Editing Gulag (section)

== Conditions ==
Living and working conditions in the camps varied significantly across time and place, depending, among other things, on the impact of broader events (World War II, countrywide [[Droughts and famines in Russia and the USSR|famines]] and shortages, waves of terror, sudden influx or release of large numbers of prisoners) and the type of crime committed. Instead of being used for economic gain, [[political prisoner]]s were typically given the worst work or were dumped into the less productive parts of the gulag. For example [[Victor Herman]], in his memoirs, compares the {{ill|Burepolom|ru|Буреполом}} and the {{ill|Nuksha|ru|Нукша}} 2 camps, which were both near [[Kirov, Kirov Oblast|Vyatka]].<ref>[http://www.jamestown.org/getman_paintings.php?painting_id=29 The Gulag Collection: Paintings of Nikolai Getman]  {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071127121250/http://www.jamestown.org/getman_paintings.php?painting_id=29 |date=November 27, 2007 }}</ref><ref name=Thurston>{{cite book |last1=Thurston |first1=Robert W. |title=Life and Terror in Stalin's Russia, 1934–1941 |publisher=Yale University Press |pages=102–104}}</ref>

In Burepolom there were roughly 3,000 prisoners, all non-political, in the central compound. They could walk around at will, were lightly guarded, had unlocked barracks with mattresses and pillows, and watched western movies{{clarify|date=October 2022|reason=Western as in Western European/American or western as in the genre with cowboys?}}. However Nuksha 2, which housed serious criminals and political prisoners, featured guard towers with machine guns and locked barracks.<ref name="Thurston" /> In some camps prisoners were only permitted to send one letter a year and were not allowed to have photos of loved ones.<ref>{{cite web|date=2017-12-29|title=Stalin's legacy lives on in city that slaves built – archive, 1994|url=http://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/dec/29/stalin-russia-soviet-union-gulag-norilsk|access-date=2021-04-12|website=the Guardian}}</ref>

Some prisoners were released early if they displayed good performance.<ref name="Thurston" /> There were several productive activities for prisoners in the camps. For example, in early 1935, a course in livestock raising was held for prisoners at a [[Sovkhoz|state farm]]; those who took it had their workday reduced to four hours.<ref name="Thurston" /> During that year the professional theater group in the camp complex gave 230 performances of plays and concerts to over 115,000 spectators.<ref name="Thurston" /> Camp newspapers also existed.<ref name="Thurston" />

[[Andrei Vyshinsky]], chief procurator of the Soviet Union, wrote a memorandum to [[NKVD]] chief [[Nikolai Yezhov]] in 1938, during the [[Great Purge]], which stated:<ref>[[Jonathan Brent|Brent, Jonathan]]. 2008. "[https://web.archive.org/web/20090224230330/http://atlasandco.com/images/uploads/samples/pdf/InsideStalinArchives-web.pdf Introduction]." Pp. 1–18 in ''Inside the Stalin Archives: Discovering the New Russia.'' Atlas & Co. {{ISBN|0-9777433-3-0}}. Archived from the [http://atlasandco.com/images/uploads/samples/pdf/InsideStalinArchives-web.pdf original] on February 24, 2009. p. 12.</ref>

<blockquote>Among the prisoners there are some so ragged and lice-ridden that they pose a sanitary danger to the rest. These prisoners have deteriorated to the point of losing any resemblance to human beings. Lacking food…they collect orts [refuse] and, according to some prisoners, eat rats and dogs.</blockquote>

According to prisoner [[Yevgenia Ginzburg]], Gulag inmates could tell when Yezhov was no longer in charge as one day the conditions relaxed. A few days later Beria's name appeared in official prison notices.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Getty |first1=J. Arch |title=Origins of the Great Purges |date=1985 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |page=189}}</ref>

In general, the central administrative bodies showed a discernible interest in maintaining the labor force of prisoners in a condition allowing the fulfilment of construction and production plans handed down from above. Besides a wide array of punishments for prisoners refusing to work (which, in practice, were sometimes applied to prisoners that were too enfeebled to meet [[production quota]]), they instituted a number of positive incentives intended to boost productivity. These included monetary bonuses (since the early 1930s) and wage payments (from 1950 onward), cuts of individual sentences, general early-release schemes for norm fulfilment and overfulfilment (until 1939, again in selected camps from 1946 onward), preferential treatment, sentence reduction and privileges for the most productive workers ([[Udarnik|shock workers]] or [[Stakhanovite movement|Stakhanovites]] in Soviet parlance).<ref name="borodkin">[[Leonid Borodin|Borodkin, Leonid]], and Simon Ertz. 2005. "Forced Labor and the Need for Motivation: Wages and Bonuses in the Stalinist Camp System." ''Comparative Economic Studies'' 47(2):418–36.</ref><ref name=Thurston/>

