The history of the Gulag is closely intertwined with the entire Soviet era, but especially with its Stalin period. A network of camps stretched throughout the country. They were visited by a variety of groups of the population, accused under the famous 58th article. The Gulag was not only a system of punishment, but also a layer of the Soviet economy. The prisoners carried out the most ambitious projects of the first five-year plans.
The birth of the Gulag
The future Gulag system began to take shape immediately after the Bolsheviks came to power. During the Civil War, Soviet power began to isolate its class and ideological enemies in special concentration camps. Then this term was not shunned, 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. The mass terror against the “counter-revolution” included total arrests of the we althy bourgeoisie, manufacturers, landowners, merchants, church leaders, etc. Soon the camps were given over to the Cheka, whose chairman was Felix Dzerzhinsky. They organized forced labor. It was also necessary in order to raise the ruined 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 of them. In Moscow alone there werethere were seven institutions, where prisoners from all over the country were brought. In 1919 there were more than three thousand of them in the capital. It was not yet the Gulag system, but only its prototype. Even then, a tradition developed, according to which, all activities in the OGPU were subject only to internal acts, and not to general Soviet legislation.
The first forced labor camp in the Gulag system existed in emergency mode. The civil war, the policy of war communism led to lawlessness and violation of the rights of prisoners.
Solovki
In 1919, the Cheka set up several labor camps in northern Russia, more precisely, in the Arkhangelsk province. Soon this network was called SLON. The abbreviation stood for "Northern Special Purpose Camps". The Gulag system in the USSR appeared even in the most remote regions of a large country.
In 1923, the Cheka was transformed into the GPU. The new department has distinguished itself by 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 that, 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.”
So one of the key symbols of the Gulag appeared. It was the Solovetsky Special Purpose Camp. His project was proposed by Joseph Unshlikht, one of the then leaders of the Cheka-GPU. His fate is significant. This man contributed to the development of a repressive system, the victim of which he eventuallybecame. In 1938, he was shot at the famous Kommunarka training ground. This place was the dacha of Heinrich Yagoda, People's Commissar of the NKVD in the 30s. He too was shot.
Solovki became one of the main camps in the Gulag in the 1920s. According to the instructions of the OGPU, it was supposed to contain criminal and political prisoners. A few years after the emergence of Solovki, they grew, they 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. During the entire existence of the camp, more than 7 thousand people were buried in it. At the same time, about half of them died in 1933, when famine raged throughout the country.
Solovki were known throughout the country. Information about problems inside the camp was tried not to be taken out. In 1929, Maxim Gorky, at that time the main Soviet writer, arrived in the archipelago. He wanted to check the conditions in the camp. The writer's reputation was impeccable: his books were printed in huge numbers, he was known as a revolutionary of the old school. Therefore, many prisoners pinned hope 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 went through a total cleaning and was put in a decent shape. The abuse of prisoners has ceased. At the same time, the prisoners were threatened that if they let Gorky know about their lives, they would be severely punished. The writer, having visited Solovki, was delighted with how prisoners are re-educated, taught 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, standing in the cold, etc. Gorky left the barracks in tears. When he sailed to the mainland, the boy was shot. The Gulag system de alt harshly with any disgruntled prisoners.
Stalin's Gulag
In 1930, the Gulag system was finally formed under Stalin. She was subordinate to the NKVD and was one of the five main departments in this people's commissariat. Also in 1934, all correctional institutions, which had previously belonged to the People's Commissariat of Justice, moved to the Gulag. Labor in the camps was legally approved in the Correctional Labor Code of the RSFSR. Now numerous prisoners had to implement the most dangerous and grandiose economic and infrastructure projects: construction sites, digging canals, etc.
The authorities did everything to make the GULAG system in the USSR seem like a norm to free citizens. For this, regular ideological campaigns were launched. In 1931, the construction of the famous White Sea Canal began. It was one of the most significant projects of the first Stalinist five-year plan. The Gulag system is also one of the economic mechanisms of the Soviet state.
In order for the layman to learn in detail about the construction of the White Sea Canal in positive colors, the Communist Partygave the task to famous writers to prepare a laudatory book. So the work "Stalin's Channel" appeared. A whole group of authors worked on it: Tolstoy, Gorky, Pogodin and Shklovsky. Of particular interest 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 system of the Soviet economy. 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 political 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 loy alty and surveillance of political ones from them.
Numerous "enemies of the people", as well as those convicted of imaginary 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 the jailers.
Solitary hunger strikes did not lead to anything. Sometimes the NKVD officers could only increase the suffering of the convict. To do this, plates with delicious food and scarce products were placed in front of the starving people.
Fight against protest
The camp administration could have turnedattention to the hunger strike, only if it was massive. Any concerted action of the prisoners led to the fact that among them they were looking for instigators, who were then de alt with with particular cruelty.
