The city was founded by prisoners of Stalin's camps. Repressive policy and its institutional foundations. Women in the gulag
Gulag (Main Directorate of forced labor camps, labor settlements and places of detention) in the USSR in 1934-56. a division of the NKVD (MVD) that managed the system of forced labor camps (ITL). Special departments of the Gulag united many ITL in different regions of the country: Karaganda ITL (Karlag), Dalstroy NKVD / Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR, Solovetsky ITL (USLON), White Sea-Baltic ITL and the NKVD plant, Vorkuta ITL, Norilsk ITL, etc.
In these camps there were the most difficult conditions, basic human rights were not respected, and severe punishments were applied for the slightest violation of the regime. Prisoners worked for free on the construction of canals, roads, industrial and other facilities in the Far North, Far East and in other regions. The mortality rate from hunger, disease and backbreaking labor. After the publication of the book by A.I. Solzhenitsyn's "GULAG Archipelago" in 1973, where he showed the system of mass repression and arbitrariness in the Soviet state, the term "GULAG" became synonymous with the camps and prisons of the NKVD, the totalitarian regime as a whole.
In scientific and scientific-journalistic literature, a wide range of opinions has emerged, both about the very nature of the Gulag, and about its place and role in the Soviet state system. The inconsistency of assessments and judgments on the Gulag problem was determined, first of all, by the narrowness and insufficient source base, which consisted mainly of memories of participants in the events and eyewitness accounts, as well as official Soviet materials. Studying the Gulag at a qualitatively new level became possible only at the turn of the 1980s and 90s, when researchers gained access to the necessary archival materials.
All of the above justifies the actual chosen topic.
The purpose of the work is to study and briefly analyze the GULAG: its creation, scale and role.
The work consists of an introduction, 2 chapters, a conclusion and a list of references. The total volume of work is ___ pages.
1. Creation of the Gulag
1.1 Decree “On forced labor camps”
On April 15, 1919, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee signed by Chairman M.I. Kalinin issued a decree “On forced labor camps.” This decree legalized two provisions that accompanied the 18-month existence of the Soviet Republic, namely the establishment of the camp system and the establishment of forced labor.
How widely these provisions were implemented is evident from the fact that the decree provided for the organization of forced labor camps “at the Branches of the Administration of the Provincial Executive Committees,” i.e. This obligated all provincial committees to create camps. The organization and management of the camps was entrusted to Gubchek (Provincial Extraordinary Commissions); camps in the districts were opened with the permission of the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs.
Already in this first decree on the camps it was stipulated that escaping from them “is subject to the most severe punishments.” But the text of the decree of April 15, 1919, apparently, turned out to be insufficient, and on May 17, 1919, signed by the chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee V. Avanesov, a new expanded decree “On forced labor camps” was published, developed in great detail and has the following sections:
a) organization of camps and management of camps,
c) guard team,
d) sanitary and medical supervision,
e) about prisoners,
e) premises.
It should be noted that for the first time escaping, the term of imprisonment was increased tenfold, and for the second time the Revolutionary Tribunal had the right to use execution. This decree laid down all the basic provisions of forced labor, which became an integral element of state life. Soviet Union and gradually transformed into the current system of slave labor.
Basics of correctional labor policy were included in the new party program at the VIII Congress of the RCP (b) (March 1919). The complete organizational design of the camp network according to Soviet Russia strictly coincided with the first communist subbotniks (April 12 - May 17, 1919): decisions of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee on forced labor camps took place on April 15 and May 17, 1919. According to them, forced labor camps were created (through the efforts of the GubChK) in every provincial city (if convenient - within the city, or in a monastery or in a nearby estate) and in some counties (not yet in all). The camps were supposed to contain at least three hundred people each (so that the labor of prisoners would pay for both the guards and the administration) and be under the jurisdiction of the Provincial Punitive Departments.
Thus, already at the very beginning of the communist revolution it was open in all provincial (97) and some county towns over 100 forced labor camps for at least 300 people each, that is, a total of 30,000 prisoners.
The exact number of camps and people imprisoned in them during a given period of communist construction is unknown. But in the early fifties, a joint commission of the UN and IVT conducted a survey large quantity people who found themselves in the West during the Second World War, and based on carefully documented testimony, she came to the following conclusion:
"... in the concentration camps of the European and Asian parts of the Soviet Union there are at least 10,000,000 prisoners; this is, however, a minimum figure, calculated with all conceivable caution of statistical rigidity. In reality, the number of prisoners reaches 15,000,000 people."
The figure of 15 million people is mentioned in many sources concerning forced labor in the USSR. Let's say Dr. Von Metnitz says: “Today we know for sure that in some years there were up to 15 million prisoners in Soviet concentration camps.”
But this figure is, of course, arbitrary; it is possible that it is unwittingly exaggerated. Out of caution, we should count not 15, but 10 million prisoners. However, 10 million is a colossal value, exceeding the population of many European countries. (Say, in 1960 the entire population of Austria was 7.0 million people, Belgium - 9.1, Greece - 8.3, Denmark - 4.5, Norway - 3.6, Sweden - 7.5).
Decree of the Central Executive Committee of the Soviets on the creation of forced labor camps.
1) Forced labor camps are established under the Management Departments of the Provincial Executive Committees:
A. The initial organization and management of forced labor camps is entrusted to the Provincial Extraordinary Commissions, which transfer them to the Departments of the Administration upon notification from the center.
b. Forced labor camps in counties are opened with the permission of the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs.
2) Those persons and categories of persons in relation to whom decisions have been made by the Departments of Administration, Extraordinary Commissions, Revolutionary Tribunals, People's Courts and other Soviet Bodies, who have been granted this right by decrees and orders, are subject to imprisonment in forced labor camps.
3) All prisoners in the camps are immediately involved in work at the request of Soviet Institutions.
4) Those who escaped from camps or from work are subject to the most severe punishments.
5) To manage all forced labor camps throughout the entire territory of the RSFSR, a Central Camp Administration is established under the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs, in agreement with the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission.
