Established after the Bolsheviks took power in 1919, the gulags were forced labor camps where at least 1 million people died over the next 50 years.
During the days of Joseph Stalin, one wrong word could end with the secret police at your door, ready to drag you off to a Soviet gulag – one of the many forced labor camps where inmates worked until they died. Historians estimate that nearly 14 million people were thrown into a gulag prison during Stalin’s reign.
Some were political prisoners, rounded up for speaking out against the Soviet regime. Others were criminals and thieves. And some were just ordinary people, caught cracking an unkind word about a Soviet official.
Wikimedia Commons
Still more inmates came from the Eastern Bloc of Europe – conquered countries that were made subservient to the Soviet regime. The families of priests, professors, and important figures would be rounded up and sent off to the work camps, keeping them out of the way while the U.S.S.R. systematically erased their culture.
Wherever the gulag inmates came from, their fate was the same: backbreaking labor in freezing, remote locations with little protection from the elements and less food. These photographs tell their story:
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1 of 33Young boys in a gulag stare at the cameraman from their beds.
Molotov, USSR. Date unspecified.David Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies 2 of 33A miner who died working in a forced labor camp is put to rest under the ground.
Vaygach Island, USSR. 1931.Wikimedia Commons 3 of 33Polish families are deported to Siberia as part of the Soviet Union’s relocation plan.
Influential families in conquered states would often be forced into labor to help systematically destroy their culture.
Poland. 1941.Wikimedia Commons 4 of 33Not every political prisoner was pushed into forced labor. Here, the bodies of thousands of Polish people lie dead in a mass grave.
Katyn, Russia. April 30, 1943.Wikimedia Commons 5 of 33The dead bodies of political prisoners, murdered by the secret police, lie inside of a prison camp.
Tarnopil, Ukraine. July 10, 1941.Wikimedia Commons 6 of 33Convicts sleep inside of a sod-covered house in a Siberian gulag.
Siberia, USSR. Date unspecified.Library of Congress 7 of 33Posters of Stalin and Marx gaze down at the prisoners inside of their sleeping quarters.
USSR. Circa 1936-1937.New York Public Library 8 of 33Prisoners at work building the White Sea–Baltic Canal, one of the first major projects in the Soviet Union made entirely through slave labor.
12,000 people died while working in the harsh conditions at the canal.
USSR. 1932.Wikimedia Commons 9 of 33The chiefs of the gulags. These men were responsible for forcing more than 100,000 prisoners to work.
USSR. July 1932Wikimedia Commons 10 of 33Prisoners in a Soviet gulag dig a ditch while a guard looks on.
USSR. Circa 1936-1937.New York Public Library 11 of 33Stalin comes out to inspect the progress on the Moscow Canal, which is being built by imprisoned workers.
Moscow, USSR. April 22, 1937.Wikimedia Commons 12 of 33A gold mine that, during Stalin’s reign, was worked through prison labor.
Magadan, USSR. August 20, 1978.Wikimedia Commons 13 of 33Philosopher Pavel Florensky after being arrested for “agitation against the Soviet system.”
Florensky was sentenced to ten years of labor in Stalin’s gulags. He would not serve the full ten years. Three years after this picture was taken, he was dragged out into the woods and shot.
USSR. February 27, 1933.Wikimedia Commons 14 of 33The directors of the gulag camps gather together to celebrate their work.
USSR. May 1, 1934.Wikimedia Commons 15 of 33Two Lithuanian political prisoners get ready to go to work in a coal mine.
Inta, USSR. 1955.Wikimedia Commons 16 of 33The crude lodgings that host a group of prisoners in one of Stalin’s gulags.
USSR. Circa 1936-1937.New York Public Library 17 of 33Prisoners at work operating a machine inside of a gulag.
USSR. Circa 1936-1937.New York Public Library 18 of 33Prisoners at work on the White Sea-Baltic Canal.
USSR. Circa 1930-1933.Wikimedia Commons 19 of 33Prisoners hammer away at the rocks in the White Sea–Baltic Canal.
USSR. Circa 1930-1933.Wikimedia Commons 20 of 33Yuriy Tyutyunnyk, a Ukrainian General who fought against the Soviets in the Ukrainian -Soviet War.
