Between 1930 and 1953, according to NKVD’s own reports, more than a million and six hundred
thousand people perished in Soviet labor camps more commonly known as the Gulags. Consequently,
these were also the years when Joseph Stalin ruled the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics also
known as the Soviet Union with an iron fist. His reign of terror wasn’t just about taking people’s
lives but doing it slowly, perversely, and as excruciatingly as possible. Welcome to Nutty
History, and today let’s find out what punishment methods were employed by Joseph Stalin’s regime.
The Gulag was first established in 1919, and by 1921 the system had 84 camps.
But it wasn’t until Stalin’s rule that the prison population reached significant numbers. Anyone who
had ties to disloyal anti-Stalinists could be imprisoned. Even women and children endured the
harsh conditions of the camps. Camp prisoners often drudge through brutal weather, sometimes
facing sub-zero temperatures. Food rations were tight, and workdays were long. If prisoners didn’t
complete their work quotas, they received less food. They were also given crude, simple tools,
and no safety equipment. Some workers spent their days cutting down trees or digging at the frozen
ground with hand saws and pickaxes. Others mined coal or copper, and many had to dig up dirt with
their bare hands. But this was only the standard procedure of their work-life in the Gulag.
The Gulag's living conditions were cold, overcrowded, and unsanitary. Violence was
common among the camp inmates, who were made up of both hardened criminals and political prisoners.
More often than not this integration of various prisoners caused friction in the camps,
may it be in the canteen or at the table of playing cards. Gulag authorities had a fetish
for deploying their guerilla justice on these insolent inmates. Such prisoners were stripped
down and dragged out in the snow with their limbs bound together so they could only crawl like a
caterpillar to die a slow pain from hyperthermia. But for some reason, the sub-zero conditions were
not tormenting enough for gulag authorities and they wanted to prolong the condemned suffering.
The guards would lay the prisoner on the ice and douse them with their own warm golden showers so
hyperthermia would take longer to settle in and end the poor victim. It was gross and humiliating.
What happened behind the closed walls of the Gulag usually stayed secret within the Gulag,
but long after Gulags became a thing of the past, some unfortunate souls who were part of the ordeal
and survived to tell the tale dared to recall the atrocities. Danzig Baldaev, a retired Soviet
prison guard, shed light on the dark secrets of exploitations in the Gulag in his book “Drawings
from the Gulag.” The most chilling account was about the double standards of the Soviet
code of Humanism. While NKVD was known for their sadistic approach and playing the parts of judge,
jury, and executioner. They would deliver their own brand of punishment by beating,
public humiliation, extortion, etc. All of which violate the sanctity of humanity,
and ironically, they had a Soviet law of humanism. According to the laws of Soviet humanism,
only those who had a normal body temperature of 96 degrees Fahrenheit to 99 degrees Fahrenheit
could be shot. So, the only time gulag guards would grow a conscience and treat a prisoner
humanely was when they needed them to be fit enough to be shot down by the firing squad.
It was no different than feeding a turkey before slaughtering it on Thanksgiving Day.
Of course, as the Gulag was mostly the designated residential address of those who had rebellious
ideas of individuality, social welfare, and liberty, not every prisoner was happy about being
treated to health only to be put down to death. Such inmates found it difficult to curb their
rebelling spirit and would continue to protest inside the Gulag as well. For example, the hunger
strike was a popular method of protest among such prisoners whose health would deteriorate
,making themselves hard pills to swallow for the Gulag authorities. To break their hunger strike,
Gulag authorities would often resort to using excessive force. If beating and breaking their
bones or threatening their family proved insufficient, these on-strike prisoners were
forcefully fed food through their nostrils while they kicked and screamed in protest. The feeding
was just enough to bring their vitals back to normal, making them eligible for punishment.
During Stalin’s great purges, he tried to remove every person from the Soviet regime who could and
were voicing dissent at his leadership or posing a threat to it. The rich peasants called kulaks,
opposing members of the Communist Party, military officers and government officials were sent to
the Gulag if not terminated. Even educated people and ordinary citizens like doctors,
writers, intellects, students, artists, and scientists were designated the same fate by
Stalin’s regime. To either die quickly on the spot or live an excruciating life in the Gulag.
