 to 18 years have been sent through labor colonies, of which 68,927 have been tried and 86,579 have not been tried. Since the main task of the NKVD labor colonies is to re-educate children and instill in them labor skills, production enterprises have been organized in all Gulag labor colonies in which all juvenile criminals work.

In the Gulag labor colonies there are, as a rule, four main types of production:

Metalworking,

Woodworking,

Shoe production,

Knitting production (in colonies for girls).

In all colonies, secondary schools are organized, operating according to a general seven-year educational program.

Clubs have been organized with corresponding amateur clubs: music, drama, choir, fine arts, technical, physical education and others. The educational and teaching staff of juvenile colonies number: 1,200 educators - mainly from Komsomol members and party members, 800 teachers and 255 leaders of amateur art groups. In almost all colonies, pioneer detachments and Komsomol organizations were organized from among the students who had not been convicted. On March 1, 1940, there were 4,126 pioneers and 1,075 Komsomol members in the Gulag colonies.

Work in the colonies is organized as follows: minors under 16 years of age work daily in production for 4 hours and study at school for 4 hours, the rest of the time they are busy in amateur clubs and pioneer organizations. Minors from 16 to 18 years old work in production for 6 hours and, instead of a normal seven-year school, study in self-education clubs, similar to adult schools.

During 1939, the Gulag labor colonies for minors completed production program by 169,778 thousand rubles, mainly for consumer goods. The GULAG system spent 60,501 thousand rubles in 1939 on the maintenance of the entire corps of juvenile criminals, and the state subsidy to cover these expenses was expressed in approximately 15% of the total amount, and the rest of it was provided by revenues from production and economic activity labor colonies. The main point that completes the entire process of re-education of juvenile offenders is their employment. Over four years, the system of labor colonies employed 28,280 former criminals in various sectors of the national economy, including 83.7% in industry and transport, 7.8% in agriculture, 8.5% in various educational establishments and institutions"
25. GARF, f.9414, op.1, d.1155, l.26-27.
GARF, f.9401, op.1, d.4157, l.201-205; V. P. Popov. State terror in Soviet Russia. 1923-1953: sources and their interpretation // Domestic archives. 1992, No. 2. P.28. http://libereya.ru/public/repressii.html

A. Dugin. “Stalinism: legends and facts” // Word. 1990, No. 7. P.23; archival

The history of the Gulag is closely intertwined with the entire Soviet era, but especially with its Stalinist period. The network of camps stretches throughout the country. They were visited by the most different groups population accused under the famous 58th article. The Gulag was not only a system of punishment, but also a layer of the Soviet economy. Prisoners carried out the most ambitious projects

The origins of the Gulag

The future Gulag system began to take shape immediately after the Bolsheviks came to power. During the Civil War, she began to isolate her class and ideological enemies in special concentration camps. Then they did not shy away from this term, since it received a truly monstrous assessment during the atrocities of the Third Reich.

At first, the camps were run by Leon Trotsky and Vladimir Lenin. Mass terror against the “counter-revolution” included wholesale arrests of the rich bourgeoisie, factory owners, landowners, merchants, church leaders, etc. Soon the camps were handed over to the Cheka, whose chairman was Felix Dzerzhinsky. Forced labor was organized there. This was also necessary in order to raise the destroyed economy.

If in 1919 there were only 21 camps on the territory of the RSFSR, then by the end of the Civil War there were already 122. In Moscow alone there were seven such institutions, where prisoners were brought from all over the country. In 1919 there were more than three thousand of them in the capital. This was not yet the Gulag system, but only its prototype. Even then, a tradition had developed according to which all activities in the OGPU were subject only to internal departmental acts, and not to general Soviet legislation.

The first in the Gulag system existed in emergency mode. Civil War, led to lawlessness and violation of the rights of prisoners.

Solovki

In 1919, the Cheka created several labor camps in the north of Russia, or more precisely, in the Arkhangelsk province. Soon this network received the name SLON. The abbreviation stood for "Northern Camps for Special Purposes." The Gulag system in the USSR appeared even in the most remote regions big country.

In 1923, the Cheka was transformed into the GPU. The new department distinguished itself with several initiatives. One of them was a proposal to establish a new forced camp on the Solovetsky archipelago, which was not far from those same Northern camps. Before this, there was an ancient Orthodox monastery on the islands in the White Sea. It was closed as part of the fight against the Church and the “priests.”

