Forced Labor in Soviet Russia

340 Pages·1947·15.746 MB·English

by  David J. Dallin, Boris I. Nicolaevsky

FORGED LABOR
IN
SOVIET RUSSIA
BY
DAVID J. DALLIN
AND
BORIS I. NICOLAEVSKY
NEW HAVEN
YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS
1947
BY DAVID J. DALLIN
Soviet Russia’s Foreign Policy, 1939-1942
Russia and Postwar Europe
The Real Soviet Russia
The Big Three. The United States, Britain, and Russia
Copyright, 1947, by Yale University Press
Printed in the United States of America
First published, August, 1947
Second printing, August, 1947
All rights reserved. This book may not be
reproduced, in whole or., in part, in any form
(except by reviewers for the public press),
without written permission from the publishers.
Contents
List of Maps and Documents viii
Preface ix
PART I: IN OUR TIME
I. The Corrective Labor Camps 3
Number and Classification of Prisoners 4
Material Conditions 6
KVCh and MVD 13
Relations among the Prisoners 15
Free Men and Prisoners 18
II. Eye-Witnesses Report on Forced Labor 20
A German Communist in Soviet Exile 23
The Ukhtizhm Camp 26
The Pechora Camp Cluster 27
A Zionist Leader in the Labor Camps 29
Life in the Labor Camps 34
III. Milder Forms of Forced Labor 40
Migrants and Settlers 42
Life in Exile 44
IV. How Many Camps and Prisoners? 49
The Growth of the Labor Camps 51
List of Corrective Labor Camps 62
The Number of Prisoners 84
V. The Essence of Forced Labor 88
No Capital Needed 89
Discipline 91
Slavery in Russia and Abroad 92
The Essence of Slave Labor 93
The United States 96
Germany and Soviet Russia 98
Nothing Is Impossible 99
The Waste of Human Beings 103
The Price of Slavery 105
VI. The Land of White Death 108
The Far East 108
vi Forced Labor in Soviet Russia
Gold in the Taiga 109
Soviet Argonauts 113
Into the Valley of Death 122
Reward a la Stalin 129
Magadan, Capital of the Slave Empire 132
The Price of Human Life 138
The Balance Sheet 144
PART II: THE ORIGIN AND GROWTH
OF FORCED LABOR IN RUSSIA
VII. The First Decade 149
The Great Tradition 154
The Great Disappointment 158
Labor as a Means of Education 163
VIII. “The Northern Camps of Special Designation” 168
The Solovki 168
The Journey to the Northern Camps 170
The Solovetski Camp and Its Inhabitants 173
Political Prisoners at Solovki 177
Hard Labor 181
Kem 185
Rapid Expansion 188
IX. The Great Upheaval (1928-1934) 191
The Turning Point 193
In Search of Labor 197
Rightist and Leftist Deviations 201
The Social Ladder 204
X. Forced Labor and the Five-Year Plans 206
The Labor Camps in the First Five-Year Plan 211
The Labor Camps in the Second Five-Year Plan 215
XI. World-Wide Resentment and Soviet Reply 217
Molotov, the Young Premier 222
The Battle of the Press 228
XII. Forced Labor in Operation 231
Music, Poetry, and Hard Labor 233
Intellectuals in the Camp 238
Hypocrisy at Its Peak 242
The Administrative Personnel 244
Contents vii
XIII.
The Swings of the Pendulum 249
Andrei Vyshinski, Henry Yagoda, and the Great Purge 249
No Mercy for the Enemies 253
The Third Five-Year Plan 259
XIV. (1940-1947)
The War and After 262
The Technique of Mass Deportation 265
The War 274
Russian Prisoners of War 281
Compulsory Repatriation to Forced Labor 290
XV.
The Reappearance of Old Russia? 299
Literature on Forced Labor in Russia 309
Index 321
Maps and Documents
The Corrective Labor Camps, 1930 53
The Network of Corrective Labor Camps, 1932 55
The Network of Corrective Labor Camps, !936 56 & 57
The Corrective Labor Camps, 1942 60
The Network of Corrective Labor Camps, J947 64 & 65
Reproductions of Original Documents from 32 Corrective
Labor Camps 74-83
Organizational Structure of the GULAG 209
Instructions of the NKVD 273
Preface
To understand Russia it is not enough to be able to enumerate
her rivers and mountain ranges, her nationalities and races, her
leaders and laws, her theories and traditions. To tell the story of
ancient Rome without referring to her slaves would show pro¬
found ignorance. To tell the story of Germany during the last
decade without mentioning the fate of the Jews would be out¬
right dishonesty. A picture of Russia today which does not in¬
clude a description of the system of labor camps and exile is not a
true picture; often it is deliberately misleading.
The forced labor system of Soviet Russia is not the invention
of a diabolic mind; neither is it a temporary anomaly nor a tumor
on the body easily removed. The system is an organic element, a
normal component, of the social structure. To understand this
phenomenon is an imperative for every intelligent man. This
book seeks to present the natural history of forced labor in Soviet
Russia: the first feeble experiments, the successes and failures, the
gradual development of the widely ramified system; the early
ideas, and the mutations in ideology from humanitarianism to
mercilessness.
At first every ugly incident of the past appears striking to the
point of being unbelievable; so it has been with the medieval
Inquisition, the head-hunt, and the ovens of Maidanek. Only