6) The heads of forced labor camps are elected by local Provincial Executive Committees and approved by the Central Administration of the camps.
7) Loans for equipment and maintenance of camps are issued by the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs on an estimated basis through the Provincial Executive Committee.
8) Medical and sanitary supervision of the camps is entrusted to the local Health Departments.
9) Detailed provisions and instructions are proposed to be developed by the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs within 2 weeks from the date of publication of this resolution.
1.2 Organizational structure of the Gulag
From the very beginning of existence Soviet power The management of most places of detention was entrusted to the punitive department 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.
On July 25, 1922, the Council of People's Commissars adopted a resolution to concentrate the management of the main places of detention (except for general prisons) in one department and a little later, in October of the same year, a single body was created in the NKVD system - the Main Directorate of Places of Detention.
In subsequent decades, the structure of government bodies in charge of places of deprivation of liberty changed repeatedly, although fundamental changes did not occur.
On April 24, 1930, by order of the United State Political Administration (OGPU) under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, the Administration of Camps was formed. The first mention of the GULAG itself (the Main Directorate of OGPU camps) can be found in the OGPU order of February 15, 1931.
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.
Subsequently, this department was renamed twice more and in February 1941 received the name Main Directorate of Corrective Labor Camps and Colonies of the NKVD of the USSR. After the end of the Great Patriotic War, in connection with the reorganization of the People's Commissariats into ministries, the Main Directorate of Forced Labor Camps and Colonies in March 1946 became part of 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 1959 was renamed the Main Directorate of Prisons.
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.
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. In 1934, general prisons were transferred to the Gulag of the NKVD of the USSR, and in September 1938, an independent Main Prison Directorate was formed within the NKVD.
When the NKVD was divided into two independent people's commissariats - the NKVD and the NKGB - this department was renamed the NKVD Prison Department. In 1954, by decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, the Prison Department was transformed into the Prison Department of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs.
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.
The most difficult conditions were established in the camps, basic human rights were not respected, and severe punishments were applied for the slightest violation of the regime. Prisoners worked for free on the construction of canals, roads, industrial and other facilities in the Far North, Far East and other regions. Mortality from hunger, disease and overwork was extremely high.
2. The scale of the GULAG
Since perestroika, the question has constantly arisen about the real number of those repressed during the years of the existence of the Gulag. According to available data, more than forty domestic and foreign authors have studied and are studying the problems of the criminal legal policy of the USSR in the 1920-1950s of the last century.
Book by A.I. Solzhenitsyn's "The Gulag Archipelago", which, despite the fact that it was first published in the West in 1973, was very widely distributed in samizdat. The first volume of The Archipelago contained a detailed study of everything that preceded the appearance of millions Soviet people in Stalin's concentration camps: systems of arrests and various types imprisonment, torture investigations, judicial and extrajudicial reprisals, stages and transfers. In the second volume of his book, A. Solzhenitsyn examines the main and fundamental part of the Gulag empire - the “extermination labor camps.” Nothing here escapes the attention of the author. The history of the camps, the economy of forced labor, the management structure, categories of prisoners and the daily life of camp inmates, the situation of women and children, the relationship between ordinary prisoners and “morons”, criminal and political, security, convoy, information service, recruitment of informers, the punishment system and " incentives, work of hospitals and first aid stations, various shapes killings, murders and the simple procedure of burying prisoners - all this is reflected in Solzhenitsyn’s book. The author describes various types of hard labor for prisoners, their starvation rations, he studies not only the camp, but also the immediate surrounding world, the peculiarities of the psychology and behavior of prisoners and their jailers (in Solzhenitsyn’s terminology, “camp workers”). This meticulous artistic research is based on reliable facts.
In the book of Russian politician, former Gulag prisoner I.L. Solonevich “Russia in the concentration camp” noted: “I do not think that the total number of all prisoners in these camps was less than five million people. Probably a little more. But, of course, there can be no talk of any accuracy of calculation."
The American historian and Sovietologist R. Conquest in his book “The Great Terror” cites even more impressive figures: by the end of 1939, the number of prisoners in prisons and camps increased to 9 million people (compared to 5 million in 1933-1935).
Famous publicist A.V. Antonov-Ovseenko (son of the executed Soviet military leader V.A. Antonov-Ovseenko) believes that from January 1935 to June 1941 almost 20 million people were repressed, of which 7 million were shot.
Solzhenitsyn also uses figures of several tens of millions of repressed people, and R.A. adheres to a similar position. Medvedev: “In 1937-1938, according to my calculations, from 5 to 7 million people were repressed: about a million party members and about a million former party members, as a result of party purges of the late 1920s and the first half of the 1930s; the rest "3-5 million people were non-party people, belonging to all segments of the population. Most of those arrested in 1937-1938 ended up in forced labor camps, a dense network of which covered the entire country."
Based on authentic archival documents stored in leading Russian archives, primarily in the State Archive Russian Federation(formerly TsGAOR USSR) and the Russian Center for Socio-Political History (formerly TsPA IML) it can be concluded with a reasonable degree of certainty that between 1930 and 1953, 6.5 million people were in forced labor colonies, of which about 1 was for political reasons. 3 million, through forced labor camps for 1937-1950. About two million people were convicted of political charges.
Objective data about prisoners in the Gulag in 1943-1953.
During 1946, 228.0 thousand repatriates were checked in screening and filtration camps.
Of these, by January 1, 1947, 199.1 thousand were transferred to a special settlement, transferred to industrial cadres (in “work battalions”) and sent to their place of residence. The rest continued to be subject to inspection.
Total number of prisoners in NKVD camps (annual average):
1945 - 697258; 1946 - 700712; 1947 - 1048127.
1945 - 5698; 1946 - 2197; 1947 - 1014.
Special settlers 1953 - 2,753,356, of which 1,224,931 were Germans, including those evicted by government decision - 855,674; mobilized - 48582; repatriated - 208388; local - 111324.
Evicted from the North Caucasus in 1943-1944. - 498452, incl.
Ingush - 83518; Chechens - 316,717; Karachais - 63327; Balkars - 33214; others - 1676.
