Editing Gulag (section)

== Overview ==
[[File:Yagoda kanal Moskva Volga.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Genrikh Yagoda]] (middle) inspecting the construction of the [[Moscow Canal|Moscow-Volga canal]], 1935. Behind his right shoulder is [[Nikita Khrushchev]].]]
Some historians estimate that 14 million people were imprisoned in the Gulag labor camps from 1929 to 1953 (the estimates for the period from 1918 to 1929 are more difficult to calculate).<ref name="ConquestGRZ" /> Other calculations, by historian [[Orlando Figes]], refer to 25 million prisoners of the Gulag in 1928–1953.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Gulag Voices: Oral Histories of Soviet Incarceration and Exile|url=https://archive.org/details/gulagvoicesoralh00ghei_465|url-access=limited|last=J. Gheith, K. Jolluck|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan US|year=2011|isbn=978-0-230-61062-0|pages=[https://archive.org/details/gulagvoicesoralh00ghei_465/page/n23 3]|quote=Orlando Figes Estimates that 25 million people circulated through the Gulag system between 1928 and 1953}}</ref> A further 6–7 million were [[Population transfer in the Soviet Union#Timeline|deported and exiled]] to remote areas of the [[Soviet Union|USSR]], and 4–5 million passed through [[corrective labor colony|labor colonies]], plus {{awrap|3.5 million}} who were already in, or had been sent to, [[Forced settlements in the Soviet Union|labor settlements]].<ref name="ConquestGRZ">[[Robert Conquest|Conquest, Robert]]. 1997. "[http://sovietinfo.tripod.com/CNQ-Victims_Stalinism.pdf Victims of Stalinism: A Comment] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110927152248/http://sovietinfo.tripod.com/CNQ-Victims_Stalinism.pdf |date=September 27, 2011 }}." ''[[Europe-Asia Studies]]'' 49(7):1317–19, {{JSTOR|154087}}.
:''Quote:'' "We are all inclined to accept the Zemskov totals (even if not as complete) with their 14 million intake to Gulag 'camps' alone, to which must be added 4–5 million going to Gulag 'colonies', to say nothing of the 3.5 million already in, or sent to, 'labor settlements'. However taken, these are surely 'high' figures." There are reservations to be made. For example, we now learn that the Gulag reported totals were of capacity rather than actual counts, leading to an underestimate in 1946 of around 15%. Then as to the numbers 'freed': there is no reason to accept the category simply because the MVD so listed them, and, in fact, we are told of 1947 (when the anecdotal evidence is of almost no one released) that this category concealed deaths: 100000 in the first quarter of the year'"</ref>

According to some estimates, the total population of the camps varied from 510,307 in 1934 to 1,727,970 in 1953.<ref name="GRZ" /> According to other estimates, 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="gulag2"/><ref>{{Citation |last=Земсков |first=Виктор |title=ГУЛАГ (историко-социологический аспект) |date=1991 |work=Социологические исследования |volume=6 |issue=7 |url=https://scepsis.net/library/id_937.html |access-date=2024-06-22}}</ref> Between the years 1934 to 1953, 20% to 40% of the Gulag population in each given year were released.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Barnes |first1=Steven A. |title=Death and Redemption: The Gulag and the Shaping of Soviet Society |date=2011 |publisher=Princeton University Press |pages=71–72}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Alexopoulos |first1=Golfo |title=Amnesty 1945: The Revolving Door of Stalin's Gulag |journal=[[Slavic Review]] |date=Summer 2005 |volume=64 |issue=2 |pages=274–306|doi=10.2307/3649985 |jstor=3649985 |s2cid=73613155 }}</ref>

The [[institutional analysis]] of the Soviet concentration system is complicated by the formal distinction between GULAG and GUPVI. GUPVI (ГУПВИ) was the [[Main Administration for Affairs of Prisoners of War and Internees]] ({{lang|ru|Главное управление по делам военнопленных и интернированных}}, {{lang|ru-Latn|Glavnoye upravleniye po delam voyennoplennyh i internirovannyh}}), a department of NKVD (later MVD) in charge of handling of foreign [[civilian internee]]s and [[Prisoner of war|POWs]] (prisoners of war) in the Soviet Union during and in the aftermath of World War II (1939–1953). In many ways the GUPVI system was similar to GULAG.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.cgi?path=9539851382536|title=H-Net Reviews|access-date=December 27, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070627065714/http://h-net.org/reviews/showrev.cgi?path=9539851382536|archive-date=June 27, 2007}}</ref>

