99: Gulag Article

The Gulag was the Soviet system of forced labor camps established in 1919. GULAG is actually an acronym that translates into “The Main Administration of Camps”. The prisoners, called “Zeks”, included persons such as murderers, thieves, political and religious dissenters, prisoners of war, and other common criminals. The Gulag was considered a place for these individuals to be contained and also as a mechanism to repress any political opposition to the Soviet state. The Gulag has had throughout its existence and into the modern state, an enormous impact on Russian economy and cultural literature.. Each impact will be explored as we also explain Gulag establishment, their geographic distribution, the conditions of Gulag camps, and the eventual dissemination of the system.

It is important to first mention that the word “Gulag”, an abbreviation, does not describe a single camp, but rather a government institution which administered the camps. The establishment of the Gulag can be traced to the time of the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 when Lenin seized control of the state. In 1918 detention facilities were set up in Siberia as part of the penal structure. The organizational structureof the Gulag is more complicated than one may suppose. The Gulag was only a subsidiary of the government and took orders directly from the Ministry of the Interior, which got orders from the politburo. After 1934, when the Gulag was integrated under the Interior Department (or NKVD), inmate numbers soared. The demand for cheap labor, the Great Purges, and an increasing number of construction projects all contributed to this surge in population.

The first camps were located in old monasteries to ease the burden of isolation on inmates. Later, the need for colonization in remote places throughout the country fueled the construction of camps all across the Soviet Union.

Larger camps, pictured above, with tens of thousands of prisoners were usually located in the northern and eastern parts of the Union. The brutal climate and isolation from transportation also discouraged any attempt for escape. As a result, and an advantage for government, the cost of security in these locations was relatively small. In fact, since there were no roads in many of these places, one of the main construction projects for the inmates was to build the roads! The geographical location of these larger camps was no accident. The far north and far east portions of Russia yield high amounts of valuable resources such as nickel ore (Norilsk Camp), gold (Magadan Camp), and forestry. Much later in the history of the Soviet Union, Gulag prisoners were used to mine the uranium needed to build an atomic weapon. When new emphasis was laid on the Gulag as a means of cheap labor to the State, new camps were constructed in the Union wherever economic need determined their existence.

The total number of documentable deaths in the Soviet corrective labor system from 1934-1953 amounts to 1,054,000. Still, the number does not include executions of “counterrevolutionaries” which were usually performed outside the camp system. The exact number of people who were in Gulag camps at one time or another is unclear. We would have to assume the number to be quite large, and that these individuals would suffer physical and psychological pain well beyond their release. The anguish would be understandable considering the conditions of a typical Gulag camp. In the first months of many camps, the fatality rate was as high as 80%[1]. The harshest camps were those that involved insensitive labor, such as logging and mining. Excessive production quotas were in place on each “Zek”; failure to meet your daily quota could result in a loss of food, water, shelter, or even your life. The harsh Russian weather, especially in Siberia (which is year-round), also contributed to deaths of many people. This was especially true for the POW’s who were not accustomed to the extreme low temperatures. The emergence of POW’s from WWII into the Gulag did little for the production rates as showed little interest in working and died quickly. One Gulag Zek, a German POW, named Werner Kersten did survive the conditions and is still living today. Werners Story is powerful and especially touching to me, since he is my Opa (grandpa).

