Abstract
After 1918 the Soviet leadership experimented with a range of penal institutions. This experimentation came to an abrupt halt when the penal system was overwhelmed by the mass arrests of the ‘Great Terror’. Prisons, camps and colonies were swamped with new inmates, leading to confusion and appalling conditions throughout the system. Both the prison system and the network of camps and colonies experienced a similar deterioration in prisoner living conditions. However, the differences in the structure and nature of these two branches of the Soviet penal system led to contrasting responses, which subsequently became standardised under the leadership of Beria.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
M. B. Smirnov, Sistema ispravitel’no-trudovykh lagerei v SSSR, 1923–1960 (Moscow, 1998) pp. 538–9.
M. Yunge [lunge] and R. Binner, Kak terror stol ‘bol’shim’ (Moscow, 2003) doc. 11, pp. 100–2.
O. V. Khlevniuk, The History of the Gulag: From Collectivization to the Great Terror (Yale, 2004) p. 289.
C. S. Joyce, The Gulag 1930–1960: Karelia and the Soviet System of Forced Labour’, unpublished PhD dissertation (University of Birmingham, 2001).
V. Rogovin, 1937 (Moscow, 1996) pp. 342, 355;
A. Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago, vol. 2 (London, 1974) pp. 319–20.
I. Chukhin, Kareliya — 37: ideologiya i praktika terrora (Petrozavodsk, 1999) pp. 124–5.
A. V. Kvashonkin (ed.), Sovetskoe rukovodstvo, perepiska 1928–1941 (Moscow, 1999) pp. 398–9.
A. Applebaum, Gulag (London, 2003) pp. 107–8;
D. Yurasova, ‘Reabilitatsionnoe opredelenie po delu rabotnikov Gulaga’, Zveny’ya, (Moscow, 1991) pp. 389–9.
V. G. Makurov (ed.), Gulag v Karelii, 1930–1941: sbornik dokumentov i materialov (Petrozavodsk, 1992), doc. 130 (26 February 1939).
A. I. Kokurin and N. V. Petrov (eds), Gulag, 1917–1960 (Moscow, 2000) p. 41.
M. I. Khlusov (ed.), Ekonomika GULAGa i ee rol’ v razvitii strany: 1930-e gody (Moscow, 1998), doc. 34.
Khlusov, Ekonomika GULAGa, doc. 39 (15 January 1938).
V. A. Kozlov and S. V. Mironenko, Prikazy NKVD SSSR, 1934–41 gg. (Novosibirsk, 1999) p. 90.
G. M. Ivanova, Gulag v sisteme totalitarnogo gosudirstva (Moscow, 1997) p. 176.
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2006 Melanie Ilič
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Joyce, C. (2006). The Soviet Penal System and the Great Terror. In: Ilič, M. (eds) Stalin’s Terror Revisited. Studies in Russian and East European History and Society. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230597334_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230597334_5
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-52407-5
Online ISBN: 978-0-230-59733-4
eBook Packages: Palgrave History CollectionHistory (R0)