Varför upprättades Gulag?
Gulags historia började när bolsjevikerna omvandlade ett kloster på Solovetskijöarna i Vita havet till ett fångläger. Gulagsystemet bredde snabbt ut sig under det tidiga 30-talet. Regimen ville dels säkra tillgången till obegränsad arbetskraft för industrialiseringen och dels upprätta ett straffsystem.
Vilka människor hamnade i Gulag?
Hela folk, som tjetjener, sovjettyskar och krimtatarer, tvångsförflyttades i hundratusental från sina hävdvunna territorier mitt under brinnande krig. Många av dem hamnade i Gulag. Med dem följde också nya anklagelsepunkter, framför allt fosterlandsförräderi och ”folkfiendskap”.
How did Stalin start the Gulag system?
Gulag from Lenin to Stalin After the Russian Revolution of 1917, Vladimir Lenin, founder of the Russian Communist Party, took control of the Soviet Union. When Lenin died of a stroke in 1924, Joseph Stalin propelled his way to power and became dictator. The Gulag was first established in 1919, and by 1921 the Gulag system had 84 camps.
What was the Gulag achipelago?
The empire of concentration camps, which Solzhenitsin labeled the “Gulag Achipelago,” was not the work of Joseph Stalin, to whom it is usually attributed, but of Lenin and Trotsky. The first camps were established as early as 1918, during the Civil War. They were gradually expanded until by the early 1920’s they numbered in the hundreds.
What does Gulag mean in Russian?
The word Gulag was not often used in Russian, either officially or colloquially; the predominant terms were the camps (лагеря, lagerya) and the zone (зона, zona), usually singular, for the labor camp system and for the individual camps.
How many people were in the Gulag in 1929?
Some suggest that 14 million people were imprisoned in the Gulag labor camps from 1929 to 1953 (the estimates for the period 1918–1929 are more difficult to calculate). Other calculations, by historian Orlando Figes, refer to 25 million prisoners of the Gulag in 1928–1953.