This is how one of the key symbols of the Gulag appeared. This was the Solovetsky special purpose camp. His project was proposed by Joseph Unschlikht, one of the then leaders of the Cheka-GPU. His fate is indicative. This man contributed to the development of the repressive system of which he ultimately became a victim. In 1938, he was shot at the famous Kommunarka training ground. This place was the dacha of Genrikh Yagoda, the People's Commissar of the NKVD in the 30s. He too was shot.

Solovki became one of the main camps in the Gulag of the 20s. According to the instructions of the OGPU, it was supposed to contain criminal and political prisoners. A few years after its inception, Solovki grew and had branches on the mainland, including in the Republic of Karelia. The Gulag system was constantly expanding with new prisoners.

In 1927, 12 thousand people were kept in the Solovetsky camp. The harsh climate and unbearable conditions led to regular deaths. Over the entire existence of the camp, more than 7 thousand people were buried there. Moreover, about half of them died in 1933, when famine raged throughout the country.

Solovki were known throughout the country. They tried not to bring information about problems inside the camp outside. In 1929, Maxim Gorky, at that time the main Soviet writer, came to the archipelago. He wanted to check the conditions in the camp. The writer's reputation was impeccable: his books were published in huge editions, he was known as a revolutionary of the old school. Therefore, many prisoners pinned their hopes on him that he would make public everything that was happening within the walls of the former monastery.

Before Gorky ended up on the island, the camp underwent a total cleanup and was brought into decent shape. The abuse of prisoners has stopped. At the same time, the prisoners were threatened that if they told Gorky about their lives, they would face severe punishment. The writer, having visited Solovki, was delighted with how prisoners were re-educated, accustomed to work and returned to society. However, at one of these meetings, in a children's colony, a boy approached Gorky. He told the famous guest about the abuses of the jailers: torture in the snow, overtime work, standing in the cold, etc. Gorky left the barracks in tears. When he sailed to the mainland, the boy was shot. The Gulag system brutally dealt with any dissatisfied prisoners.

Stalin's Gulag

In 1930, the Gulag system was finally formed under Stalin. It was subordinate to the NKVD and was one of the five main departments in this people's commissariat. Also in 1934, all correctional institutions that had previously belonged to the People's Commissariat of Justice were transferred to the Gulag. Labor in the camps was legislatively approved in the Correctional Labor Code of the RSFSR. Now numerous prisoners had to implement the most dangerous and ambitious economic and infrastructure projects: construction projects, digging canals, etc.

The authorities did everything to make the Gulag system in the USSR seem like the norm to free citizens. For this purpose, regular ideological campaigns were launched. In 1931, construction of the famous White Sea Canal began. This was one of the most significant projects of Stalin's first five-year plan. The Gulag system is also one of the economic mechanisms of the Soviet state.

In order for the average person to learn in detail about the construction of the White Sea Canal in positive tones, the Communist Party gave the task famous writers prepare a book of praise. This is how the work “Stalin Canal” appeared. A whole group of authors worked on it: Tolstoy, Gorky, Pogodin and Shklovsky. Particularly interesting is the fact that the book spoke positively about bandits and thieves, whose labor was also used. The GULAG occupied an important place in the Soviet economic system. Cheap forced labor made it possible to implement the tasks of the five-year plans at an accelerated pace.

Political and criminals

The Gulag camp system was divided into two parts. It was a world of politicians and criminals. The last of them were recognized by the state as “socially close”. This term was popular in Soviet propaganda. Some criminals tried to cooperate with the camp administration in order to make their existence easier. At the same time, the authorities demanded loyalty and surveillance of political leaders from them.

Numerous “enemies of the people,” as well as those convicted of alleged espionage and anti-Soviet propaganda, had no opportunity to defend their rights. Most often they resorted to hunger strikes. With their help, political prisoners tried to draw the attention of the administration to the difficult living conditions, abuses and bullying of jailers.

Single hunger strikes led to nothing. Sometimes NKVD officers could only increase the suffering of the convicted person. To do this, plates with delicious food and scarce products.