Those evicted from Crimea in 1944 - 204,698, incl.
Crimean Tatars - 165259; Greeks - 14760; Bulgarians - 12465; Armenians - 8570; others - 3644.
Evicted from the Baltic states in 1945-1946. - 139957.
Those evicted from Georgia in 1944 - 86,663, incl.
Meskhetian Turks - 46,790; Kurds - 8843; Hemshils - 1397.
Evicted in 1943-1944: Kalmyks - 81,475.
Evicted in 1949 from the Black Sea coast - 57,142, incl.
Greeks - 37353; "Dashnaks" - 15486; Meskhetian Turks - 1794; others - 2510.
Those evicted from the Moldavian SSR in 1949 - 35,838.
The eviction of OUN members along with their families took place during 1944-1952. - 175063; Vlasovites - 56746.
As a result, 27,275 were evicted in 1948;
in 1951 - 591.
Kulaks evicted from the Lithuanian SSR in 1951 - 18,104.
Evicted from Georgia in 1951-1952. - 11685.
Jehovah's Witnesses evicted in 1951 - 9,363 (from the Baltic states, Moldova, western regions of Ukraine and Belarus).
Iranians evicted from Georgia to Kazakhstan in 1950 - 4,707.
Kulak families evicted from the BSSR in 1952 - 4431.
Former Basmachi evicted from the Tajik SSR to the Kazakh SSR in 1950 - 2747.
Families of kulaks evicted from the western regions of Ukraine in 1951 - 1445.
Evicted from the Pskov region in 1950 as members of families of bandits, bandits, etc. - 1356.
Former soldiers of the Polish army of Anders, evicted in 1951 along with their families, arrived in the late 40s. for repatriation to the USSR from England - 4520.
Kulaks from the Izmail region evicted in 1948 - 1157.
exiled settlers - 52468;
exiles - 7833;
expelled - 6119.
In 1953, the number of people convicted of counter-revolutionary crimes in camps and prisons was 474,950 people;
Thus, based on the given archival data of the OGPU-NKVD-MVD of the USSR, we can draw an intermediate, but apparently very reliable conclusion: during the years of Stalinism, 3.4-3.7 million people were sent to camps and colonies for political reasons. .
It is known that the archives do not contain ready-made statistical data (or they were destroyed). However, according to various estimates, for the period from 1930 to 1953. about 52 million people were convicted, of whom about 20 million went through the camps. The scale of the victims is not diminished even by the caveat that these figures include those convicted for the second time. A huge number of people were shot - about 1 million people, excluding those who died from torture or committed suicide. At least 6 million people have clicked through the links.
Such numbers make anyone think...
An important aspect of the history of the Gulag is its “economic” side. If in the pre-war years the Gulag contingent was an important means of solving economic problems: the outbreak of war, interrupting the implementation of the “socialist construction program”, subordinated all its activities to the interests of the armed struggle, then in the post-war years Gulag prisoners were used as free labor to raise the destroyed industry, cities and village Given the significant replenishment of the camps, due to repatriated prisoners of war, a huge army of prisoners appeared.
Camp labor contingents were used at that time in all sectors of the national economy, and especially where there was a chronic shortage of hired labor. For example, in the Krasnoyarsk Territory, when the Allies began transporting their Lend-Lease caravans along the Northern Sea Route, Nordvikstroy was formed, where some of the prisoners from Norillag were transferred. Nordvikstroy is a major labor front facility, which flourished in 1944. At this time, the Allies bunkered ships here with local coal going with Lend-Lease cargo to Murmansk. Miners cut coal for steamships in Nordvik. Ice-damaged ships were repaired here northern seas, fresh water supplies were replenished. Nordvika had its own salt mine, and at that time salt was worth its weight in gold or even ammunition. Allied ships also stood in Nordvik Bay in anticipation of normal ice conditions in the Velkitsky Strait.
At the Norilsk Mining and Metallurgical Plant, the number of prisoners working at the Norilsk Mining and Metallurgical Plant increased every year, as the plant was developing rapidly at that time. And if in 1941 20.5 thousand prisoners worked there, then in 1943 their number approached 31 thousand, and already in 1944 it amounted to almost 35 thousand. Moreover, in Norillag the scope of use of prisoner labor gradually expanded. For example, in 1941, they built 175 km of railway tracks. Thanks to all this, already in 1941 the plant produced 48 thousand tons of ore and cut 324 thousand tons of coal (compared to 228 thousand tons in 1940). The production and processing of platinoids in Norilsk made it possible to repay the USSR's debt to the allies for deliveries under Lend-Lease.
However, of particular interest is the use of prison labor in the defense industry. And this is just perfectly shown in the monograph of the historian V.N. Shevchenko, who for the first time gained access to archival documents of the Gulag system.
In total, over 60 thousand people were transferred to the defense industry enterprises of the region during the war years, of which 3.5 thousand were in the coal industry; 7.2 thousand worked in the ammunition and weapons industry; in non-ferrous metallurgy - 9.2 thousand people.
After prisoners were assigned to industrial enterprises, they were covered by the food supply system used by civilian workers. This made it possible not only to save the lives of many prisoners, but also to make their contribution to the overall victory of the people real.
Another feature of the Gulag system Shevchenko notes is the following: from the beginning of the war, by orders of the NKVD, certain categories of prisoners were released with the transfer of persons of military age to the Red Army. Some of the prisoners released from custody remained in the camps as civilian workers without the right to leave the work areas until the end of the war. Only completely disabled people, old people and women with children were released - as the most reliable reserve of labor. Former prisoners, for the most part, sought to consolidate the freedom granted to them, because any violation by them of production regimes or self-care from the enterprise could cost them their lives.
Another traditional idea that various types of enterprises in the country needed labor, which the Gulag provided, does not correspond to reality. The connection was just the opposite. The NKVD simply did not know what to do with the incredibly increased number of prisoners, whom they were therefore trying to use in accordance with the tasks of the socialist economy. This explains the mind-boggling number of citizens shot in the prime of their lives and many of the notorious voluntaristic decisions of the party leadership in the field of the national economy (the Dead Road is just one example of many similar ones).
