Gulag

by Anne Applebaum

  24. Juri Brodsky, p. 129.

  25. Tour guides on the Solovetsky Islands relate this story. It is also found in Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago, vol. II, pp. 37–38.

  26. Tsigankov, pp. 196–97.

  27. Likhachev, Kniga bespokoistv, p. 212.

  28. GARF newspaper and journal archives: SLON, vol. III, May 1924.

  29. Shiryaev, pp. 115–32; Likhachev, Kniga bespokoistv , pp. 201–5. Also books and journals in SKM.

  30. SLON, vol. III, May 1924 (GARF).

  31. Solovetskie Ostrova, vol. 12, December 1925 (SKM).

  32. Conversation with SKM director Tatyana Fokina, September 12, 1998. See also, for example, Solovetskie Ostrova, 1925, nos. 1–7; Solovetskie Ostrova, 1930, no. 1; or the bulletins of the Solovetskoe Obshchestvo Kraevedeniya, in the collection of the museum and the collection of AKB. See also Dryakhlitsin.

  33. Solovetskie Ostrova, vol. 9, September 1925, pp. 7–8 (SKM).

  34. Reznikova, pp. 46–47.

  35. Solovetskoi Lageram, vol. 3, May 1924 (SKM).

  36. Reznikova, pp. 7–36; Hoover, Melgunov Collection, Box 7, Folder 44.

  37. Nikolai Antsiferov, “Tri glavy iz vospominanii,” in Pamyat, vol. 4, pp. 75–76.

  38. Klinger, pp. 170–77.

  39. Ibid., pp. 200–1; Malsagov, pp. 139–45; Rozanov, p. 55; Hoover, Melgunov Collection, Box 7.

  40. Tsigankov, pp. 96–127; Hoover, Melgunov Collection, Box 7.

  41. Istoriya otechestvo v dokumentakh, Volume 2: 1921–1939 , pp. 51–52.

  42. Jakobson, pp. 70–102.

  43. Krasilnikov, “Rozhdenie Gulaga,” pp. 142–43. This is a collection of reprinted documents on the foundation of the Gulag, all of which come from the archives of the President of the Russian Federation, normally closed to researchers.

  44. NARK, 689/1/(44/465).

  45. NARK, 690/6/(2/9).

  46. RGASPI, 17/3/65.

  47. Okhotin and Roginsky, p. 18.

  48. Ivanova, Labor Camp Socialism, pp. 70–71.

  49. GAOPDFRK, 1051/1/1.

  50. Jakobson, p. 121, conversations in 1998 and 1999 with Nikita Petrov, Oleg Khlevnyuk, and Juri Brodsky. Solovki, the Italian edition of Brodsky’s book, does not mention Frenkel.

  51. For example, Klementev; S. G. Eliseev, “Turemny dnevnk,” in Uroki, pp. 30–32.

  52. Shiryaev, p. 138.

  53. Chukhin, Kanaloarmeetsi, pp. 30–31.

  54. Gorky, Belomor, pp. 226–28.

  55. GAOPDFRK, 1033/1/35.

  56. Duguet, p. 75.

  57. Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago, vol. II, p. 76.