Fighting protest

The camp administration could pay attention to the hunger strike only if it was massive. Any concerted action by prisoners led to the search for instigators among them, who were then dealt with with particular cruelty.

For example, in Ukhtpechlag in 1937, a group of people convicted of Trotskyism went on a hunger strike. Any organized protest was considered a counter-revolutionary activity and a threat to the state. This led to the fact that an atmosphere of denunciation and mistrust of prisoners towards each other reigned in the camps. However, in some cases, the organizers of the hunger strikes, on the contrary, openly announced their initiative because of the simple despair in which they found themselves. In Ukhtpechlag, the founders were arrested. They refused to testify. Then the NKVD troika sentenced the activists to death.

While forms of political protest in the Gulag were rare, mass riots were common. Moreover, their founders were, as a rule, criminals. Convicts often became victims of criminals who carried out orders from their superiors. Representatives of the criminal world received exemption from work or occupied an inconspicuous position in the camp apparatus.

Skilled labor in the camp

This practice was also due to the fact that the Gulag system suffered from a lack of professional personnel. NKVD employees sometimes had no education at all. The camp authorities often had no choice but to place the prisoners themselves in economic, administrative and technical positions.

Moreover, among the political prisoners there were a lot of people of various specialties. The “technical intelligentsia” was especially in demand - engineers, etc. In the early 30s, these were people who received their education back in Tsarist Russia and remained specialists and professionals. In successful cases, such prisoners could even develop trusting relationships with the administration in the camp. Some of them, upon release, remained in the system at the administrative level.

However, in the mid-30s, the regime tightened, which also affected highly qualified prisoners. The situation of the specialists located in the inner camp world became completely different. The well-being of such people depended entirely on the character and degree of depravity of a particular boss. The Soviet system created the Gulag system also in order to completely demoralize its opponents - real or imaginary. Therefore, there could be no liberalism towards prisoners.

Sharashki

Those specialists and scientists who ended up in the so-called sharashkas were luckier. These were closed scientific institutions where they worked on secret projects. Many famous scientists ended up in camps for their freethinking. For example, this was Sergei Korolev - a man who became a symbol of the Soviet conquest of space. Designers, engineers, and people associated with the military industry ended up in sharashkas.

Such establishments are reflected in the culture. The writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who visited the sharashka, many years later wrote the novel “In the First Circle,” where he described in detail the life of such prisoners. This author is best known for his other book, “The Gulag Archipelago.”

To the beginning of the Great Patriotic War colonies and camp complexes became an important element of many manufacturing industries. The Gulag system, in short, existed wherever slave labor of prisoners could be used. It was especially in demand in the mining, metallurgical, fuel and forestry industries. An important direction was capital construction. Almost all large buildings of the Stalin era were erected by prisoners. They were mobile and cheap labor.

After the end of the war, the role of the camp economy became even more important. The scope of forced labor expanded due to the implementation of the atomic project and many other military tasks. In 1949, about 10% of the country's production was created in the camps.

Unprofitability of camps

Even before the war, in order not to undermine the economic efficiency of the camps, Stalin abolished parole in the camps. At one of the discussions about the fate of peasants who found themselves in camps after dispossession, he stated that it was necessary to come up with new system incentives for productivity in work, etc. Often parole awaited a person who either distinguished himself by exemplary behavior or became another Stakhanovite.

After Stalin's remark, the system of counting working days was abolished. According to it, prisoners reduced their sentences by going to work. The NKVD did not want to do this, since refusal to take tests deprived prisoners of motivation to work diligently. This, in turn, led to a drop in the profitability of any camp. And yet the tests were cancelled.

It was the unprofitability of enterprises inside the Gulag (among some other reasons) that forced Soviet leadership reorganize the entire system, which previously existed outside the legal framework, being under the exclusive jurisdiction of the NKVD.

The low productivity of prisoners was also due to the fact that many of them had health problems. This was facilitated by a poor diet, difficult living conditions, bullying by the administration and many other adversities. In 1934, 16% of prisoners were unemployed and 10% were sick.

Liquidation of the Gulag

The abandonment of the Gulag occurred gradually. The impetus for the start of this process was the death of Stalin in 1953. The liquidation of the Gulag system began a few months later.