Tyutyunnyk was allowed to live in Soviet Ukraine after the war — until 1929, when Soviet policies changed. He was arrested, taken to Moscow, imprisoned, and killed.
USSR. 1929.Wikimedia Commons 21 of 33Prisoners transport lead-zinc ore.
Vaygach Island, USSR. Circa 1931-1932.Wikimedia Commons 22 of 33Prisoners digging clay for the brickyard.
Solovki Island, USSR. Circa 1924-1925.Wikimedia Commons 23 of 33Officials look over their laborers, at work on the Moscow Canal.
Moscow, USSR. September 3, 1935. Wikimedia Commons 24 of 33A “penal insulator” inside of a gulag.
Vorkuta, USSR. 1945.Wikimedia Commons 25 of 33Stalin and his men inspect the work on the Moscow-Volga Canal.
Moscow, USSR. Circa 1932-1937.Wikimedia Commons 26 of 33Gulag prisoners forced to work on a mine overseen by the USSR’s secret police.
Vaygach Island, USSR. 1933.Wikimedia Commons 27 of 33Prisoners at work in a gulag pause for a moment’s rest.
USSR. Circa 1936-1937.New York Public Library 28 of 33A guard shakes hands with a prisoner, at work cutting down lumber.
USSR. Circa 1936-1937.New York Public Library 29 of 33Guards walk through a gulag during an inspection.
USSR. Circa 1936-1937.New York Public Library 30 of 33The prison photo and papers of Jacques Rossi, a political prisoner arrested for his connections to revolutionary leader Leon Trotsky, hang on the wall of a gulag.
Norillag, USSR.Wikimedia Commons 31 of 33Men at work on the Koylma Highway.
The route would come to be known as the “Road of Bones” because the skeletons of the men who died building it were used in its foundation.
USSR. Circa 1932-1940.Wikimedia Commons 32 of 33Colonel Stepan Garanin, at one time the chief of the Kolyma Force Labor Camps, prepares for his new life as a prisoner.
USSR. Circa 1937-1938.Wikimedia Commons 33 of 33Like this gallery?Share it:
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32 Disturbing Photos Of Life Inside Soviet Gulag Prisons View Gallery
The History Of The Gulags
The history of forced labor camps in Russia is a long one. Early examples of a labor-based penal system date back to the Russian empire, when the tsar instituted the first “katorga” camps in the 17th century.
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1 of 33Young boys in a gulag stare at the cameraman from their beds.
Molotov, USSR. Date unspecified.David Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies 2 of 33A miner who died working in a forced labor camp is put to rest under the ground.
Vaygach Island, USSR. 1931.Wikimedia Commons 3 of 33Polish families are deported to Siberia as part of the Soviet Union’s relocation plan.
Influential families in conquered states would often be forced into labor to help systematically destroy their culture.
Poland. 1941.Wikimedia Commons 4 of 33Not every political prisoner was pushed into forced labor. Here, the bodies of thousands of Polish people lie dead in a mass grave.
Katyn, Russia. April 30, 1943.Wikimedia Commons 5 of 33The dead bodies of political prisoners, murdered by the secret police, lie inside of a prison camp.
Tarnopil, Ukraine. July 10, 1941.Wikimedia Commons 6 of 33Convicts sleep inside of a sod-covered house in a Siberian gulag.
Siberia, USSR. Date unspecified.Library of Congress 7 of 33Posters of Stalin and Marx gaze down at the prisoners inside of their sleeping quarters.
USSR. Circa 1936-1937.New York Public Library 8 of 33Prisoners at work building the White Sea–Baltic Canal, one of the first major projects in the Soviet Union made entirely through slave labor.
12,000 people died while working in the harsh conditions at the canal.
USSR. 1932.Wikimedia Commons 9 of 33The chiefs of the gulags. These men were responsible for forcing more than 100,000 prisoners to work.
USSR. July 1932Wikimedia Commons 10 of 33Prisoners in a Soviet gulag dig a ditch while a guard looks on.
USSR. Circa 1936-1937.New York Public Library 11 of 33Stalin comes out to inspect the progress on the Moscow Canal, which is being built by imprisoned workers.
