Editing Gulag (section)

== History ==

=== Background ===
[[File:V.M. Doroshevich-Sakhalin. Part I. Prisoners on Steamship of Voluntary Fleet.png|thumb|Prisoners on a ship on their way to  [[Sakhalin]], remote prison island, c. 1903]]

The [[Tsardom of Russia|Tsar]] and the [[Russian Empire]] both used forced [[exile]] and [[forced labour]] as forms of judicial punishment. [[Katorga]], a category of punishment which was reserved for those who were convicted of the most serious crimes, had many of the features which were associated with labor-camp imprisonment: confinement, simplified facilities (as opposed to the facilities which existed in prisons), and forced labor, usually involving hard, unskilled or semi-skilled work. According to historian [[Anne Applebaum]], katorga was not a common sentence; approximately 6,000 [[katorga]] convicts were serving sentences in 1906 and 28,600 of them were serving sentences in 1916.<ref>Applebaum, Anne. ''Gulag: A History.'' Anchor, 2004, pp. xxxi</ref> Under the Imperial Russian penal system, those who were convicted of less serious crimes were sent to corrective prisons and they were also made to work.<ref>Jakobson, Michael. ''Origins of the Gulag''. E-book, The University Press of Kentucky, 2015, pp. 11</ref>

Forced exile to [[Siberia]] had been in use for a wide range of offenses since the seventeenth century and it was a common punishment for political dissidents and revolutionaries. In the nineteenth century, the members of the failed [[Decembrist revolt]] and [[Sybirak|Polish nobles who resisted Russian rule]] were sent into exile. [[Fyodor Dostoevsky]] was sentenced to die for reading banned literature in 1849, but the sentence was commuted to banishment to Siberia.  Members of various socialist revolutionary groups, including [[Bolsheviks]] such as [[Sergo Ordzhonikidze]], [[Vladimir Lenin]], [[Leon Trotsky]], and [[Joseph Stalin]] were also sent into exile.<ref>Applebaum, Anne. ''Gulag: A History.'' Anchor, 2004, pp. xxix–xxx</ref>

Convicts who were serving labor sentences and exiles were sent to the underpopulated areas of Siberia and the [[Russian Far East]] – regions that lacked towns or food sources as well as organized transportation systems. Despite the isolated conditions, some prisoners successfully escaped to populated areas. Stalin himself escaped three of the four times after he was sent into exile.<ref>Applebaum, Anne. ''Gulag: A History.'' Anchor, 2004, pp. xxxiii</ref> Since these times, Siberia gained its fearful connotation as a place of punishment, a reputation which was further enhanced by the Soviet GULAG system. The Bolsheviks' own experiences with exile and forced labor provided them with a model which they could base their own system on, including the importance of strict enforcement.

From 1920 to 1950, the leaders of the Communist Party and the Soviet state considered repression a tool that they should use to secure the normal functioning of the Soviet state system and preserve and strengthen their positions within their social base, the working class (when the Bolsheviks took power, peasants represented 80% of the population).<ref name="Земсков">{{cite journal|last=Земсков|first=Виктор|title=ГУЛАГ (историко-социологический аспект)|journal=Социологические исследования |year=1991|issue=6–7|url=http://scepsis.ru/library/id_937.html |access-date=August 14, 2011}}</ref>

In the midst of the [[Russian Civil War]], Lenin and the Bolsheviks established a "special" prison camp system, separate from its traditional prison system and under the control of the [[Cheka]].<ref>Applebaum, Anne. "Gulag: A History." Anchor, 2003, pp. 12</ref> These camps, as Lenin envisioned them, had a distinctly political purpose.<ref>Applebaum, Anne. "Gulag: A History." Anchor, 2003, pp. 5</ref> These early camps of the GULAG system were introduced in order to isolate and eliminate class-alien, socially dangerous, disruptive, suspicious, and other disloyal elements, whose deeds and thoughts were not contributing to the strengthening of the [[dictatorship of the proletariat]].<ref name="Земсков" />