First of all, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR issued a decree on mass amnesty. Thus, more than half of the prisoners were released. As a rule, these were people whose sentence was less than five years.

At the same time, the majority of political prisoners remained behind bars. The death of Stalin and the change of power gave many prisoners confidence that something would soon change. In addition, prisoners began to openly resist the oppression and abuse of the camp authorities. Thus, several riots occurred (in Vorkuta, Kengir and Norilsk).

Another important event for the Gulag was the 20th Congress of the CPSU. Nikita Khrushchev, who shortly before had won the internal struggle for power, spoke at it. From the platform, he also condemned the numerous atrocities of his era.

At the same time, special commissions appeared in the camps, which began reviewing the cases of political prisoners. In 1956, their number was three times less. The liquidation of the Gulag system coincided with its transfer to a new department - the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs. In 1960, the last head of the GUITC (Main Directorate of Corrective Labor Camps), Mikhail Kholodkov, was retired.

While the propaganda campaign of the Nazi camp system received wide publicity, the correctional camps Soviet Union received only a brief mention in the international press.

Following brief information is an attempt to highlight some of the facts.

The Russian Revolution, masterminded by the trio of Marx, Lenin and Trotsky, and financed by international bankers, especially Kuhn Loeb, was Jewish from the very beginning. Their intentions, in which they succeeded, were to destroy the basis of the existing society in Russia by destroying both the peasantry and the aristocracy. In this case, the Gulag, forced labor camps, played a decisive role.

Many of Stalin's henchmen, such as Lazar Moiseevich Kaganovich, were Jewish internationalists, as were most of the women around him. In 1937, Jews numbered only 5.7 percent of the party, but they constituted a majority in the government, where many of them used Russian pseudonyms.

On September 5, 1918, Dzerzhinsky was given instructions to carry out Lenin's policy of red terror. By the end of 1919 there were 21 registered camps in Russia, and at the end of 1920 there were 107.

In the early 1920s, the Soviet Union created two separate prison systems. The regular prison system, which dealt with criminals, and the "special" prison system, which dealt with "special" prisoners: that is, priests, former tsarist officials, bourgeois speculators, etc., and which came under the control of the Cheka, later known as the GPU, OGPU, NKVD and finally the KGB. Ultimately, these two systems would merge and work according to the principles of the latter.

In the last decades of the Tsarist regime, when Russia was undergoing belated industrialization, no one made an attempt to explore and populate the far northern regions of the country, although they were already known to be rich in minerals. The climate was too harsh, the potential human suffering was too great, and Russian technologies too primitive. The Soviet regime, however, was less concerned about such things.

The Solovetsky Islands are an archipelago in the White Sea. The monastery complex served as a prison before. The Solovetsky monks kept the tsar's political opponents in prison.

In 1945, in a lecture on the history of the camps, the chief administrator of the system argued that the camp system arose on Solovki in 1920, and not only the camp system, but also the entire Soviet system forced labor began there in 1926.

The Solovetsky camp united other Soviet prisons on the island. The conditions of cruelty and comfort were probably more extreme than in other places due to the special nature of the prisoners and guards. Such camps were clearly unprofitable from the very beginning.

By November 10, 1925, the need to make better use of prisoners was obvious, but it was only with the advent of Nastal Aronovich Frenkel that a change in concept occurred. He was a Jew who mysteriously rose from the position of a prison guard to one of the most influential Solovetsky commissars with the blessing and support of Yagoda - a Jew, the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs, that is, the head of the NKVD.

In Solozhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago, it was Frenkel who personally came up with the plan where the amount of food given to prisoners depended on the amount of work done, and he tried to run the camp as a functioning enterprise. This murderous labor system would destroy the weaker prisoners within weeks and cause untold numbers of deaths.

Prisoners were transported by rail east and north in conditions so horrific that it is hard to imagine. They were crammed into carriages without basic amenities and with minimal amounts of food and water..

In 1929, the Soviet regime also accelerated the process of collectivization of agriculture. A vast upheaval that was deeper than the Russian Revolution itself. Incredible short term rural commissars forced millions of peasants to abandon their small plots of land and join collective farms, driving them off the land their families had cultivated for centuries.

The transformation permanently weakened Soviet agriculture and caused terrible famines in Ukraine and southern Russia in 1932 and 1934. A famine that killed between six and seven million people. Collectivization forever destroyed the connection between rural Russia and the past.