Moscow, USSR. April 22, 1937.Wikimedia Commons 12 of 33A gold mine that, during Stalin’s reign, was worked through prison labor.
Magadan, USSR. August 20, 1978.Wikimedia Commons 13 of 33Philosopher Pavel Florensky after being arrested for “agitation against the Soviet system.”
Florensky was sentenced to ten years of labor in Stalin’s gulags. He would not serve the full ten years. Three years after this picture was taken, he was dragged out into the woods and shot.
USSR. February 27, 1933.Wikimedia Commons 14 of 33The directors of the gulag camps gather together to celebrate their work.
USSR. May 1, 1934.Wikimedia Commons 15 of 33Two Lithuanian political prisoners get ready to go to work in a coal mine.
Inta, USSR. 1955.Wikimedia Commons 16 of 33The crude lodgings that host a group of prisoners in one of Stalin’s gulags.
USSR. Circa 1936-1937.New York Public Library 17 of 33Prisoners at work operating a machine inside of a gulag.
USSR. Circa 1936-1937.New York Public Library 18 of 33Prisoners at work on the White Sea-Baltic Canal.
USSR. Circa 1930-1933.Wikimedia Commons 19 of 33Prisoners hammer away at the rocks in the White Sea–Baltic Canal.
USSR. Circa 1930-1933.Wikimedia Commons 20 of 33Yuriy Tyutyunnyk, a Ukrainian General who fought against the Soviets in the Ukrainian -Soviet War.
Tyutyunnyk was allowed to live in Soviet Ukraine after the war — until 1929, when Soviet policies changed. He was arrested, taken to Moscow, imprisoned, and killed.
USSR. 1929.Wikimedia Commons 21 of 33Prisoners transport lead-zinc ore.
Vaygach Island, USSR. Circa 1931-1932.Wikimedia Commons 22 of 33Prisoners digging clay for the brickyard.
Solovki Island, USSR. Circa 1924-1925.Wikimedia Commons 23 of 33Officials look over their laborers, at work on the Moscow Canal.
Moscow, USSR. September 3, 1935. Wikimedia Commons 24 of 33A “penal insulator” inside of a gulag.
Vorkuta, USSR. 1945.Wikimedia Commons 25 of 33Stalin and his men inspect the work on the Moscow-Volga Canal.
Moscow, USSR. Circa 1932-1937.Wikimedia Commons 26 of 33Gulag prisoners forced to work on a mine overseen by the USSR’s secret police.
Vaygach Island, USSR. 1933.Wikimedia Commons 27 of 33Prisoners at work in a gulag pause for a moment’s rest.
USSR. Circa 1936-1937.New York Public Library 28 of 33A guard shakes hands with a prisoner, at work cutting down lumber.
USSR. Circa 1936-1937.New York Public Library 29 of 33Guards walk through a gulag during an inspection.
USSR. Circa 1936-1937.New York Public Library 30 of 33The prison photo and papers of Jacques Rossi, a political prisoner arrested for his connections to revolutionary leader Leon Trotsky, hang on the wall of a gulag.
Norillag, USSR.Wikimedia Commons 31 of 33Men at work on the Koylma Highway.
The route would come to be known as the “Road of Bones” because the skeletons of the men who died building it were used in its foundation.
USSR. Circa 1932-1940.Wikimedia Commons 32 of 33Colonel Stepan Garanin, at one time the chief of the Kolyma Force Labor Camps, prepares for his new life as a prisoner.
USSR. Circa 1937-1938.Wikimedia Commons 33 of 33Like this gallery?Share it:
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Disturbing Photos Captured Inside The Jewish Ghettos Of The Holocaust
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1 of 33Young boys in a gulag stare at the cameraman from their beds.
Molotov, USSR. Date unspecified.David Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies 2 of 33A miner who died working in a forced labor camp is put to rest under the ground.
Vaygach Island, USSR. 1931.Wikimedia Commons 3 of 33Polish families are deported to Siberia as part of the Soviet Union’s relocation plan.
Influential families in conquered states would often be forced into labor to help systematically destroy their culture.
