The GulagBy Evan Spendlove

The Creation of the Gulag• Many people think that the Gulag is the

name for the 'camp,' but really, the Gulag is merely an acronym, for the administrative body that manages the forced labour camps.

• The Gulag was officially created on April 25 1930, however it was first called the ULAG. In November of that same year, it was renamed the GULAG. In the 1930s, due to the increasing levels of penal policies, the gulag camp's population increased hugely. During the Great Purge, millions of people were arrested, and the population of the camps greatly increased.

The notorious Article 58 was the most instrumental in many of these arrests.

In 1932, 200,000 people were recorded to be living in the camps, and in 1935, 800,000 people were recorded to be live in the camps.

The Gulag was expanded under the eye of Stalin, and it had multiple roles. The Gulag had a political role, an economic role as well as acting as a prison system.

An Average Day at the Camp

• 6:00 - Wake up6:30 - Breakfast7:00 - Roll call7:30 - 30 minutes to march to the forest, with an armed escort(8:00-18:00 - logging)18:00 - 30 minutes to march back to the camp.19:30 - Dinner20:00 - After dinner work duties, such as chopping firewood, shovelling snow.23:00 - Sleep

A map A map of the of the

barrackbarrackss

A map A map of the of the

barrackbarrackss

A A prisoner's prisoner's

bread bread rationration

A A prisoner's prisoner's

bread bread rationration

A A prisoner'prisoner'

s cells cell

A A prisoner'prisoner'

s cells cell

Prisoners in Prisoners in the camp, the camp, Belbaltlag, Belbaltlag,

working on the working on the White Sea-White Sea-Baltic Sea Baltic Sea

canal.canal.

Prisoners in Prisoners in the camp, the camp, Belbaltlag, Belbaltlag,

working on the working on the White Sea-White Sea-Baltic Sea Baltic Sea

canal.canal.

Living conditions

Living conditions• When the prisoners were not working, they

usually resided in the camp zone, which was surrounded by fences or barbed wire and overlooked by guards in watch towers. This was to prevent escape, however many of the few who did escape died in the harsh weather.

• The zone housed a number of barracks, which were often overcrowded, dirty, unhealthy, and poorly heated. For many, life in the camp zone was violent, as all of the prisoners had to compete for necessities such as food and water.

Living conditions• The life of a prisoner in the camps was truly

unbearable. Running away and escaping was not an option, since the camps were guarded on all sides, and if they got as far as a village, the villagers would turn them in, in return for some extra money.

• During all this time, everyone had to watch out for informers, the turned prisoners who were watching and waiting for something to happen that they could report to their masters, the guards.

Living conditions

• When everyone was against each other, violence often became commonplace. Also, one can add to the list the unspeakable brutality of the camp guards, if the prisoners had survived the elements, the hunger, the disease, and violence in the barracks, they knew they would get a beating from the guards to top it all off.

Sentencing and Punishing Convicts

• Gulag prisoners could work up to 14 hours per day. Typical Gulag labour was exhausting physical work. Working often in the most extreme climates, prisoners spent their days felling trees with handsaws and axes or digging at frozen ground with poorly made pickaxes. Others mined coal or copper by hand, often suffering painful and deadly lung diseases from the inhalation of ore dust.

Sentencing and Punishing Convicts

• Prisoners were barely fed enough to sustain such difficult labour. Because of this, many prisoners died from starvation, exhaustion or from beatings, because they could not work fast enough. But it didn't matter how many people died, because in the eyes of the Gulag authorities, the prisoners were nothing, merely slaves who worked until they died. There were always a thousand more people to replace those who died.

The White Sea-Baltic Sea Canal

• The White Sea-Baltic Sea Canal, was the first major project undertaken by the prisoners of the Gulag camps. It was built between 1931 and 1933. Over 100,000 prisoners worked on this great undertaking. They were to dig a 141 mile canal. They were forced to use primitive tools, such as pickaxes, shovels, and poorly made wheelbarrows. The project was completed in less than 20 months.

The White Sea-Baltic Sea Canal

• The canal was initially viewed as a huge success, and proof that the gulag prisoners could be of use to the state. The Soviet Union was thrilled by this. However, the canal turned out to be too narrow and too shallow, for ships to sail through. Thus, it was a failure, and a waste of the lives of all those who died to make it possible.

Dissolution

• In March 1953, amnesty was granted to non-political prisoners, and political prisoners who had received a term of less than five years. Due to this, many of the people who were convicted on petty crimes, such as stealing bread, were released. In 1954, the release of political prisoners began, and soon it was widespread.

Dissolution

• The release of these prisoners was accompanied by mass rehabilitation, after Nikita Krushkev's 'secret' speech in February 1956.In his secret speech, Krushkev renounced and denounced Stalinism. In January 1960, the MVD issued an order to close the Gulag institution.

Dissolution

• However, forced labour camps continued to exist, and many political prisoners were kept in the infamous camp, Perm-36, until the 1980s, when they were finally granted amnesty. The practice of forced labour, often for the benefit of private companies, is still carried out in Russia today.

Conclusion• There is no actual confident estimate

that is unbiased, on the amount of deaths, however, a study done on the archival soviet data, estimates approximately 1,053,829 deaths. But this does not take into account the common practice of releasing prisoners close to death, to keep the official death toll down. The actual estimate is closer to 1.6 million deaths.