Gradually, with the abandonment of manual labor in favor of machine labor, the Gulag turned out to be unprofitable, because complex and expensive machines, machines, etc. were entrusted. the state could not prisoners. Therefore, in 1956, the Gulag “ceased to exist”... but the camps and prisoners remained, and the government still continued to exploit the forced labor of prisoners.
A special place is occupied by the question of the role of the Gulag.
On the one hand, these are the broken destinies of people, thousands killed and perished from cold, hunger, backbreaking hellish labor in harmful conditions, a kind of nursery for maintaining talents involved in many areas of activity.
On the other hand, the growth of economic and industrial development of the country, the creation of huge industrial enterprises, cities and towns, railways and seaports.
Conclusion
The Main Directorate of the Camps (abbreviated as GULAG) was a typical state-bureaucratic institution in form. It was important integral part Soviet penitentiary system. During the thirty-year period (from 1930 to 1960) of the existence of this head office, its departmental affiliation and full name changed several times. IN different years The Gulag was under the jurisdiction of the OPTU of the USSR, the NKVD of the USSR, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR, and the Ministry of Justice of the USSR.
The Gulag was actively included in the implementation of projects to restore the national economy and projects related to the development of the country's defense complex. Forced labor became an important element in the mechanism for the Soviet state to build up its military-industrial potential.
To summarize, we note that the creation of an entire system of correctional institutions-camps was one of the most cruel mistakes of Stalinism. It is difficult to accurately define their purpose: to present it as an improvement in the prison system is cynical; as an “innovative” form of punishment - historically ignorant; as an “ideal” system of intimidation, intimidation and maintenance of the cult of Stalin - most likely, at the same time, the Gulag was an inexhaustible source of free labor, as the height of impunity...
List of used literature
1. Balova M.B. The role of the Gulag in the implementation of the strategy of forced industrialization and in the economic development of the European North of Russia in the 30s / M.B. Balova // Russian Journal. June 3, 2005. [ Electronic resource]. Access mode: www.russ.ru/ publishers/20050603.html
2. Dmitrienko V.P. The history of homeland. XX century: A manual for students / V.P. Dmitrienko, V.D. Esakov, V.A. Shestakov. - M., 1999
3. Konovalov L.A. In the Gulag jungle / L.A. Konovalov // Historical and archival almanac. - Novosibirsk, 1997. - No. 3.
4. Solzhenitsyn A.I. GULAG Archipelago: In 6 volumes / A.I. Solzhenitsyn. - M., 1991.
5. Chekmasov A. Number of executed citizens / A. Chekmasov // Russian Journal. June 3, 2005. [Electronic resource]. Access mode: www.russ.ru/ publishers/20050603.html
6. Shakhmatova G.A. V Historical readings: Sat. scientific and practical materials conf. / G. Shakhmatova, S. Gaidin. - Krasnoyarsk: Krasnoyar. state University, 2005.
Solzhenitsyn A.I. The GULAG Archipelago: In 6 volumes - M: Inkom NV, 1991.
Kurganov I. A. Women and communism. - New York, 1968.
Signed by: Chairman of the All-Russian Central Committee M. KALININ, Secretary L. Serebryakov. Published in No. 81 of the News of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of Soviets dated April 15, 1919.
Konovalov L.A. In the Gulag jungle // Historical and archival almanac. - Novosibirsk, 1997. - No. 3. – P.65.
(GULAG) was formed in the USSR in 1934. This event was preceded by the transfer of all Soviet correctional institutions from the subordination of the People's Commissariat of the USSR to the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs.
At first glance, the banal departmental reassignment of all camps actually pursued far-reaching plans. The country's leadership intended to widely use forced labor of prisoners on construction sites of the national economy. It was necessary to create a single, clear system of correctional institutions with their own economic management bodies.
At its core, the Gulag was something like a huge construction syndicate. This syndicate united many headquarters, divided according to territorial and sectoral principles. Glavspetsvetmet, Sredazgidstroy, Northern Department of Camp Railway Construction…. These completely harmless names of chapters can be listed for a long time. An uninitiated person would never guess that behind them lie dozens of concentration camps with hundreds of thousands of prisoners.
The conditions in the Gulag defy normal human comprehension. The mere fact of the high mortality rate of camp residents, reaching 25 percent in some years, speaks for itself.
According to the testimony of former Gulag prisoners who miraculously survived, the main problem in the camps was hunger. There were, of course, approved diets - extremely meager, but not allowing a person to die of starvation. But the food was often stolen by the camp administration.
Another problem was illness. Epidemics of typhus, dysentery and other diseases broke out constantly, and there were no medicines. There were almost no medical staff. Tens of thousands of people died from disease every year.
All these hardships were completed by cold (the camps were mainly located in northern latitudes) and hard physical labor.
Labor efficiency and achievements of the Gulag
The labor efficiency of Gulag prisoners has always been extremely low. Camp administrations took various measures to increase it. From cruel punishments to incentives. But neither cruel torture and bullying for failure to meet production standards, nor increased food standards and reductions in prison terms for shock work helped almost. Physically exhausted people simply could not work effectively. And yet, much was created by the hands of prisoners.
After existing for a quarter of a century, the Gulag was disbanded. He left behind a lot of what the USSR long years could be proud. After all, official historians, for example, argued that Komsomolsk-on-Amur was built by volunteers, and not by the Gulag headquarters of Amurstroy. And the White Sea-Baltic Canal is the result of the valiant labor of ordinary Soviet workers, and not Gulag prisoners. The revealed truth of the Gulag horrified many.
The formation of Gulag networks began back in 1917. It is known that Stalin was a big fan of this type of camp. The Gulag system was not just a zone where prisoners served their sentences, it was the main engine of the economy of that era. All the grandiose construction projects of the 30s and 40s were carried out by the hands of prisoners. During the existence of the Gulag, many categories of the population visited there: from murderers and bandits, to scientists and former members of the government, whom Stalin suspected of treason.
How did the Gulag appear?