Forced labor as a "method of reeducation" was applied in the [[Solovki prison camp]] as early as the 1920s,<ref name="ApplebaumChapter3">Applebaum, "Gulag: A History", Chapter 3</ref> based on Trotsky's experiments with forced labor camps for Czech war prisoners from 1918 and his proposals to introduce "compulsory labor service" voiced in ''[[Terrorism and Communism]]''.<ref name="ApplebaumChapter3" /><ref>"The only way to attract the labor power necessary for our economic problems is to introduce compulsory labor service", in: {{cite web|title=Leon Trotsky: Terrorism and Communism (Chapter 8) |url=https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1920/terrcomm/ch08.htm |website=www.marxists.org |access-date=August 6, 2015 |first=Leon |last=Trotsky}}</ref> These concentration camps were not identical to the Stalinist or Hitler camps, but were introduced to isolate war prisoners given the extreme historical situation following [[World War I]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Krausz |first1=Tamás |title=Reconstructing Lenin: An Intellectual Biography |date=27 February 2015 |publisher=NYU Press |isbn=978-1-58367-449-9 |page=512 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=z23IBgAAQBAJ&dq=lenin+concentration+camps+stalinist+obviously&pg=PA512 |language=en}}</ref>

Various categories of prisoners were defined: petty criminals, POWs of the Russian Civil War, officials accused of corruption, sabotage and embezzlement, political enemies, dissidents and other people deemed dangerous for the state. In the first decade of Soviet rule, the judicial and penal systems were neither unified nor coordinated, and there was a distinction between criminal prisoners and political or "special" prisoners.

The "traditional" judicial and prison system, which dealt with criminal prisoners, were first overseen by The People's Commissariat of Justice until 1922, after which they were overseen by the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs, also known as the [[NKVD]].<ref>Jakobson, Michael. ''Origins of the Gulag.'' E-book, The University Press of Kentucky, pp. 52</ref> The Cheka and its successor organizations, the GPU or [[State Political Directorate]] and the [[OGPU]], oversaw political prisoners and the "special" camps to which they were sent.<ref>Applebaum, Anne. ''Gulag: A History.'' Anchor, 2004, pp. 12.</ref> In April 1929, the judicial distinctions between criminal and political prisoners were eliminated, and control of the entire Soviet penal system turned over to the OGPU.<ref>Applebaum, Anne. ''Gulag: A History.'' Anchor, 2003, pp. 50.</ref> In 1928, there were 30,000 individuals interned; the authorities were opposed to compelled labor. In 1927, the official in charge of prison administration wrote:

<blockquote>The exploitation of prison labour, the system of squeezing "golden sweat" from them, the organisation of production in places of confinement, which while profitable from a commercial point of view is fundamentally lacking in corrective significance – these are entirely inadmissible in Soviet places of confinement.<ref>[[David Dallin]] and [[Boris Nicolaevsky]], ''Forced Labor in Soviet Russia'', New Haven: Yale University Press, 1947, p. 153.</ref></blockquote>

The legal base and the guidance for the creation of the system of "corrective labor camps" ({{lang|ru|исправи́тельно-трудовые лагеря}}, {{lang|ru-Latn|Ispravitel'no-trudovye lagerya}}), the backbone of what is commonly referred to as the "Gulag", was a secret decree from the [[Sovnarkom]] of July 11, 1929, about the use of [[penal labor]] that duplicated the corresponding appendix to the minutes of the [[Politburo]] meeting of June 27, 1929.{{citation needed|date=April 2018}}<ref>{{Cite book |title=Transcripts from the Soviet Archives Volume III |publisher=Erdogan A |year=2021 |isbn=978-1-329-63144-1 |publication-date=February 9, 2021}}</ref>

One of the Gulag system founders was [[Naftaly Frenkel]]. In 1923, he was arrested for illegally crossing borders and smuggling. He was sentenced to 10 years' hard labor at [[Solovki prison camp|Solovki]], which later came to be known as the "first camp of the Gulag". While serving his sentence he wrote a letter to the camp administration detailing a number of "productivity improvement" proposals including the infamous system of labor exploitation whereby the inmates' food rations were to be linked to their rate of production, a proposal known as nourishment scale (шкала питания). This notorious you-eat-as-you-work system would often kill weaker prisoners in weeks and caused countless casualties. The letter caught the attention of a number of high communist officials including [[Genrikh Yagoda]] and Frenkel soon went from being an inmate to becoming a camp commander and an important Gulag official. His proposals soon saw widespread adoption in the Gulag system.<ref>Applebaum, Anne (2004). Gulag: a History of the Soviet Camps. London: Penguin Books., p. 52-53</ref>