Within a short span of two years, some 750,000 people were executed on the spot. One million
more were sent to the Gulags. Soviet Intelligence Agencies had their own process of trying these
suspected counterrevolutionaries and anti-Soviet activists. The judgment was passed first, then
they were arrested, followed by the punishment and then they were tired after making sure the victim
had broken down to make a confession. NKVD staff used brutal punishment where victims were stripped
of their bottoms and forced to sit down with their bare rear on top of a heated bucket full of rats
trying to escape! Vasily Kovalyov who was one of the rare group of people to survive the Gulag also
mentioned how hungry dogs were released on them during investigations just for the authorities'
fun. People labeled as the enemy of the state could also be forced ‘unofficially’ to be drowned
in ‘parasha’, a barrel full of human excrements.’ Many times, during investigations, the victim's
head was wrapped with a rubber bag which made them bleed through the mouth, nose, and ears. The
Soviet regime under Stalin also didn’t shy away from using medieval methods such as strappado.
Women prisoners of the Gulags were stripped down during their checkup following their arrival at
the gulag so authorities can have a ‘good look’ at them. Those women who were chosen by authorities
as their personal slaves were offered less harsh labor work if they agreed to oblige to the demands
and whims of the authority that approached them. It was also mandatory to have women stripped
during interrogation to inflict psychological trauma as authorities would humiliate and degrade
them. Women who were not picked by any authority to be their personal slaves were sent to do the
harsh work of digging and logging only to die of exhaustion and starvation. Entire families
were arrested to get a confession from one person and they were forced to watch as authorities took
turns to punish their family members. They would also threaten to send the women of the family
to the cells of criminals and lowlifes where their integrity would be endangered. Those women
who denied the offer to be the personal slave of authority had the worst fate waiting for them.
These young women would be thrown to the dangerous ant hills or would be tied to the trees so ants
and other insects can eat them alive. They were also often bound in compromising positions for
additional humiliation. The grossest part of this tragedy is that it was often female authorities
that would carry out this punishment. Women were also traded as commodities by guards and there
was a high demand for women of foreign birth, mainly Germany, Poland, and from Baltic states.
The customers were the criminal kingpins who were treated better in the Gulags than the ‘enemy of
the state’ political prisoners. It was common for such kingpin criminals to own 2 to 3 women.
Victims were expected to leave their humanity outside on arriving at the gates of Gulags. The
new arrivals were addressed as septics and were watered with a fire hose from the guard tower.
Mind you the temperature would be around -30 degrees to -40 degrees Celsius. The water would
freeze on the bodies of fresh prisoners. Then they were forced to wait a long time before they would
be admitted inside. In the forced labor camps, conditions were brutal. Prisoners were barely fed.
Stories even came out saying that the inmates had been caught hunting rats and wild dogs,
snagging any living thing they could find for something to eat. Vasily Kovalyov was trapped
in mines in the Russian arctic as guards blocked all the entrances with grilles.
Kovalyov and other miners had to spend five months underground with food
that only lasted three months and they had to survive the rest of the days chewing
wood shavings. Sleep deprivation was quite popular among all Gulags and cells at certain
prisons were constructed with sloped floors. Guards could fill them with ice water whenever
the prisoners would fall asleep to keep them awake. They would also prohibit prisoners from
sitting down and were forced to walk up and down the cell to keep them from sleeping.
Many prisoners would take a step, fall asleep, take another and lose their balance, awaken and
catch themselves and turn around to repeat the process. According to inmates who survived the
ordeal and were released after Stalin’s death by his successor, Nikita Khrushchev, there were
a total of 52 kinds of punishment methods and devices implemented by the authorities at Gulags.
From Sukhanovka Swallow to Tallow-Boilers, these prisons were pits of incessant punishment.
We would hope for these punishments to have been forgotten but the rival counterpart of NKVD picked
up most of these methods and introduced them in the West where they became standard procedure
for intelligence punishments in the following decades. Tell us in the comments what other
period would you like us to cover in this series and as always thanks for watching Nutty History.