Most of the information about the Gulag dates back to the late twenties and early 30s of the twentieth century. In fact, this system began to emerge immediately after the Bolsheviks came to power. The “Red Terror” program provided for the isolation of undesirable classes of society in special camps. The first inhabitants of the camps were former landowners, factory owners and representatives of the wealthy bourgeoisie. At first, the camps were not led by Stalin, as is commonly believed, but by Lenin and Trotsky.
When the camps were filled with prisoners, they were transferred to the Cheka, under the leadership of Dzerzhinsky, who introduced the practice of using prisoner labor to restore the country's destroyed economy. By the end of the revolution, through the efforts of “Iron” Felix, the number of camps increased from 21 to 122.
In 1919, a system had already emerged that was destined to become the basis of the Gulag. The war years led to complete lawlessness that occurred in the camp areas. In the same year, Northern camps were created in the Arkhangelsk province.
Creation of the Solovetsky Gulag
In 1923, the famous Solovki were created. In order not to build barracks for prisoners, an ancient monastery was included in their territory. The famous Solovetsky special purpose camp was the main symbol of the Gulag system in the 20s. The project for this camp was proposed by Unshlikhtom (one of the leaders of the GPU), who was shot in 1938.
Soon the number of prisoners on Solovki expanded to 12,000 people. The conditions of detention were so harsh that during the entire existence of the camp, according to official statistics alone, more than 7,000 people died. During the famine of 1933, more than half of this number died.
Despite the reigning cruelty and mortality in the Solovetsky camps, they tried to hide information about this from the public. When the famous Soviet writer Gorky, who was considered an honest and ideological revolutionary, came to the archipelago in 1929, the camp leadership tried to hide all the unsightly aspects of the prisoners’ lives. The hopes of the camp residents that the famous writer would tell the public about the inhumane conditions of their detention were not justified. The authorities threatened everyone who spoke out with severe punishment.
Gorky was amazed at how labor turns criminals into law abiding citizens. Only in a children's colony did one boy tell the writer the whole truth about the regime of the camps. After the writer left, this boy was shot.
For what offense could you be sent to the Gulag?
New global construction projects required more and more workers. Investigators were given the task of accusing as many innocent people as possible. Denunciations in this matter were a panacea. Many uneducated proletarians took the opportunity to get rid of their unwanted neighbors. There were standard charges that could be applied to almost anyone:
- Stalin was an inviolable person, therefore, any words discrediting the leader were subject to strict punishment;
- Negative attitude towards collective farms;
- Negative attitude towards state banking securities(loans);
- Sympathy for counter-revolutionaries (especially Trotsky);
- Admiration for the West, especially the USA.
In addition, any use of Soviet newspapers, especially with portraits of leaders, was punishable by 10 years. It was enough to wrap breakfast in a newspaper with the image of the leader, and any vigilant workmate could hand over the “enemy of the people.”
Development of camps in the 30s of the 20th century
The Gulag camp system reached its peak in the 1930s. By visiting the Gulag History Museum, you can see what horrors happened in the camps during these years. The RSSF Correctional Labor Code legislated for labor in the camps. Stalin constantly forced powerful propaganda campaigns to be carried out to convince the citizens of the USSR that only enemies of the people were kept in the camps, and the Gulag was the only humane way to rehabilitate them.
In 1931, the largest construction project of the USSR began - the construction of the White Sea Canal. This construction was presented to the public as a great achievement of the Soviet people. An interesting fact is that the press spoke positively about the criminals involved in the construction of BAM. At the same time, the merits of tens of thousands of political prisoners were kept silent.
Often, criminals collaborated with the camp administration, representing another lever to demoralize political prisoners. Odes of praise to the thieves and bandits who carried out “Stakhanov’s” standards at construction sites were constantly heard in the Soviet press. In fact, the criminals forced ordinary political prisoners to work for themselves, cruelly and demonstrably dealing with the disobedient. Attempts by former military personnel to restore order in the camp environment were suppressed by the camp administration. The emerging leaders were shot or seasoned criminals were set against them (a whole system of rewards was developed for them for reprisals against political figures).
The only one in an accessible way protests for political prisoners included hunger strikes. If individual acts did not lead to anything good, except for a new wave of bullying, then mass hunger strikes were considered counter-revolutionary activity. The instigators were quickly identified and shot.
Skilled labor in the camp
The main problem of the Gulags was the huge shortage of skilled workers and engineers. Complex construction tasks had to be solved by high-level specialists. In the 30s, the entire technical stratum consisted of people who studied and worked under the tsarist regime. Naturally, it was not difficult to accuse them of anti-Soviet activities. The camp administrations sent lists to investigators of which specialists were needed for large-scale construction projects.
The position of the technical intelligentsia in the camps was practically no different from the position of other prisoners. For honest and hard work, they could only hope that they would not be bullied.
The luckiest ones were the specialists who worked in closed secret laboratories on the territory of the camps. There were no criminals there and the conditions of detention for such prisoners were very different from the generally accepted ones. The most famous scientist who passed through the Gulag is Sergei Korolev, who became at the origins of the Soviet era of space exploration. For his services, he was rehabilitated and released along with his team of scientists.
All large-scale pre-war construction projects were completed with the help of slave labor of prisoners. After the war, the need for this labor only increased, as many workers were needed to restore industry.
Even before the war, Stalin abolished the system parole for shock work, which led to demotivation of prisoners. Previously, for hard work and exemplary behavior, they could hope for a reduction in their prison term. After the system was abolished, the profitability of the camps fell sharply. Despite all the atrocities. The administration could not force people to do quality work, especially since meager rations and unsanitary conditions in the camps undermined people's health.
Women in the Gulag
The wives of traitors to the motherland were kept in “ALZHIR” - the Akmola Gulag camp. For refusing “friendship” with representatives of the administration, one could easily get an “increase” in time or, even worse, a “ticket” to a men’s colony, from which they rarely returned.
ALGERIA was founded in 1938. The first women who got there were the wives of Trotskyists. Often other members of the prisoners’ family, their sisters, children and other relatives were also sent to the camps along with their wives.