Was this, simply, a harbinger of "globalization"? An echo of the general idea of the destruction of the connection between people and the land, the destruction of peasants and aristocrats?

By the mid-1930s, there were 3,000,000 prisoners in the Gulag system, dispersed among about a dozen camp complexes and several smaller detention centers.

Their existence was not completely secret, but no one, however, spoke about it openly. Beginning in 1929, the OGPU took part in the development of the Soviet Union, planning and equipping geological expeditions that explored coal, oil, gold, nickel and other metals that were under a layer of permafrost in the tundra of the Soviet Arctic and subarctic far north.

Prisoners were sent to areas where there was nothing, no housing, no training, no proper tools, meager supplies and freezing temperatures.

Khrushchev spoke of 17 million deaths in forced labor camps between 1937 and 1953.

According to another source, the number of those exiled to camps in the USSR was 28.78 million. How many of them died? It is impossible to say for sure, since no sufficiently reliable mortality statistics have been published.

And now? In whose hands are the fruits that cost the death and suffering of millions? A look at the names of modern Russian oligarchs provides the answer. Berezovsky, Khodorkovsky, Abramovich, Gusinsky, Friedman - all Jews.

Mention or concern for the plight of Israel's Palestinian victims is another omission in the international press.

The idea of a conspiracy, an attempt to seize global power, no doubt sounds like some kind of science fiction story. Before you dismiss this idea, you need to ask the following questions:

Why the desire to control the media?
Why financial control?
Why economic control?
Why evidence of Jewish involvement in revolutions?

Regardless of the answer, the fact remains that, in given time, control of the world and everything in it is quietly seized by people whose motives are suspicious.

Anti-Semitic view? No, just the desire to find that elusive substance - the truth. There is no doubt that there are many Jews who are not aware of the aspirations of their kind. In any case, the term "anti-Semitic" is a misnomer, since it refers to many Semitic peoples who are not Jews, and who are themselves victims of the same policies, while it must be added that the statement that all Jews are Semites is incorrect. Many of them are descendants of Khazar Ashkenazis from northeastern Russia, which casts further doubt on Israel's legitimacy to exist.

Some dry statistics about the Gulag

GULAG (Main Directorate of Camps) is a division of the NKVD of the USSR that managed the system of forced labor camps (ITL), the main and most important organ of the system of political repressions of the USSR.

Usually, the word “GULAG” does not mean the organizational bureaucratic structure itself, but the entire apparatus of suppression, including prisons and even the system of ideological propaganda. In the philistine consciousness, the Gulag is associated with the entire Soviet camp and prison system.

Camp for prisoners in the Northern Urals - Parasina village

If we talk about official camps, then there were the following large units: Akmola camp for wives of traitors to the Motherland (ALZHIR), Bamlag, Berlag, Bezymyanlag, Belbaltlag, Vorkutlag (Vorkuta ITL), Vyatlag, Dallag, Dzhezkazganlag, Dzhugdzhurlag, Dmitrovlag (Volgolag), Dubravlag, Intalag, Karaganda ITL (Karlag), Kizellag, Kotlas ITL, Kraslag, Lokchimlag, Norilsklag (Norilsk ITL), Ozerlag, Perm camps (Usollag, Visheralag, Cherdynlag, Nyroblag, etc.), Pechorlag, Pechzheldorlag, Prorvlag, Svirlag, SVITL, Sevzheldorlag, Siblag, Solovetsky Special Purpose Camp (SLON), Taezhlag, Ustvymlag, Ukhtpechlag, Ukhtizhemlag, Khabarlag.

Each of the above camp administrations included a number of camp points (that is, the camps themselves). And if we also take into account the system of unofficial “satellite camps”, such as Timsher, Bondyug or Chuval in the Northern Urals, then the list of Gulag camps will be simply huge.

