Gulag in the USSR. Gulag: “battle for numbers. The largest gulag depredations

Main Directorate of Camps (abbreviated as GULAG).

A typical government bureaucratic institution. It was important integral part Soviet penitentiary system. During the 30-year period (from 1930 to 1960) of the existence of this head office, its departmental affiliation and full name changed several times. IN different years The Gulag was under the jurisdiction of the OGPU of the USSR, the NKVD of the USSR, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR, and the Ministry of Justice of the USSR. The full name of the main directorate changed depending on the structural units that were part of it, for example, from 1934 to 1938 the main directorate was called the Main Directorate of Camps, Labor Settlements and Places of Detention, and from 1939 to 1956 - the Main Directorate of Corrective Labor Camps and colonies. In official records management, regardless of the existing at the moment The name most often used was the abbreviation GULAG, which was used as an independent term that had grammatical features of the masculine gender (the spelling GULAG was almost never used). 1

The Gulag is a special camp, and not even just an “archipelago”, it is a huge country that invisibly existed and expanded in time and space of the Stalinist regime... We must introduce elements of geographical thinking in order to understand the Gulag... 2

And now the historian Boris Kerzhentsev gives us a map. 3

"Huge country"? Yes. In space.

But you need to look not only in space. But also in time. Gulag: (fully) 1930s, (entirely) 1940s and (with reservation) 1950s. Depending on the “disclaimer” - 25 - 30 years of USSR history. 25 - 30 years.

And Boris Kerzhentsev, commenting on the map, notes (quote):

Be careful with the numbers. Attention: during the period from 1940 to 1955, 35,830,000 people were convicted by special courts (military tribunals, transport and camp courts) as well as by the judicial authorities of the republics of the USSR...

So we all need to “be careful with the numbers.” More than 35 million. Only in 15 years. Numbers for the Gulag map?

And what “was condemned” means is not deciphered. How it is not deciphered and “how many sentenced”. And in general, maybe “not by how much” some? Or: for 6 months - this is the Gulag? Or…

Problem. Number of Gulag prisoners. Numbers. which in Soviet era not officially published.

* * *

In 1945, in Rome, Polish officers Sylvester Mora and Piotr Zwierniak published the book “Soviet Justice” in French. 4

The book contained hundreds of documentary evidence received from Polish citizens released from prison in 1941-1942. and who achieved the opportunity to leave the USSR. The collected and published materials not only described the tragedies of individuals, but also gave a complete picture of the entire camp system as a whole. The book provided information about the total number of prisoners. In particular, it was reported that, according to Russian prisoners, during Yezhov’s time there were more than 40 million people arrested. Polish authors considered this figure exaggerated, but readily described the following case: one camp employee, boasting about the power and vast territory of Russia, told a group of Polish prisoners: “Poland has only 35 million inhabitants. In our country we only have so many prisoners.” And on this basis...

From book to book, from article to article, the figures began to circulate around the world (not in the USSR, but outside the USSR) in the late 1940s: “there are 35 - 40 million people in the Gulag.”

The first scientific work on the topic of the Gulag was the book by D. Dallin and B. Nikolaevsky “Forced Labor in Soviet Russia” 5, published in the USA in 1947 and soon republished in Europe in English and German languages. To the most topical issues, considered in the work, included the following: what is the total number of prisoners, how many camps are there and how they are organized.

And here is the number.

In the chapter “How many camps and prisoners?” provided information for the end of the 1920s with reference to former GPU official N.I. Kiseleva-Gromov about 662,257 prisoners in all camps. It was also indicated that another GPU official, who fled to Finland in 1930, stated under oath that in the fall of 1929, 734 thousand prisoners worked under the supervision of the OGPU. In any case, the book by D. Dallin and B. Nikolaevsky begins the history of the GULAG (at the turn of the 20s - 30s) with the fact that there were less than 1 million prisoners in the GULAG.

Then, using different techniques calculations (but without primary documents), the authors reach figures in the tens of millions: We are convinced that for 1940 - 1942 the number of 15,000,000 is moderate...

At least not 35 - 40 million are kept in the Gulag at a time (as according to Mora and Zvernyak), but (on average) 10 - 20 million. This is according to the calculations of D. Dallin and B. Nikolaevsky.

But this kind of “arithmetic” was put together in many of the following works by foreign historians:

— about 15 million people were detained at one time;

- but in total 40 million people went through the Gulag (over all the years).

All these calculations were made in different ways: how many camps there were, how many people could be accommodated there, how many newspapers were subscribed to the prisoners (and how many people there was one copy of the newspaper), etc. But the calculations were made without official documents from the Gulag itself.

And then “Gorbachev’s perestroika” and “new Yeltsin’s Russia” broke out. The documents still appeared. Yes, a lot was destroyed (or is still hidden), but a lot appeared. In any case, the economic and production side of the Gulag (and this is the economy: construction sites, production...) has become more or less clear. And clarified. Including numbers.

Already from the 21st century, Galina Ivanova, having reviewed hundreds and hundreds of documents, notes: The Soviet leadership never published information about the number of prisoners. Every year hundreds of thousands of newly convicted people filled the barracks of the Gulag. The maximum level of concentration of prisoners in places of deprivation of liberty was observed in the summer of 1950, when more than 2.8 million people were held in camps, colonies and prisons. The same number of Soviet citizens were in exile and in special settlements. In total, over the years of the Gulag’s existence, more than 20 million people passed through camps, colonies and prisons, of which every fifth was sentenced to imprisonment for so-called “counter-revolutionary crimes.” 6

So.

From 1 (one) to 2 - 3 million prisoners at a time in the Gulag. With exile and special settlements - up to 5 million at a time.

In total (for the entire existence of the Gulag) - about (or “slightly more”) 20 million people. Of these, 4 - 5 million are under “political”, “counter-revolutionary” articles (sometimes they are falsely convicted under these articles, sometimes not).

No other (“larger” numbers) are visible. That's all historians have. So Wikipedia notes... By the way, in the article “GULAG” everything was crammed into free space, in my opinion, “those who like to underestimate”, the figures given are minimal. Like this:

In the early 30s, approximately 200 thousand people were kept in the Gulag. Before the war it was already about 1 million. And the biggest numbers are the late 40s, early 50s - that's 2.5 million a year on average.

In total, during these years of the existence of the Gulag system, 15 - 18 million people passed through it. Of these, approximately 1.5 million died in the camps. 7

Maybe this is how it is - take the minimum numbers, slightly underestimate - this is more correct. As historian Boris Kerzhentsev noted, “be careful with the numbers.” May be.

But, in my opinion, it is still more correct to say that about 20 million people went through the Gulag (and not 15 - 18 million). About 20 million

This is a scary number. Huge. Gigantic. And why increase it further? Why throw everything together and “call” (like Boris Kerzhentsev) that it’s 35 million or more? For what? So that the Stalinists themselves can create the opportunity to say: “You’re all lying”?

Even if we accept the figure of “35 million convicts”... What does the Gulag numbers have to do with it? What does the Gulag map have to do with it? Here, for example:

...from 1946 to 1953 - according to verdicts of civil courts that entered into legal force, over 12 million people were convicted in the USSR, of which almost 4.3 million were sentenced to imprisonment...

