THE JOURNAL OF REGIONAL HISTORY V.6 No.4
Situation in corrective labor camps of Molotov Oblast in the postwar decade (based on the materials of the public prosecutor’s supervision)
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The article presents the results of a study of the social crisis in the Gulag during the first postwar decade. The study focuses on the camps and colonies located in Molotov Oblast. The main sources of the study are the materials of prosecutor’s supervision that are stored in the corresponding fonds of the State Archive of Perm Krai and the Perm State Archive of Socio-Political History. Special attention is paid to the activities of D. Kulyapin, Public Prosecutor of the oblast (1942–49). Studying the literature on the subject made it possible to formulate an explanatory model, according to which the Gulag crisis includes several components: economic, social, and cultural ones. It is associated with increasing social tensions in the postwar Soviet society: the conflict of particularistic interests of different social communities, the growth of internal and external aggressiveness, and other features of social disorganization. One of the manifestations of social disorganization is the aggravation of interdepartmental conflicts, including those between various punitive institutions. The prosecutor’s office was put in such a position that its employees had to defend its constitutional status, which was in fact challenged by the bodies of the MGB and the MVD. For this reason, prosecutor’s supervision was aimed at revealing shortcomings, violations, and lawlessness at the regional levels of the camp system. D. Kulyapin formulated the main features of the “unsatisfactory state of affairs” in the camps: administrative arbitrariness and excessive exploitation of forced labor resulting in physical exhaustion and mortality of prisoners and also, in extreme cases, riots in the colonies. He saw the causes of what was happening in the ignorance of the camp staff, their lack of humanity or, in other words, the low level of their general and professional culture on the one hand, and on the other hand – in the introduction of self-sufficiency in the camp economy, which entailed economizing on food supplies, hygiene and care products, etc. for the prisoners. The prosecutor offered to remedy the situation in the camps by means of educating the camp staff about socialist morality, exemplary punishment of the guilty, and strengthening of supervision measures, i.e. essentially habitual and inefficient methods of the Soviet penitentiary system. Nevertheless, D. Kulyapin’s reports diagnosed the state of affairs in the postwar Gulag quite adequately.
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Bazhan, O., and M. Mikhailutsa. “Devіantna povedіnka spіvrobіtnykіv organіv derzhbezpeky u dobu Velykogo teroru (na prykladі Odes'kogo oblasnogo UNKVS)” [Deviant behavior of security service officers during the Great Terror (a case study of the Odessa Oblast Department of Internal Affairs)]. Z arhіvіv VUCHK – GPU – NKVD – KGB, no. 1 (55) (2021): 31–45. (In Ukrainian)
Bell, W.T. Stalin’s Gulag at war. Forced labor, mass death, and Soviet victory in the Second World War. Toronto; Buffalo; London: University of Toronto Press, 2018.
Borodkin, L.I., and S. Ertts. “Struktura i stimulirovanie prinuditel'nogo truda v GULAGe: Noril'lag, konets 1930-h – nachalo 1950-h gg.” [The structure and stimulation of forced labor in the Gulag: Norillag, the late 1930s – early 1950s]. In Ekonomicheskaya istoriya: Ezhegodnik. 2003 [Economic history: A yearbook. 2003], edited by L.I. Borodkin and Yu.A. Petrov, 177–233. Moscow: Rossiiskaya politicheskaya entsiklopediya, 2004. (In Russian)
Dale, R. “Divided we stand: Cities, unity and post-war reconstruction in Soviet Russia, 1945–1953.” Contemporary European History, vol. 24, special issue 4, Urban Societies in Europe (2015): 493–516.
Heinzen, J. “Korruptsiya v GULAGe: dilemmy chinovnikov i uznikov” [Corruption in the Gulag: dilemmas of officials and prisoners]. In GULAG: Ekonomika prinuditel'nogo truda [The Gulag: Economics of forced labor], edited by L.I. Borodkin, P. Gregory, and O.V. Khlevnyuk, 157–74. Moscow: Rossiiskaya politicheskaya entsiklopediya; Fond Pervogo Prezidenta B.N. El'tsina, 2008. (In Russian)
Khanin, G.I. Ekonomicheskaya istoriya Rossii v noveishee vremya [Economic history of Russia in contemporary times]. 2 vols. Vol. 1, Ekonomika SSSR v kontse 30-h godov – 1987 god [The USSR’s economy in the late 1930s – 1987]. Novosibirsk: Novosibirskii gosudarstvennyi tekhnicheskii universitet, 2008. (In Russian)
Leibovich, O.L. “Lagernyi sotsium kak ob"ekt issledovaniya: istochniki i metodologicheskie podkhody” [Camp society as an object of research: sources and methodological approaches]. In Istoriya stalinizma. Prinuditel'nyi trud v SSSR. Ekonomika, politika, pamyat': materialy Mezhdunarodnoi nauchnoi konferentsii (Moskva, 28–29 oktyabrya 2011 g.) [History of Stalinism. Forced labor in the USSR. Economics, politics, memory: proceedings of the International Scientific Conference (Moscow, October 28–29, 2011)], edited by L.I. Borodkin, S.A. Krasil'nikov, and O.V. Khlevnyuk, 338–50. Moscow: ROSSPEN, 2013. (In Russian)
