The Soviet Union, led by Josef Stalin, oppressed part of its population for years in labor camps called gulags. After Stalin’s death in 1953, it became clear what gruesome scenes took place in the gulags. This article provides an explanation of this dark page in the history of the Soviet Union.
The early years
In 1930, a government service was established in the Soviet Union to ensure the ‘education’ of certain groups of citizens. This service, called the Gulag, had to organize these groups in specially designed labor camps, far from civilization in the Soviet Union. The main goals of these camps, in addition to their educational character, were:
- The development of resources for the Soviet Union.
- Digging canals.
- Building cities.
These objectives had to be achieved with the help of forced labor. In the first years, the gulags consisted of several hundred thousand people. These people came from all social groups of society; farmers, the disabled, noblemen, workers, entrepreneurs and enemies of the state who sympathized with the West. The Soviet regime led by Josef Stalin had complete freedom to send its citizens to the gulags. Article 58 gave the government the right to deport all ‘enemies of the state’ to the labor camps. This article of law was interpreted rather broadly, as a total of 18 million civilians would end up in the camps.
The war years (1940-1945)
During the Second World War, a large number of the people imprisoned in the gulags were deployed for the Red Army. The fight against Nazi Germany was given top priority during this time. The leadership of the gulags only selected strong men who were good enough to take on the fight. The rest of the prisoners remained in the camps and faced severe famine, poor clothing and severe beatings. The gulags also became so full during this period that productivity decreased sharply. It became increasingly difficult for the leadership to maintain organization in the gulags. This led to executions to keep things under control.
1953: The phase-out
After Stalin’s death in 1953, the gulags were slowly phased out. The new leader Khrushchev wanted to get rid of the labor camps as quickly as possible and emphasized that this was the work of his predecessor. In the period 1930-1953, as many as 28 million people were placed in labor camps. 800,000 executions took place and 3 million people died. Most survivors suffered long-term trauma and psychological complaints as a result of the horrors in the gulags. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was one of the survivors and wrote a book about this. He explained his horrific experiences in his book Gulag Archipelago. This book is still widely read worldwide to this day.