How many gulags were there

The Geography of the Gulag. Although Gulag operations took place in major metropolitan centers, such as the construction of the metro deep underneath Moscow, the major Gulag camps and colonies listed in the Chapter by Khlevnyuk , which employed tens of thousands of prisoners, share one common feature: They were located in the northern and eastern parts of the Soviet Union in harsh climates and remote from civilization and transport.

Geographical remoteness allowed prisoners to be isolated form the rest of the population and reduced the costs of security. Chart 3 provides a map of the major Gulag camps and colonies, too numerous to name in this brief introduction.

It clearly shows the skewed geographical distribution of camps and colonies to the north and east. The Gulag held somewhat less than two million prisoners in its colonies and camps in This number peaked at 2. Thus, in an economy that employed nearly million persons, the Gulag accounted for two out of every hundred workers See Chart 3.

However, we have already shown that the Gulag had a larger number of so-called free workers; so the two percent figure is a reasonable estimate. The Gulag was charged with some of the most difficult tasks of the economy such as heavy construction and work in harsh and remote climates that would have required exceptional pay and effort if left to free labor. Some two thirds of Gulag economic activity was in construction, often in remote and cold regions with difficult transport.

Although Gulag labor accounted for some 2 percent of the labor force, it accounted for about one in five construction workers in and While accounting for between 6 to 10 percent of total investment, its share of construction investment neared 20 percent in The Gulag system was a by-product of collectivization, the Great Purges, draconian labor policies, and the aftermath of the Second World War. It would be contrary to script if Stalin and his political allies did not regard the resulting pool of inmates as a remarkable economic opportunity.

Like the peasants of the early s who were supposed to deliver grain without compensation, Stalin would have presumed that similar surpluses could be extracted from Gulag labor. In effect, the basic presumption would have been that penal workers could be forced to work efficiently and conscientiously without being offered real material incentives. The chapters by Sokolov Borodkin and Ertz show the degree to which these expectations were not realized.

They all show that penal workers had to be offered wages and monetary bonuses, thereby raising their cost to the state. Table 1. Construction of the White Sea Channel. Severo-Vostochny North-East. Kolyma River. Moscow region. Construction of the Moscow-Volga-Channel. Far East. Railroad Construction. Table 2 — Numbers of prisoners and camps first of year. Total number of inmates. Prisoners in camps. Total number of camps. Number of main. Guards thousand. Ratio of guards to inmates. Table 3.

Distribution of Prison Labor , , Main Glavki. Number of inmates thousands. Railroad construction. Military construction. Metal mining. Far North Construction. Third Department. Gulag production special camps and colonies. Contract workers. Hired out. Total MVD. Note that the numbers involve some double counting; perhaps forestry workers are included both in the forestry glavk and as third department workers.

Table 4. Contract Assignments of Prison labor force. November July Building projects in: Heavy industry.

Ministry of Heavy Construction. Fuel industry. Coal industry. Non-ferrous metallurgy. Power plants. Coal industry West and East. Small engineering. Oil industry. Military and naval industry. Normally dozens or even hundreds of camps of which there were over 30,, though they are only marked on the map in exceptional cases fell under each camp administration.

The production of the map of Gulag camp administrations and linked stories of persecuted individuals from the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland and Hungary has been supported by the Visegrad Fund within the Central European Map of the Gulag project. Born in Poland in , doctor and oficer of Polish Army in the rank of major. Arrested in November by Polish communist. In December sent He attended element Born in in Antoniny in pre-war Poland today Ukaraine.

Deported to Vitjunino in Forced to work at wood cutting. After the Sikorski-Majs Born in Poland in Politician and journalist arrested by the NKVD in , released in Two years later arrested by secret police of comm Soldier of the Home Army. Interned in July and drafted into a penal batalion. Released in January Several weeks Born in in the east of Slovakia. In his family left for the Soviet Union. In arrested and sentenced to 10 years in Gulag. Following the Hungarian occupation in she decided to escape Born in in the southern Slovak village of Strekov, where his parents were employed as hired labourers by a prosperous Jewish farmer.

His father worked as a hired labourer while his mother looked after Karol and three siblings at home. Deported with mother to Kazakchstan in Worked in sowchoz as a tractor driver. Under Nikita Khrushchev widespread releases take place and almost four million political crime cases are reviewed. A period referred to as the Khrushchev Thaw begins.

The Gulag system is abolished on the basis of a reform. Many labour camps are shut down. The Soviet economy is no longer based on the slave labour of prisoners. Political prisoners have not disappeared but their number falls markedly and now dissidents are only imprisoned for genuine opposition to the regime. They are most frequently sent to labour camps in Mordovia or around Perm in the Urals.

They too serve their sentences in terrible conditions hunger, disease, rape but the camps do not have such high death rates. The Gulag. The bibliography includes essential publications in print devoted to the subject of the repressive apparatus and prison system of the Soviet Union, Load 3D tour. How the Gulag changed. Select bibliography on the Gulag The bibliography includes essential publications in print devoted to the subject of the repressive apparatus and prison system of the Soviet Union,