The history of the creation of the Gulag system

On April 24, 1930, by order of the OGPU, the Camp Administration was formed. The first mention of the GULAG itself (Main Directorate of Camps) can be found in the OGPU order of February 15, 1931. The legislative basis for the Gulag system was laid down on August 3, 1933, when the Correctional Labor Code of the RSFSR was approved, prescribing various aspects of the functioning of labor camps. In particular, the code prescribes the use of prison labor and legitimizes the practice of counting two days of hard work for three days, which was widely used to motivate prisoners during the construction of the White Sea Canal. On June 10, 1934, according to the Decree of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR, during the formation of the new Union-Republican NKVD, the Main Directorate of Forced Labor Camps and Labor Settlements was formed within its composition. In October of the same year, this department was renamed the Main Directorate of Camps, Labor Settlements and Places of Detention - the GULAG itself.

Subsequently, this department was renamed twice more and in February 1941 received the established name Main Directorate of Corrective Labor Camps and Colonies of the NKVD of the USSR. The departmental affiliation of the Gulag changed only once after 1934 - in March 1953 the Gulag was transferred to the jurisdiction of the USSR Ministry of Justice, but in January 1954 it was again returned to the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs. The next organizational change in the penal system in the USSR was the creation in October 1956 of the Main Directorate of Correctional Labor Colonies, which in March 1959 was renamed the Main Directorate of Prisons.

The role of the Gulag in the economy of the USSR

All major construction in the USSR was carried out using the system

Gulag camps and prisoners

The attitude of the authorities towards prisoners as an economic resource was expressed even more clearly by Joseph Stalin, who in 1938 spoke at a meeting of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR and stated the following regarding the then existing practice of early release of prisoners: “We are doing bad things, we are disrupting the work of the camps. These people, of course, need liberation, but from the point of view of the state economy this is bad...”

Gulag prisoners in the 1930-50s carried out the construction of almost all large industrial and transport facilities:

Construction railway Solikamsk-Usolye was carried out

Gulag camp system

and at the expense of Gulag prisoners, several canals were built (White Sea-Baltic Canal named after Stalin, Canal named after Moscow, Volga-Don Canal named after Lenin); HPPs (Volzhskaya, Zhigulevskaya, Uglichskaya, Rybinskaya, Kuibyshevskaya, Nizhnetulomskaya, Ust-Kamenogorskaya, Tsimlyanskaya, etc.); metallurgical enterprises (Norilsk and Nizhny Tagil MK, etc.); objects of the Soviet nuclear program; a number of railways (Transpolar Railway, Kola Railway, tunnel to Sakhalin, Karaganda-Mointy-Balkhash, Pechora Mainline, second tracks of the Siberian Mainline, Taishet-Lena (beginning of BAM), etc.) and highways (Moscow - Minsk, Nagaevo - Atka - Nera, etc.)

A number of Soviet cities were founded and built by Gulag institutions (Komsomolsk-on-Amur, Sovetskaya Gavan, Magadan, Dudinka, Vorkuta, Ukhta, Inta, Pechora, Molotovsk, Dubna, Nakhodka).

Construction of the White Sea Canal by Gulag prisoners

The network of Gulag camps covered all the northern, Siberian, Central Asian and Far Eastern regions of the country. Already in 1929, the Administration of Northern Camps for Special Purposes (USEVLON) was formed, which was engaged in the development of the Pechora coal basin, with its headquarters in Kotlas; Far Eastern ITL with control headquarters in Khabarovsk and an area of operation covering the entire south of the Far Eastern Territory; Siberian ITL with management in Novosibirsk. In 1930, the Kazakhstan ITL (Alma-Ata) and the Central Asian ITL (Tashkent) were added to them. At the end of 1931, the construction of the White Sea-Baltic waterway was transferred from the People's Commissariat of Transport to the OGPU and the White Sea-Baltic ITL was formed. In the spring of 1932, the North-Eastern ITL (Magadan) was created to accommodate Dalstroy; In the fall, the OGPU was entrusted with the construction of the Moscow-Volga canal and the Baikal-Amur railway and, accordingly, the Dmitrovsky and Baikal-Amur ITL near Moscow were organized.

Another “shock” construction... And once again at the expense of prisoners in the Gulag camps

The total number of prisoners in the Gulag camps grew rapidly. On July 1, 1929 there were about 23 thousand of them, a year later - 95 thousand, and a year later - 155 thousand people. On January 1, 1934, the number of prisoners was already 510 thousand people. excluding those on the way.