Poland. 1941.Wikimedia Commons 4 of 33Not every political prisoner was pushed into forced labor. Here, the bodies of thousands of Polish people lie dead in a mass grave.
Katyn, Russia. April 30, 1943.Wikimedia Commons 5 of 33The dead bodies of political prisoners, murdered by the secret police, lie inside of a prison camp.
Tarnopil, Ukraine. July 10, 1941.Wikimedia Commons 6 of 33Convicts sleep inside of a sod-covered house in a Siberian gulag.
Siberia, USSR. Date unspecified.Library of Congress 7 of 33Posters of Stalin and Marx gaze down at the prisoners inside of their sleeping quarters.
USSR. Circa 1936-1937.New York Public Library 8 of 33Prisoners at work building the White Sea–Baltic Canal, one of the first major projects in the Soviet Union made entirely through slave labor.
12,000 people died while working in the harsh conditions at the canal.
USSR. 1932.Wikimedia Commons 9 of 33The chiefs of the gulags. These men were responsible for forcing more than 100,000 prisoners to work.
USSR. July 1932Wikimedia Commons 10 of 33Prisoners in a Soviet gulag dig a ditch while a guard looks on.
USSR. Circa 1936-1937.New York Public Library 11 of 33Stalin comes out to inspect the progress on the Moscow Canal, which is being built by imprisoned workers.
Moscow, USSR. April 22, 1937.Wikimedia Commons 12 of 33A gold mine that, during Stalin’s reign, was worked through prison labor.
Magadan, USSR. August 20, 1978.Wikimedia Commons 13 of 33Philosopher Pavel Florensky after being arrested for “agitation against the Soviet system.”
Florensky was sentenced to ten years of labor in Stalin’s gulags. He would not serve the full ten years. Three years after this picture was taken, he was dragged out into the woods and shot.
USSR. February 27, 1933.Wikimedia Commons 14 of 33The directors of the gulag camps gather together to celebrate their work.
USSR. May 1, 1934.Wikimedia Commons 15 of 33Two Lithuanian political prisoners get ready to go to work in a coal mine.
Inta, USSR. 1955.Wikimedia Commons 16 of 33The crude lodgings that host a group of prisoners in one of Stalin’s gulags.
USSR. Circa 1936-1937.New York Public Library 17 of 33Prisoners at work operating a machine inside of a gulag.
USSR. Circa 1936-1937.New York Public Library 18 of 33Prisoners at work on the White Sea-Baltic Canal.
USSR. Circa 1930-1933.Wikimedia Commons 19 of 33Prisoners hammer away at the rocks in the White Sea–Baltic Canal.
USSR. Circa 1930-1933.Wikimedia Commons 20 of 33Yuriy Tyutyunnyk, a Ukrainian General who fought against the Soviets in the Ukrainian -Soviet War.
Tyutyunnyk was allowed to live in Soviet Ukraine after the war — until 1929, when Soviet policies changed. He was arrested, taken to Moscow, imprisoned, and killed.
USSR. 1929.Wikimedia Commons 21 of 33Prisoners transport lead-zinc ore.
Vaygach Island, USSR. Circa 1931-1932.Wikimedia Commons 22 of 33Prisoners digging clay for the brickyard.
Solovki Island, USSR. Circa 1924-1925.Wikimedia Commons 23 of 33Officials look over their laborers, at work on the Moscow Canal.
Moscow, USSR. September 3, 1935. Wikimedia Commons 24 of 33A “penal insulator” inside of a gulag.
Vorkuta, USSR. 1945.Wikimedia Commons 25 of 33Stalin and his men inspect the work on the Moscow-Volga Canal.
Moscow, USSR. Circa 1932-1937.Wikimedia Commons 26 of 33Gulag prisoners forced to work on a mine overseen by the USSR’s secret police.
Vaygach Island, USSR. 1933.Wikimedia Commons 27 of 33Prisoners at work in a gulag pause for a moment’s rest.
USSR. Circa 1936-1937.New York Public Library 28 of 33A guard shakes hands with a prisoner, at work cutting down lumber.
USSR. Circa 1936-1937.New York Public Library 29 of 33Guards walk through a gulag during an inspection.