Its major function was the organization of foreign [[forced labor in the Soviet Union]]. The top management of GUPVI came from the GULAG system. The major memoir noted distinction from GULAG was the absence of convicted criminals in the GUPVI camps. Otherwise the conditions in both camp systems were similar: hard labor, poor nutrition and living conditions, and high mortality rate.<ref>[http://www.memo.ru/HISTORY/POLAcy/g_3.htm Репрессии против поляков и польских граждан<!-- Bot generated title -->] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141213064253/http://www.memo.ru/history/polacy/g_3.htm |date=December 13, 2014 }}</ref>

For the Soviet political prisoners, like [[Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn]], all foreign civilian detainees and foreign POWs were imprisoned in the GULAG; the surviving foreign civilians and POWs considered themselves prisoners in the GULAG. According to the estimates, in total, during the whole period of the existence of the GUPVI, there were over 500 POW camps (within the Soviet Union and abroad), which imprisoned over 4,000,000 POW.<ref>MVD of Russia: An Encyclopedia ({{lang|ru|МВД России: энциклопедия}}), 2002, {{ISBN|5-224-03722-0}}, p.541</ref> Most Gulag inmates were not political prisoners, although significant numbers of political prisoners could be found in the camps at any one time.<ref name="gulag2">{{cite web|url=http://publicist.n1.by/articles/repressions/repressions_gulag2.html |title=Repressions |publisher=Publicist.n1.by |access-date=January 6, 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080327005552/http://publicist.n1.by/articles/repressions/repressions_gulag2.html |archive-date=March 27, 2008 }}</ref>

Petty crimes and jokes about the Soviet government and officials were punishable by imprisonment.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://gulaghistory.org/nps/onlineexhibit/stalin/crimes.php |title=What Were Their Crimes? |publisher=Gulaghistory.org |access-date=January 6, 2009 |archive-date=November 5, 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071105114641/http://gulaghistory.org/exhibits/nps/onlineexhibit/stalin/crimes.php }}</ref><ref>Uschan, M. ''Political Leaders''. Lucent Books. 2002.</ref> About half of political prisoners in the Gulag camps were imprisoned "[[by administrative means]]", i.e., without trial at courts; official data suggest that there were over 2.6 million sentences to imprisonment on cases investigated by the secret police throughout 1921–53.<ref name="organy1">{{cite web|url=http://publicist.n1.by/articles/repressions/repressions_organy1.html |title=Repressions |publisher=Publicist.n1.by |access-date=January 6, 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080311080150/http://publicist.n1.by/articles/repressions/repressions_organy1.html |archive-date=March 11, 2008 }}</ref> Maximum sentences varied depending on the type of crime and changed over time. From 1953, the maximum sentence for petty theft was six months,<ref>{{cite book |last1=Daly |first1=Jonathan |title=Crime and Punishment in Russia A Comparative History from Peter the Great to Vladimir Putin |date=2018 |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing}}</ref> having previously been one year and seven years. Theft of state property however, had a minimum sentence of seven years and a maximum of twenty five.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Filtzer |first1=Donald |title=Soviet Workers and Late Stalinism Labour and the Restoration of the Stalinist System After World War II |date=2002 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |pages=28–9}}</ref> In 1958, the maximum sentence for any crime was reduced from twenty five to fifteen years.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Hardy |first1=Jeffrey S. |title=The Gulag After Stalin Redefining Punishment in Khrushchev's Soviet Union, 1953-1964 |date=2016 |publisher=Cornell University Press |page=124}}</ref>

In 1960, the [[Ministry of Internal Affairs (Soviet Union)|Ministerstvo Vnutrennikh Del]] (MVD) ceased to function as the Soviet-wide administration of the camps in favour of individual republic MVD branches. The centralised detention administrations temporarily ceased functioning.<ref>http://penpolit.ru/author-item+M5cd00dd4488.html {{Dead link|date=December 2011}}</ref><ref>[http://www.nwtc.edu/Archives/LaborCamps05-30.htm News Release: Forced labor camp artifacts from Soviet era on display at NWTC]  {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080828051139/http://www.nwtc.edu/Archives/LaborCamps05-30.htm |date=August 28, 2008 }}</ref>