So? 4.3 out of 12...

The only thing the historian Kerzhentsev is right about is (following Solzhenitsyn): “in our prisons there were predominantly Russians captives." And only then: Ukrainian, Belarusian, Tatar...

If it's important.

—————————

1 Ivanova G.M. History of the Gulag, 1918 - 1958: socio-economic and political-legal aspects

2 Road V. Gulag in the mind: sketches and reflections

3 Kerzhentsev B. // http://www.diletant.ru/blogs/51101/8483/

4 Mora Sylvester, Zwierniak Pierre. La Justice

5 Dallin D.J. & Nikolaevsky B.I. Forced labor in Soviet Russia

). There were the following ITL:

Akmola camp for wives of traitors to the Motherland (ALGERIA)
Bezymyanlag
Vorkutlag (Vorkuta ITL)
Dzhezkazganlag (Steplag)
Intalag
Kotlas ITL
Kraslag
Lokchimlag
Perm camps
Pechorlag
Peczheldorlag
Prorvlag
Svirlag
Sevzheldorlag
Siblag
Solovetsky Special Purpose Camp (SLON)
Taezlag
Ustvymlag
Ukhtizhemlag

Each of the above ITLs included a number of camp points (that is, the camps themselves). Especially difficult conditions The camps in Kolyma were famous for the life and work of prisoners.

Gulag statistics

Until the end of the 1980s, official statistics on the Gulag were classified, researchers’ access to the archives was impossible, so estimates were based either on the words of former prisoners or members of their families, or on the use of mathematical and statistical methods.

After the opening of the archives, official figures became available, but the Gulag statistics are incomplete, and data from different sections often do not fit together.

According to official data, more than 2.5 million people were simultaneously held in the system of camps, prisons and colonies of the OGPU and the NKVD in 1930-56 (the maximum was reached in the early 1950s as a result of the post-war tightening of criminal legislation and the social consequences of the famine of 1946-1947).

Certificate of mortality of prisoners in the Gulag system for the period 1930-1956.

Years	Number of deaths	% of deaths compared to the average
1930*	7980	4,2
1931*	7283	2,9
1932*	13197	4,8
1933*	67297	15,3
1934*	25187	4,28
1935**	31636	2,75
1936**	24993	2,11
1937**	31056	2,42
1938**	108654	5,35
1939***	44750	3,1
1940	41275	2,72
1941	115484	6,1
1942	352560	24,9
1943	267826	22,4
1944	114481	9,2
1945	81917	5,95
1946	30715	2,2
1947	66830	3,59
1948	50659	2,28
1949	29350	1,21
1950	24511	0,95
1951	22466	0,92
1952	20643	0,84
1953****	9628	0,67
1954	8358	0,69
1955	4842	0,53
1956	3164	0,4
Total	1606742
Only in ITL. * In correctional labor camps and places of detention (NTK, prisons). * Further in ITL and NTK. ** Without OL. (O.L. - special camps). Help prepared based on materials EURZ GULAG (GARF. F. 9414)

After the publication in the early 1990s of archival documents from leading Russian archives, primarily in the State Archive Russian Federation(formerly TsGAOR USSR) and the Russian Center for Socio-Political History (formerly TsPA IML), a number of researchers have concluded that between 1930 and 1953, 6.5 million people were in forced labor colonies, of which about 1.3 million were for political reasons. , through forced labor camps for 1937-1950. About two million people were convicted under political charges.

Thus, based on the given archival data of the OGPU-NKVD-MVD of the USSR, we can conclude: during the years 1920-1953, about 10 million people passed through the ITL system, including 3.4-3.7 million people under the article counter-revolutionary crimes .

National composition of prisoners

According to a number of studies, on January 1, 1939, in the Gulag camps, the national composition of prisoners was distributed as follows:

Russians - 830,491 (63.05%)
Ukrainians - 181,905 (13.81%)
Belarusians - 44,785 (3.40%)
Tatars - 24,894 (1.89%)
Uzbeks - 24,499 (1.86%)
Jews - 19,758 (1.50%)
Germans - 18,572 (1.41%)
Kazakhs - 17,123 (1.30%)
Poles - 16,860 (1.28%)
Georgians - 11,723 (0.89%)
Armenians - 11,064 (0.84%)
Turkmens - 9,352 (0.71%)
other nationalities - 8.06%.

According to the data given in the same work, on January 1, 1951, the number of prisoners in camps and colonies was:

Russians - 1,405,511 (805,995/599,516 - 55.59%)
Ukrainians - 506,221 (362,643/143,578 - 20.02%)
Belarusians - 96,471 (63,863/32,608 - 3.82%)
Tatars - 56,928 (28,532/28,396 - 2.25%)
Lithuanians - 43,016 (35,773/7,243 - 1.70%)
Germans - 32,269 (21,096/11,173 - 1.28%)
Uzbeks - 30029 (14,137/15,892 - 1.19%)
Latvians - 28,520 (21,689/6,831 - 1.13%)
Armenians - 26,764 (12,029/14,735 - 1.06%)
Kazakhs - 25,906 (12,554/13,352 - 1.03%)
Jews - 25,425 (14,374/11,051 - 1.01%)
Estonians - 24,618 (18,185/6,433 - 0.97%)
Azerbaijanis - 23,704 (6,703/17,001 - 0.94%)
Georgians - 23,583 (6,968/16,615 - 0.93%)
Poles - 23,527 (19,184/4,343 - 0.93%)
Moldovans - 22,725 (16,008/6,717 - 0.90%)
other nationalities - about 5%.

History of the organization

Initial stage

On April 15, 1919, the RSFSR issued a decree “On forced labor camps.” From the very beginning of the existence of Soviet power, the management of most places of detention was entrusted to the department of execution of punishments of the People's Commissariat of Justice, formed in May 1918. The Main Directorate of Compulsory Labor under the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs was partially involved in these same issues.

After October 1917 and until 1934, general prisons were administered by the Republican People's Commissariats of Justice and were part of the system of the Main Directorate of Correctional Labor Institutions.

On August 3, 1933, a resolution of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR was approved, prescribing various aspects of the functioning of the ITL. In particular, the code prescribes the use of prisoner labor and legitimizes the practice of counting two days of hard work for three days, which was widely used to motivate prisoners during the construction of the White Sea Canal.

The period after Stalin's death

The departmental affiliation of the Gulag changed only once after 1934 - in March the Gulag was transferred to the jurisdiction of the USSR Ministry of Justice, but in January it was returned to the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs.

The next organizational change in the penitentiary system in the USSR was the creation in October 1956 of the Main Directorate of Correctional Labor Colonies, which in March was renamed the Main Directorate of Prisons.

When the NKVD was divided into two independent people's commissariats - the NKVD and the NKGB - this department was renamed Prison Department NKVD. In 1954, by decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, the Prison Administration was transformed into Prison department Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR. In March 1959, the Prison Department was reorganized and included in the system of the Main Directorate of Prisons of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs.