USSR. Circa 1936-1937.New York Public Library 30 of 33The prison photo and papers of Jacques Rossi, a political prisoner arrested for his connections to revolutionary leader Leon Trotsky, hang on the wall of a gulag.
Norillag, USSR.Wikimedia Commons 31 of 33Men at work on the Koylma Highway.
The route would come to be known as the “Road of Bones” because the skeletons of the men who died building it were used in its foundation.
USSR. Circa 1932-1940.Wikimedia Commons 32 of 33Colonel Stepan Garanin, at one time the chief of the Kolyma Force Labor Camps, prepares for his new life as a prisoner.
USSR. Circa 1937-1938.Wikimedia Commons 33 of 33Like this gallery?Share it:
Share
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Disturbing Photos Captured Inside The Jewish Ghettos Of The Holocaust
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24 Photos Of Life Inside Ravensbrück, The Nazis’ Only All-Female Concentration Camp
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1 of 33Young boys in a gulag stare at the cameraman from their beds.
Molotov, USSR. Date unspecified.David Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies 2 of 33A miner who died working in a forced labor camp is put to rest under the ground.
Vaygach Island, USSR. 1931.Wikimedia Commons 3 of 33Polish families are deported to Siberia as part of the Soviet Union’s relocation plan.
Influential families in conquered states would often be forced into labor to help systematically destroy their culture.
Poland. 1941.Wikimedia Commons 4 of 33Not every political prisoner was pushed into forced labor. Here, the bodies of thousands of Polish people lie dead in a mass grave.
Katyn, Russia. April 30, 1943.Wikimedia Commons 5 of 33The dead bodies of political prisoners, murdered by the secret police, lie inside of a prison camp.
Tarnopil, Ukraine. July 10, 1941.Wikimedia Commons 6 of 33Convicts sleep inside of a sod-covered house in a Siberian gulag.
Siberia, USSR. Date unspecified.Library of Congress 7 of 33Posters of Stalin and Marx gaze down at the prisoners inside of their sleeping quarters.
USSR. Circa 1936-1937.New York Public Library 8 of 33Prisoners at work building the White Sea–Baltic Canal, one of the first major projects in the Soviet Union made entirely through slave labor.
12,000 people died while working in the harsh conditions at the canal.
USSR. 1932.Wikimedia Commons 9 of 33The chiefs of the gulags. These men were responsible for forcing more than 100,000 prisoners to work.
USSR. July 1932Wikimedia Commons 10 of 33Prisoners in a Soviet gulag dig a ditch while a guard looks on.
USSR. Circa 1936-1937.New York Public Library 11 of 33Stalin comes out to inspect the progress on the Moscow Canal, which is being built by imprisoned workers.
Moscow, USSR. April 22, 1937.Wikimedia Commons 12 of 33A gold mine that, during Stalin’s reign, was worked through prison labor.
Magadan, USSR. August 20, 1978.Wikimedia Commons 13 of 33Philosopher Pavel Florensky after being arrested for “agitation against the Soviet system.”
Florensky was sentenced to ten years of labor in Stalin’s gulags. He would not serve the full ten years. Three years after this picture was taken, he was dragged out into the woods and shot.
USSR. February 27, 1933.Wikimedia Commons 14 of 33The directors of the gulag camps gather together to celebrate their work.
USSR. May 1, 1934.Wikimedia Commons 15 of 33Two Lithuanian political prisoners get ready to go to work in a coal mine.
Inta, USSR. 1955.Wikimedia Commons 16 of 33The crude lodgings that host a group of prisoners in one of Stalin’s gulags.
USSR. Circa 1936-1937.New York Public Library 17 of 33Prisoners at work operating a machine inside of a gulag.
USSR. Circa 1936-1937.New York Public Library 18 of 33Prisoners at work on the White Sea-Baltic Canal.
USSR. Circa 1930-1933.Wikimedia Commons 19 of 33Prisoners hammer away at the rocks in the White Sea–Baltic Canal.
USSR. Circa 1930-1933.Wikimedia Commons 20 of 33Yuriy Tyutyunnyk, a Ukrainian General who fought against the Soviets in the Ukrainian -Soviet War.
