Editing Gulag (section)

=== Archival documents ===
Statistical reports made by the [[OGPU]]–[[NKVD]]–[[Ministry for State Security (USSR)|MGB]]–[[Ministry of Internal Affairs (Soviet Union)|MVD]] between the 1930s and 1950s are kept in the [[State Archive of the Russian Federation]] formerly called Central State Archive of the October Revolution (CSAOR). These documents were highly classified and inaccessible. Amid [[glasnost]] and [[democratization]] in the late 1980s, [[Viktor Zemskov]] and other Russian researchers managed to gain access to the documents and published the highly classified statistical data collected by the OGPU-NKVD-MGB-MVD and related to the number of the Gulag prisoners, special settlers, etc. In 1995, Zemskov wrote that foreign scientists have begun to be admitted to the restricted-access collection of these documents in the State Archive of the Russian Federation since 1992.<ref name="К вопросу">{{cite journal |last=Земсков|first=Виктор|title=К вопросу о масштабах репрессий в СССР|journal=Социологические исследования|year=1995|issue=9|pages=118–127 |url=http://scepsis.ru/library/id_957.html|access-date=August 20, 2011}}</ref> However, only one historian, namely Zemskov, was admitted to these archives, and later the archives were again "closed", according to Leonid Lopatnikov.<ref name="Лопатников">{{cite journal |last=Лопатников|first=Леонид|title=К дискуссиям о статистике "Большого террора"|journal=Вестник Европы|year=2009|issue=26–27 |url=http://magazines.russ.ru/vestnik/2009/26/ll28.html|access-date=August 20, 2011}}</ref> Pressure from the [[Putin administration]] has exacerbated the difficulties of Gulag researchers.<ref>{{Cite news |last1=Nechepurenko |first1=Ivan |title=Born in Soviet Exile, They Might Die in a Russian One |work=[[The New York Times]] |date=2021-03-13 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/13/world/europe/russia-stalin-exile.html |issn=0362-4331 |quote=To ensure that the preferred version of history prevailed, the Kremlin has squeezed historians, researchers and rights groups that focus on gulag research and memory. }}</ref>

While considering the issue of reliability of the primary data provided by corrective labor institutions, it is necessary to take into account the following two circumstances. On the one hand, their administration was not interested to understate the number of prisoners in its reports, because it would have automatically led to a decrease in the food supply plan for camps, prisons, and corrective labor colonies. The decrement in food would have been accompanied by an increase in mortality that would have led to wrecking of the vast production program of the Gulag. On the other hand, overstatement of data of the number of prisoners also did not comply with departmental interests, because it was fraught with the same (i.e., impossible) increase in production tasks set by planning bodies. In those days, people were highly responsible for non-fulfilment of plan. It seems that a resultant of these objective departmental interests was a sufficient degree of reliability of the reports.<ref name="Репрессии">{{cite journal|last=Земсков|first=Виктор|title=Политические репрессии в СССР (1917–1990 гг.).|journal=Россия XXI|year=1994 |issue=1–2|pages=107–124|url=http://kob.rv.ua/doki-dai/dotu/other/zemskov/zemskov_politrepressii(1917-1990).pdf|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120330205748/http://kob.rv.ua/doki-dai/dotu/other/zemskov/zemskov_politrepressii(1917-1990).pdf|archive-date=March 30, 2012|access-date=August 17, 2011}}</ref>

Between 1990 and 1992, the first precise statistical data on the Gulag based on the Gulag archives were published by [[Viktor Zemskov]].<ref name="Rousso, Golsan">{{cite book|last1=Rousso|first1=Henry|author-link1=Henry Rousso|last2=Golsan|first2=Richard|title=Stalinism and nazism: history and memory compared|year=2004|publisher=U of Nebraska Press|isbn=978-0-8032-9000-6|page=92|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CIt7fMp30sAC&pg=PA92 }}</ref> These had been generally accepted by leading Western scholars,<ref name="ConquestGRZ" /><ref name=Ellman_SRS /> despite the fact that a number of inconsistencies were found in this statistics.<ref name= Vishnevsky /> Not all the conclusions drawn by Zemskov based on his data have been generally accepted. Thus, Sergei Maksudov alleged that although literary sources, for example the books of [[Lev Razgon]] or [[Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn]], did not envisage the total number of the camps very well and markedly exaggerated their size. On the other hand, Viktor Zemskov, who published many documents by the NKVD and [[KGB]], was far from understanding of the Gulag essence and the nature of socio-political processes in the country. He added that without distinguishing the degree of accuracy and reliability of certain figures, without making a critical analysis of sources, without comparing new data with already known information, Zemskov absolutizes the published materials by presenting them as the ultimate truth. As a result, Maksudov charges that Zemskov's attempts to make generalized statements with reference to a particular document, as a rule, do not hold water.<ref name="Максудов">{{cite journal|last=Максудов|first=Сергей|title=О публикациях в журнале "Социс"|journal=Социологические исследования|year=1995|issue=9|pages=114–118|url=http://scepsis.ru/library/id_956.html|access-date=August 17, 2011}}</ref>
[[File:Frenkel2.jpg|thumb|[[OGPU]] chiefs responsible for construction of the [[White Sea–Baltic Canal]], 1932: right: [[Naftaly Frenkel|Frenkel]]; center: [[Matvei Berman|Berman]]; left: Afanasyev (Head of the southern part of [[Belbaltlag]])]]