The liquidation of the OGPU and the formation of the NKVD of the USSR in 1934 led to the fact that all places of detention in the country were transferred to the Gulag of the NKVD of the USSR. To the 13 camps adopted from the OGPU in 1935, Sarov and Akhunsky ITL were added, and the total number of prisoners exceeded 725 thousand people.

During the years of the so-called Great Terror, the Gulag contingent, despite the widespread use of capital punishment in the country - execution of convicts, as well as an increase in mortality among prisoners, rapidly increased. If on July 1, 1937 there were 788 thousand people in the camps, then in April 1938 there were already more than 2 million people. In order to somehow “cope” with the influx of prisoners, five new ITLs were organized (among them the famous Norilsk), and then another thirteen special logging camps (Kargopolsky, Taishetsky, Vyatsky, North Ural Gulag, Unzhensky, Usolsky, etc.). The latter, despite the temporary nature of the reasons that stimulated their formation, turned out to be extremely tenacious. Forest camps did not require large investments for arrangement, survived all reorganizations and continued to operate until the day the Gulag was liquidated.

The true function of the Gulag

Symbol of the Gulag - a tower for guarding prisoners in the camp

After the classification of secrecy was lifted from the archives, historians found themselves in the hands of materials that authentically and documented the repressions, carried out by virtue of special decrees and resolutions (!!!). For example, on September 6, 1941, 170 political prisoners were executed in the Oryol prison. This decision was explained by the fact that it was not possible to move the convicts of this prison to another prison or camp. If such lawlessness was committed “officially” according to the instructions of decrees and resolutions, then what can we say about the very atmosphere of the camps and the inhuman conditions that were created there by the camp leadership (in most cases deliberately) for the prisoners. All this confirms the fact that the main task of the Gulag was precisely repressive and its goal was the physical destruction of people. Even attempts to substantiate and justify the existence of the Gulag from the point of view of economic feasibility do not have a true evidence base. The head of the Gulag, Nasedkin, wrote on May 13, 1941: “A comparison of the cost of agricultural products in the camps and state farms of the USSR showed that the cost of production in the camps significantly exceeds the state farm.” After the war, Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs Chernyshov wrote in a special note that the Gulag simply needed to be transferred to a system similar to the civilian economy. But, despite the introduction of new incentives, detailed elaboration of tariff schedules, and production standards, self-sufficiency of the Gulag could not be achieved; Labor productivity of prisoners was lower than that of civilian workers, and the cost of maintaining the system of camps and colonies increased.

Living conditions of prisoners in the Gulag

Today, after the memoirs of eyewitnesses and people who went through all the circles of hell in the Gulag have been published, the standards established for keeping prisoners in the camps look like a mockery. Prisoners moved in these stages from one camp to another.

For example, this is the food norm No. 1 (basic) of a Gulag prisoner in 1948 (for 1 person per day in grams):

Bread 700 (800 for those engaged in heavy work)

Wheat flour 10

Various cereals 110

Pasta and vermicelli 10

Meat 20

Fish 60

Fats 13

Potatoes and vegetables 650

Sugar 17

Salt 20

Surrogate tea 2

Tomato puree 10

Pepper 0.1

Bay leaf 0.1

In the overwhelming majority of cases, all these “norms” and instructions were not followed by the camp leadership. The main “killer” of prisoners in the Gulag was not the “chekist’s bullet”, but hunger, cold and disease.

Estimates of the scale of repression

Historians still argue about the number of those repressed during the Gulag. A variety of numbers are cited and different approaches are used to calculate statistics. The main criterion for including specific convicted people in the total number of repressed people is the unreasonableness of the sanctions and punishments applied. In contrast to the official statistics of the NKVD on those convicted under Article 58, there is no reliable data on the number of other categories, and researchers provide different estimates. Total estimates for all mentioned categories amount to 25-30 million people who went through prison or exile and over 40 million for less severe punishments. The difference in assessments of the scale of repression by different researchers is determined primarily by the set of categories of persons included in the concept of “repressed.” As a result, estimates range from 3.8 million - 9.8 million “politically” repressed to many tens of millions, including those punished under criminal charges. Estimates of those killed as a result of repressions similarly vary - from hundreds of thousands executed under Article 58 to millions who died of starvation in the early 1930s.

Mark Twain once said that “there are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics.”