This presentation highlights the least talked about labor camps - Gulag. Impact of these camps and its brutality and history.

2. 
 Gulag can be defined as ‘State Camp Administrative.’
 GULAG—the prison camp system that arose in the
Soviet Union after 1929.
 The aim of this camp was to gain control over the entire
population, rather than punish criminal acts
Introduction

3. 
Difference between Nazi’s
camp and GULAG.
Nazi Camp’s
 Nazi camps were used to
exterminate whole
groups of people.
 The Nazi camps were
specifically set up to
erode Jewish population
of Europe.
GULAG
 GULAG was used as a
weapon of ongoing political
control over one country.
 The GULAG system did not
target any particular group
of people: in fact all ethnic
groups, nationalities and
religions were imprisoned.

4.  Joseph Stalin was born in a tiny Georgian village.
 His father constantly abused him both mentally and physically, and then
left the family when Stalin was twelve; he also had a deformed left arm.
 He became interested in Marxism, leading him to become a member of the
Bolshevik party.
 It is estimated that during his reign, over 20,000,000 people died, causing
him to be known as one of the bloodiest leaders in history. (Excluding
GULAG)
 Stalin suffered from extreme paranoia and various other mental illnesses,
which some say led to his erratic activity, manipulation, and strange
choices.
How did this start?
JOSEPH STALIN’s RISE TO
POWER

6. 
 The criminals sentenced to prison camps can be
divided into two categories:
 People who committed crimes such as murder, rape,
and robbery.
 People who committed “crimes” so minor that they
would not be punishable in other countries. Example:
Unexcused absences from work, or petty theft (taking
bread from a restaurant kitchen to feed one’s children.)
WHO WAS SENT TO CAMPS?
WHO WAS RELEASED?

7. 
 There were three main types of prison camps:
 Camps where prisoners lived in crowded barracks.
 Stricter camps with barred windows, locked barracks
and restricted movement within the camp zone.
 Unguarded camps in remote regions of the USSR,
where labor was controlled but prisoners had
complete freedom of movement.
DIFFERENT TYPE OF
CAMPS

9. 
Wives of Prisoners:
 When married men were sentenced to a labor camp the
wives and children they left behind were victimized as
well.
 One prisoner stated,
“I often thought of my wife. She was worse off than me. I was
after all in the company of other outcasts whereas she was among
free people among whom there might be many who would shun
her…”
SOCIAL EFFECT OF
CAMPS

10. 
Children of prison camps:
 If both parents were sent to the prison camps,
children were either adopted by family members and
raised in other cities or sent to orphanages for
children.
 Children sometimes went to the prison camp with
their parents, where they lived in special barracks for
juveniles.
SOCIAL EFFECT OF
CAMPS

11. 

12. 
 The GULAG participated in mining, highway and rail
construction, arms and chemical factories, electricity
plants, fish canning, airport construction, apartment
construction and sewage systems.
 The GULAG played a central role in the Soviet economy,
mining one-third of all the Soviet Union’s gold, and
much of its coal and timber.
ECONOMIC ACTIVITY
OF THE CAMPS

14. 
 Stalin and his planners were obsessed with the
construction of enormous projects. Some of these
projects included activities like:
 Canal linking the Moscow River to the Volga River.
 Railway between Lake Baikal and the Amur River.
 Construction of hydroelectric dams
MAJOR CONSTRUCTION
PROJECT

15. 

16. 
Laborers working on
‘White sea canal’

17.  The Soviet economy did gain from prison labor.
Example, the gold mined in Siberia exceeded
expectations and helped boost the financial status of
the Soviet Union.
 However sufficient food, supplies and clothing were not
given to prisoners causing them to be weak and sick,
and unable to work.
 Upon Stalin’s death, Beria began closing camps and
releasing prisoners.
CAMPS AS ECONOMIC
FAILURE

18. 
 Starvation
 The gulag prisoners were not well fed. Their ration, was
dependent upon how much work they performed.
 Nikolai Yezhov, laments the conditions of these men, stating:
“Among the prisoners there are some so ragged and lice ridden that
they pose a sanitary danger to the rest. These prisoners have
deteriorated to the point of losing any resemblance to human
beings. Lacking food they collect [garbage] and, according to some
prisoners, eat rats and dogs.”
Effect of the GULAG on
society

20. 
The Death Toll
 Records were destroyed or falsified to the point where all
we really have are the wildly varying estimates of
historians.
 It was estimated that 50 million people had been held in
gulags.
 Soviet data seems to indicate 1,053,829 people died in the
gulags between 1934 and 1953.
Effect of the GULAG on
society

22. CONCLUSION