Tyutyunnyk was allowed to live in Soviet Ukraine after the war — until 1929, when Soviet policies changed. He was arrested, taken to Moscow, imprisoned, and killed.
USSR. 1929.Wikimedia Commons 21 of 33Prisoners transport lead-zinc ore.
Vaygach Island, USSR. Circa 1931-1932.Wikimedia Commons 22 of 33Prisoners digging clay for the brickyard.
Solovki Island, USSR. Circa 1924-1925.Wikimedia Commons 23 of 33Officials look over their laborers, at work on the Moscow Canal.
Moscow, USSR. September 3, 1935. Wikimedia Commons 24 of 33A “penal insulator” inside of a gulag.
Vorkuta, USSR. 1945.Wikimedia Commons 25 of 33Stalin and his men inspect the work on the Moscow-Volga Canal.
Moscow, USSR. Circa 1932-1937.Wikimedia Commons 26 of 33Gulag prisoners forced to work on a mine overseen by the USSR’s secret police.
Vaygach Island, USSR. 1933.Wikimedia Commons 27 of 33Prisoners at work in a gulag pause for a moment’s rest.
USSR. Circa 1936-1937.New York Public Library 28 of 33A guard shakes hands with a prisoner, at work cutting down lumber.
USSR. Circa 1936-1937.New York Public Library 29 of 33Guards walk through a gulag during an inspection.
USSR. Circa 1936-1937.New York Public Library 30 of 33The prison photo and papers of Jacques Rossi, a political prisoner arrested for his connections to revolutionary leader Leon Trotsky, hang on the wall of a gulag.
Norillag, USSR.Wikimedia Commons 31 of 33Men at work on the Koylma Highway.
The route would come to be known as the “Road of Bones” because the skeletons of the men who died building it were used in its foundation.
USSR. Circa 1932-1940.Wikimedia Commons 32 of 33Colonel Stepan Garanin, at one time the chief of the Kolyma Force Labor Camps, prepares for his new life as a prisoner.
USSR. Circa 1937-1938.Wikimedia Commons 33 of 33Like this gallery?Share it:
Share
1 of 33Young boys in a gulag stare at the cameraman from their beds.
Molotov, USSR. Date unspecified.David Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies
2 of 33A miner who died working in a forced labor camp is put to rest under the ground.
Vaygach Island, USSR. 1931.Wikimedia Commons
3 of 33Polish families are deported to Siberia as part of the Soviet Union’s relocation plan.
Influential families in conquered states would often be forced into labor to help systematically destroy their culture.
Poland. 1941.Wikimedia Commons
4 of 33Not every political prisoner was pushed into forced labor. Here, the bodies of thousands of Polish people lie dead in a mass grave.
Katyn, Russia. April 30, 1943.Wikimedia Commons
5 of 33The dead bodies of political prisoners, murdered by the secret police, lie inside of a prison camp.
Tarnopil, Ukraine. July 10, 1941.Wikimedia Commons
6 of 33Convicts sleep inside of a sod-covered house in a Siberian gulag.
Siberia, USSR. Date unspecified.Library of Congress
7 of 33Posters of Stalin and Marx gaze down at the prisoners inside of their sleeping quarters.
USSR. Circa 1936-1937.New York Public Library
8 of 33Prisoners at work building the White Sea–Baltic Canal, one of the first major projects in the Soviet Union made entirely through slave labor.
12,000 people died while working in the harsh conditions at the canal.
USSR. 1932.Wikimedia Commons
9 of 33The chiefs of the gulags. These men were responsible for forcing more than 100,000 prisoners to work.
USSR. July 1932Wikimedia Commons
10 of 33Prisoners in a Soviet gulag dig a ditch while a guard looks on.
USSR. Circa 1936-1937.New York Public Library
11 of 33Stalin comes out to inspect the progress on the Moscow Canal, which is being built by imprisoned workers.
Moscow, USSR. April 22, 1937.Wikimedia Commons
12 of 33A gold mine that, during Stalin’s reign, was worked through prison labor.
Magadan, USSR. August 20, 1978.Wikimedia Commons
13 of 33Philosopher Pavel Florensky after being arrested for “agitation against the Soviet system.”
Florensky was sentenced to ten years of labor in Stalin’s gulags. He would not serve the full ten years. Three years after this picture was taken, he was dragged out into the woods and shot.
USSR. February 27, 1933.Wikimedia Commons
14 of 33The directors of the gulag camps gather together to celebrate their work.
USSR. May 1, 1934.Wikimedia Commons
15 of 33Two Lithuanian political prisoners get ready to go to work in a coal mine.
Inta, USSR. 1955.Wikimedia Commons
16 of 33The crude lodgings that host a group of prisoners in one of Stalin’s gulags.
USSR. Circa 1936-1937.New York Public Library
17 of 33Prisoners at work operating a machine inside of a gulag.
USSR. Circa 1936-1937.New York Public Library
18 of 33Prisoners at work on the White Sea-Baltic Canal.
USSR. Circa 1930-1933.Wikimedia Commons
19 of 33Prisoners hammer away at the rocks in the White Sea–Baltic Canal.
USSR. Circa 1930-1933.Wikimedia Commons
20 of 33Yuriy Tyutyunnyk, a Ukrainian General who fought against the Soviets in the Ukrainian -Soviet War.
Tyutyunnyk was allowed to live in Soviet Ukraine after the war — until 1929, when Soviet policies changed. He was arrested, taken to Moscow, imprisoned, and killed.
USSR. 1929.Wikimedia Commons
21 of 33Prisoners transport lead-zinc ore.
Vaygach Island, USSR. Circa 1931-1932.Wikimedia Commons
22 of 33Prisoners digging clay for the brickyard.
Solovki Island, USSR. Circa 1924-1925.Wikimedia Commons
23 of 33Officials look over their laborers, at work on the Moscow Canal.
Moscow, USSR. September 3, 1935. Wikimedia Commons
24 of 33A “penal insulator” inside of a gulag.
Vorkuta, USSR. 1945.Wikimedia Commons
25 of 33Stalin and his men inspect the work on the Moscow-Volga Canal.
Moscow, USSR. Circa 1932-1937.Wikimedia Commons
26 of 33Gulag prisoners forced to work on a mine overseen by the USSR’s secret police.
Vaygach Island, USSR. 1933.Wikimedia Commons
27 of 33Prisoners at work in a gulag pause for a moment’s rest.
USSR. Circa 1936-1937.New York Public Library
28 of 33A guard shakes hands with a prisoner, at work cutting down lumber.
USSR. Circa 1936-1937.New York Public Library
29 of 33Guards walk through a gulag during an inspection.
USSR. Circa 1936-1937.New York Public Library
30 of 33The prison photo and papers of Jacques Rossi, a political prisoner arrested for his connections to revolutionary leader Leon Trotsky, hang on the wall of a gulag.
Norillag, USSR.Wikimedia Commons
31 of 33Men at work on the Koylma Highway.
The route would come to be known as the “Road of Bones” because the skeletons of the men who died building it were used in its foundation.
USSR. Circa 1932-1940.Wikimedia Commons
32 of 33Colonel Stepan Garanin, at one time the chief of the Kolyma Force Labor Camps, prepares for his new life as a prisoner.
USSR. Circa 1937-1938.Wikimedia Commons
33 of 33Like this gallery?Share it:
Share
32 Disturbing Photos Of Life Inside Soviet Gulag Prisons View Gallery
32 Disturbing Photos Of Life Inside Soviet Gulag Prisons View Gallery
32 Disturbing Photos Of Life Inside Soviet Gulag Prisons View Gallery
32 Disturbing Photos Of Life Inside Soviet Gulag Prisons View Gallery
32 Disturbing Photos Of Life Inside Soviet Gulag Prisons
View Gallery
Katorga was the term for a judicial ruling that exiled the convicted to Siberia or the Russian Far East, where there were few people and fewer towns. There, prisoners would be forced to labor on the region’s deeply underdeveloped infrastructure — a job no one would voluntarily undertake.
But it was the government of Vladimir Lenin that transformed the Soviet gulag system and implemented it on a massive scale.
In the aftermath of the 1917 October revolution, Communist leaders found that there were a number of dangerous ideologies and people floating around Russia — and nobody knew how fatal an inspiring new ideology could be better than the leaders of the Russian Revolution.
They decided that it would be best if those who disagreed with the new order found somewhere else to be — and if the state could profit from free labor at the same time, all the better.
Publicly, they would refer to the updated katorga system as a “re-education” campaign; through hard labor, society’s uncooperative elements would learn to respect the common people and love the new dictatorship of the proletariat.
While Lenin ruled, there were some questions about both the morality and the efficacy of using forced labor to bring exiled workers into the Communist fold. These doubts didn’t stop the proliferation of new labor camps — but they did make progress relatively slow.
That all changed when Joseph Stalin took over after Vladimir Lenin’s death in 1924. Under Stalin’s rule, the Soviet gulag prisons became a nightmare of historic proportions.
Stalin Transforms The Soviet Gulag
The word “gulag” was born as an acronym. It stood for Glavnoe Upravlenie Lagerei, or, in English, Main Camp Administration.
Two factors drove Stalin to expand the gulag prisons at a merciless pace. The first was the Soviet Union’s desperate need to industrialize.
Though the economic motives behind the new prison labor camps have been debated — some historians feel economic growth was simply a convenient perk of the plan, while others think it helped to drive arrests — few deny that prison labor played a substantial role in the Soviet Union’s new ability to harvest natural resources and take on massive construction projects.
The other force at work was Stalin’s Great Purge, sometimes called the Great Terror. It was a crackdown on all forms of dissent — real and imagined — across the U.S.S.R.
As Stalin sought to consolidate his power, suspicion fell on party members, “rich” peasants called kulaks, academics, and anyone said to have murmured a word against the country’s current direction. In the purge’s worst days, it was enough to simply be related to a dissenter — no man, woman, or child was above suspicion.
In two years, some 750,000 people were executed on the spot. One million more escaped execution — but were sent to the gulags.
Daily Life In The U.S.S.R.’s Forced Labor Camps
In the forced labor camps, conditions were brutal. Prisoners were barely fed. Stories even came out saying that the inmates had been caught hunting rats and wild dogs, snagging any living thing they could find for something to eat.
While starving, they were worked literally to the bone, using usually outdated supplies to do intense manual labor. The Russian gulag system, instead of relying on expensive technology, threw the sheer force of millions of men with crude hammers at a problem. Inmates worked until they collapsed, often literally dropping dead.
These laborers worked on massive projects, including the Moscow–Volga Canal, the White Sea–Baltic Canal, and the Kolyma Highway. Today, that highway is known as the “Road of Bones” because so many workers died building it that they used their bones in the foundation of the road.
No exceptions were made for women, many of whom were only imprisoned because of the imagined crimes of their husbands or fathers. Their accounts are some of the most harrowing to emerge from the gulag prisons.
Women In The Gulag System
Though women were housed in barracks apart from the men, camp life did little to really separate the genders. Female prisoners were often the victims of rape and violence at the hands of both inmates and guards. Many reported the most effective survival strategy was to take a “prison husband” — a man who would exchange protection or rations for sexual favors.
If a woman had children, she would have to divide her own rations to feed them — sometimes as little as 140 grams of bread per day.
But for some of the female prisoners, simply being allowed to keep their own children was a blessing; many of the children in gulags were shipped to distant orphanages. Their papers were often lost or destroyed, making a reunion someday almost impossible.
After Joseph Stalin’s death in 1953, the zeal that had sent thousands to the gulag prisons every year faded. Nikita Khrushchev, the next to take power, denounced many of Stalin’s policies, and separate orders freed those imprisoned for petty crimes and political dissidents.
By the time the last Soviet gulag closed its gates, millions had died. Some worked themselves to death, some had starved, and others were simply dragged out into the woods and shot. It is unlikely the world will ever have an accurate count of the lives lost in the camps.
Though Stalin’s successors ruled with a gentler hand, the damage had been done. Intellectual and cultural leaders had been wiped out, and the people had learned to live in fear.
After reading about the gulag prisons of the Soviet Union, check out these photos of abandoned Soviet monuments and fascinating Soviet propaganda posters.