Inmates were used as camp guards and could purchase camp newspapers as well as [[bond (finance)|bond]]s. [[Robert W. Thurston]] writes that this was "at least an indication that they were still regarded as participants in society to some degree."<ref name=Thurston/> Sports teams, particularly [[soccer|football]] teams, were set up by the prison authorities.<ref>Maddox, S. (2018). Gulag Football: Competitive and Recreational Sport in Stalin's System of Forced Labor. Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History, 19(3), 509–536.</ref>

[[File:Shack from Gulag - Museum of the Occupation of Latvia.JPG|thumb|A shack in a prison camp – a reconstruction in the [[Museum of the Occupation of Latvia]]. The number of prisoners confined to each shack is not stated]]

Boris Sulim, a former prisoner who had worked in the Omsuchkan camp, close to [[Magadan]], when he was a teenager stated:<ref>{{Cite book|last=Remnick|first=David|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dEvoAgAAQBAJ|title=Lenin's Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire|date=2014-04-02|publisher=Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group|isbn=978-0-8041-7358-2|page=425}}</ref>

<blockquote>I was 18 years old and Magadan seemed a very romantic place to me. I got 880 rubles a month and a 3000 ruble installation grant, which was a hell of a lot of money for a kid like me. I was able to give my mother some of it. They even gave me membership in the Komsomol. There was a mining and ore-processing plant which sent out parties to dig for tin. I worked at the radio station which kept contact with the parties. [...] If the inmates were good and disciplined they had almost the same rights as the free workers. They were trusted and they even went to the movies. As for the reason they were in the camps, well, I never poked my nose into details. We all thought the people were there because they were guilty.</blockquote>

Immediately after the [[Operation Barbarossa|German attack on the Soviet Union]] in June 1941 the conditions in camps worsened drastically: quotas were increased, rations cut, and medical supplies came close to none, all of which led to a sharp increase in mortality. The situation slowly improved in the final period and after the end of the war.

Considering the overall conditions and their influence on inmates, it is important to distinguish three major strata of Gulag inmates:

*''[[Kulak]]s'', ''[[osadnik]]s'', ''[[ukaznik]]s'' (people sentenced for violation of various [[ukase]]s, e.g. [[Law of Spikelets]], decree about work discipline, etc.), occasional violators of [[criminal law]]
*Dedicated criminals: "[[thieves in law]]"
*People sentenced for various [[political prisoner|political]] and religious reasons.

=== Gulag and famine (1932–1933) ===
The [[Soviet famine of 1932–1933]] swept across many different regions of the Soviet Union. During this time, it is estimated that around six to seven million people starved to death.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Khlevniuk|first1=Oleg|title=The History of the Gulag|date=2004|publisher=Yale University Press|location=New Haven|page=55}}</ref> On 7 August 1932, a new decree drafted by Stalin ([[Law of Spikelets]]) specified a minimum sentence of ten years or execution for theft from collective farms or of cooperative property. Over the next few months, prosecutions rose fourfold. A large share of cases prosecuted under the law were for the theft of small quantities of grain worth less than fifty rubles. The law was later relaxed on 8 May 1933.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/staff/mharrison/archive/persa/010fulltext.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170307204130/https://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/staff/mharrison/archive/persa/010fulltext.pdf |archive-date=2017-03-07 |url-status=live|title=Theft Under Stalin: A Property Rights Analysis|last=Gorlizki|first=Yoram |date=28 June 2001 |access-date=7 March 2017}}</ref> Overall, during the first half of 1933, prisons saw more new incoming inmates than the three previous years combined.

Prisoners in the camps faced harsh working conditions. One Soviet report stated that, in early 1933, up to 15% of the prison population in [[Soviet Uzbekistan]] died monthly. During this time, prisoners were getting around {{convert|300|Cal|kJ}} worth of food a day. Many inmates attempted to flee, causing an upsurge in coercive and violent measures. Camps were directed "not to spare bullets".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Khlevniuk|first1=Oleg |title=The History of the Gulag|date=2004|publisher=Yale University Press|location=New Haven|page=61}}</ref>

=== Social conditions ===
{{More citations needed section|date=February 2014}}

The convicts in such camps were actively involved in all kinds of labor with one of them being [[logging]]. The working territory of logging presented by itself a square and was surrounded by forest clearing. Thus, all attempts to exit or escape from it were well observed from the four towers set at each of its corners.

Locals who captured a [[Fugitive|runaway]] were given rewards.<ref>"[http://www.jamestown.org/aboutus/getmanpaintings/getmancatalog/ Nikolai Getman: The Gulag Collection] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120513172402/http://www.jamestown.org/aboutus/getmanpaintings/getmancatalog/ |date=May 13, 2012 }}"</ref> It is also said that camps in colder areas were less concerned with finding escaped prisoners as they would die anyhow from the severely cold winters. In such cases prisoners who did escape without getting shot were often found dead kilometres away from the camp.