After having appeared as an instrument and place for isolating counter-revolutionary and criminal elements, the Gulag, because of its principle of "correction by forced labor", quickly became, in fact, an independent branch of the national economy secured on the cheap labor force presented by prisoners. Hence it is followed by one more important reason for the constancy of the repressive policy, namely, the state's interest in unremitting rates of receiving a cheap labor force that was forcibly used, mainly in the extreme conditions of the east and north.<ref name="Земсков" /> The Gulag possessed both punitive and economic functions.<ref name="Ellman">{{cite journal |last=Ellman |first=Michael |title=Soviet Repression Statistics: Some Comments |journal=Europe-Asia Studies |year=2002 |volume=54 |issue=2 |pages=1151–1172 |s2cid=43510161 |url=http://sovietinfo.tripod.com/ELM-Repression_Statistics.pdf |access-date=August 14, 2011 |doi=10.1080/0966813022000017177}}</ref>

=== Formation and expansion during Stalin's rule ===
The Gulag was an administrative body that watched over the camps; eventually, its name would retrospectively be used as a name for these camps. After [[Death and state funeral of Vladimir Lenin|Lenin's death in 1924]], Stalin was able to take control of the government, and he began to form the gulag system. On June 27, 1929, the [[Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Politburo]] created a system of self-supporting camps that would eventually replace the existing prisons around the country.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Khlevniuk|first1=Oleg|title=The History of the Gulag|date=2004|publisher=Yale University Press|location=New Haven|page=9}}</ref> Prisoners who received a prison sentence which exceeded three years were required to remain in these prisons. Prisoners who received a prison sentence which was shorter than three years were required to remain in the prison system that was still under the purview of the [[NKVD]].

The purpose of these new camps was to colonise the remote and inhospitable environments throughout the Soviet Union. These changes took place around the time when Stalin started to institute [[Collectivization in the Soviet Union|collectivization]] and rapid industrial development. [[Collectivisation in the Soviet Union|Collectivisation]] resulted in a large-scale [[purge]] of peasants and so-called [[Kulaks]]. In contrast to other Soviet peasants, the Kulaks were supposedly wealthy, and as a result, the state classified them as [[Capitalism|capitalists]], and by extension, it also classified them as [[Enemy of the people#Soviet Union|enemies of socialism]]. The term would also become associated with anyone who opposed or even seemed disssatisfied with the [[Government of the Soviet Union|Soviet government]].

By late 1929, Stalin launched a program which was known as ''[[dekulakization]]''. Stalin demanded the complete elimination of the kulak class, resulting in the imprisonment and execution of Soviet peasants. In just four months, 60,000 people were sent to the camps and 154,000 other people were exiled. However, this was only the beginning of the ''dekulakisation'' process. In 1931 alone, 1,803,392 people were exiled.<ref>{{cite book |last1=khlevniuk|first1=Oleg |title=The History of the Gulag|date=2004|publisher=Yale University Press|location=New Haven|page=11}}</ref>

Although these massive relocation processes were successful in transferring a large potential free forced labor work force to places where it was needed, that is about all it was successful in doing. All of the "[[Forced settlements in the Soviet Union|special settlers]]", as the Soviet government referred to them, lived on starvation level rations, and as a result, many people starved to death in the camps, and anyone who was healthy enough to escape tried to do just that. This situation forced the government to give rations to a group of people which it was hardly getting any use out of, and as a result, it was just costing the Soviet government money. The [[Joint State Political Directorate|Unified State Political Administration]] (OGPU) quickly discovered the problem, and in response, it began to reform the ''dekulakisation'' process.<ref name="The History of the Gulag">{{cite book |last1=Khlevniuk|first1=Oleg |title=The History of the Gulag|date=2004|publisher=Yale University Press|location=New Haven|page=17}}</ref>

In an attempt to prevent mass escapes from the colony, the OGPU started to recruit prisoners who lived inside it, and it also set up ambushes around popular escape routes. The OGPU also attempted to raise the living conditions in these camps in order to discourage people from actively trying to escape from them, and Kulaks were told that they would regain their rights in five years. Even these revisions ultimately failed to resolve the problem, and as a result, the ''dekulakisation'' process was a failure because it did not lead to the creation of a steady forced labor force for the government. These prisoners were also lucky to be in the gulag in the early 1930s. Prisoners were relatively well off compared to what the prisoners would have to go through in the final years of the gulag.<ref name="The History of the Gulag"/>
The Gulag was officially established on April 25, 1930, as the GULAG by the [[Joint State Political Directorate|OGPU]] order 130/63 in accordance with the [[Council of People's Commissars|Sovnarkom]] order 22 p.&nbsp;248 dated April 7, 1930. It was renamed as the GULAG in November of that year.<ref name="memo" />

The hypothesis that economic considerations were responsible for mass arrests during the period of Stalinism has been refuted on the grounds of former Soviet archives that have become accessible since the 1990s, although some archival sources also tend to support an economic hypothesis.<ref name="Jakobson">See, e.g. Jakobson, Michael. 1993. ''Origins of the GULag: The Soviet Prison Camp System 1917–34''. Lexington, Kentucky: [[University Press of Kentucky]]. p. 88.</ref><ref name="Ivanova">See, e.g. Ivanova, Galina M. 2000. ''Labor Camp Socialism: The Gulag in the Totalitarian System''. Armonk, New York: [[M. E. Sharpe]]. ch. 2.</ref> In any case, the development of the camp system followed economic lines. The growth of the camp system coincided with the peak of the Soviet [[industrialisation]] campaign. Most of the camps established to accommodate the masses of incoming prisoners were assigned distinct economic tasks.{{Citation needed|date=June 2013}} These included the exploitation of natural resources and the colonization of remote areas, as well as the realisation of enormous infrastructural facilities and industrial construction projects. The plan to achieve these goals with "[[Forced settlements in the Soviet Union|special settlements]]" instead of labor camps was dropped after the revealing of the [[Nazino affair]] in 1933.

The 1931–32 archives indicate the Gulag had approximately 200,000 prisoners in the camps; while in 1935, approximately 800,000 were in camps and 300,000 in colonies.<ref name=Kozlov /> Gulag population reached a peak value (1.5 million) in 1941, gradually decreased during the war and then started to grow again, achieving a maximum by 1953.<ref name="GRZ"/> Besides Gulag camps, a significant amount of prisoners, which confined prisoners serving short sentence terms.<ref name="GRZ"/>
[[File:USSR custodial population in 1934-53.png|thumb|The population of Gulag camps (blue) and Gulag colonies (red) in 1934–53.<ref name="GRZ"/>]]

In the early 1930s, a tightening of the Soviet penal policy caused a significant growth of the prison camp population.<ref>{{Cite book|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HYSGZs6mW5wC|title=Gulag: A History of the Soviet Camps|last=Applebaum|first=Anne|date=2012-08-02|publisher=Penguin Books Limited|isbn=978-0-14-197526-9|chapter=The Camps Expand}}</ref>

During the [[Great Purge]] of 1937–38, mass arrests caused another increase in inmate numbers. Hundreds of thousands of persons were arrested and sentenced to long prison terms on the grounds of one of the multiple passages of the notorious [[Article 58]] of the Criminal Codes of the Union republics, which defined punishment for various forms of "counterrevolutionary activities". Under [[NKVD Order No. 00447]], tens of thousands of Gulag inmates were executed in 1937–38 for "continuing counterrevolutionary activities".
 