when considered in their evolution, from the small beginnings to
the massive culmination, do these phenomena assume perspective
and find their proper place in the sequence of historical forma¬
tions.
In the face of a resurgence of slavery in Stalin’s Russia the world
remains ignorant or skeptical, and usually silent. It knows of
purges and mock trials, mass persecutions and executions, but it
has not as yet realized the extent and significance of the use of
x Forced Labor in Soviet Russia
forced labor in the Soviet Union. It is high time to become aware
of the new social system which has arisen in the east during the
last seventeen years—a social system with novel and surprising
features, and which is as far removed from capitalist society as it
is from the Socialist pattern professed by the early builders of
Soviet Russia. What has emerged is a hierarchical society of
several distinct classes and a multitude of intermediate castes. The
entire structure, however, rests on a new foundation: the huge
class of forced laborers, a segment of mankind degraded to the
level of beasts of burden. It is this class which constitutes the lower
level of the social structure. Like a taproot, it conveys sap to the
higher layers of the edifice. Its individual cells perish with terrible
speed, and much of the government’s energy goes into filling the
gaps with a continuous supply of fresh human material.
This new type of society is the natural product of its basic ele¬
ments; no other outcome was possible. A chemical synthesis of
coal, hydrogen, sulphur, and chlorine produces the poisonous
mustard gas, which bears no resemblance to any of its elements.
A historical synthesis of unlimited state power, a universal state
economy, and militant proselytism has produced the new type of
Soviet society. The former process is governed by laws of natural
science, the latter by laws of sociology.
There are people who believe that the Soviet state, while de¬
priving the individual of political rights, assures him “economic
democracy” and security and to that extent represents a “pro¬
gressive” form of social organization. How much mischief has
been wrought with this concept of “economic democracy”!
True, unemployment does not exist in Russia, and every citizen
has a job. But so did the serf and the slave. Unemployment was
virtually nonexistent in Hitler’s Germany. If the Soviet system of
forced labor is progress, what is reaction? If the Soviet system is
“economic democracy,” what is slavery?
The successful extension of the Soviet sphere of influence to
include other nations of Europe and Asia marks the transplanta¬
tion of this new set of social relationships into these countries. As
soon as a nation is brought into political dependence on Moscow,
the giant from the east moves the complex pattern of its own
Preface xi
society across the border to serve as a model for the remolding of
its new satellite.
Forced labor as a major economic institution developed in
Russia as a combination of two elements—concentration camps
and compulsory labor. Throughout the ages, in a multitude of
countries, both elements have existed independently of one an¬
other. When combined and increased in extent, however, they
invariably produce the phenomenon which has now matured
in the Soviet Union. We can observe the two elements aris¬
ing, merging, and growing in all the nations which have fallen
into one of the Soviet spheres of influence. Here concentration
camps are being expanded to make room for all “socially danger¬
ous” groups of the population, and compulsory labor is being
introduced in each and every one of these countries. Unless the
process is checked, it cannot be long before in these countries,
too, the synchronized and synthesized elements will grow into a
monolithic systerfi of slave labor on a grand scale.
i
One of the main reasons why the “iron curtain” is essential to
the Soviet state, is the existence of the forced labor system. To
demand the removal of the “curtain” is to indulge in wishful
thinking. It would be easier for a camel to get through a needle’s
eye than for Stalin’s government to tear down the curtain. Soviet
Russia cannot afford to open the gates by abolishing control over
foreign correspondents and permitting them to mix with the
population, travel, observe, and report freely.
Nor is the average citizen within Russia well informed about
the labor camps and the system of exile. Every individual in the
Soviet Union lives within a series of curtains. Only minor items
pertaining to his own life are known to him—scattered details
which never permit of generalization and the drawing of mean¬
ingful conclusions. A recent arrival from Russia in this country
asked us to tell him “what is going on in Russia—for we don’t
know anything.” How could he? His newspapers and radio are
masterpieces of political drapery.
The Soviet press has never so much as mentioned the process of
compulsory “migration” of millions of men to the east and north,