The Gulag was a system of forced labor camps established during Stalin's dictatorial regime. The world "Gulag" is actually an acronym for Glavone Upravlenie Lagerei, or Main Camp Administration. These prison camps operated from the 1920s until around 1953, during which they held more than 18 million people. At it's height, the Gulag network included hundreds of labor camps that held anywhere from 2,000 to 10,000 people each.
After the Russian Revolution of 1917, Vladimir Lennon, founder of the Russian Communist Party, took control of the Soviet Union. In 1919, after maintaining his control (and probably to further keep this control), the Gulag was established. By 1824, there were 84 camps in the Gulag system. However, it wasn't until Stalin took control that the prison population reached significant numbers.
From 1929 until Stalin's death, the Gulag experienced rapid expansion. Stalin viewed it as a key method of accessing valuable natural resources such as timber, coal, and other minerals. The Gulag was also an efficient way to eliminate political enemies--it became a destination for victims of Stalin's Great Purge (where he basically sent anyone who disagreed with him to the Gulag).
Conditions at the Gulag were brutal: the interned could be force to work up to 14 hours a day, and often in extreme weather. Their projects mainly consisted of large-scale construction and mining. While this produced results (the Gulag camps constructed the Moscow-Volga Canal, the White Sea-Baltic Canal, and the Kolyma Highway), the cost in lives was high. Many died of starvation or illness--others were simply executed. Historians estimate that at least 10 percent of the total Gulag prison population were killed every year.
Surprisingly, most historians also agree that while the Gulag system provided cheap labor, it ultimately didn't make a major economic improvement, because the workers were so unequipped. Without food and supplies, their productivity was minimal.
The Gulag started to weaken immediately after Stalin's death in 1953. Within days, millions of prisoners were released. However, it wasn't until 1987 that the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, the grandson of Gulag prisoners, officially began the process of eliminating the camps.
The Gulag has left a permanent scar on generations of Russians. Even today, some survivors are to scared to speak about their experiences.
Sources:
http://gulaghistory.org/nps/onlineexhibit/stalin/work.php
https://www.history.com/topics/russia/gulag
It's so surprising how Stalin held so much power that he was able to force millions into prison camps even if they didn't really deserve to be in them. Upon further research, I found that the people sent to the gulag weren't the most wanted criminals out there. Rather, thousands of people were sent to the gulag solely because they didn't share Communist ideologies, causing them to commit "political offences." In other words, the Soviet government feared that the dominant Communist ideals were going to be overshadowed by new ideologies.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/29/russia-gulag-camps-putin-nationalism-soviet-history
After reading your blog about gulags, I wondered how many people actually died in the labor camps. It turns out that between 1930 and 1953, about 1.5-1.7 million people died, though historians believe the toll is higher. Horrific working conditions, the mass amount of death, it is not surprising that many survivors do not want to talk about the gulag because of the horrors of it.
ReplyDeleteSource: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulag