Editing Gulag (section)

=== After World War II ===
<!-- Deleted image removed: [[File:Labor camp.jpg|thumb|Upper Debin Camp, painted by former prisoner [[Nikolai Getman]]]] -->
[[File:Transpolar Railway between Salekhard and Nadym.jpg|thumb| The [[Salekhard–Igarka Railway|Transpolar Railway]] was a project of the Gulag system that took place from 1947 to 1953.]]
After World War II, the number of inmates in prison camps and colonies sharply rose again, reaching approximately 2.5 million people by the early 1950s (about 1.7 million of whom were in camps).

When the war in Europe ended in May 1945, as many as two million former Russian citizens were [[Operation Keelhaul|forcefully repatriated into the USSR]].<ref>Mark Elliott. "The United States and Forced Repatriation of Soviet Citizens, 1944–47", ''Political Science Quarterly'', Vol. 88, No. 2 (June 1973), pp. 253–275.</ref> On February 11, 1945, at the conclusion of the [[Yalta Conference]], the United States and United Kingdom signed a Repatriation Agreement with the Soviet Union.<ref name="darkside">{{cite web|url=http://www.fff.org/freedom/0895a.asp |title=Repatriation – The Dark Side of World War II |publisher=Fff.org |access-date=January 6, 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120117182523/http://www.fff.org/freedom/0895a.asp |archive-date=January 17, 2012 }}</ref> One interpretation of this agreement resulted in the forcible repatriation of all Soviets. British and United States civilian authorities ordered their military forces in Europe to deport to the Soviet Union up to two million former residents of the Soviet Union, including persons who had left the Russian Empire and established different citizenship years before. The forced repatriation operations took place from 1945 to 1947.<ref name="forced">{{cite web|url=http://www.hillsdale.edu/news/imprimis/archive/issue.asp?year=1988&month=12 |title=Forced Repatriation to the Soviet Union: The Secret Betrayal |publisher=Hillsdale.edu |date=September 1, 1939 |access-date=January 6, 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120207142426/http://www.hillsdale.edu/news/imprimis/archive/issue.asp?year=1988&month=12 |archive-date=February 7, 2012 }}</ref>

Multiple sources state that [[German mistreatment of Soviet prisoners of war|Soviet POWs]], on their return to the Soviet Union, were treated as [[traitor]]s (see [[Order No. 270]]).<ref name="warlords">{{cite web|url=http://www.channel4.com/history/microsites/H/history/t-z/warlords1stalin.html |title=The warlords: Joseph Stalin |publisher=Channel4.com |date=March 6, 1953 |access-date=January 6, 2009}}</ref><ref name="remembrance">{{cite web|url=http://www.stsg.de/main/zeithain/geschichte/gedenken/index_en.php |title=Remembrance (Zeithain Memorial Grove) |publisher=Stsg.de |date=August 16, 1941 |access-date=January 6, 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080227000846/http://www.stsg.de/main/zeithain/geschichte/gedenken/index_en.php |archive-date=February 27, 2008 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.historynet.com/wars_conflicts/world_war_2/3037296.html |title=Soviet Prisoners of War: Forgotten Nazi Victims of World War II |publisher=Historynet.com |date=September 8, 1941 |access-date=January 6, 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080330210330/http://www.historynet.com/wars_conflicts/world_war_2/3037296.html |archive-date=March 30, 2008}}</ref> According to some sources, over 1.5 million surviving [[Red Army]] soldiers imprisoned by the Germans were sent to the Gulag.<ref name="sort">{{cite web|url=http://www.hoover.org/publications/digest/3063246.html |title=Sorting Pieces of the Russian Past |publisher=Hoover.org |date=October 23, 2002 |access-date=January 6, 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090218232551/http://www.hoover.org/publications/digest/3063246.html |archive-date=February 18, 2009 }}</ref><ref name="brutality">{{cite news|url=https://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/patriots-ignore-greatest-brutality/2007/08/12/1186857342382.html?page=2 |title=Patriots ignore greatest brutality |publisher=Smh.com.au |date=August 13, 2007 |access-date=January 6, 2009}}</ref><ref name="moreorless">{{cite web |url=http://www.moreorless.au.com/killers/stalin.html |title=Joseph Stalin killer file |publisher=Moreorless.au.com |date=May 23, 2001 |access-date=January 6, 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130803144222/http://www.moreorless.au.com/killers/stalin.html |archive-date=August 3, 2013}}</ref> However, that is a confusion with two other types of camps. During and after World War II, freed POWs went to special "filtration" camps. Of these, by 1944, more than 90 percent were cleared, and about 8 percent were arrested or condemned to penal battalions. In 1944, they were sent directly to reserve military formations to be cleared by the NKVD.

Furthermore, in 1945, about 100 filtration camps were set for repatriated ''[[Ostarbeiter]]'', POWs, and other displaced persons, which processed more than 4,000,000 people. By 1946, the major part of the population of these camps were cleared by NKVD and either sent home or conscripted (see table for details).<ref name="ZemscovRep">Земсков В.Н. К вопросу о репатриации советских граждан. 1944–1951 годы // История СССР. 1990. № 4 Zemskov V.N. On repatriation of Soviet citizens. Istoriya SSSR., 1990, No.4</ref> 226,127 out of 1,539,475 POWs were transferred to the NKVD, i.e. the Gulag.<ref name="ZemscovRep" /><ref>("Военно-исторический журнал" ("Military-Historical Magazine"), 1997, №5. page 32)</ref>
{| class="wikitable"
|+Results of the checks and the filtration of the repatriants (by March 1, 1946)'''<ref name="ZemscovRep" />'''
|-
!Category ||Total || % || Civilian|| % ||POWs || %
|-
|Released and sent home{{Efn|Including those who died in custody.}} || 2,427,906 || 57.81 || 2,146,126 || 80.68 || 281,780 || 18.31
|-
|Conscripted || 801,152 || 19.08 || 141,962 || 5.34 || 659,190 || 42.82
|-
|Sent to labor battalions of the Ministry of Defence || 608,095 || 14.48 || 263,647 || 9.91 || 344,448 || 22.37
|-
|Sent to NKVD as ''spetskontingent''{{Efn|''Special contingent''.}} (i.e. sent to GULAG) || 272,867 || 6.50 || 46,740 || 1.76 || 226,127 || 14.69
|-
|Were waiting for transportation and worked for Soviet military units abroad || 89,468 || 2.13 || 61,538 || 2.31 || 27,930 ||1.81
|-
|'''Total''' ||'''4,199,488''' || '''100''' || '''2,660,013''' || '''100''' || '''1,539,475''' || '''100'''
|}

After [[Nazi Germany]]'s defeat, [[NKVD special camps|ten NKVD-run "special camps"]] subordinate to the Gulag were set up in the [[Soviet Occupation Zone]] of [[Allied Occupation Zones in Germany|post-war Germany]]. These "special camps" were former [[Stalag]]s, prisons, or [[Nazi concentration camps]] such as [[Sachsenhausen concentration camp|Sachsenhausen]] ([[NKVD special camp Nr. 7|special camp number 7]]) and [[Buchenwald]] ([[NKVD special camp Nr. 2|special camp number 2]]). According to German government estimates "65,000 people died in those Soviet-run camps or in transportation to them."<ref>[https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0CE6D61131F937A1575AC0A964958260&sec=&spon=&scp=13&sq=Sachsenhausen&st=cse Germans Find Mass Graves at an Ex-Soviet Camp] New York Times, September 24, 1992</ref> According to German researchers, Sachsenhausen, where 12,500 Soviet era victims have been uncovered, should be seen as an integral part of the Gulag system.<ref>[https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A0CEFDA163EF934A25751C1A9679C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=1 Ex-Death Camp Tells Story Of Nazi and Soviet Horrors] New York Times, December 17, 2001</ref>
[[File:Magadan seen from mountain.jpg|thumb|During the Stalin era, [[Magadan]] was a major transit center for prisoners sent to the [[Kolyma]] camps.]]

Yet the major reason for the post-war increase in the number of prisoners was the tightening of legislation on property offences in summer 1947 (at this time there was a famine in some parts of the Soviet Union, claiming about 1 million lives), which resulted in hundreds of thousands of convictions to lengthy prison terms, sometimes on the basis of cases of petty theft or embezzlement. At the beginning of 1953, the total number of prisoners in prison camps was more than 2.4 million of which more than 465,000 were political prisoners.<ref name="gulag1" />
[[File:Political prisoners at Intalag, USSR.jpg|thumb|Political prisoners eating lunch in the [[Minlag]] "special camp" coal mine. In "special camps" prisoners had to wear prison garb with personal numbers.]]
In 1948, the [[MVD special camp|system of "special camps"]] was established exclusively for a "special contingent" of [[political prisoner]]s, convicted according to the more severe sub-articles of [[Article 58]] (Enemies of people): treason, espionage, terrorism, etc., for various real political opponents, such as [[Trotskyites]], "nationalists" ([[Ukrainian nationalism]]), [[white émigré]], as well as for fabricated ones.

The state continued to maintain the extensive camp system for a while after Stalin's death in March 1953, although the period saw the grip of the camp authorities weaken, and a number of conflicts and uprisings occur (''see'' [[Bitch Wars]]; [[Kengir uprising]]; [[Vorkuta uprising]]).

The [[amnesty of 1953]] was limited to non-political prisoners and for political prisoners sentenced to not more than {{awrap|5 years}}, therefore mostly those convicted for common crimes were then freed. The release of political prisoners started in 1954 and became widespread, and also coupled with mass [[rehabilitation (Soviet)|rehabilitations]], after [[Nikita Khrushchev]]'s denunciation of [[Stalinism]] in his [[Secret Speech]] at the 20th Congress of the [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union|CPSU]] in February 1956.

The ''Gulag'' institution was closed by the [[Ministry of Internal Affairs (Soviet Union)|MVD]] order No 020 of January 25, 1960,<ref name="memo">[[Memorial (society)|Memorial]] http://www.memo.ru/history/NKVD/GULAG/r1/r1-4.htm</ref> but forced labor colonies for political and criminal prisoners continued to exist. Political prisoners continued to be kept in one of the most famous camps [[Perm-36]]<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.russianmuseums.info/M3029 |title=The museum of history of political repressions "Perm-36" |access-date=October 29, 2013 |archive-date=September 2, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130902030729/http://www.russianmuseums.info/M3029 }}</ref> until 1987 when it was closed.<ref>{{cite web|title=Perm-36|url=https://www.wmf.org/project/perm-36|access-date=2020-11-11|website=World Monuments Fund}}</ref>

The Russian penal system, despite reforms and a reduction in prison population, informally or formally continues many practices endemic to the ''Gulag'' system, including forced labor, inmates policing inmates, and prisoner intimidation.<ref name=":0">{{cite news |url=https://www.economist.com/news/europe/21588130-russias-prison-colonies-resemble-old-soviet-camps-slave-labour-and-criminal-cultures |title=Slave labour and criminal cultures |newspaper=The Economist |date=October 19, 2013}}</ref>

In the late 2000s, some human rights activists accused authorities of gradual removal of Gulag remembrance from places such as [[Perm-36]] and [[Solovki prison camp]].<ref>{{cite web|title = Сюжеты о "Перми-36" на НТВ сочли "квазижурналистским пасквилем"|url = http://59.ru/text/newsline/892938.html|access-date = August 31, 2015|date = February 13, 2015}}</ref>

According to [[Encyclopædia Britannica]],
{{Blockquote|text=At its height the Gulag consisted of many hundreds of camps, with the average camp holding 2,000–10,000 prisoners. Most of these camps were "corrective labour colonies" in which prisoners felled timber, laboured on general construction projects (such as the building of canals and railroads), or worked in mines. Most prisoners laboured under the threat of starvation or execution if they refused. It is estimated that the combination of very long working hours, harsh climatic and other working conditions, inadequate food, and summary executions killed tens of thousands of prisoners each year. Western scholarly estimates of the total number of deaths in the Gulag in the period from 1918 to 1956 ranged from 1.2 to 1.7 million.<ref>{{cite web|title=Gulag {{!}} Definition, History, & Facts|url=https://www.britannica.com/place/Gulag|access-date=2021-02-18|website=Encyclopædia Britannica}}</ref>}}