  58. Malsagov, pp. 61–73.

  59. Shiryaev, pp. 137–38; Rozanov, pp. 174–91; Narinskii, Vremya tyazhkikh potryasenii, pp. 128–49.

  60. Rozanov, pp. 174–91; Shiryaev, pp. 137–48.

  61. Frenkel’s prisoner registration card, Hoover, St. Petersburg Memorial Collection.

  62. Chukhin, Kanaloarmeetsi, pp. 30–31; Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago, vol. II, p. 78.

  63. See “Posetiteli kabinetu I. V. Stalina,” Istoricheskii Arkhiv, no. 4, 1998, p. 180.

  64. Hoover, St. Petersburg Memorial Collection.

  65. NARK, 690/6/(1/3).

  66. Baron, pp. 615–21.

  67. NARK, 690/3/(17/148).

  68. Ibid.

  69. Kulikov, p. 99.

  70. GAOPDFRK, 1033/1/15.

  71. Nogtev, “USLON,” pp. 55–60; Nogtev, “Solovki,” 1926, pp. 4–5.

  72. Juri Brodsky, p. 75.

  73. Solovetsky’s deficit is cited in Khlevnyuk, “Prinuditelniy trud”; also GAOPDFRK, 1051/1/1.

  74. Baron, p. 624.

  75. GAOPDFRK, 1033/1/35.

  76. Juri Brodsky, p. 75.

  77. Ibid., p. 114.

  78. Ibid., p. 195.

  79. NARK, 690/6/(1/3).

  80. Chukhin, “Dva dokumenta.”

  81. Juri Brodsky, p. 115.

  82. Letters from Russian Prisons, pp. 183–88.

  83. Hoover, Fond 89, 73/32.

  84. Ibid., 73/34.

  85. Letters from Russian Prisons, pp. 218–20.

  86. Krasikov, p. 2.

  87. Letters from Russian Prisons, p. 215.

  88. Hoover, Fond 89, 73/34, 35, and 36.

  89. Hoover, Nicolaevsky Collection, Box 782; Melgunov Collection, Box 8.

  90. Hoover, Nicolaevsky Collection, Box 782, Folder 6.

  91. Ibid., Folder 1.

  92. Letters from Russian Prisons, p. 160.

  3: 1929: The Great Turning Point

  1. Stalin interviewed by Emil Ludwig, 1934, in Silvester, pp. 311–22.

  2. Likhachev, Kniga bespokoistv, pp. 183–89.

  3. Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago, vol. II, p. 63; Figes, pp. 400–5 and 820–21.

  4. Juri Brodsky, pp. 188–89.

  5. Likhachev, Kniga bespokoistv, pp. 183–89.

  6. Volkov, p. 168.

  7. Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago, vol. II; Khesto, p. 245.

  8. Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago, pp. 62–63; Khesto, pp. 243–54; Juri Brodsky pp. 185–88.

  9. Chukhin, Kanaloarmeetsi, p. 36.

  10. Gorky, Sobranie sochinenii, vol. XI, pp. 291–316. All Gorky quotes on Solovetsky come from this source.

  11. Khesto, pp. 244–45.

  12. Tolczyk, pp. 94–97. My interpretation of Gorky’s essay is based upon Tolczyk’s astute observations.

  13. Tucker, Stalin in Power, pp. 125–27.

  14. Payne, pp. 270–71.

  15. Tucker, Stalin in Power, p. 96.

  16. Sbornik, pp. 22–26.

  17. See accounts in Tucker, Stalin in Power, and Conquest, Stalin, as well as Getty and Naumov.

  18. See Conquest’s Harvest of Sorrow, still the most comprehensive English account of collectivization and the famine. Ivnitsky’s is an account that makes reliable use of archives. Like the exiles, the kulaks await their true chronicler.

  19. Ivnitsky, p. 115; Zemskov, “Spetsposelentsy,” p. 4.

  20. Getty and Naumov, pp. 110–12; Solomon, pp. 111–29.

  21. Jakobson, p. 120.

  22. Krasilnikov, “Rozhdenie Gulaga,” pp. 143–44.

  23. Ibid., pp. 145–46.

  24. Ibid., p. 145.

  25. Nordlander, “Capital of the Gulag.”

  26. Krasilnikov, “Rozhdenie Gulaga”; Jakobson, pp. 1–9.

  27. Jakobson, p. 120.

  28. Khlevnyuk, “Prinuditelniy trud”; Krasilnikov, Spetspereselentsy v zapadnoi Sibiri, vesna 1931 g.–nachalo 1933 g., p. 6.

  29. GARF, 5446/1/54 and 9401/1a/1; Jakobson, pp. 124–25.

  30. Harris.

  31. Jakobson, p. 143.

  32. See, for example, Kotkin, for a description of how plans for another Stalinist project—the Magnitogorsk steelworks, which had nothing to do with the Gulag—also went awry.

  33. Evgeniya Ginzburg, for example, received a nonworking prison sentence as late as 1936. See E. Ginzburg, Journey into the Whirlwind.

  34. Chukhin, Kanaloarmeetsi, p. 25.

  35. Tucker, Stalin in Power, p. 64.

  36. Quoted in Bullock, p. 374.

  37. Volkogonov, Stalin, pp. 127 and 148.

  38. Moynahan, photographs on pp. 156 and 157, for example.

  39. Tucker, Stalin in Power, p. 273.

  40. Jakobson, p. 121.

  41. Lih, Naumov, and Khlevnyuk, p. 211; also Krasilnikov, “Rozhdenie Gulaga,” pp. 152–54; Khlevnyuk, “Prinuditelniy trud.”