The question arises of whether the Gulag was created to serve the economic interests of the State or if it was just a by-product a dictator’s power. Perhaps a bit of both are true. But the economic contributions the Gulag had on the economy are unmistakable. The economic rational of the Gulag system was exploration and industrial colonization of remote areas in the Soviet Union. It would have been very costly for the government to settle colonies in these regions and actually pay people to produce something. The solution under the Gulag saved bureaucracy lots of money. In fact, the labor was actually supposed to create an “economic surplus” which would be distributed to the rest of the nation at the benefit of the citizens. Even though Gulag labor only accounted for 2% of the total Soviet workforce, it made up one-fifth of all construction workers[1]. These numbers probably understate the impact of Gulag labor because 30% of Gulag construction was hidden in civilian contracts. That’s right…the government really contracted these people out to private companies and made them work. Immediately following WWII, about 600,000 Zeks were contracted out to work in the private sector. Economically, the Gulag was playing an influential role at this time. Whenever the Gulag population rose, economic output of the Soviet Union rose and vice versa. But the problem that the Gulag system would never overcome was the conflict between these economic functions and the isolation from the general population. The Soviet government tried to construct camps nearer to the cities, but it was too costly. In addition, the Gulag incorporated too many “sticks” and not enough “carrots.” It turns out that coercion isn’t enough to make people work for long periods of time. Most inmates were given significantly less calories in their daily rations than they actually used by working, so they never reached their full production capabilities. Perhaps “carrots” such as shorter prison sentences for large production rates would help, the government suspected. Either way, low production rates meant the efficiency of the Gulag was lacking. Wages or any other material incentive would prove costly to the state. By the 1950s, the Gulag was not profitable anymore. Even though the number of Gulag inmates reached its peak in 1951 at 2.5 million2, the bureaucracy was growing at a far greater rate. The [Ratio Of Guards To Inmates] was ever increasing and revenues were no longer sufficient to cover the cost of maintenance. The office of the Gulag had to literally beg for money from the budget. To make matters worse, production rates by the prisoners were 50-60% less than those of free workers.

On March 5, 1953, Stalin dies. Three weeks after this event, a decree from the Minister of Interior is declared: 1.5 million Gulag inmates will be released from the system and the remaining prisoners will have their sentences cut in half. The order was carried out in an amazingly short amount of time, considering how vast the geographic region of the Gulag was. According to Nikita Khrushchev the Minister of the Interior, Beria, did this on purpose to strengthen his own office and make himself dictator. So ingrained was this myth into culture that it was actually taught to school children during his Khrushchev’s reign. But the reality is that such a plan would almost certainly require an enormous amount of prior planning and consulting. It is believed that this plan must have been waiting quietly behind the scenes, as far back as 1930, waiting for an event to set it free-such as Stalin’s death. Records in the Gulag archives support this theory2. It is important to note the decision for amnesty was based on any moral issue. The truth is, Beria’s main concern was to strengthen camp regime and security while meeting goals for production and saving money for the State. By the end of the end of the 1950s, coercion as into Soviet labor camps was all but abandoned. Even high ranking Soviet officials had to agree that it just did not work efficiently. Officially, the Gulag was terminated in January 1960 and the Ministry of Interior was later known as the KGB.

A cultural influence on the Russian people is expected since the Gulag was in operation for nearly 40 years. The first literary work about Soviet labor camps was called The Gulag Archipelago. Following this work were many folk song, memoirs, and other books on the subject. Several of the works criticize the Soviet people for being so complacent regarding the Gulag and for their apathy towards a system which murdered over a million people. At the same time, these works of literature stand as a testament to the courage and bravery of the individuals who found themselves imprisoned.

On October 30, 1990 (well overdue) a Memorial to the victims of the Gulag was erected in Moscow. The latest developments in Russian human rights include a 1991 DUMA resolution guaranteeing (in theory) liberties including the right to disagree with the government. In 1998 a modification to the law was rejected by the Communist majority of the DUMA. The amendment would have defined victims of oppression more narrowly and would have expanded their rights.

I suppose any country that experiences such a rapid industrialization also experiences labor difficulties. The problem was just compounded in the Soviet Union. The people had little to no factory knowledge and, besides, Russians had a completely different concept of discipline as the Americans did. The harsh and remote territories did not make matters better. But one could argue the successes of Gulag labor such as the Moscow metro, Moscow University, and the Norilsk Nickel Combinat, which produces toady a substantial share of the world’s output of platinum and nickel. But we must not forget how similar Nazi death camps were to Soviet labor camps. The ultimate goal of both was to totally destroy conflict between the dictator and human capital – by means of suppression and death.