The Gulags have gone down in history as brutal and horrific places where millions were sent
inside the Soviet Union.
It was a place where there was a great degree of suffering, where many never came out from
such was the harsh conditions.
They operated from the 1920s up until after Stalin’s death, and at their height each
gulag camp held between 2000 to 10000 prisoners, and there were hundreds of labour camps.
The brutal treatment of prisoners often led to large scale deaths, through disease, starvation,
exhaustion and even some inside the gulags were executed.
They were an effective way of Stalin ensuring he had little dissent within his Soviet Union,
and they were used to strike fear into the hearts of the population.
Many who were sent to the gulags believed that they would rather have been shot immediately
by the NKVD, rather than experiencing the camps.
So join us today as we look at the BRUTAL executions inside of Stalin’s gulags.
Remember to support our channel please make sure to subscribe.
The gulag was first established in 1919, and within 2 years there were 84 camps opened.
They were set up initially by Lenin, however it was within the rule of Joseph Stalin that
the gulags were expanded to a huge extent.
Stalin saw the forced labour camps as an effective way of boosting industrialisation in the Soviet
Union, and as a way of accessing valuable resources such as coal and timber.
It was seen as a symbol of repression within the Soviet Union, and the prisons were meant
to receive prisoners that received a prison sentence longer than three years.
Prisoners who had a shorter sentence were to stay inside the normal prison system.
The first group of prisoners who found themselves at the camps were common criminals and also
prosperous peasants known as Kulaks.
Stalin by late 1929 began to pursue a policy of dekulakisation, and he wanted to wipe the
social class completely out.
These were supposedly wealthy, and were considered to have been capitalists by the state.
This policy and collectivisation forced peasant farmers to give up their individual farms
and join collective farming, and the kulaks who revolted against the fact they needed
to give their farms up often found themselves sent to the gulags.
The Kulaks were oppressed, and in four months 60,000 were sent to the camps and 154,000
had been driven out of the Soviet Union, but the numbers grew of displaced kulaks grew
into the millions.
The huge relocation process of transporting people to the gulags gave Stalin a free forced
labour work force who could be used for many different projects such as building railway
infrastructure and roads.
By 1932, the gulags had around 200,000 prisoners but within 3 years the number had quadrupled.
1.5 million people in 1941 were found imprisoned inside of them, and this caused a huge strain
on resources such as food and clothing.
Stalin is associated with the word Purge, and he sought to execute and imprison anyone
who dissented against him.
His largest attack on the population, the Great Purge carried out by the NKVD saw a
huge action against the people of the Soviet Union.
It’s estimated that during the action, up to 1.2 million people were killed by NKVD
firing squads and executioners, but also that there were well over 100,000 people killed
inside of the gulags who were sent there as a result of the purge.
The prison system was used as a way of dealing with those dissenters, and it was even used
during the Second World War.
As war broke out in Europe, 1.5 million were inside the camps when the war broke out, but
following the Soviet invasion and annexation of the Second Polish republic, scores of people
were sent there.
Also, when the Soviet Union occupied countries such as Latvia and Estonia, large numbers
of civilian populations were arrested and regardless of their ethnic origin sent to
the gulag camps.
During the conflict, many Nazi soldiers and officers also found themselves inside the
camps after the war broke out.
It’s estimated that over 50,000 Germans died inside Soviet run camps, but after Stalin’s
death, they began to be closed down.
But what was life really like inside of them?
The working and living conditions inside of the camps varied over time and also differed
depending on a number of things.
It depended on the location and climate of the area where the camp was, and also if there
were other events affecting the camp.
For example during World War 2, shortages were noted inside the camps as supplies were
diverted for the war effort.
Also the type of crime that a prisoner had committed was noted to have had a bearing
on the treatment they received and also the type of work they did.
Political prisoners were given the worst work allegedly.
Different camps had different expectations and rules, for example in one Burepolom, there
were 3000 non political prisoners who were lightly guarded, housed in beds with mattresses
and pillows and also were allowed to watch movies.
But other camps housing criminals and political prisoners were kept on lockdown a large amount
of time time, and guards patrolled with machine guns, and were unafraid of shooting prisoners
if needs be.
Most survivors of the gulags say the same things though, and talk of the horrific conditions.
It was said that medical care provided was substandard, and that there was a rhythm to
daily life, doing the same things each day.
Accidents regarding the work were common as were injuries, and there was a disparity between
the amount of food prisoners were given and the work they were doing.
Many were worked to death and were starved completing jobs such as mining, and often
diseases such as scurvy and dysentry was common.
The weather and conditions of many of the camps led to workers perishing in the freezing
cold inside of the harsh Russian winters.
Many men suffered with frostbite and many even froze to death as they were provided
with insufficient winter clothes.
One survivor wrote of his time, ‘In the cattle car, no provision had been made for
the Siberian Cold.