Between 1934 and 1941, the number of prisoners with higher education increased more than eight times, and the number of prisoners with high education increased five times.<ref name="Земсков" /> It resulted in their increased share in the overall composition of the camp prisoners.<ref name="Земсков" /> Among the camp prisoners, the number and share of the intelligentsia was growing at the quickest pace.<ref name="Земсков" /> Distrust, hostility, and even hatred for the intelligentsia was a common characteristic of the Soviet leaders.<ref name="Земсков" /> Information regarding the imprisonment trends and consequences for the intelligentsia derive from the extrapolations of [[Viktor Zemskov]] from a collection of prison camp population movements data.<ref name="Земсков" /><ref>{{cite web|title=Таблица 3. Движение лагерного населения ГУЛАГа|url=http://scepsis.net/library/misc/id-937_table3.html}}</ref>

=== During World War II ===
==== Political role ====
On the eve of World War II, Soviet archives indicate a combined camp and colony population upwards of 1.6 million in 1939, according to V. P. Kozlov.<ref name="Kozlov">See, for example, Gulaga, Naselenie. 2004. " sobranie dokumentov v 7 tomakh." ''Istorija stalinskogo Gulaga: konec 1920-kh – pervaia polovina 1950-kh godov'', vol. 4, edited by V. P. Kozlov et al. Moskva: [[ROSSPEN]].</ref> [[Anne Applebaum]] and [[Steven Rosefielde]] estimate that 1.2 to 1.5 million people were in Gulag system's prison camps and colonies when the war started.<ref name="rosenf">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=L4s1H9v2yOwC&pg=PA95 |title=The Russian economy: from Lenin to Putin| first= Steven |last=Rosefielde|isbn=978-1-4051-1337-3|date=2007-02-12|publisher=Wiley }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=8fIfmxAs_T0C&pg=PA446 |title=Gulag: a history |first= Anne |last= Applebaum|isbn=978-0-7679-0056-0 |year=2003 |publisher=Doubleday }}</ref>

After the [[Invasion of Poland|German invasion of Poland]] that marked the start of World War II in Europe, the [[Soviet invasion of Poland|Soviet Union invaded and annexed eastern parts]] of the [[Second Polish Republic]]. In 1940, the Soviet Union occupied [[Estonia]], [[Latvia]], [[Lithuania]], [[Bessarabia]] (now the Republic of Moldova) and [[Bukovina]]. According to some estimates, hundreds of thousands of Polish citizens<ref>Franciszek Proch, Poland's Way of the Cross, New York 1987 P.146</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.projectinposterum.org/docs/poland_WWII_casualties.htm |title=Project In Posterum |publisher=Project In Posterum |access-date=December 19, 2011 |archive-date=November 14, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171114152931/http://www.projectinposterum.org/docs/poland_WWII_casualties.htm |url-status=dead }}</ref> and inhabitants of the other annexed lands, regardless of their ethnic origin, were arrested and sent to the Gulag camps. However, according to the official data, the total number of sentences for political and anti-state (espionage, terrorism) crimes in the USSR in 1939–41 was 211,106.<ref name="organy1"/>

Approximately 300,000 [[Polish prisoners of war in the Soviet Union (after 1939)|Polish prisoners of war]] were captured by the USSR during and after the [[Soviet invasion of Poland|"Polish Defensive War"]].<ref name="PWN_KW">[[Internetowa encyklopedia PWN|Encyklopedia PWN]] [http://encyklopedia.pwn.pl/33490_1.html 'KAMPANIA WRZEŚNIOWA 1939'] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050927194547/http://encyklopedia.pwn.pl/33490_1.html |date=September 27, 2005 }}, last retrieved on December 10, 2005, Polish language</ref> Almost all of the captured officers and a large number of ordinary soldiers were then murdered (see [[Katyn massacre]]) or sent to Gulag.<ref name="Chodakiewicz">{{cite book| author =Marek Jan Chodakiewicz | title =Between Nazis and Soviets: Occupation Politics in Poland, 1939–1947 | year =2004  | publisher =Lexington Books | isbn =978-0-7391-0484-2| author-link =Marek Jan Chodakiewicz }}</ref> Of the 10,000–12,000 Poles sent to [[Kolyma]] in 1940–41, most [[prisoners of war]], only 583 men survived, released in 1942 to join the [[Polish Armed Forces in the East]].<ref>{{cite news |url=http://my.telegraph.co.uk/beanbean/beanbean/4054641/A_Polish_life_5_Starobielsk_and_the_transSiberian_railway/ |title=A Polish life. 5: Starobielsk and the trans-Siberian railway |author=beanbean |date=May 2, 2008 |work=[[My Telegraph]] |access-date=May 8, 2012 |location=London |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140531104804/http://my.telegraph.co.uk/beanbean/beanbean/4054641/A_Polish_life_5_Starobielsk_and_the_transSiberian_railway/ |archive-date=May 31, 2014}}</ref> Out of [[Władysław Anders|General Anders]]' 80,000 evacuees from Soviet Union gathered in Great Britain only 310 volunteered to return to Soviet-controlled Poland in 1947.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.wajszczuk.v.pl/english/drzewo/czytelnia/michael_hope.htm |first=Michael |last=Hope |title=Polish deportees in the Soviet Union |publisher=Wajszczuk.v.pl |access-date=January 6, 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090408081337/http://www.wajszczuk.v.pl/english/drzewo/czytelnia/michael_hope.htm |archive-date=April 8, 2009}}</ref>