Gulag leadership

Heads of the Department

The first leaders of the Gulag, Fyodor Eichmans, Lazar Kogan, Matvey Berman, Israel Pliner, among other prominent security officers, died during the years of the “Great Terror”. In 1937-1938 they were arrested and soon shot.

Role in the economy

Already by the beginning of the 1930s, the labor of prisoners in the USSR was considered an economic resource. A resolution of the Council of People's Commissars in 1929 ordered the OGPU to organize new camps for the reception of prisoners in remote areas of the country

The attitude of the authorities towards prisoners as an economic resource was expressed even more clearly by Joseph Stalin, who in 1938 spoke at a meeting of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR and stated the following about the then existing practice of early release of prisoners:

In the 1930s-50s, Gulag prisoners carried out the construction of a number of large industrial and transport facilities:

canals (White Sea-Baltic Canal named after Stalin, Canal named after Moscow, Volga-Don Canal named after Lenin);
HPPs (Volzhskaya, Zhigulevskaya, Uglichskaya, Rybinskaya, Kuibyshevskaya, Nizhnetulomskaya, Ust-Kamenogorskaya, Tsimlyanskaya, etc.);
metallurgical enterprises (Norilsk and Nizhny Tagil MK, etc.);
objects of the Soviet nuclear program;
a number of railways (Transpolar Railway, Kola Railway, tunnel to Sakhalin, Karaganda-Mointy-Balkhash, Pechora Mainline, second tracks of the Siberian Mainline, Taishet-Lena (beginning of BAM), etc.) and highways (Moscow - Minsk, Magadan - Susuman - Ust-Nera)

A number of Soviet cities were founded and built by Gulag institutions (Komsomolsk-on-Amur, Sovetskaya Gavan, Magadan, Dudinka, Vorkuta, Ukhta, Inta, Pechora, Molotovsk, Dubna, Nakhodka)

Prisoner labor was also used in agriculture, mining, and logging. According to some historians, the Gulag accounted for an average of three percent of the gross national product.

No assessments have been made of the overall economic efficiency of the Gulag system. The head of the Gulag, Nasedkin, wrote on May 13, 1941: “A comparison of the cost of agricultural products in the camps and state farms of the NKSKH of the USSR showed that the cost of production in the camps significantly exceeds the state farm.” After the war, Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs Chernyshov wrote in a special note that the Gulag simply needed to be transferred to a system similar to the civilian economy. But despite the introduction of new incentives, detailed elaboration of tariff schedules, and production standards, self-sufficiency of the Gulag could not be achieved; Labor productivity of prisoners was lower than that of civilian workers, and the cost of maintaining the system of camps and colonies increased.

After Stalin's death and a mass amnesty in 1953, the number of prisoners in the camps was halved, and the construction of a number of facilities was stopped. For several years after this, the Gulag system was systematically collapsed and finally ceased to exist in 1960.

Terms

Organization of camps

In the ITL, three categories of prisoner detention regime were established: strict, enhanced and general.

At the end of the quarantine, medical labor commissions established categories of physical labor for prisoners.

Physically healthy prisoners were assigned the first category of working ability, allowing them to be used for heavy physical work.
Prisoners who had minor physical disabilities (low fatness, non-organic functional disorders) belonged to the second category of working ability and were used in moderately difficult work.
Prisoners who had obvious physical disabilities and diseases, such as: decompensated heart disease, chronic disease of the kidneys, liver and other organs, however, did not cause deep disorders of the body, belonged to the third category of working ability and were used for light physical work and individual physical labor. .
Prisoners who had severe physical disabilities that precluded their employment were classified in the fourth category - the category of disabled people.

From here, all work processes characteristic of the productive profile of a particular camp were divided by severity into: heavy, medium and light.

For the prisoners of each camp in the Gulag system, there was a standard system for recording prisoners based on their labor use, introduced in 1935. All working prisoners were divided into two groups. The main labor contingent that performed production, construction or other tasks of this camp constituted group “A”. In addition to him, a certain group of prisoners was always busy with work that arose within the camp or camp administration. These, mainly administrative, managerial and service personnel, were classified as group “B”. Non-working prisoners were also divided into two categories: group “B” included those who did not work due to illness, and all other non-working prisoners, accordingly, were combined into group “G”. This group seemed the most heterogeneous: some of these prisoners were only temporarily not working for external circumstances- due to their being in transit or in quarantine, due to the failure to provide work on the part of the camp administration, due to the intra-camp transfer of labor, etc. - but it should also include “refuseniks” and prisoners held in isolation wards and punishment cells.

The share of group “A” - that is, the main labor force, rarely reached 70%. In addition, the labor of free-hired workers was widely used (comprising 20-70% of group “A” (at different times and in different camps)).

Work standards were about 270-300 working days per year (varied in different camps and in different years, excluding, of course, the war years). Working day - up to 10-12 hours maximum. In case of severe climatic conditions, work was canceled.

Food standard No. 1 (basic) for a Gulag prisoner in 1948 (per person per day in grams):

Bread 700 (800 for those engaged in heavy work)
Wheat flour 10
Various cereals 110
Pasta and vermicelli 10
Meat 20
Fish 60
Fats 13
Potatoes and vegetables 650
Sugar 17
Salt 20
Surrogate tea 2
Tomato puree 10
Pepper 0.1
Bay leaf 0.1

Despite the existence of certain standards for the detention of prisoners, the results of inspections of the camps showed their systematic violation:

A large percentage of mortality falls on colds and exhaustion; colds are explained by the fact that there are prisoners who go to work poorly dressed and with shoes; the barracks are often not heated due to lack of fuel, as a result of which those who are frozen under open air prisoners are not warmed up in cold barracks, which leads to flu, pneumonia, and other colds

Until the end of the 1940s, when conditions of detention improved somewhat, the mortality rate of prisoners in the Gulag camps exceeded the national average, and in some years (1942-43) reached 20% of the total. average number prisoners. According to official documents, over the years of the existence of the Gulag, more than 1.1 million people died in it (more than 600 thousand died in prisons and colonies). A number of researchers, for example V.V. Tsaplin, noted noticeable discrepancies in the available statistics, but at the moment these comments are fragmentary and cannot be used to characterize it as a whole.

Offenses

At the moment, in connection with the discovery of official documentation and internal orders, previously inaccessible to historians, there are a number of materials confirming repressions, carried out by virtue of decrees and resolutions of executive and legislative authorities.

For example, by virtue of GKO Resolution No. 634/ss of September 6, 1941, 170 political prisoners were executed in the Oryol prison of the GUGB. This decision was explained by the fact that the movement of convicts from this prison was not possible. Most of those serving sentences in such cases were released or assigned to retreating military units. The most dangerous prisoners were liquidated in a number of cases.

A notable fact was the publication on March 5, 1948 of the so-called “additional decree of the thieves’ law for prisoners,” which determined the main provisions of the system of relations between privileged prisoners - “thieves”, prisoners - “men” and some personnel from among the prisoners:

This law caused very negative consequences for the unprivileged prisoners of camps and prisons, as a result of which certain groups of “men” began to resist, organize protests against the “thieves” and the relevant laws, including committing acts of disobedience, raising uprisings, and starting arson. In a number of institutions, control over prisoners, which de facto belonged and was carried out by criminal groups of “thieves”, was lost; the camp leadership turned directly to higher authorities with a request to allocate additionally the most authoritative “thieves” to restore order and restore control, which sometimes caused some loss controllability of places of deprivation of liberty, gave criminal groups a reason to control the very mechanism of serving punishment, dictating their terms of cooperation. .

