The Gulag was the labour camp system used in the Soviet Union, the name Gulag is an acronym for Glavnoe Upravlenie ispravitel’ no-trudaryk lageri which translates to the main administration of corrective labour camps.
Establishment of the Gulag
The Gulag system was established initially under Lenin after the Bolshevik Revolution, however by the 1930s, under the rule of Stalin, the number of Gulag camps had increased greatly. Many were built in sparsely populated, remote, inhospitable locations although there were dotted throughout Soviet territory. The remote camps made escape very difficult as a prisoner would be more likely to die outside the camp of starvation and exposure than within.
Prisoners in the Gulag
After the revolution, Lenin sought to reform the entire penal system of Tsarist Russia, this meant the criminals were no longer sent to prison but to the Gulag instead. Other people sent to the Gulag were designated as political prisoners; during Stalin’s rule the number of people in the Gulags rose dramatically, in the paranoia of the regime many innocent people were deemed to be political prisoners and arrested.
The strict conditions imposed on workers in the Soviet Union in order to meet the ambitious five-year plans meant that being late for work on a few occasions could result in a sentence in a Gulag. Peasants who resisted enforced collectivisation and those peasants labelled as Kulaks were also sent to the Gulag. During the Great Purges, those who escaped execution were imprisoned in the Gulag.
Conditions in the Gulag
The Gulags typically consisted of long rows of barracks, a courtyard, staff buildings, watchtowers, all surrounded by barbed wire. The clothing provided to the prisoners was of very poor quality and ineffective against the cold, especially for those prisoners in Gulags in northern Russia. The prisoners were forced to work for hours on heavy manual labour jobs such as mining, quarrying and tree felling, they were provided with rudimentary tools, making these jobs even harder.
The quality and quantity of the food given to the prisoners was poor, and if a prisoners did not meet their work quota, their food ration was reduced, this led to a vicious circle, as not enough work led to not enough food and inevitably, not enough food led to not enough work as prisoners would be further weakened by the lower rations. All of these factors meant that many people died in the Gulag, in addition, disease often broke out due to poor sanitation and living conditions, especially in warmer weather, and with random acts of violence meted out by the guards, the death rate in Gulags was quite high.
During the Second World War the conditions in the Gulag worsened as the Nazi invasion of Russia meant that more resources were needed for soldiers and Gulag prisoners received even less food and clothing. Some prisoners were released by the government so they could join the Red Army, this was not voluntary, these prisoners were often sent immediately to the front and viewed as nothing more than cannon fodder.
Millions and millions of Soviet citizens passed through the Gulag system, and many perished, either at the hands of the guards or by starvation, disease and exposure.
Sources
- Adler, N. The Gulag Survivor: beyond the Soviet System. New Jersey: Transaction Publishers, 2004.
- Applebaum, A. Gulag: a history. New York: Doubleday, 2003.
- Werth, N. Cannibal Island: death in a Siberian Gulag. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2007.
Fiona Allison - I have a combined honours degree in English Lit with 20th Century European History and Politcs. I work as an editorial assisstant on a ...
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