During the [[Great Patriotic War]], Gulag populations declined sharply due to a steep rise in mortality in 1942–43. In the winter of 1941, a quarter of the Gulag's population died of [[starvation]].<ref>[http://www.anneapplebaum.com/gulag-a-history/ GULAG: a History], Anne Applebaum</ref> 516,841 prisoners died in prison camps in 1941–43,<ref>Zemskov, ''Gulag'', Sociologičeskije issledovanija, 1991, No. 6, pp. 14–15.</ref><ref name="gulag1">{{cite web|url=http://publicist.n1.by/articles/repressions/repressions_gulag1.html |title=Repressions |publisher=Publicist.n1.by |access-date=January 6, 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090419222914/http://soviet-history.com/doc/prison/gulag_info1.php |archive-date=April 19, 2009 }}</ref> from a combination of their harsh working conditions and the famine caused by the German invasion. This period accounts for about half of all gulag deaths, according to Russian statistics.

In 1943, the term ''[[katorga]] works'' ({{lang|ru|каторжные работы}}) was reintroduced. They were initially intended for [[Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy|Nazi collaborators]], but then other categories of political prisoners (for example, members of [[Population transfer in the Soviet Union|deported peoples]] who fled from exile) were also sentenced to "katorga works". Prisoners sentenced to "katorga works" were sent to Gulag prison camps with the most harsh regime and many of them perished.<ref name="gulag1" />

==== Economic role ====
[[File:Central shop in Norilsk in 1957.jpg|thumb|Central shop in [[Norilsk]] built by prisoners of the [[Norillag]]]]
[[File:Logging at Small Ungut (no border).jpeg|thumb|Lithuanian deportees preparing logs for rafting on the [[Mana (Russia)|Mana River]]]]
Up until World War II, the Gulag system expanded dramatically to create a Soviet "camp economy". Right before the war, forced labor provided 46.5% of the nation's [[nickel]], 76% of its [[tin]], 40% of its [[cobalt]], 40.5% of its [[Chromite|chrome-iron ore]], 60% of its [[gold]], and 25.3% of its [[Lumber|timber]].<ref name="Ivanova: labor camps"/> And in preparation for war, the NKVD put up many more factories and built highways and railroads.

The Gulag quickly switched to the production of arms and supplies for the army after fighting began. At first, transportation remained a priority. In 1940, the NKVD focused most of its energy on railroad construction.<ref name=khlev>{{cite book | last= Khevniuk | first= Oleg V. |title= The History of the Gulag: From Collectivization to the Great Terror|year= 2004|publisher= Yale University Press|pages= 236–286}}</ref> This would prove extremely important when the German advance into the Soviet Union started in 1941. In addition, factories converted to produce ammunition, uniforms, and other supplies. Moreover, the NKVD gathered skilled workers and specialists from throughout the Gulag into 380 special colonies which produced tanks, aircraft, armaments, and ammunition.<ref name="Ivanova: labor camps">{{cite book|last= Ivanova|first= Galina Mikhailovna|title= Labor Camp Socialism: The Gulag in the Soviet Totalitarian System|year= 2000|publisher= Sharpe|location= Armonk, New York|pages= 69–126}}</ref>