Labor incentive system in the Gulag

Prisoners who refused to work were subject to transfer to a penal regime, and “malicious refuseniks, whose actions corrupted labor discipline in the camp,” were subject to criminal liability. Penalties were imposed on prisoners for violations of labor discipline. Depending on the nature of such violations, the following penalties could be imposed:

deprivation of visits, correspondence, transfers for up to 6 months, restriction of the right to use personal money for up to 3 months and compensation for damage caused;
transfer to general work;
transfer to a penal camp for up to 6 months;
transfer to a punishment cell for up to 20 days;
transfer to worse material and living conditions (penal ration, less comfortable barracks, etc.)

For prisoners who complied with the regime, performed well at work, or exceeded the established norm, the following incentive measures could be applied by the camp leadership:

declaration of gratitude before the formation or in an order with entry into a personal file;
issuing a bonus (cash or in kind);
granting an extraordinary visit;
granting the right to receive parcels and transfers without restrictions;
granting the right to transfer money to relatives in an amount not exceeding 100 rubles. per month;
transfer to a more qualified job.

In addition, the foreman, in relation to a well-working prisoner, could petition the foreman or the head of the camp to provide the prisoner with the benefits provided for Stakhanovites.

Prisoners who worked using “Stakhanov labor methods” were provided with a number of special, additional benefits, in particular:

accommodation in more comfortable barracks, equipped with trestle beds or beds and provided with bedding, a cultural room and a radio;
special improved ration;
private dining room or individual tables in a common dining room with priority service;
clothing allowance in the first place;
priority right to use the camp stall;
priority receipt of books, newspapers and magazines from the camp library;
permanent club ticket for classes best place for watching films, artistic productions and literary evenings;
secondment to courses within the camp to obtain or improve the relevant qualifications (driver, tractor driver, machinist, etc.)

Similar incentive measures were taken for prisoners who had the rank of shock workers.

Along with this incentive system, there were others that consisted only of components that encouraged high productivity of the prisoner (and did not have a “punitive” component). One of them is related to the practice of counting to a prisoner one working day worked in excess of the established norm for one and a half, two (or even more) days of his sentence. The result of this practice was the early release of prisoners who showed positive results at work. In 1939, this practice was abolished, and the system of “early release” itself was reduced to replacing imprisonment in a camp with forced settlement. Thus, according to the decree of November 22, 1938 “On additional benefits for prisoners released early for shock work on the construction of 2 tracks “Karymskaya - Khabarovsk”, 8,900 prisoners - shock workers were released early, with transfer to free residence in the BAM construction area until end of the sentence. During the war, liberations began to be practiced on the basis of decrees of the State Defense Committee with the transfer of those released to the Red Army, and then on the basis of Decrees of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR (so-called amnesties).

The third system of stimulating labor in the camps consisted of differentiated payments to prisoners for the work they performed. This money is in administrative documents initially and until the end of the 1940s. were designated by the terms “cash incentive” or “cash bonus”. The concept of “salary” was also sometimes used, but this name was officially introduced only in 1950. Cash bonuses were paid to prisoners “for all work performed in forced labor camps,” while prisoners could receive the money they earned in their hands in an amount not exceeding 150 rubles at a time. Money in excess of this amount was credited to their personal accounts and issued as the previously issued money was spent. Those who did not work and did not comply with standards did not receive money. At the same time, “... even a slight overfulfillment of production standards by individual groups of workers...” could cause a large increase in the amount actually paid, which, in turn, could lead to a disproportionate development of the bonus fund in relation to the implementation of the capital work plan. prisoners temporarily released from work due to illness and other reasons were not paid wages during their release from work, but the cost of guaranteed food and clothing allowances was also not withheld from them. Activated disabled people employed in piecework work were paid according to the piecework rates established for prisoners for the amount of work actually completed by them.

Memories of survivors

The famous Moroz, the head of the Ukhta camps, stated that he did not need either cars or horses: “give more s/k - and he will build railway not only to Vorkuta, but also through the North Pole.” This figure was ready to pave the swamps with prisoners, he easily left them to work in the cold winter taiga without tents - they would warm themselves by the fire! - without boilers for cooking food - they will do without hot food! But since no one held him accountable for “losses in manpower,” he for the time being enjoyed the reputation of an energetic, proactive figure. I saw Moroz near the locomotive - the first-born of the future movement, which had just been unloaded from the pontoon in his HANDS. Frost hovered before the retinue - it was urgent, they say, to separate the couples so that immediately - before the laying of the rails! - announce the surrounding area with a locomotive whistle. An order was immediately given: pour water into the boiler and light the firebox!”

Children in the Gulag

In the field of combating juvenile delinquency, punitive corrective measures prevailed. On July 16, 1939, the NKVD of the USSR issued an order “With the announcement of the regulations on the NKVD OTC detention center for minors,” which approved the “Regulations on the detention center for minors,” ordering the placement in detention centers of adolescents aged 12 to 16 years, sentenced by the court to different deadlines imprisonment and not amenable to other measures of re-education and correction. This measure could be carried out with the sanction of the prosecutor; the period of detention in the detention center was limited to six months.

Beginning in mid-1947, sentences for minors convicted of theft of state or public property were increased to 10 - 25 years. Also, by the Decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of November 25, 1935, “On amending the current legislation of the RSFSR on measures to combat juvenile delinquency, child homelessness and neglect,” the possibility of reducing the sentence for minors aged 14 - 18 years was abolished, the regime was significantly tightened keeping children in places of deprivation of liberty.

In the secret monograph “Main Directorate of Corrective Labor Camps and Colonies of the NKVD of the USSR” written in 1940, there is a separate chapter “Working with minors and street children”:

“In the Gulag system, work with juvenile delinquents and homeless people is organizationally separate.
By decision of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR on May 31, 1935, the Department of Labor Colonies was created in the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs, which has as its task the organization of reception centers, isolation wards and labor colonies for homeless minors and criminals.

This decision of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the Council of People's Commissars provided for the re-education of homeless and neglected children through cultural, educational and production work with them and further sending them to work in industry and agriculture.

Reception centers carry out the process of removing homeless and neglected children from the streets, keep the children in their homes for one month, and then, after establishing the necessary information about them and their parents, give them appropriate further direction. The 162 reception centers operating in the GULAG system during the four and a half years of their work admitted 952,834 teenagers, who were sent both to children's institutions of the People's Commissariat for Education, People's Commissariat of Health and People's Commissariat of Security, and to the labor colonies of the NKVD Gulag. Currently, there are 50 closed and open labor colonies operating in the Gulag system.

In open-type colonies there are juvenile offenders with one criminal record, and in closed-type colonies, under special regime conditions, juvenile offenders from 12 to 18 years old are kept with a criminal record. large number convictions and several convictions.