For example, in Ukhtpechlage in 1937 a group of convicts for Trotskyism went on a hunger strike. Any organized protest was seen as counter-revolutionary activity and a threat to the state. This led to the fact that in the camps there was an atmosphere of denunciation and distrust of the prisoners to each other. However, in some cases, the organizers of hunger strikes, on the contrary, openly announced their initiative because of the simple desperation in which they found themselves. In Ukhtpechlag, the founders were arrested. They refused to testify. Then the NKVD troika sentenced the activists to death.
If a form of political protest in the Gulag was rare, then riots were common. At the same time, their initiators were, as a rule, criminals. Those convicted under Article 58 often became victims of criminals who carried out the orders of their superiors. Representatives of the underworld received release from work or occupied an inconspicuous position in the camp apparatus.
Skilled labor in the camp
This practice was also connected with the fact that the Gulag system suffered from shortcomings in professional personnel. Employees of the NKVD sometimes had no education at all. The camp authorities often had no choice but to appoint prisoners themselves to economic and administrative-technical positions.
WhenAt the same time, among the political prisoners there were a lot of people of various speci alties. The "technical intelligentsia" was especially in demand - engineers, etc. In the early 1930s, these were people who had been educated in Tsarist Russia and remained specialists and professionals. In fortunate cases, such prisoners were even able to establish trusting relationships with the administration in the camp. Some of them remained in the system at the administrative level when they were released.
However, in the mid-30s there was a tightening of the regime, which also affected highly qualified convicts. The position of specialists who were in the intra-camp world became completely different. The well-being of such people depended entirely on the nature and degree of depravity of a particular boss. The Soviet system created the Gulag system also in order to completely demoralize its opponents - true or imaginary. Therefore, there could be no liberalism towards prisoners.
Sharashki
More lucky were those specialists and scientists who fell into the so-called sharashki. These were scientific institutions of a closed type, where they worked on secret projects. Many famous scientists ended up in camps for their freethinking. For example, such was Sergei Korolev - a man who became a symbol of the Soviet conquest of space. Designers, engineers, people associated with the military industry got into sharashki.
Such institutions are reflected in the culture. Writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who visited the sharashka,many years later he 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.
Gulag as part of the Soviet economy
By the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, colonies and camp complexes became an important element of many industrial sectors. The Gulag system, in short, existed wherever the slave labor of prisoners could be used. It was especially in demand in the mining and metallurgical, fuel and timber industries. Capital construction was also an important direction. Almost all large buildings of the Stalin era were erected by convicts. They were mobile and cheap labor force.
After the end of the war, the role of the camp economy became even more important. The scope of forced labor has expanded due to the implementation of the atomic project and many other military tasks. In 1949, about 10% of the production in the country was created in camps.
Unprofitability of camps
Even before the war, in order not to undermine the economic efficiency of the camps, Stalin canceled parole in the camps. At one of the discussions about the fate of the peasants who ended up in the camps after dispossession, he stated that it was necessary to come up with a new system of rewards for productivity in work, etc. Often, parole was waiting for a person who either distinguished himself by exemplary behavior, or became another Stakhanovite.
After Stalin's remark, the system was canceledworking days count. According to it, prisoners reduced their term by going to work. The NKVD did not want to do this, since the refusal to pass tests deprived the prisoners of motivation to work diligently. This, in turn, led to a drop in the profitability of any camp. And yet the credits were cancelled.
It was the unprofitability of enterprises inside the Gulag (among other reasons) that forced the Soviet leadership to reorganize the entire system, which had previously existed outside the legal framework, being under the exclusive jurisdiction of the NKVD.
The low efficiency of the work of prisoners was also due to the fact that many of them had he alth problems. This was facilitated by a poor diet, difficult living conditions, bullying by the administration and many other hardships. In 1934, 16% of prisoners were unemployed and 10% sick.
Liquidation of the Gulag
Rejection of the Gulag occurred gradually. The impetus for starting this process was the death of Stalin in 1953. The liquidation of the Gulag system was started just a few months after that.
First of all, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR issued a decree on a mass amnesty. Thus, more than half of the prisoners were released. As a rule, these were people whose term was less than five years.
At the same time, most political prisoners remained behind bars. The death of Stalin and the change of power instilled confidence in many prisoners that something would change soon. In addition, prisoners began to openly resist harassment and abuse.camp authorities. So, there were several riots (in Vorkuta, Kengir and Norilsk).
Another important event for the Gulag was the XX Congress of the CPSU. It was addressed by Nikita Khrushchev, who shortly before that had won the inner-apparatus struggle for power. From the podium, he condemned Stalin's personality cult and 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 GUITK (Main Directorate of Corrective Labor Camps), Mikhail Kholodkov, was fired into the reserve.