The only method of protest for women was constant petitions and complaints, which they wrote to various authorities. Most of the complaints did not reach the addressee, but the authorities mercilessly dealt with the complainants.
Children in Stalin's camps
In the 1930s, all homeless children were placed in Gulag camps. Although the first children's labor camps appeared back in 1918, after April 7, 1935, when a decree on measures to combat juvenile crime was signed, it became widespread. Typically, children had to be kept separately and were often found together with adult criminals.
All forms of punishment were applied to the teenagers, including execution. Often, 14-16 year old teenagers were shot simply because they were children of repressed people and “imbued with counter-revolutionary ideas.”
Gulag History Museum
The Gulag History Museum is a unique complex that has no analogues in the world. It presents reconstructions of individual fragments of the camp, as well as a huge collection of artistic and literary works created by former prisoners of the camps.
A huge archive of photographs, documents and belongings of the camp inhabitants allows visitors to appreciate all the horrors that happened in the camps.
Liquidation of the Gulag
After Stalin's death in 1953, the gradual liquidation of the Gulag system began. A few months later, an amnesty was declared, after which the population of the camps was halved. Sensing the weakening of the system, prisoners began mass riots, seeking further amnesties. Khrushchev played a huge role in the liquidation of the system, who sharply condemned Stalin’s personality cult.
The last head of the main department of labor camps, Kholodov, was transferred to the reserve in 1960. His departure marked the end of the Gulag era.
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The Soviet Gulag was a massive system of forced labor camps. Throughout its history, about 18 million people passed through prisons and Gulag camps. Under Stalin, prisoners in forced labor camps became important resource intensive development of many industries, including the country's transport infrastructure, mining and timber industry. Millions of residents went through the hell of the Gulag, many were not guilty of any crime.
The term "GULAG" is an acronym for the Soviet bureaucratic institution, the Main Directorate of Camps, which administered the Soviet forced labor system during Stalin's reign. Concentration camps were created in the Soviet Union shortly after the 1917 revolution, but the system really grew to gigantic proportions thanks to Stalin, with the goal of turning the USSR into a modern industrial state, as well as the collectivization of agriculture in the early 1930s.
A network of Gulag camps existed throughout the USSR, but the largest of them were located in the most extreme geographical and climatic regions of the country: Siberia and southern Central Asia. Prisoners were employed in various fields of economic activity, but their work was, as a rule, unskilled, and the labor was manual and economically ineffective. A combination of outbreaks of violence, extreme climatic conditions, hard labor, meager food rations and unsanitary living conditions led to extremely high mortality rates in the camps.
By the end of 1940, under the authority of the Main Directorate of Camps there were more than 50 camps and at least 1000 points and departments, more than 400 colonies, 50 colonies for minors, 90 houses where babies were sent after the birth of imprisoned women.
After Stalin's death in 1953, the Gulag system began to decline radically, but forced labor camps and political prisoners continued to function in the USSR until the Gorbachev era.
Life of Gulag prisoners
In the camps of the Gulag system, there were three different regimes for keeping prisoners: general, reinforced and strict.
Most of the Gulag prisoners were kept under general conditions. It was allowed to unconvoy them and involve them in work at the lower level in the GULAG apparatus, in its administrative and economic part. Also, general security prisoners were often involved in convoy and guard duty, in order to protect and supervise other prisoners.
The enhanced regime of detention involved the use of prisoners mainly in general work. There were repeat thieves, robbers and others convicted of dangerous crimes.
A strict regime was observed for criminals convicted of premeditated murders, robberies, and escapes from places of punishment. High-security prisoners were guarded especially strictly: they could not be unescorted, such prisoners were sent in most cases to heavy physical work, the system of punishments for refusal to work or other violations of the camp regime was much stronger than in other regimes.
Political prisoners were also subject to strict conditions, since the crimes provided for by the main political article of that time - Art. 58 of the Criminal Code - were also considered especially dangerous.
Devaluation of prisoners' lives
In the eyes of the authorities, the prisoner of the camp had almost no importance. Until now, the exact number of deaths in the Gulag camps has not been established. Those who died from hunger, cold and hard labor were easily replaced by new prisoners.
When not working, Gulag prisoners were typically kept in a camp area surrounded by a fence topped with barbed wire, closely guarded by armed soldiers in guard towers.
The living area consisted of a series of overcrowded, smelly, poorly heated barracks. Life in the camps was brutal and cruel. Prisoners fought for access to any benefits, and violence among them was common.
Even if they survived the famine, did not die from illness or hard work, they could always succumb to the tyranny and violence of the camp guards. All the time, the prisoners were under the close attention of “informers” - prisoners who collaborated with the camp leadership, watched and reported on their neighbors in the barracks.
Gulag prisoners received food based on how much work they did. The full ration in the camp barely provided a chance to even just survive. In the event that a prisoner did not complete his daily work quota, he received less food. If a prisoner consistently did not meet his work quotas, then he had no choice but to die of hunger.
Work in the Gulag
The working day of Gulag prisoners could reach 14 hours a day. Typical labor in the camps was tedious physical work. Prisoners were forced to work in the most extreme conditions climatic conditions, they could spend their days logging, using hand saws and axes or digging in the frozen ground with primitive picks. Others mined coal or copper by hand, and these prisoners often died from fatal lung diseases due to constant inhalation of ore dust. The prisoners' food was insufficient to withstand such difficult work.
Built between 1931 and 1933, the White Sea-Baltic Canal was the first major construction project involving Gulag prisoners. More than 100,000 prisoners dug a canal about 150 kilometers long in just 20 months, using simple picks, shovels and homemade wheelbarrows in their work. Initially celebrated by both the Soviet and Western press, the canal actually turned out to be too narrow to accommodate a sufficient number of seagoing vessels. During the construction of the White Sea Canal, according to various estimates, about 10,000-13,000 prisoners died. Some researchers claim that the actual death toll was more than 120,000.
