Stalin and the Soviet

Gulag

Cris MartinDavis Center for Russian

and Eurasian StudiesHarvard University

Joseph Stalin

Soviet GULAG

Glavnoye Upravleniye Lagerey—

Main Camp Administration

Gulag Statistics Existed 1918—1987,

most active during Stalin’s reign, 1929-1953

476 camp systems, hundreds, thousands of individual camps

Estimated 18 million imprisoned, 6 million exiled (15% of the population)

Early Soviet History 1921: USSR

established under Lenin

1922: Stalin named General Secretary of Communist Party

1924: Lenin dies 1929: Stalin

overcomes rivals to become head of USSR

Great Turn 5 Year Plan Industrialization Collectivization Dekulakization

Rationale behind Gulag Remove criminal

elements from Soviet society

Rehabilitation and construction of supreme Soviet utopia

Stalin’s psyche and need for power

Economy

Soviet economy Free labor would benefit Soviet

industrialization Prisoners were too ill, weak,

underfed, untrained to be productive

System became to large and far-reaching

Gulag became financial burden despite attempts to make it more productive in the early 1940s

Belomor Canal 141 miles long,

only 6-12 feet deep Basically useless

for large vessels, barges, passenger ships

Stalin considered it a great success

Over 100,000 prisoners died during its construction

Today, only 10-40 boats per day use canal

Types of prisoners Criminals Political

Prisoners Article 58

Other

Propaganda/Culture of fear

“Nobody knew what tomorrow would bring. People were afraid to talk to one another or meet, especially families in which the father or mother had already been ‘isolated.’”~Yelena Sidorkina, arrested 1937

The Great Terror 1937-38 700,000 shot Kirov’s assassination

led to new decrees and greater power for NKVD

Claimed life of Yagoda, and Yezhov (pictured).

A prisoner’s journey Arrest/interrogation/prison

Trial?

Transport

Life in the Camps: Work Work varied by camp location Survival often depended on your

job Fulfilling the norm Tufta, or cheating Avoiding work

Life in the Camps: Food

“Among the prisoners there are some so ragged and lice-ridden that they pose a sanitary danger to the rest. These prisoners have deteriorated to the point of losing any resemblance to human beings. Lacking food . . . they collect refuse and, according to some prisoners, eat rats and dogs.”

~ Andrei Vishynsky, 1938

Daily rationsCauldron I: 300 g.

bread, 1 liter thin soup, spoonful of groats, 1 liter soup

Cauldron II: 500 g. bread, 1 liter soup, 2 spoonfuls groats, 1 piece spoiled fish

Cauldron III: 700 g. bread, 1/2liter soup, 2 liters soup, 2 spoonfuls groats, 1 piece spoiled fish

Life in the camps: Weather, Violence

Russian winters

Barracks Threats from

criminals

Sharashki: secret research and development laboratories in the Soviet Gulag labor camp system.

Aftermath 1953: Stalin died Within 3 weeks, mass amnesty

declared 1956: Khrushchev’s secret

speech Destalinization 1951: A Day in the Life published Restalinization under

Brezhnev

The end of the Gulag 1988: Last camp

closed Today still little

discussion of Gulag in Russia

No national monument to victims and survivors

In 2003, Russian citizens were asked, “What role did Stalin play in the history of our country?”

Positive 53%Surely Negative 33%Difficult to say 14%

Why should we care?“I wrote my book about the Gulag not

‘so that it will not happen again,’ as the cliche has it, but because it probably will happen again. We need to know why--and each story, each memoir, each document is a piece of the puzzle. Without them, we will wake up one day and realize that we do not know who we are.”

~Anne Applebaum