Gulag
The Gulag was a vast system of forced labor camps established in the Soviet Union from 1929 until 1953, primarily under the leadership of Joseph Stalin. It was used to imprison individuals labeled as enemies of the state, particularly political dissidents opposed to Soviet policies. Approximately 18 million people passed through the Gulag during its operation, with estimates of 1.6 to 15 million deaths occurring due to harsh conditions. The system emerged from earlier practices in the Russian Empire and was significantly expanded after Stalin's rise to power, reflecting his vision to industrialize the Soviet Union through inmate labor.
Gulag camps were often located in remote and inhospitable regions, such as Siberia and the Arctic, where prisoners endured extreme cold and brutal working conditions. Life in the camps was characterized by overcrowding, lack of basic necessities, and a high risk of violence from both guards and fellow inmates. Following Stalin's death, there was a gradual dismantling of the Gulag system, with many prisoners released and camps closed in the subsequent years. Despite its dissolution, the legacy of the Gulag remains a significant aspect of Soviet history, highlighting the harsh realities of totalitarian governance and the impact on millions of lives.
Gulag
The Gulag refers to the extensive system of prison labor camps administered by the Soviet Union from about 1929 to 1953. Used principally by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, the Gulag held individuals deemed enemies of the state—political dissenters vocally opposed to the policies of the communist Soviet Union. About 18 million prisoners passed through the Gulag in the Stalin era, and 1.6 to 15 million prisoners are believed to have died from the harsh conditions inside the camps. The Gulag was dismantled following Stalin's death in 1953.
Rise of the Gulag
Forced labor camps had been used in the Russian empire for centuries. However, Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin introduced the modern Gulag in 1918. The year before, Lenin had led the Russian Revolution that ended Russia's monarchy and gave rise to the communist Soviet Union.
In 1918, Lenin decreed that the Soviet government begin a "mass terror" to repress political opponents. This would be done by imprisoning all enemies of the state in concentration camps located far away from urban centers. By the early 1920s, 84 such camps had been established across the Soviet Union, all with the goal of "reforming" those individuals designated as political dissidents.
Beginning in 1929, the camps were significantly expanded under new Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. His vision was to convert the Soviet Union into a great industrial nation that could compete with the Western world, and he saw the work done by prisoners in labor camps as an effective means of accomplishing that end.
Stalin’s Vision
It was during Stalin's time in power that the network of prison camps came to be called the Gulag, an acronym for the Glavnoe Upravlenie Lagerei, or Main Camp Administration, the branch of the Soviet central government that administered the work camps.
At its height, the Soviet Gulag system featured at least 476 separate camp networks. Each of these contained several hundred to several thousand individual prison camps. Though the camps were spread across the vast Soviet Union, they were located mostly in the wilderness areas of the country, especially in the frigid regions of the Arctic in the north and Siberia in the east.
The extremely cold climates of these areas made life in the camps particularly miserable. However, these regions contained the plentiful natural resources that Stalin hoped to exploit to industrialize the Soviet Union, and so most dissidents were sent to camps in these locations. Stalin used the Gulag to create fear among the Soviet people, which he believed would keep them docile and obedient.
Life in the Gulag
Under Stalin, both political enemies and ordinary criminals were imprisoned in the Gulag rather than in standard jails; as a result, the populations of the Gulag were composed of a wide variety of people from all walks of life, from political activists to murderers, robbers, and rapists. Even minor crimes carried extreme sentences; stealing a pound of potatoes, for example, could earn ten years in the Gulag. Many innocent citizens were also imprisoned in the camps without trial.
People were usually arrested during the night and brought to unpopulated areas near railroad tracks to await the trains that would take them to the camps. This maintained the shroud of mystery around the Gulag, facilitating fear among the populace. Sixty or more people were often transported in a single train car. The cars were kept dark and offered no protection from the weather. Additionally, the cars were often filled with disease-carrying rats.
Many prisoners did not survive the trip to the work camps. Those who did were forced to engage in a number of different tasks upon their arrival, depending on the region. Some mined coal from the icy ground with pickaxes. Others built apartment buildings. Still others chopped down trees, constructed railroads, or worked in factories making weapons, furniture, or toys.
Camp guards did not provide their prisoners with basic needs. Inmates were expected to work up to fourteen hours daily, often in bitter cold, with meager food and insufficient clothing. They lived in overcrowded barracks that were rife with disease and inter-prisoner violence. Death at the hands of fellow prisoners, or by random violent acts from camp guards, was a constant reality. Over the years, millions of prisoners died in the camps from starvation, exhaustion, disease, and violence.
Though Stalin depended on Gulag labor to keep the Soviet economy robust, he was not concerned with the high mortality rates in the camps. This was because new prisoners were sent to the camps almost as quickly as existing prisoners were dying. As Stalin expanded the Gulag system throughout the 1930s, each officer of the Soviet secret police was required to meet an arrest quota to keep the camps populated with a fresh workforce.
The Gulag populations decreased in the early 1940s, as the Soviet government drafted hundreds of thousands of inmates into the Red Army to fight against Nazi Germany in World War II (1939-1945). After the war ended in 1945, camp populations spiked again. This was due largely to the government's introduction of new property laws in 1947. These imposed harsh Gulag sentences on individuals for crimes such as petty theft. By the early 1950s, about 2.5 million people were imprisoned in the labor camps.
The Post-Stalin Era
Stalin's death in 1953 led to a substantial reduction in the size of the Gulag system. Nikita Khrushchev, who became leader of the Soviet Union later that year, had long detested Stalin's policies and began releasing the inmates of the Gulag in 1954.
By 1960, nearly every Gulag work camp had been shut down, and the Soviet Internal Affairs Ministry officially dissolved the Gulag system in January of that year. Nevertheless, the Soviet Union continued to employ some smaller labor camps into the 1980s, when attention from international human rights activists forced the country to abandon the camps permanently.
Bibliography
Applebaum, Anne. "Gulag: An Introduction." Gulag Museum on Communism. Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation. Web. 4 Jan. 2016. http://www.thegulag.org/content/gulag-introduction-3
Applebaum, Anne. "Gulag: Understanding the Magnitude of What Happened." Heritage Foundation. 16 Oct. 2003. Web. 4 Jan. 2016. http://www.heritage.org/research/lecture/gulag-understanding-the-magnitude-of-what-happened
"Of Russian Origin: The Gulag." Russiapedia. Russia Today. Web. 4 Jan. 2016. http://russiapedia.rt.com/of-russian-origin/the-gulag/
"Stalin's Gulag." Center for History and New Media. George Mason University. Web. 4 Jan. 2016. http://gulaghistory.org/nps/onlineexhibit/stalin/