I guess some of you have visited a former German concentration camp.
But have you ever visited a former Soviet camp?
These camps were called the Gulag.
Under Soviet Union dictator Joseph Stalin millions of Soviet citizens have passed through
these camps and many have perished.
In this video you're going to learn about the history of the Gulag.
Here I am back at it again.
Hustling history on location for you.
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Let's start.
Already from the moment that the bolsheviks lead by Vladimir Lenin seized power after
the October Revolution camps to detain so-called enemies of the revolution where set up.
After the Russian Civil War, in 1923, the Solovki prison camp was set-up on an island
in the White Sea.
The enemies of the state where deported to this island where they faced hard labour in
freezing temperatures and where many of them would die.
This however was only the beginning.
In 1928 Joseph Stalin was in firm control over the Soviet Union.
His rival – Leon Trotsky – had been exiled.
He reversed the liberal policies of the NEP that allowed some free trade to take place
to make way for his hardline communist ideals.
He launched his 5 years plan.
A plan that strived rapid industrialization and the collectivization of agriculture.
Especially when it came down to the collectivization of agriculture, farmers were forced to join
other forces in so-called kolchozes.
It destabalized the archiculture and led to widespread famine in Ukraine, Southern Russia
and Kazachstan.
Millions of people perished and millions of other people hid their grain.
Those who where caught where labeled als kulaks, which means wealthy peasant.
It placed many people under arrest.
So when under arrest, three things could happen to you.
1) You could either be shot.
2) You could be exiled.
Whole families, heck, even whole peoples where deported.
For example the Crimean Tatars.
People where resettled on a large scale and had to continue their live on a remote, mostly
uninhabitable area of the Soviet Union.
3) You could be sentenced to labour in the Gulag.
Gulag is an abbreviation for this (Glavnoye upravleniye lagerey) and it's an acronym of
Main Administration of Camps (Hoofddirectoraat voor opvoedings- en werkkampen).
According to historian Anne Applebaum inside the Soviet Union 476 camp complex did exist.
Now when you hear concentration camp you might think of putting people in camps in order
to die.
Just like what Nazi Germany did to the people they considered to be of inferious races.
This isn't the case.
What was Stalin's idea behind the Gulag?
The Gulag can be considered as a part of the 5 year plan in that sense that its goal was
economical.
Gulag prisoners were used as slave labour for enormous projects.
One of this projects was the White Sea Canal that was constructed to connect the White
Sea and the Baltic Sea.
Inmates were given primitive working tools to work on this massive construction work.
The working conditions were abismal and between 12.000 – 250.000 prisoners died during its
construction.
Unique for this building project was that it was used as a piece of propaganda to show
the good results of the 5 year plan.
Most camps weren't shown to the public.
Some camps were totally out of reach since they were located above the arctic circle.
The mines of Kolyma and Vorkuta were notorious for it terrible working conditions.
I'm now at Perm-36 located near Perm in Russia.
A camp that was set up in 1946.
This camp is the only camp that is left from that time.
Keep watching because I will tell you why that is the case.
So in the early 1930s there was the first big wave of people sent to the Gulag.
Around 1937 when the Great Purge commensed a second wave of people followed.
During the period of the Great Purge, or Great Terror, many more people were sent to the
Gulag.
So what were people sentenced for?
Many people were sentenced after fabricated political charges.
Telling a joke about Stalin and you could be accused of being an enemy of the state.
Or arriving too late at work and you could be accused for sabotage or terrorism against
the state.
Or a neighbor that didn't like you and reported you at the autorities.
After your arrest you were interrogated.
After a sentence people were put into cattle cars and deported to the Gulag.
Because of the lack of food, water and protection against the elements many of these prisoners
– so-called Zeks – died along the way and were burried next to the railway tracks.
When arriving at the camp the zeks where washed and shaved.
And in many occasions camp uniforms were distributed.
Prisoners experienced this as some kind of initiation ritual where they were transformed
into anonymous beings.
After this they were selected for labour.
This here was a critical moment.
Anne Applebaum wrote the following
about it:
And then, working life began.
Food rations were low and the work was hard.
People died of sickness, malnutrition and exhaustion.
Camp guards where often severe and female captives could be victim of rape.
Not all camps where as bad as one another but generally speaking the circumstances were
terrible.
Now you might think only Soviet citizens shared this tragic fate.
People from many other nationalities served in the Gulag.
Think of Poles that were arrested after the Soviets took over Eastern Poland in 1939.
Or German and Japanese POW's of the Second World War.
Fins, Romanians and Hungarians also spent time in the camps.
Some Americans have ended up their as well.
After the Second World War another wave of mass arrest followed.
So how many people have sent to the Gulag?
According historian Anna Applebaum comes to a total of 28.7 million prisoners of which
around 2,7 millions have died.
These are disputed numbers.
This misery continued till 1953.
Then Stalin died and right after many people were released.
Many camps were closed and eventually removed.
As of today this former Gulag camp is the only one that is open for visitors.
And some Russian nationalists want to close this one as well to remove the dark traces
of their country's past.
Perhaps one day this camp won't be here either.