Kolyma instilled fear in the Gulag prisoners. The prisoners knew that this was a place where winter lasted 12 months a year. Kolyma was so far away that it was impossible to get there with the help of ground transport. Prisoners sent to Kolyma, having traveled through the entire USSR by train, could wait several months to be transported to the camp by water when the tracks were clear of ice. Then they were transferred to ships and sent to work related to gold mining. According to the testimony of prisoners, surviving in Kolyma was much more difficult than in any other camp in the Gulag system.
Women in the Gulag
Women in the Gulag camps had no easier time than men. Very often they were tortured and raped by guards and male prisoners. Some of them, for the purpose of self-preservation, chose “husbands” for themselves so that they would protect them from attacks while serving their sentences. Some of them were pregnant upon arrival at the camp or became pregnant while in the camp. Sometimes the Gulag system was lenient to women and granted amnesty to pregnant women and women with young children.
But most often, women in labor were given a short break from forced labor, and after giving birth, Gulag officials took the children from their mothers and placed them in special orphanages. Often these mothers were never able to find their children after leaving the camp.
Gulag. Women's camp
GULAG (1930–1960), created in the system of the OGPU - NKVD of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Main Directorate of Corrective Labor Camps, a symbol of lawlessness, slave labor and arbitrariness in Soviet society of the Stalinist era.
The Soviet prison camp system began to take shape in the years Civil War. From the first years of its existence, a feature of this system was the fact that for criminal offenders there were only places of detention (subordinate to the Main Directorate of Compulsory Labor of the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs of the RSFSR and the Central Punitive Department of the People's Commissariat of Justice of the RSFSR - ordinary prisons and forced labor camps), and for political opponents of the Bolshevik regime - other places of detention (the so-called "political isolation wards", as well as the Directorate of Solovetsky Special Purpose Camps created in the early 1920s, which were under the jurisdiction of the state security bodies of the Cheka - OGPU).
In the context of accelerated industrialization and collectivization of agriculture in the late 1920s and early 1930s, the scale of repression in the country increased sharply. There was a need for a quantitative increase in the number of places where prisoners were held, as well as for a wider involvement of prisoners at industrial construction sites and for the colonization of sparsely populated, economically undeveloped regions of the USSR. On July 11, 1929, the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR adopted a resolution "On the use of labor of criminal prisoners", according to which the maintenance of all prisoners sentenced to a term of 3 years and above was transferred to the OGPU, in whose system the Main Directorate of Camps (GULAG) was formed in April of the following year. All large forced labor camps (ITL), according to the decree, were to be transferred from the NKVD to the GULAG, new camps were ordered to be created only in remote, sparsely populated areas. Such camps were entrusted with the task of complex “exploitation of natural resources through the use of labor deprived of liberty.”
The network of Gulag camps soon 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 location in
Khabarovsk and the 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.
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.
Forest camps did not require large investments for arrangement, survived all reorganizations and continued to operate until the day the Gulag was liquidated.
Creation of the camp system
The camp system began to take shape during the Civil War.
The main principle of the prison-camp system was that criminal offenders were kept in certain places of detention, which were subordinate to the Main Directorate of Compulsory Labor, and political criminals of the Bolshevik regime were kept in “political isolation cells”.
Everyone knows that the situation in the country in the late 1920s and early 1930s was extremely difficult. Thanks to accelerated industrialization and collectivization of agriculture, the scale of repression used in the country has sharply increased. Naturally, there was an urgent need to increase the number of places for holding prisoners.
On July 11, 1929, the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR adopted a resolution “On the use of labor of criminal prisoners,” according to which the maintenance of all those sentenced to a term of 3 years or more was transferred to the OGPU. In April 1930, the Main Directorate of Camps (GULAG) appeared.
According to the decree, all forced labor camps were to be transferred from the NKVD to the GULAG. But still a small number of camps were to appear in remote, sparsely populated areas. Lawlessness reigned in the camps, basic human rights were not respected, and severe punishments were applied for the slightest violation of the regime. Prisoners worked for free on the construction of canals, roads, industrial and other facilities in the country. The main goal of such camps is to develop natural resources through the labor of people deprived of their freedom. According to the project, after serving their sentence, people were proposed to be left in the areas adjacent to the camps. Prisoners who performed well at work or distinguished themselves by exemplary behavior were offered to be transferred “to a free settlement.” The Gulag camp system covered many regions of the country - northern, Siberian, Central Asian, and Far Eastern.
The number of prisoners in the Gulag camps grew every year. The number of prisoners on July 1, 1929 was about 23 thousand people, in 1930 - 95 thousand, by 1931 - 155 thousand people, by January 1, 1934 - 510 thousand people. During the years of great terror, the number of Gulag prisoners grew rapidly, despite the fact that the death penalty was applied to them - execution. Let’s compare, for example: in July 1937, there were 788 thousand prisoners in the camps; in April 1938, the total number exceeded 2 million people. The number of prisoners kept growing and later it was decided to organize five new forced labor camps, and later another thirteen special logging camps. The sharp rise in the number of convicts and the increase in the number of camps led to the fact that the Gulag could not cope with its primary tasks. Subordinate to the NKVD were all the forced labor camps of the Gulag, which specialized in agriculture and fishing; as well as nine more special production departments and departments.
Let's take a corrective look labor camp GULAG. As a rule, the abbreviation “GULAG” refers to the entire apparatus of suppression, including prisons, as well as the system of ideological propaganda.
In the USSR there were the following GULAG units:
Akmola camp for wives of traitors to the Motherland (ALZHIR), Bezymyanlag, Belbaltlag, Vorkutlag (Vorkuta ITL), Dallag, Dzhezkazganlag, Dzhugdzhurlag, Dmitrovlag (Volgolag), Karaganda ITL (Karlag), Kotlas ITL, Lokchimlag, Norilsklag (Norilsk ITL), Ozerlag, Perm camps (Usollag, Cherdynlag, Nyroblag, etc.), Pechorlag, Pechzheldorlag, Prorvlag, Svirlag, SVITL, Sevzheldorlag, Siblag, Solovetsky Special Purpose Camp (SLON), Taezhlag, Ukhtpechlag, Khabarla. Each of the listed camp administrations included a number of camps and camps.