There was no light source in the dark, we had to take turns sleeping, it was crowded.
There wasn’t enough food, we didn’t have enough water.’
Add to they all the swearing, the quarrels sometimes fistfights and even thefts.
When I came down with angina, our group leader couldn’t get a doctor for me.
They used us for work in the camp, we hauled firewood.
I was sent outside the camp to work only twice.
It was hard to walk through snowstorms dressed in the clothes that you remember to cut wood
in them, and to haul logs to cap without any gloves.
The guards were strict, we melted and drank snow for as long as there was any, as we didn’t
have enough water.
At one point there wasn’t an infirmary.
Even when I had the flu and the fever, I could not get excused from work.
I am drawing on my last reserves of strength, given my health I am doomed.’
In some camps, prisoners were only allowed to send one letter a year, and they were not
allowed to have pictures of their family.
If a prisoner worked hard, they would sometimes be released early, but the conditions claimed
many lives.
It was said that, ‘amongst the prisoners, there are some so ragged and lice ridden that
they pose a danger to the rest.
These prisoners have deteriorated to the point of losing any resemblance to human beings.
Lacking food, according to prisoners some eat rats and dogs.
The authorities overseeing the camps couldn’t care less about the conditions of the prisoners,
and it was noted that after Operation Barbarossa and the German invasion of the Soviet Union
in 1941 that conditions inside the camps got a lot worse.
This caused a reduction in rations and medical supplies, and because of this many more prisoners
died.
The tools that prisoners were given to perform their jobs were often very poorly made and
were simple, which led to work being more difficult than it needed to be.
Also there was no safety equipment making work even more dangerous.
Some for example had to mine for copper using their bare hands scraping away the dirt.
Prisoners would also often cut their hands with their axes or burn them inside stoves
to try and avoid work and to get a break.
The working day was incredibly long and up to 14 hours, and if workers did not complete
their quotes they were given also less food.
The barrack buildings as mentioned were also very overcrowded, especially as the numbers
at the camp swelled, and violence between inmates was common.
Another inmate wrote of the hard work, ‘Sometimes you drag yourself along the path to the train
car with a cross tie on your shoulder, one that is heavy and made of larch wood.
You are drenched in sweat, your heart beats as if its about to jump out of your chest
you breathe so heavily you start to wheeze like an overheated horse, and you begin to
think.
Let me leg buckle, you’ll fall and the cross tie will come crashing down on you from above,
and that will be the end, no more suffering, everything will end forever.’
So some even contemplated ending their lives such as the tough work.
This led to huge scores of deaths inside of the gulags, and it was believed that once
you went into the work camps then you would never come out.
With regards to executions, those who caused trouble or rose up suffered a predictable
fate.
Any misbehaviour or sabotage was met with the same sentence, death where guards would
simply just shoot the prisoners with their rifles.
There were more sadistic guards that others who would shoot prisoners, but the main aim
was to force the prisoners into completing work which would please Stalin and benefit
the whole of the Soviet Union.
Executions would have been carried out by NKVD officers and executioners, or most probably
guards who were there to ensure that as much productivity was occurring as possible.
The true executions that occured inside the Gulags came from the virtual death sentences
handed out to people sent there due to the labour conditions and the conditions of the
gulags as a camp.
With regards to the number of people killed inside the Gulags, it’s been estimated that
between 2.3 million and 17.6 million perished inside the camps.
It was estimated that the Gulags had a 6 times higher than average mortality rate than anywhere
else in the Soviet Union, but some were even higher than that.
The number of actual people killed it’s believed will never be found out, as more
conservative estimates guess the number killed around 2-3 million.
There were 1.6 million certificates of death handed out by the Soviets following the passing
of a prisoner during their operation, and in particular in the war years and specifically
1942 and 1943 it was said that the mortality rate inside the camps was as high as 25%.
For every 4 prisoners inside the system, one would die within that year.
The true horrors of the gulags were uncovered long after they ceased to be used.
It’s only following the fall of the Soviet Union that the truth has come out regarding
them, but it’s likely that the huge scale of the operations will never be fully uncovered.
The Gulag system provided cheap labour for the Soviet Unions, and it’s mostly believed
that they had a rather insignificant effect on the Soviet economy, as the workers who
were poorly equipped and malnourished could not provide effective production results.
The true executioners inside of the Gulags were those who were in control of the conditions
inside, and possibly it’s believed that the true executioners were those higher up
inside the NKVD who oversaw the gulags.
Their disregard for the lives of the prisoners was the real death sentence, with the execution
of the prisoners being brought on not always by gunshot, but by the terrible conditions
at the camps.
The incredibly cold winter, a lack of suitable clothing, brutally difficult work, insufficient
tools, a alarming lack of food and water all acted as the gallows or the executioners block
for the prisoners of the gulags.
Once again thanks for watching.
To support our channel please make sure to subscribe.
Once again thanks for watching.