Since the decision of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the Council of People's Commissars, 155,506 teenagers aged 12 to 18 years have been sent through labor colonies, of which 68,927 have been tried and 86,579 have not been tried. Since the main task of the labor colonies of the NKVD is to re-educate children and instill in them labor skills, production enterprises have been organized in all labor colonies of the Gulag, in which all juvenile criminals work.

In the Gulag labor colonies there are, as a rule, four main types of production:

Metalworking,

Woodworking,

Shoe production,

Knitting production (in colonies for girls).

In all colonies, secondary schools are organized, operating according to a general seven-year educational program.

Clubs have been organized with corresponding amateur clubs: music, drama, choir, fine arts, technical, physical education and others. The educational and teaching staff of juvenile colonies number: 1,200 educators - mainly from Komsomol members and party members, 800 teachers and 255 leaders of amateur art groups. In almost all colonies, pioneer detachments and Komsomol organizations were organized from among the students who had not been convicted. On March 1, 1940, there were 4,126 pioneers and 1,075 Komsomol members in the Gulag colonies.

Work in the colonies is organized as follows: minors under 16 years of age work daily in production for 4 hours and study at school for 4 hours, the rest of the time they are busy in amateur clubs and pioneer organizations. Minors from 16 to 18 years old work in production for 6 hours and, instead of a normal seven-year school, study in self-education clubs, similar to adult schools.

In 1939, the Gulag labor colonies for minors completed a production program worth 169,778 thousand rubles, mainly for consumer goods. The GULAG system spent 60,501 thousand rubles in 1939 on the maintenance of the entire corps of juvenile criminals, and the state subsidy to cover these expenses was expressed in approximately 15% of the total amount, and the rest of it was provided by revenues from production and economic activity labor colonies. The main point that completes the entire process of re-education of juvenile offenders is their employment. Over four years, the system of labor colonies employed 28,280 former criminals in various industries national economy, including 83.7% in industry and transport, 7.8% in agriculture, 8.5% in various educational institutions and institutions"
25. GARF, f.9414, op.1, d.1155, l.26-27.
GARF, f.9401, op.1, d.4157, l.201-205; V. P. Popov. State terror in Soviet Russia. 1923-1953: sources and their interpretation // Domestic archives. 1992, No. 2. P.28. http://libereya.ru/public/repressii.html

A. Dugin. “Stalinism: legends and facts” // Word. 1990, No. 7. P.23; archival

GULAG is an abbreviation made up of the initial letters of the name of the Soviet organization “Main Directorate of Camps and Places of Detention,” which was responsible for detaining people who had violated Soviet law and were convicted for it.

The camps where criminals (criminal and political) were kept existed in Soviet Russia since 1919, were subordinate to the Cheka, were located mainly in the Arkhangelsk region and since 1921 were called SLON, the decoding means “Northern camps for special purposes.” With the growing terror of the state against its citizens, as well as the increasing tasks of industrializing the country, which few people agreed to solve voluntarily, the Main Directorate of Forced Labor Camps was created in 1930. During the 26 years of its existence, a total of more than eight million Soviet citizens served in the Gulag camps, a huge number of whom were convicted on political charges without trial.

Gulag prisoners were directly involved in the construction of a huge number of industrial enterprises, roads, canals, mines, bridges, entire cities.
Some of them, the most famous

White Sea-Baltic Canal
Moscow Canal
Volga-Don Canal
Norilsk Mining and Metallurgical Combine
Nizhny Tagil Iron and Steel Works
Railway tracks in the north of the USSR
Tunnel to Sakhalin Island (not completed)
Volzhskaya HPP (deciphering Hydroelectric power station)
Tsimlyanskaya HPP
Zhigulevskaya HPP
City of Komsomolsk-on-Amur
Sovetskaya Gavan city
Vorkuta city
Ukhta city
Nakhodka city
Dzhezkazgan city

The largest associations of the Gulag

ALGERIA (transcript: Akmola camp for wives of traitors to the Motherland
Bamlag
Berlag
Bezymyanlag
Belbaltlag
Vorkutlag (Vorkuta ITL)
Vyatlag
Dallag
Dzhezkazganlag
Dzhugjurlag
Dmitrovlag (Volgolag)
Dubravlag
Intalag
Karaganda ITL (Karlag)
Kisellag
Kotlas ITL
Kraslag
Lokchimlag
Norilsklag (Norilsk ITL)
Ozerlag
Perm camps (Usollag, Visheralag, Cherdynlag, Nyroblag, etc.), Pechorlag
Peczheldorlag
Prorvlag
Svirlag
SVITL
Sevzheldorlag
Siblag
Solovetsky Special Purpose Camp (SLON)
Taezlag
Ustvymlag
Ukhtpechlag
Ukhtizhemlag
Khabarlag

According to Wikipedia, there were 429 camps, 425 colonies, and 2,000 special commandant’s offices in the Gulag system. The Gulag was the most populous in 1950. Its institutions housed 2 million 561 thousand 351 people; the most tragic year in the history of the Gulag was 1942, when 352,560 people died, almost a quarter of all prisoners. For the first time, the number of people held in the Gulag exceeded one million in 1939.

The Gulag system included colonies for minors, where they were sent from the age of 12

In 1956, the Main Directorate of Camps and Prisons was renamed the Main Directorate of Correctional Labor Colonies, and in 1959 - the Main Directorate of Prisons.

"GULAG Archipelago"

A study by A. Solzhenitsyn on the system of detention and punishment of prisoners in the USSR. Written in secret between 1958-1968. First published in France in 1973. “The Gulag Archipelago” was endlessly quoted in broadcasts to the Soviet Union by radio stations Voice of America, Liberty, Free Europe, and Deutsche Welle, thanks to which the Soviet people were less aware of Stalin’s terror. In the USSR, the book was published openly in 1990.

More recently, in 2017, Russia celebrated the 80th anniversary of the Great Terror. The President solemnly opened the “Wall of Sorrow” - a monument to the victims of mass political repression. Therefore, the deliberate destruction of the credentials of Gulag prisoners in the archives was met with bewilderment and indignation by many. Is this really so and how many people suffered during the years of Stalin’s terror, said the director of the Gulag History Museum and head of the Memory Fund.

Lenta.ru: When did you learn about the problem of preserving the credentials of Gulag prisoners?

Roman Romanov: Our museum has been operating a Documentation Center for more than two months, designed to help people search for their repressed relatives. My colleagues regularly send requests to the relevant authorities asking for the necessary information. When our partner Sergei Prudovsky, studying the fate of a particular person, contacted the Magadan region, he was told that his personal file was destroyed back in the 50s, and an account card was created in its place. But it turned out that this card was also destroyed on the basis of an interdepartmental order from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Foreign Intelligence Service and other law enforcement agencies. This order was issued in 2014 under the heading “for official use.”

Frame: the film “Lenin's Testament”

That is, it is impossible to look at this document and find out exactly how its provisions are formulated?