How did you end up in the Gulag?
On the eve of arrest
An arrest snatches a person from his usual life unexpectedly, sometimes leaving his relatives with just a few things as a keepsake, symbols of his former prosperity: tableware, a wall rug, a match holder, a hunting measure for gunpowder... And a feeling of confusion, misunderstanding - for what?
The reason for the arrest could be anything: non-proletarian origin, a handful of ears of corn collected on a collective farm field, related or friendly relations with someone already arrested, “violation of passport regulations”, even being late for work.
Any careless word spoken not only in front of strangers, but also among friends, could cost one’s life. The country was overrun with secret security agents - seksots - who regularly supplied intelligence reports, which were also sufficient grounds for arrest. In the “freest country” in the world, denunciation was elevated to the rank of a civic virtue.
"Arrests are classified according to different criteria: night and day; domestic, official, travel; primary and repeated; dismembered and group. Arrests vary in the degree of surprise required, in the degree of expected resistance (but in tens of millions of cases no resistance was expected, just like there was no one).Arrests vary according to the seriousness of the search; according to the need to make an inventory for confiscation, typing up rooms or apartments; according to the need to arrest the wife along with the husband, and send the children to an orphanage, or the rest of the family into exile, or also old people to the camp." (A. I. Solzhenitsyn “The Gulag Archipelago”)
During the search, operatives confiscated all documents: passports, identification cards, student cards, even travel documents. An inventory of confiscated items was compiled. Some of the confiscated items could then be found in the homes of the OGPU-NKVD workers themselves or in “random things” stores. “Things of no value” were destroyed, just as the manuscripts and notebooks of the outstanding biologist N.I. Vavilov were destroyed, while the flintlock pistol and two rifle cartridges found during the search were handed over to the NKVD warehouse.
It is unlikely that state security officials understood who Vavilov was and could determine the value of his scientific material. Most often, people who had several classes of education went to work in the authorities primary school. For them, this was a real opportunity, without having a specialty, to climb the social ladder, to provide for themselves financially, to have something that was unattainable for ordinary Soviet citizens. Each employee of the punitive authorities had to sign an obligation to keep all information and data about their work in the strictest confidence.
Prison - investigation - sentence
Over time, investigative methods have been developed down to the smallest detail. The investigation became a conveyor belt, where threats and torture alternated with intimate conversations, imprisonment in a punishment cell with offers of cooperation.
"... One must think that there was no such list of tortures and humiliations that would be handed over to the investigators in printed form... But it was simply said... that all measures and means are good, since they are aimed at a high goal; that the prison doctor should interfere as little as possible with progress of the investigation. Probably they arranged a comradely exchange of experience, “learned from the advanced”; well, “material interest” was declared - increased pay for night hours, bonuses for short investigation times...” (A. I. Solzhenitsyn “The Gulag Archipelago”)
At the end of the investigation, the arrested man awaited trial, at which he hoped to prove the absurdity of the charges brought against him. He had no idea that an indictment had already been sent to the “appropriate authorities,” and that extrajudicial bodies—the Special Meeting or the local “troika”—would pass a verdict in absentia on the basis of the protocols, without a trial, without questioning the accused. On a daily basis, secretaries sometimes signed hundreds of ready-made forms for extracts from the minutes of meetings of extrajudicial bodies, on which the word “shoot” was written. The verdict was final. Those sentenced to the “highest measure of social protection” were first collected into one cell, then taken from the death chamber at night to basements or taken to special training grounds and shot there. In Moscow, mass burials of those executed were carried out at the NKVD training ground in Butovo, Kommunarka, at the Donskoye and Vagankovskoye cemeteries, and on the territory of the Yauzskaya hospital. According to official sources, only in Moscow and the Moscow region in 1921 - 1953. About 35 thousand people were shot. One of the hundreds of thousands of victims of bloody tyranny was the Petrograd teacher E. P. Zarudnaya, the mother of six children. Her officer husband emigrated from Russia immediately after the revolution. This gave rise to accusing her of having connections with the White Guards during the Civil War. In 1921, in Omsk, she was arrested and shot the same year. The children were saved - with the help of the American consul, they were taken to Japan, and from there to America.
The economic role of the Gulag
A. I. Solzhenitsyn wrote in Chapter V: “The economic need manifested itself, as always, openly and greedily: the state, which decided to grow stronger in a short time (here three-quarters of the work is done in a timely manner, as in the White Sea!) and without consuming anything from the outside, needs there was a workforce:
a) extremely cheap, or better yet, free;
b) unpretentious, ready to move from place to place any day, free from family, requiring no organized housing, no schools, no hospitals, and for some time, no kitchen or bathhouse.
It was possible to obtain such labor only by swallowing one’s own sons.”
By the early 1930s, prison labor was seen as an economic resource. A resolution of the Council of People's Commissars in 1929 ordered the OGPU to organize new camps for holding prisoners in remote areas of the country, for the colonization of these areas, as well as the development of the exploitation of their natural resources through the use of prison labor.
Joseph Stalin expressed a clearer attitude of the authorities towards those deprived of liberty as an economic resource. In 1938, he spoke at a meeting of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR and stated the following about the then existing practice of early release of prisoners: “We are doing something bad, we are disrupting the work of the camps. These people, of course, need release, but from the point of view of the state economy this is Badly…"
Prisoners who were held in the Gulag between 1930 and 1950 built large industrial and transport facilities, such as:
· 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
Many Soviet cities were built with the help of the labor of Gulag prisoners: Komsomolsk-on-Amur, Sovetskaya Gavan, Magadan, Dudinka, Vorkuta, Ukhta, Inta, Pechora, Molotovsk, Dubna, Nakhodka
Prisoners also worked in agricultural work, mining and logging. According to some estimates, the Gulag accounted for an average of three percent of the gross national product.
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 NKSKH of the USSR showed that the cost of production in the camps significantly exceeds the state farm.”
After Stalin's death and the mass amnesty of 1953, the construction of many facilities was not completed. Over the years thereafter, the Gulag system gradually withdrew and finally ceased to exist in 1960.