Despite its low capital costs, the camp economy suffered from serious flaws. For one, actual productivity almost never matched estimates: the estimates proved far too optimistic. In addition, scarcity of machinery and tools plagued the camps and the tools that the camps did have quickly broke. The Eastern Siberian Trust of the Chief Administration of Camps for Highway Construction destroyed ninety-four trucks in just three years.<ref name="Ivanova: labor camps" /> But the greatest problem was simple – forced labor was less efficient than free labor. In fact, prisoners in the Gulag were, on average, half as productive as free laborers in the USSR at the time,<ref name="Ivanova: labor camps" /> which may be partially explained by malnutrition.

To make up for this disparity, the NKVD worked prisoners harder than ever. To meet rising demand, prisoners worked longer and longer hours, and on lower food-rations than ever before. A camp administrator said in a meeting: "There are cases when a prisoner is given only four or five hours out of twenty-four for rest, which significantly lowers his productivity." In the words of a former Gulag prisoner: "By the spring of 1942, the camp ceased to function. It was difficult to find people who were even able to gather firewood or bury the dead."<ref name="Ivanova: labor camps" />

The scarcity of food stemmed in part from the general strain on the entire Soviet Union, but also the lack of central aid to the Gulag during the war. The central government focused all its attention on the military and left the camps to their own devices. In 1942, the Gulag set up the Supply Administration to find their own food and industrial goods. During this time, not only did food become scarce, but the NKVD limited rations in an attempt to motivate the prisoners to work harder for more food, a policy that lasted until 1948.<ref name=ebacon>{{cite book|last= Bacon|first= Edwin|title= The Gulag at War: Stalin's Forced Labor System in the Light of the Archives|year= 1994|publisher= New York University Press|location= New York|pages= 42–63, 82–100, 123–144}}</ref>

In addition to food shortages, the Gulag suffered from labor scarcity at the beginning of the war. The [[Great Purge|Great Terror]] of 1936–1938 had provided a large supply of free labor, but by the start of World War II the purges had slowed down. In order to complete all of their [[project]]s, camp administrators moved prisoners from project to project.<ref name=khlev /> To improve the situation, laws were implemented in mid-1940 that allowed giving short camp sentences (4 months or a year) to those convicted of petty theft, hooliganism, or labor-discipline infractions. By January 1941, the Gulag workforce had increased by approximately 300,000 prisoners.<ref name=khlev /> But in 1942, serious food shortages began, and camp populations dropped again. The camps lost still more prisoners to the war effort as the Soviet Union went into a total war footing in June 1941. Many laborers received early releases so that they could be drafted and sent to the front.<ref name=ebacon />

Even as the pool of workers shrank, demand for outputs continued to grow rapidly. As a result, the Soviet government pushed the Gulag to "do more with less". With fewer able-bodied workers and few supplies from outside the camp system, camp administrators had to find a way to maintain production. The solution they found was to push the remaining prisoners still harder. The NKVD employed a system of setting unrealistically high production goals, straining resources in an attempt to encourage higher productivity. As the Axis armies pushed into Soviet territory from June 1941 on, labor resources became further strained, and many of the camps had to evacuate out of Western Russia.<ref name=ebacon />

From the beginning of the war to halfway through 1944, 40 camps were set up, and 69 were disbanded. During evacuations, machinery received priority, leaving prisoners to reach safety on foot. The speed of [[Operation Barbarossa]]'s advance prevented the evacuation of all prisoners in good time, and the NKVD [[NKVD prisoner massacres|massacred many to prevent them from falling into German hands]]. While this practice denied the Germans a source of free labor, it also further restricted the Gulag's capacity to keep up with the Red Army's demands. When the tide of the war turned, however, and the Soviets started pushing the Axis invaders back, fresh batches of laborers replenished the camps. As the Red Army recaptured territories from the Germans, an influx of Soviet ex-POWs greatly increased the Gulag population.<ref name=ebacon />

=== 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>}}