Yes. I can assume that it’s about something a little different, but in the Magadan region it’s interpreted that way. We are now finding out the scale of the disaster, but this is a very strange story. In other regions, we regularly receive similar materials (personal files, registration cards and other information about the fate of those repressed) without any particular difficulties from both the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the FSB. And these documents are not destroyed anywhere. Therefore, this particular case has caused us concern, and now we want to figure out what it really is: a free interpretation of departmental instructions on the ground or something else will follow. But the sad fact is that due to the destruction of the registration card, we will never know anything about this particular person again.

Why exactly are these index cards important?

Exactly this. In most cases, this is the only document by which the fate of a repressed person can be traced. If a prisoner died in the camp, then his personal file was sent to the archives for indefinite storage. If a person lived to see his release, then the file was destroyed, and in return a registration card was created, which indicated personal data and his movements to places of detention with the date of release.

How long were these cards supposed to be kept?

Here the question arises: should this primary documentation belong to the archival fund of Russia? As soon as we learned about such an unpleasant incident in the Magadan region, we immediately sent a corresponding request to Rosarkhiv, and now we are waiting for a response from there. We sent another letter describing the situation that arose to the manager, chairman working group on the implementation of the Concept of state policy to perpetuate the memory of victims of political repression. He promised to help us.

Is it legally possible to destroy primary documentation if there are no other archival sources left about a person’s fate?

Actually, this is exactly what we want to find out. In this particular case, in the Magadan region, a person’s registration card was destroyed with reference to an interdepartmental by-law, which we cannot even look at.

If this document was published back in 2014, is there a risk that most of the information about Gulag prisoners may be lost?

Don't think. I have already mentioned that in other regions such information is stored, digitized and provided to us without any problems. What happened in Magadan is the first such case out of hundreds of similar requests. After all, for the relatives of those repressed, the information stored in these cards is simply priceless.

Most of them only know that their grandfather or great-grandfather was arrested in 1937 or 1938, and what happened to him next is unknown. If all these cards are destroyed, then a huge layer of information about the fate of millions of our compatriots who suffered during the years of mass repression will be lost forever. We simply lose these people, and along with them we lose the memory of them.

How many people are we talking about? How many of them went through the Gulag?

There is an official number - 20,839,633 people. However, some were convicted more than once (including while already in prison), so the actual number of prisoners was somewhat smaller.

Is this for all the years of Soviet power?

No, this is only for the period from 1930, when the Main Directorate of Camps was created, to 1956. In 1938-1939, 1941-1942 and 1948-1953, the number of Gulag prisoners increased sharply. This was caused by the strengthening of the repressive policies of Stalin's power during these years.

Information on the composition of prisoners held in correctional labor and special camps and correctional labor colonies of the Ministry of Internal Affairs-UMVD in 1941-1953. (by the nature of the crimes). State Archives of the Russian Federation. Fund 9492 (USSR Ministry of Justice). Inventory 5. Case 190

Does this figure only apply to political prisoners?

No, this is the total number of prisoners during this period. You can read a separate lecture about Gulag statistics. Some political prisoners were held under domestic or criminal charges (for example, under the notorious “Law of Three Spikelets”). But there were cases when repeat criminals were convicted of “anti-Soviet activities.”

It is known that more than four million people were convicted of so-called “counter-revolutionary crimes”. But it is now very difficult to isolate the real number of political prisoners from the entire huge number of prisoners in the Stalinist Gulag. And if they also destroy registration cards, we will never know.

Do you think this whole situation with the destruction of cards is a bureaucratic excess of individual performers or a sign of a deliberate campaign to erase the memory of the Gulag?

No, I believe that in this case we are dealing with an administrative and economic incident. I don’t think we can talk about any kind of campaign. The memory of Stalin's repressions still remains so painful for our society that no one would think of deliberately destroying archival documents. Moreover, we have a State Policy Concept for perpetuating the memory of victims of political repression, and last year the “Wall of Sorrow” was opened by the President himself.

What does this incident with the destroyed account card indicate?

That now we need to reconsider the entire concept of storing and providing archival information. It must be scanned and stored in digital format. Now a huge amount of archival materials are dispersed throughout the country in different departmental archives. Often they are stored haphazardly and not properly organized.

Moreover, we have successful experience of such work in our country. The Ministry of Defense managed to digitize a colossal amount of information about our citizens who participated in the Great Patriotic War, and created websites and “Feat of the People.” I think the millions of victims of political repression also deserve this.

But this activity, for example, is carried out by the Memorial society.

Memorial is doing the right and necessary thing, but it is still a public organization whose resources are very limited. The Memorial database is based not only on sources from departmental archives, but also on information from regional Memory Books. But these Books often contain a huge number of errors. Therefore, the work of the Memorial OBD of the Ministry of Defense and the activities of the Memorial society are like heaven and earth.

That is, our state is not dealing with this problem?

He is working, but clearly not enough. Since 2014, the Federal Target Program (FTP) has been developed to perpetuate the memory of victims of political repression. Mikhail Aleksandrovich Fedotov and the Human Rights Council he headed did just that. However, in the end, instead of the Federal Target Program, in 2015 it approved the corresponding Concept of State Policy.

“Wall of Sorrow” is a monument to the victims of mass political repression in Moscow. Opened October 30, 2017

Is there anything about archives in this Concept?

Certainly. And about their accessibility, and about digitization. But the Concept differs from the Federal Target Program in that it is not a document of direct action with appropriate funding. The concept can be guided in the most general sense - but, unfortunately, nothing more.

In the case of the Ministry of Defense, there was a conscious public policy: a presidential order was issued, the corresponding Federal Target Program was adopted, and colossal human and material resources were deployed. And here we need to follow the same path - we just need to show political will.

From the editors of the Icebreaker news agency: Despite the fact that more than 20 years ago various historians published documented facts about Gulag prisoners, this information remained unknown to most readers. To familiarize readers with authentic data from state archives, we publish the work of V.N. Zemskova "GULAG - Historical and Sociological Aspect", magazine "Sociological Research" - No. 6, No. 7, 1991.

In Tables No. 01 and No. 02, the editors publish statistical data that may be useful to the reader for comparison:

Table No. 01

Population of the USSR	1922	1940	1956
Thousand Human	136100	194077	208827

Source: "National Economy of the USSR 1922-1982"

Table No. 02

	Quantity prisoners 2006	Population Million people	Quantity Prisoners 2013	Population Million people
USA	2,186,230	296,4	2,239,751	312,72

Source: http://www.prisonstudies.org

The editors of the Icebreaker news agency do not agree with some of the author's conclusions about the Soviet Union; the article is valuable as a source of archival data.

