page_title: Gulag
section_title: Overview
hierarchical_section_title: Gulag / Overview
caption_attribution_description: Русский: Н. Филатов, Генрих Ягода и Семён Фирин; на строительстве канала Москва-Волга. Ягоду сопровождает Никита Хрущев (слева и позади Ягоды), внимание Ягоды к каналу объясняется тем, что при его строительстве широко использовался труд заключенных ГУЛАГа, которые по замыслу ОГПУ-НКВД должны были исправляться, «перековываясь трудом» English: The OGPU-directors N. Filatov, Genrikh Yagoda, S. Firin and Lazar Kogan on the building-site of the Moskva-Volga-canal. Nikita Khrushchev is left behind Yagoda. Deutsch: Die OGPU-Direktoren Nikolai Filatow, Genrich Jagoda, Semjon Firin und Lazar Kogan auf der Baustelle des Moskau-Wolga-Kanals. Nikita Chruschtschow befindet sich links hinter Jagoda.
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: Some suggest that 14 million people were imprisoned in the Gulag labour 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. A further 6–7 million were deported and exiled to remote areas of the USSR, and 4–5 million passed through labour colonies, plus 3.5 million who were already in, or who had been sent to, labour settlements. According to some estimates, the total population of the camps varied from 510,307 in 1934 to 1,727,970 in 1953. According to other estimates, at the beginning of 1953 the total number of prisoners in prison camps was more than 2.4 million of which more than 465,000 were political prisoners.
caption: Genrikh Yagoda (middle) inspecting the construction of the Moscow-Volga canal. Behind his right shoulder is young Nikita Khrushchev.
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "\u0413\u0435\u043d\u0440\u0438\u0445 \u042f\u0433\u043e\u0434\u0430 \u0438 \u041d\u0438\u043a\u0438\u0442\u0430 \u0425\u0440\u0443\u0449\u0451\u0432 \u043d\u0430 \u0441\u0442\u0440\u043e\u0438\u0442\u0435\u043b\u044c\u0441\u0442\u0432\u0435 \u043a\u0430\u043d\u0430\u043b\u0430 \u041c\u043e\u0441\u043a\u0432\u0430 - \u0412\u043e\u043b\u0433\u0430", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image ExifOffset": "626", "Image XPTitle": "[19, 4, 53, 4, 61, 4, 64, 4, 56, 4, 69, 4, 32, 0, 47, 4, 51, 4, 62, 4, ... ]", "Image XPComment": "[104, 0, 116, 0, 116, 0, 112, 0, 58, 0, 47, 0, 47, 0, 99, 0, 111, 0, 109, 0, ... ]", "Image XPKeywords": "[19, 4, 67, 4, 59, 4, 48, 4, 51, 4, 59, 0, 32, 4, 53, 4, 63, 4, 64, 4, ... ]", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0210", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated"}