  42. Khlevnyuk, ibid., p. 74.

  43. Jakobson, p. 121.

  44. Khlevnyuk, “Prinuditelniy trud,” pp. 74–76; Jakobson, p. 121; Hoover, St. Petersburg Memorial Collection.

  45. There are many examples in Stalin’s “osobaya papka ” (personal file) in GARF, 9401/2. Delo 64 contains an extensive report on Dalstroi, for example.

  46. Nordlander, “Origins of a Gulag Capital,” pp. 798–800.

  47. Genrikh Yagoda, p. 434.

  48. Protocols of
the Politburo, RGASPI, 17/3.

  49. Volkogonov, Stalin, pp. 252, 308–9, and 519.

  50. GARF, 9401/2/199 (Stalin’s personal file).

  51. RGASPI, 17/3/746; Nordlander, “Capital of the Gulag.”

  52. Nordlander, ibid.

  53. Kaneva, p. 331.

  54. Okhotin and Roginsky, p. 34.

  55. Genrikh Yagoda, pp. 375–76.

  56. Terry Martin suggested this to me in an email exchange in June 2002.

  4: The White Sea Canal

  1. Cited in Baron, p. 638.

  2. Dallin and Nicolaevsky, pp. 218–19.

  3. Bateson and Pim.

  4. Dallin and Nicolaevsky, p. 219.

  5. Ibid., p. 221.

  6. Ibid., p. 220.

  7. Ibid., p. 220; Jakobson, p. 126.

  8. Dallin and Nicolaevsky, p. 220.

  9. GARF, 5446/1/54 and 9401/1a/1.

  10. GARF, 9414/1/2920.

  11. Jakobson, p. 127.

  12. Kitchin, pp. 267–70.

  13. Jakobson, pp. 127–28.

  14. GAOPDFRK, 26/1/41.

  15. Gorky, Belomor, (translation of Kanal imeni Stalina) , pp. 17–19.

  16. Ibid., p. 40.

  17. Lih, Naumov, and Khlevnyuk pp. 225 and 212.

  18. Makurov, p. 76. This is a collection of documents selected from the Karelian archives.

  19. Okhotin and Roginskii, p. 163.

  20. Baron, pp. 640–41; also Chukhin, Kanaloarmeesi.

  21. Makurov, p. 86.

  22. Gorky, Belomor, p. 173.

  23. Makurov, pp. 96 and 19–20.

  24. Baron, p. 643.

  25. Makurov, pp. 37 and 197.

  26. Ibid., pp. 43–44.

  27. Ibid., p. 197.

  28. Chukhin, Kanaloarmeetsi, p. 121.

  29. Makurov, pp. 19–20.

  30. Chukhin, Kanaloarmeetsi, p. 12.

  31. Makurov, pp. 72–73.

  32. Chukhin, Kanaloarmeetsi, pp. 127–31.

  33. Tolczyk, p. 152.

  34. Baranov, pp. 165–68.

  35. Gorky, Belomor, pp. 46 and 47.

  36. Ibid., pp. 158 and 165.

  37. Pogodin, pp. 109–83; Geller, pp. 151–57.

  38. Gliksman, p. 165.

  39. Ibid., pp. 173–78.

  40. GARF, 9414/4/1; Perekovka, January 18, 1933.

  41. GARF, 9414/4/1; Perekovka, December 20, 1932–June 30, 1934.

  42. Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago, vol. I, p. 102.

  5: The Camps Expand

  1. Kuznitsa, March–September 1936; (GARF journal collection).

  2. Khlevnyuk, “Prinuditelniy trud,” pp. 75–76.

  3. Nicolas Werth, “A State against Its People: Violence, Repression and Terror in the Soviet Union,” in Courtois, p. 154. An account of the incident, as by an anonymous prisoner who met some survivors in the Tomsk prison, also appears in Pamyat, vol. I, pp. 342–43; also Krasilnikov, Spetspereselentsy v zapadnoi Sibiri, 1933–1938, pp. 76–119.

  4. Elantseva. This article is based on archives found in the Tomsk Central State Archive of the Russian Federation, Far East.

  5. Ibid.; Okhotin and Roginsky, p. 153.

  6. N. A. Morozov, GULAG v Komi krae, p. 104.

  7. Kaneva. My account is based on Kaneva’s, which is in turn based on documents in the archives of the Komi Republic, as well as memoirs in the collection of the Memorial Society.

