page_title: Gulag
section_title: Gulag memorials
hierarchical_section_title: Gulag / Memorialization / Gulag memorials
caption_attribution_description: Русский: Экскурсия, концерт и фуршет в Музее истории ГУЛАГа 12 декабря 2017 года
context_page_description: The Gulag or GULAG was the government agency in charge of the Soviet network of forced-labour camps set up by order of Vladimir Lenin, reaching its peak during Joseph Stalin's rule from the 1930s to the early 1950s. English-language speakers also use the word gulag to refer to all forced-labour camps that existed in the Soviet Union, including camps that existed in the post-Stalin era.
  The Gulag is recognised as a major instrument of political repression in the Soviet Union. The camps housed a wide range of convicts, from petty criminals to political prisoners, large numbers of whom were convicted by simplified procedures, such as by NKVD troikas or by other instruments of extrajudicial punishment. In 1918–22, the agency was administered by Cheka, followed by the GPU, OGPU, later by the NKVD, and in the final years by the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The Solovki prison camp, the first corrective labor camp constructed after the revolution, was established in 1918 and legalised by a decree, "On the creation of the forced-labour camps" on April 15, 1919.
  The internment system grew rapidly, reaching a population of 100,000 in the 1920s.
context_section_description: Both Moscow and St. Petersburg have memorials to the victims of the Gulag made of boulders from the Solovki camp — the first prison camp in the Gulag system. Moscow's memorial is on Lubyanka Square, the site of the headquarters of the NKVD. People gather at these memorials every year on the Day of Victims of the Repression (October 30).
caption: Map of Stalin's Gulag camps in Gulag Museum in Moscow
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