The purpose of this article is to show the true statistics of Gulag prisoners, a significant part of which has already been presented in articles by A.N. Dugin, V.F. Nekrasov, as well as in our publication in the weekly "Arguments and Facts".
Despite the presence of these publications, which name the true and documented number of Gulag prisoners, the Soviet and foreign public for the most part are still under the influence of far-fetched statistical calculations that do not correspond to the historical truth, contained both in the works of foreign authors (R. Conquest , S. Cohen, etc.), and in the publications of a number of Soviet researchers (R.A. Medvedev, V.A. Chalikova, etc.). Moreover, in the works of all these authors, the discrepancy with genuine statistics never goes in the direction of understatement, but exclusively in the direction of manifold exaggeration. It seems that they are competing with each other to amaze readers with numbers, so to speak, more astronomically.
Here is what, for example, S. Cohen writes (with reference to R. Conquest’s book “The Great Terror”, published in 1968 in the USA): “... By the end of 1939, the number of prisoners in prisons and individual concentration camps increased to 9 million people (compared to 30 thousand in 1928 and 5 million in 1933-1935)." In reality, in January 1940, there were 1,334,408 prisoners in Gulag camps, 315,584 in Gulag colonies, and 190,266 in prisons. In total, there were 1,850,258 prisoners in camps, colonies and prisons at that time (Tables 1, 2), i.e. The statistical data given by R. Conquest and S. Cohen are exaggerated almost five times.
R. Conquest and S. Cohen are echoed by the Soviet researcher V.A. Chalikova, who writes: “Based on various data, calculations show that in 1937-1950 there were 8-12 million people in camps that occupied vast spaces.” V.A. Chalikova names the maximum figure - 12 million Gulag prisoners (apparently, she also includes colonies in the concept of “camp”) for a certain date, but in reality for the period 1934-1953. the maximum number of prisoners in the Gulag, which occurred on January 1, 1950, was 2,561,351 people (see Table 1). Consequently, V.A. Chalikova, following R. Conquest and S. Cohen, exaggerates the true number of Gulag prisoners by approximately five times.
N.S. Khrushchev also made his contribution to the confusion of the issue of the statistics of Gulag prisoners, who, apparently in order to present on a larger scale his own role as a liberator of victims of Stalin’s repressions, wrote in his memoirs: “... When Stalin died, there were up to 10 million people" In fact, on January 1, 1953, there were 2,468,524 prisoners in the Gulag: 1,727,970 in camps and 740,554 in colonies (see Table 1). The TsGAOR of the USSR stores copies of memos from the leadership of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR addressed to N.S. Khrushev, indicating the exact number of prisoners, including at the time of the death of I.V. Stalin. Consequently, N.S. Khrushchev was well informed about the true number of Gulag prisoners and deliberately exaggerated it four times.

Table 1. Number of Gulag prisoners (as of January 1 of each year)

Table 2. Number of prisoners in USSR prisons
(data for the middle of each month)

Available publications about the repressions of the 30s - early 50s, as a rule, contain distorted, greatly exaggerated data on the number of people convicted for political reasons or, as it was officially called then, for “counter-revolutionary crimes”, i.e. under the notorious Article 58 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR and under the corresponding articles of the Criminal Code of other union republics. This also applies to the data provided by R.A. Medvedev on the scope of repressions in 1937-1938. Here is what he wrote: “In 1937-1938, according to my calculations, from 5 to 7 million people were repressed: about a million party members and about a million former party members as a result of party purges of the 20s and the first half of the 30s , the remaining 3-5 million people were non-partisans, belonging to all segments of the population. Most of those arrested in 1937-1938 ended up in forced labor camps, a dense network of which covered the entire country.".
If you believe R.A. Medvedev, then the number of prisoners in the Gulag for 1937-1938. should have increased by several million people, but this was not observed. From January 1, 1937 to January 1, 1938, the number of Gulag prisoners increased from 1,196,369 to 1,881,570, and by January 1, 1939 it dropped to 1,672,438 people (see Table 1). For 1937-1938 the Gulag did experience a surge in prison population growth, but by several hundred thousand rather than several million. And this was natural, because... in fact, the number of people convicted for political reasons (for “counter-revolutionary crimes”) in the USSR for the period from 1921 to 1953, i.e. over 33 years, there were about 3.8 million people. R.A. Medvedev’s statements that it was only in 1937-1938. 5-7 million people were repressed, do not correspond to the truth. The statement of the Chairman of the KGB of the USSR V.A. Kryuchkov that in 1937-1938. no more than a million people were arrested, which is quite consistent with the current Gulag statistics we studied for the second half of the 30s.
In February 1954, a certificate was prepared in the name of N.S. Khrushchev, signed by the Prosecutor General of the USSR R. Rudenko, the Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR S. Kruglov and the Minister of Justice of the USSR K. Gorshenin, which indicated the number of people convicted of counter-revolutionary crimes for the period from 1921 to February 1, 1954. In total, during this period, 3,777,380 people were convicted by the Collegium of the OGPU, the troikas of the NKVD, the Special Meeting, the Military Collegium, courts and military tribunals, including 642,980 to capital punishment, to detention in camps and prisons for a term of 25 years and below - 2,369,220, exile and deportation - 765,180 people. It was indicated that of the total number of those arrested for counter-revolutionary crimes, approximately 2.9 million people were convicted by the OGPU Collegium, the NKVD troikas and the Special Conference (i.e., extrajudicial bodies) and 877 thousand - by courts, military tribunals, the Special Collegium and the Military Collegium. Currently, the certificate stated, there are 467,946 prisoners convicted of counter-revolutionary crimes in camps and prisons, and, in addition, 62,462 people are in exile after serving their sentences.
The same document noted that, created on the basis of a resolution of the Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR dated November 5, 1934, a special meeting under the NKVD of the USSR, which existed until September 1, 1953, convicted 442,531 people, including those sentenced to capital punishment - 10,101, to imprisonment - 360,921, to exile and deportation (within the country) - 67,539 and to other penalties (counting the time spent in custody, deportation abroad, compulsory treatment) - 3,970 people. The overwhelming majority, whose cases were considered by the Special Meeting, were convicted of counter-revolutionary crimes.
In the original version of the certificate, compiled in December 1953, when the number of people convicted of counter-revolutionary crimes then available in prison was 474,950, the geography of the placement of 400,296 prisoners was given: in the Komi Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic - 95,899 (and, in addition, in Pechorlag - 10,121), in the Kazakh SSR - 57,989 (of which in the Karaganda region - 56,423), in the Khabarovsk Territory - 52,742, in the Irkutsk region. - 47,053, Krasnoyarsk Territory - 33,233, Mordovian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic - 17,104, Molotov Region. - 15 832, Omsk region. - 15 422, Sverdlovsk region. - 14 453, Kemerovo region. - 8 403, Gorky region. - 8,210, Bashkir ASSR - 7,854, Kirov region. - 6 344, Kuibyshev region. - 4,936 and in the Yaroslavl region. - 4,701 people. The remaining 74,654 political prisoners were in other territories, regions and republics (Magadan Region, Primorsky Territory, Yakut Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, etc.).
In the same version of the certificate, it was noted that persons who were in exile and expulsion at the end of 1953, from among the former prisoners convicted of counter-revolutionary crimes, lived: in the Krasnoyarsk Territory - 30,575, in the Kazakh SSR - 12,465, in the Far North - 10,276, in the Komi ASSR - 3,880, Novosibirsk region. - 3,850, in other regions - 1,416 people.
It must be emphasized: from the above official government document it follows that for the period from 1921 to 1953. Less than 700 thousand of those arrested for political reasons were sentenced to death. In this regard, we consider it our duty to refute the statement of a former member of the Party Control Committee under the CPSU Central Committee and the Commission to investigate the murder of S.M. Kirov and the political trials of the 30s, O.G. Shatunovskaya, who, referring to a certain document of the KGB of the USSR, subsequently allegedly mysteriously disappeared, writes: “... From January 1, 1935 to June 22, 1941, 19 million 840 thousand “enemies of the people” were arrested. Of these, 7 million were shot. Most of the rest died in the camps.”.
In this information, O.G. Shatunovskaya allowed a more than 10-fold exaggeration of both the scope of the repressions and the number of those executed. She also claims that most of the rest (presumably 7-10 million people) died in the camps. We have absolutely accurate information that during the period from January 1, 1934 to December 31, 1947, 963,766 prisoners died in the forced labor camps of the Gulag, and this number includes not only “enemies of the people,” but also criminals (Table .3).
The dynamics of the movement of Gulag camp prisoners for the period from 1934 to 1947, including such indicators as mortality, escapes, detention and return of fugitives, release from prison, etc., are shown in Table 3. In addition, Table 4 shows the ratio between those convicted by extrajudicial and judicial authorities among prisoners who were in Gulag camps in the period from 1934 to 1941. Unfortunately, we do not have similar statistics on prisoners held in Gulag colonies.
As of March 1, 1940, the Gulag consisted of 53 camps (including camps engaged in railway construction) with many camp departments, 425 forced labor colonies (including 170 industrial, 83 agricultural and 172 “contractor” colonies, i.e. . worked on construction sites and in the farms of other departments), united by regional, regional, republican departments of correctional labor colonies (OITK), and 50 colonies for minors. From mid-1935 to early 1940, 155,506 teenagers aged 12 to 18 years passed through juvenile colonies, of which 68,927 were convicted and 86,579 were not convicted. In March 1940, there were 90 “baby homes” operating in the Gulag system (there were 4,595 children in them), whose mothers were prisoners.