  8. Ibid., pp. 331 and 334–35.

  9. GARF, 9414/1/8.

  10. Mitin, pp. 22–26.

  11. Exhibition at the Vorkuta Kraevedchesky Muzei; also “Vorkutinstroi NKVD” (MVD document of January 1941), in the collection of Syktyvkar Memorial, Komi Republic; Okhotin and Roginsky, p. 192.

  12. Kaneva, p. 339.

  13. Nadezhda Ignatova, “Spetspereselentsy v respublike Komi v 1930–1940 gg,” in Korni travy, pp. 23–25.

  14. Ibid., pp. 25 and 29.

  15. N. A. Morozov, GULAG v Komi krae, pp. 13–14.

  16. Kaneva, pp. 337–38.

  17. Nadezhda Ignatova, “Spetspereselentsy v respublike Komi v 1930–1940 gg,” in Korni travy, pp. 23–25.

  18. Kaneva, p. 342.

  19. Ibid.

  20. Stephan, The Russian Far East, p. 225.

  21. Nordlander, “Capital of the Gulag”; I am indebted to David Nordlander’s work on Kolyma—so far the only comprehensive, archive-based Western study of Kolyma—for the account of Kolyma’s history in this section and elsewhere.

  22. Ibid.

  23. Viktor Shmirov of the Perm Memorial Society, conversation with the author, March 31, 1998.

  24. Shmirov, “Lager kak model Realnosti.”

  25. Stephan, The Russian Far East, p. 225.

  26. Nordlander, “Capital of the Gulag.”

  27. Ibid.

  28. Stephan, The Russian Far East, p. 226.

  29. Nordlander, “Capital of the Gulag.”

  30. Stephan, The Russian Far East, p. 227.

  31. Kozlov, “Sevvostlag NKVD SSSR.”

  32. Stephan, The Russian Far East, p. 226.

  33. Conquest, Kolyma, p. 42.

  34. Sgovio, p. 153.

  35. Shalamov, Kolyma Tales, p. 369.

  36. Kozlov, “Sevvostlag NKVD SSSR,” p. 81; Nordlander, “Capital of the Gulag.”

  37. Ioffe, pp. 66–71.

  38. Kozlov, “Sevvostlag NKVD SSSR,” p. 82.

  39. E. Ginzburg, Within the Whirlwind, p. 201.

  40. Ibid.

  41. GARF, 9414/1/OURZ, in the collection of A. Kokurin.

  42. Khlevnyuk, “Prinuditelniy trud,” p. 78.

  43. Ibid.; Okhotin and Roginsky, pp. 376, 399, and 285.

  44. Okhotin and Roginsky, p. 38.

  6: The Great Terror and Its Aftermath

  1. Akhmatova, p. 103.

  2. Bacon, pp. 30 and 122. Bacon compiled his figures from various sources, adding together all of the different categories of forced laborers. See Appendix for further discussion of statistics.

  3. Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago, vol. I, p. 24.

  4. Unless otherwise footnoted, this account of the Great Terror comes from Conquest, The Great Terror; Khlevnyuk, 1937; Getty and Naumov; and Martin, “The Great Terror.”

  5. Getty and Naumov, p. 472.

  6. Trud, no. 88, June 4, 1992; reprinted in Getty and Naumov, pp. 472–77; many similar documents are found in Sabbo, pp. 297–304.

  7. Sabbo, pp. 297–304.

  8. Kokurin and Petrov, Lubyanka, p. 15.

  9. Veronica Znamenskaya, “To This Day,” in Vilensky, Till, My Tale Is Told, pp. 141–49.

  10. Yurasova.

  11. GARF, personnel files. Also Kokurin and Petrov, Gulag, pp. 797–857.

  12. GARF, 8131/37/99.

  13. This account of Berzin’s arrest comes from Nordlander’s “Capital of the Gulag” and “Magadan and the Evolution of the Dalstroi Bosses.”

