
The History of the Gulag
From Collectivization to the Great Terror
- English
- PDF
- Available on iOS & Android
The History of the Gulag
From Collectivization to the Great Terror
About this book
The human cost of the Gulag, the Soviet labor camp system in which millions of people were imprisoned between 1920 and 1956, was staggering. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and others after him have written movingly about the Gulag, yet never has there been a thorough historical study of this unique and tragic episode in Soviet history. This groundbreaking book presents the first comprehensive, historically accurate account of the camp system. Russian historian Oleg Khlevniuk has mined the contents of extensive archives, including long-suppressed state and Communist Party documents, to uncover the secrets of the Gulag and how it became a central component of Soviet ideology and social policy.
Khlevniuk argues persuasively that the Stalinist penal camps created in the 1930s were essentially different from previous camps. He shows that political motivations and paranoia about potential enemies contributed no more to the expansion of the Gulag than the economic incentive of slave labor did. And he offers powerful evidence that the Great Terror was planned centrally and targeted against particular categories of the population. Khlevniuk makes a signal contribution to Soviet history with this exceptionally informed and balanced view of the Gulag.
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Information
Table of contents
- Contents
- Foreword
- Acknowledgments
- List Of Abbreviations
- Map Of Gulag Sites, 1929–1941
- Introduction
- Chapter 1. Origins Of The Stalinist Gulag
- Chapter 2. Famine
- Chapter 3. Stabilization Of The System
- Chapter 4. The Great Terror
- Chapter 5. Beria’s “Reforms”
- Chapter 6. Mobilization And Repression
- Chapter 7. The Victims
- Conclusion: The Price Of Terror
- Brief Biographies
- List Of Selected Camps And Projects Of The OGPU-NKVD
- Excerpts From The Criminal Codes Of The RSFSR And The Constitution Of The USSR
- Notes
- Index Of Documents
- General Index
- Books In The Annals Of Communism Series