In response, Zemskov wrote that the charge that he allegedly did not compare new data with already known information could not be called fair. In his words, the trouble with most western writers is that they do not benefit from such comparisons. Zemskov added that when he tried not to overuse the juxtaposition of new information with "old" one, it was only because of a sense of delicacy, not to once again psychologically traumatize the researchers whose works used incorrect figures, as it turned out after the publication of the statistics by the OGPU-NKVD-MGB-MVD.<ref name="К вопросу" />

According to French historian [[Nicolas Werth]], the mountains of the materials of the Gulag archives, which are stored in funds of the [[State Archive of the Russian Federation]] and were being constantly exposed during the last fifteen years, represent only a very small part of bureaucratic prose of immense size left over after the decades of "creativity" by the "dull and reptile" organization managing the Gulag. In many cases, local camp archives, which had been stored in sheds, barracks, or other rapidly disintegrating buildings, simply disappeared in the same way as most of the camp buildings did.<ref name="Werth">{{cite journal|last=Werth|first=Nicolas|title=Der Gulag im Prisma der Archive. Zugänge, Erkenntnisse, Ergebnisse|url=http://dl.oe.dgo-online.org/issues/dl/0706de.pdf|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140109222749/http://dl.oe.dgo-online.org/issues/dl/0706de.pdf|archive-date=2014-01-09|journal=Osteuropa|date=June 2007|volume=57|issue=6|pages=9–30}}</ref>

In 2004 and 2005, some archival documents were published in the edition ''Istoriya Stalinskogo Gulaga. Konets 1920-kh — Pervaya Polovina 1950-kh Godov. Sobranie Dokumentov v 7 Tomakh'' (''The History of Stalin's Gulag. From the Late 1920s to the First Half of the 1950s. Collection of Documents in Seven Volumes''), wherein each of its seven volumes covered a particular issue indicated in the title of the volume:

# ''Mass Repression in the USSR'' (''Massovye Repressii v SSSR'');<ref>{{cite book|title=История сталинского Гулага. Конец 1920–х — первая половина 1950–х годов. Собрание документов в 7 томах. Том 1. Массовые репрессии в СССР|year=2004|publisher=Российская политическая энциклопедия|location=Москва|isbn=978-5-8243-0605-7}}</ref> 
# ''Punitive System. Structure and Cadres'' (''Karatelnaya Sistema. Struktura i Kadry'');<ref>{{cite book|title=История сталинского Гулага. Конец 1920–х — первая половина 1950–х годов. Собрание документов в 7 томах. Том 2. Карательная система. Структура и кадры|year=2004|publisher=Российская политическая энциклопедия|location=Москва|isbn=978-5-8243-0606-4}}</ref>
# ''Economy of the Gulag'' (''Ekonomika Gulaga'');<ref>{{cite book|title=История сталинского Гулага. Конец 1920–х — первая половина 1950–х годов. Собрание документов в 7 томах. Том 3. Экономика Гулага|year=2004|publisher=Российская политическая энциклопедия|location=Москва|isbn=978-5-8243-0607-1}}</ref>
# ''The Population of the Gulag. The Number and Conditions of Confinement'' (''Naselenie Gulaga. Chislennost i Usloviya Soderzhaniya'');<ref>{{cite book|title=История сталинского Гулага. Конец 1920–х — первая половина 1950–х годов. Собрание документов в 7 томах. Том 4. Население Гулага. Численность и условия содержания|year=2004|publisher=Российская политическая энциклопедия|location=Москва|isbn=978-5-8243-0608-8}}</ref>
# ''Specsettlers in the USSR'' (''Specpereselentsy v SSSR'');<ref>{{cite book|title=История сталинского Гулага. Конец 1920–х — первая половина 1950–х годов. Собрание документов в 7 томах. Том 5. Спецпереселенцы в СССР|year=2004|publisher=Российская политическая энциклопедия |location=Москва|isbn=978-5-8243-0608-8}}</ref>
# ''Uprisings, Riots, and Strikes of Prisoners'' (''Vosstaniya, Bunty i Zabastovki Zaklyuchyonnykh'');<ref>{{cite book|title=История сталинского Гулага. Конец 1920–х — первая половина 1950–х годов. Собрание документов в 7 томах. Том 6. Восстания, бунты и забастовки заключенных |year=2004|publisher=Российская политическая энциклопедия|location=Москва|isbn=978-5-8243-0610-1}}</ref> and
# ''Soviet Repressive and Punitive Policy. Annotated Index of Cases of the SA RF'' (''Sovetskaya Pepressivno-karatelnaya Politika i Penitentsiarnaya Sistema. Annotirovanniy Ukazatel Del GA RF'').<ref>{{cite book|title=История сталинского Гулага. Конец 1920–х — первая половина 1950–х годов. Собрание документов в 7 томах. Том 7. Советская репрессивно-карательная политика и пенитенциарная система. Аннотированный указатель дел ГА РФ|year=2005|publisher=Российская политическая энциклопедия|location=Москва|isbn=978-5-8243-0611-8}}</ref>

The edition contains the brief introductions by the two "patriarchs of the Gulag science", [[Robert Conquest]] and [[Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn]], and 1,431 documents, the overwhelming majority of which were obtained from funds of the State Archive of the Russian Federation.<ref name="Полян">{{cite journal|last=Полян|first=Павел|title=Новые карты архипелага ГУЛАГ|journal=Неприкосновенный запас|year=2006|volume=2|issue=46 |url=http://magazines.russ.ru/nz/2006/2/po32.html|pages=277–286|access-date=August 20, 2011}}</ref>