  14. Conquest, The Great Terror, pp. 182–213

  15. Yelena Sidorkina, “Years Under Guard,” in Vilensky, Till, My Tale Is Told, p. 194.

  16. GARF, 9401/12/94.

  17. Conquest, The Great Terror, p. 298.

  18. Geller, pp. 151–57.

  19. Ivanova, Labor Camp Socialism, p. 96.

  20. Kokurin and Petrov, Gulag, pp. 863–69.

  21. Ivanova, Labor Camp Socialism, pp. 95–96; Makurov, pp. 183–84.

  22. Rossi, The Gulag Handbook, p. 180.

  23. Ibid., p. 60; Volkogonov, Stalin, p. 279.

  24. Rossi, The Gulag Handbook, pp. 36 and 497; Sbornik , pp. 86–93.

  25. Larina, p. 182.

  26. Levinson, pp. 39–42.

  27. Gorky, Belomor, p. 341.

  28. Weiner, “Nature, Nurture and Memory in a Socialist Utopia.”

  29. Herling, p. 10.

  30. Ivanova, Labor Camp Socialism, p. 95.

  31. Rossi, The Gulag Handbook, p. 449.

  32. Leipman, p. 38.

  33. Nordlander, “Capital of the Gulag.”

  34. Maku
rov, p. 160.

  35. Chukhin, Kanaloarmeetsi, p. 120.

  36. Shmirov.

  37. Quoted in Shmirov, ibid.

  38. Trud, no. 88, June 4, 1992, reprinted in Getty and Naumov, pp. 479–80; N. A. Morozov, conversation with the author, July 2001.

  39. Papkov.

  40. GARF, 9414/1/OURZ, in the collection of A. Kokurin.

  41. This was Prikaz 00447, analyzed by N. Petrov and A. Roginsky, “Polskaya operatsiya NKVD, 1937–1938 gg,” in Guryanov, Repressii protiv polyakov, pp. 22–43.

  42. Memorialne kladbishche Sandormokh, pp. 3 and 160–67 (a collection of documents about the executions of Sandormokh). Another source cites the date of the NKVD order on the repression of prisoners as August 16, 1937 (Binner, Junge, and Martin).

  43. Florensky, pp. 777–80, from Chirkov.

  44. Memorialne kladbishche Sandormokh, pp. 167–69.

  45. Hoover, Nicolaevsky Collection, Box 233, Folder 23; also N. A. Morozov, GULAG v Komi krae, p. 28.

  46. Conquest, The Great Terror, pp. 286–87.

  47. FSB archive, Petrozavodsk, Fond 42, pp. 55–140: Akt Zasedaniya Troiki NKVD KSSR no. 13, September 20, 1937, in the collection of Yuri Dmitriev, Petrozavodsk Memorial.

  48. Conquest, The Great Terror, p. 438.

  49. Getty and Naumov, pp. 532–37.

  50. Ibid., p. 562.

  51. E. Ginzburg, Journey into the Whirlwind, p. 256.

  52. N. A. Morozov, GULAG v Komi krae, pp. 28–29.

  53. Nordlander, “Capital of the Gulag,” pp. 253–57.

  54. Makurov, p. 163.

  55. Khlevnyuk, “Prinuditelniy trud,” p. 79.

  56. Ivanova, Labor Camp Socialism, pp. 105–7.

  57. Nordlander, “Capital of the Gulag.”

  58. Khlevnyuk, “Prinuditelniy trud,” p. 73.

  59. Nordlander, “Capital of the Gulag.”

  60. GARF, 9401/1/4240.

  61. Solzhenitsyn, The First Circle, pp. 25 and 29.

  62. Golovanov; Raizman, pp. 21–23.

  63. Kokurin, “Osoboe tekhnicheskoe byuro NKVD SSSR.”

  64. Khlevnyuk, “Prinuditelniy trud,” p. 79.

  65. GARF, 7523/67/1.

  66. GARF, 9414/1/24 and 25.

  67. GARF, 7523/67/1.

  68. GARF, 8131/37/356; 7523/67/2; and 9401/1a/71.

  69. Knight, Beria, pp. 105–6.

  70. Khlevnyuk, “Prinuditelniy trud,” p. 80.

  71. Zemskov, “Zaklyuchennie,” p. 63; Bacon, p. 30.

  72. Zemskov, “Arkhipelag Gulag,” pp. 6–7; Bacon, p. 30.

  73. Okhotin and Roginskii, p. 308.

  74. Ibid., pp. 338–39.

  75. Ibid., pp. 200–1, 191–92, and 303.

  76. Vasileeva, interview with the author.

  77. The phrase “camp-industrial complex” is used by M. B. Smirnov, S. P. Sigachev, and D. V. Shkapov, the co-authors of the historical Introduction to Okhotin and Roginsky.