Leibovich, O.L. “Sotsial'nye napryazhennosti v pozdnyuyu stalinskuyu epokhu” [Social tensions in the late Stalin era]. In Sovetskoe gosudarstvo i obshchestvo v period pozdnego stalinizma. 1945–1953 gg.: materialy VII mezhdunarodnoi nauchnoi konferentsii (Tver', 4–6 dekabrya 2014 g.) [Soviet state and society in the period of late Stalinism. 1945–1953: Proceedings of the VII International Scientific Conference (Tver, December 4–6, 2014)], edited by N.A. Volynchik, 25–35. Moscow: Politicheskaya entsiklopediya; Prezidentskii tsentr B.N. El'tsina, 2015. (In Russian)
Leibovich, O.L. “Zhiznennyi mir sotrudnikov MVD – MGB na rubezhe 1940–1950-h godov” [Life-world of the personnel of the MVD – MGB at the turn of 1940–1950s]. In Povsednevnaya zhizn' pri sotsializme. Nemetskie i rossiiskie podkhody [Everyday life under Socialism. German and Russian approaches], edited by Ya.K. Berends, V. Dubina, A. Sorokin, and E. Akopyan, 185–203. Moscow: ROSSPEN, 2015. (In Russian)
Obukhov, L.A. Perm' – 36. Predystoriya: ITK № 6 (1942–1972) [Perm – 36. A prehistory: Forced Labor Camp No. 6 (1942–1972)]. Perm: Permskoe kraevoe otdelenie obshchestva “Memorial”, 2018. (In Russian)
Oleinik, A.N. “‘Maloe’ obshchestvo: teoreticheskaya model' i empiricheskie illyustratsii” [‘Small’ society: a theoretical model and empirical illustrations]. Mir Rossii, vol. 13, no. 1 (2004): 49–90. (In Russian)
Pilyavets, Yu., and R. Ivanyakov. “Bor'ba s prestupnymi gruppirovkami v ispravitel'no-trudovykh lageryakh i koloniyakh poslevoennogo Sovetskogo Soyuza” [Fighting criminal gangs in forced labor camps and colonies of the post-war Soviet Union]. Quaestio Rossica, vol. 10, no. 1 (2022): 238–52. (In Russian)
Rakitin, A. “Sotsializm ne porozhdaet prestupnosti.” Seriinaya prestupnost' v SSSR: istoriko-kriminalisticheskii analiz [“Socialism does not generate crime.” Serial crime in the USSR: historical and forensic analysis]. Moscow; Yekaterinburg: Kabinetnyi uchenyi, 2016. (In Russian)
Rasskazov, L.P. “Rol' GULAGa v predvoennykh pyatiletkakh” [The Role of the Gulag in the prewar five-year plans]. In Ekonomicheskaya istoriya: Ezhegodnik. 2002 [Economic history: A yearbook. 2002], edited by L.I. Borodkin and Yu.A. Petrov, 269–319. Moscow: Rossiiskaya politicheskaya entsiklopediya, 2003. (In Russian)
Shabalin, V.V. “Khuligany v pogonakh: regional'naya kampaniya po ideino-politicheskomu vospitaniyu militseiskikh kadrov v poslevoennyi period (na primere Molotovskoi oblasti)” [Hooligans in uniform: regional campaign for ideological and political education of the militia personnel in the postwar period (the example of Molotov Oblast)]. In Sovetskoe gosudarstvo i obshchestvo v period pozdnego stalinizma. 1945–1953 gg.: materialy VII mezhdunarodnoi nauchnoi konferentsii (Tver', 4–6 dekabrya 2014 g.) [Soviet state and society in the period of late Stalinism. 1945–1953: Proceedings of the VII International Scientific Conference (Tver, December 4–6, 2014)], edited by N.A. Volynchik, 293–303. Moscow: Politicheskaya entsiklopediya; Prezidentskii tsentr B.N. El'tsina, 2015. (In Russian)
Solomon, P. Sovetskaya yustitsiya pri Staline [Soviet criminal justice under Stalin], translated from English by L. Maksimenkov. Moscow: Rossiiskaya politicheskaya entsiklopediya; Fond Pervogo Prezidenta Rossii B.N. El'tsina, 2008. (In Russian)
Suslov, A.B. Spetskontingent v Permskoi oblasti (1929–1953 gg.) [Special contingent of prisoners in Perm Oblast (1929–1953)]. Yekaterinburg: Ural'skii gosudarstvennyi universitet; Perm: Permskii gosudarstvennyi pedagogicheskii universitet, 2003. (In Russian)
Teplyakov, A.G. “O korruptsii v organakh NKGB – MGB SSSR 1940–1950-h gg.” [On Corruption in the USSR bodies of the NKGB – MGB of the USSR in the 1940s – 1950s]. In Obshchestvo. Intelligentsiya. Repressii: sbornik statei k 60-letiyu professora S.A. Krasil'nikova [Society. Intelligentsia. Repressions: a collection of articles dedicated to the 60th anniversary of Professor S.A. Krasilnikov], edited by V.L. Soskin, 205–23. Novosibirsk: Sova, 2009. (In Russian)
Werth, N. Terror i besporyadok. Stalinizm kak sistema [Terror and disorder: Stalinism as a system]. Translated from French by A.I. Pigalev. Moscow: Rossiiskaya politicheskaya entsiklopediya; Fond Pervogo Prezidenta B.N. El'tsina, 2010. (In Russian)
Zima, V.F. “Golod i prestupnost' v SSSR 1946–1947 gg.” [Famine and crime in the USSR in 1946–1947]. Revue des études slaves, vol. 66, no. 4 (1994): 757–76. (In Russian)
Keywords:
Gulag in 1946–1953, public prosecutor’s supervision, D. Kulyapin, Molotov Oblast, interdepartmental conflict, social disorganization of camp life, departmental culture of the MVD
For citation:
Leibovich, O.L. “Situation in corrective labor camps of Molotov Oblast in the postwar decade (based on the materials of the public prosecutor’s supervision.” Historia Provinciae – the Journal of Regional History, vol. 6, no. 4 (2022): 1291–1322, https://doi.org/10.23859/2587-8344-2022-6-4-5
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