Also on September 9th, the Associated Press provided this glance at the history of the Gulag prison system compiled from The Encyclopedia Britannica, Library of Congress, Anne Applebaum's "Gulag: A History."
- History: The network of forced-labor camps was started by a Soviet decree of April 15, 1919. In 1930, under Josef Stalin, it became Glavnoye Upravleniye Ispravitelno-Trudovykh Lagerey (Chief Administration of Corrective Labor Camps), known by its Russian acronym, Gulag.
- Location: Gulag camps, run by the secret police, were mainly in remote regions of Siberia and the far north and east of the Soviet Union. At its height the Gulag consisted of at least 476 separate camp administrations, with the average camp holding 2,000 to 10,000 prisoners. Kolyma, a region about six times the size of France, had more than 100 camps.
- Inmates: Rich or resistant peasants arrested during the collectivization of farms, purged military officers and Communist Party members, World War II prisoners, members of allegedly disloyal ethnic groups, suspected saboteurs and traitors, dissident intellectuals, ordinary criminals. Many inmates were innocent.
- Numbers: The Gulag held 5 million prisoners by 1936. The Gulag administration's own figures show that 10 million people were sent to the camps between 1934 and 1947. Other estimates range much higher.
- Type of work: Mining, felling timber, mining, building canals and railroads. Most prisoners faced starvation or execution if they refused to work.
- Deaths: It is estimated that harsh weather and working conditions, inadequate food and summary executions killed off at least 10 percent of the Gulag population each year. Western scholars estimate 15-30 million died between 1918 to 1956.
- The end: The Gulag started to shrink soon after Stalin's death in 1953 as hundreds of thousands of prisoners were amnestied. By the mid-1950s the remaining camps' activities were absorbed by various economic ministries.
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