Table 3. Movement of the Gulag camp population

By the nature of the crimes, Gulag prisoners were distributed as follows (March 1, 1940): for counter-revolutionary activities - 28.7%, for especially dangerous crimes against the order of government - 5.4%, for hooliganism, profiteering and other crimes against government - 12, 4%, theft - 9.7%, official and economic crimes - 8.9%, crimes against the person - 5.9%, theft of socialist property - 1.5%, other crimes - 27.5%. The total number of prisoners held in the ITL and ITC of the Gulag was determined, according to centralized records as of March 1, 1940, to be 1,668,200 people. Of this number, 352 thousand were kept in ITCs, including 192 thousand in industrial and agricultural ITCs and 160 thousand in “counterparty” ITCs [Ibid].
In the Gulag, the only exception to the rule - every prisoner must work - were those who were sick and declared unfit for work (there were 73 thousand of them in March 1940). In one of the Gulag documents in 1940, it was noted that the costs associated with maintaining sick and declared unfit for work prisoners “place a heavy burden on the Gulag budget” [Ibid.].
In March 1940, in the Gulag, the first place in terms of proportion was occupied by those sentenced to terms from 5 to 10 years (38.4%), the second - from 3 to 5 years (35.5%), the third - up to three years (25, 2%), over 10 years - 0.9%. Age composition of Gulag prisoners (March 1, 1940): under 18 years old - 1.2%, from 18 to 21 years old - 9.3%, from 22 to 40 years old - 63.6%, from 41 to 50 years old - 16 .2%, over 50 years old - 9.7%. On January 1, 1941, there were 4,627 prisoners over the age of 70 in the correctional labor camp [Ibid]. As of January 1, 1939, the Gulag camp prisoners included 63.05% Russians, 13.81% Ukrainians, 3.40% Belarusians, 1.89% Tatars, 1.86% Uzbeks, 1.50% Jews , 1.41% Germans, 1.30% Kazakhs, 1.28% Poles, 0.89% Georgians, 0.84% Armenians, 0.71% Turkmen and 8.06% others (Table 5).
The data on the educational level of Gulag camp prisoners in 1934-1941 are very indicative. (Table 6). For the period from 1934 to 1941. proportion of people with higher education increased threefold, and with the average - almost doubled. Such a significant increase in the proportion of prisoners with higher and secondary education occurred despite a simultaneous increase in the number of people with lower education, semi-literate and illiterate people. For example, the number of illiterate camp prisoners increased from 217,390 in 1934 to 413,122 in 1941, i.e. almost twice, but their share is general composition prisoners in correctional labor camps during this period decreased from 42.6% to 28.3%. The number of prisoners with higher education increased in 1934-1941. more than eight times, with an average of five times, which led to an increase in their share in the overall composition of the camp prisoners.
These data indicate that the number and proportion of the intelligentsia among the camp prisoners was growing at an accelerated pace. Distrust, hostility and even hatred of the intelligentsia are a common feature of communist leaders. Practice has shown that, having seized upon unlimited power, they were simply unable to resist the temptation to mock the intelligentsia. At the same time, the method of mocking the intelligentsia in Maoist China - sending them to "re-education through labor" in agriculture - can be called relatively humane. Another communist leader acted most “radically” - Pol Pot (who ruled in Kampuchea in 1975-1979), who physically exterminated almost the entire intelligentsia in his country. Stalin’s version of mockery of the intelligentsia, which consisted of sending part of it to the Gulag on the basis of far-fetched or fabricated charges, occupied a kind of middle position between the Maoist and Pol Pot options. The non-repressed part of the intelligentsia was destined for a form of mockery in the form of “ideological thrashings”, guiding and directing instructions “from above” on how they should think, create, honor “leaders”, etc.
On July 15, 1939, the NKVD of the USSR issued order no. 10168, according to which prisoners convicted of disorganizing camp life and production were brought to trial. Until April 20, 1940, the operational-Chekist departments of the camps, on the basis of this order, prosecuted and put on trial 4,033 people, of which 201 people were sentenced to capital punishment (although some of them later the death penalty was replaced by imprisonment from 10 to 15 years) [Ibid].

Table 4. The ratio between those convicted by the NKVD, courts and tribunals among Gulag camp prisoners (as of January 1 of each year)

Table 5. National composition of Gulag camp prisoners in 1939-1941.
(as of January 1st of each year)

In 1940, the centralized card index of the Gulag reflected the corresponding data for almost 8 million people - both for those who had gone through isolation in the past years, and for those who were then in custody [Ibid.].
Along with the isolation authorities, the Gulag system included the so-called “Bureau of Correctional Works” (BIRs), whose task was not to isolate convicts, but to ensure execution court decisions in relation to persons sentenced to serve forced labor without imprisonment, In March 1940, the GULAG BIRs registered 312,800 people sentenced to forced labor without imprisonment. Of their composition, 97.3% worked at their main place of work, and 2.7% - in other places, as assigned by the NKVD [Ibid.].
A few months later, the number of this category of convicts increased sharply, which was a consequence of the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of June 26, 1940 “On the transition to an eight-hour working day, to a seven-day working week and on the prohibition of the unauthorized departure of workers and employees from enterprises and institutions”, which introduced criminal liability for unauthorized leaving of enterprises and institutions, for absenteeism and being late for work by 21 minutes or more. Most of these “pointers” were sentenced to corrective labor at their main place of work for a period of up to six months and withholding from wages up to 25%.