Great Terror & Gulag

Map of Gulag system

1918-1922

Communist Party builds the first concentration- and labour camps during the Civil war.

These camps are meant for the enemies of the new regime.

1922-1928

Persecution of people that do not agree with the regime.

Discrimination of people with ”wrong” social background (kulaks, landowners etc).

1929-1933

Dekulakization and collectivisation of agriculture is driven through by force by Stalin.

The camp system expands.Famine in Ukraine and North Caucasus in

1932-1933 kills millions of people.

A poster from 1930s about the campaign against kulaks. The text says that kulaks are the worst enemies of a poor farmer.

1934

In July, the Gulag system is set up.(Word Gulag comes from words Chief Administration of Corrective Labor Camps and Colonies).

In December, Communist Party leader in Leningrad, Sergej Kirov is murdered, which is the start of the big ”clean-out” within the party and state administration.

1936-1938 – The Great Terror

”Clean-outs” are expanded and now any one in Soviet society can become a target.

Just during 1937 and 1938, 700,000 are killed.

More than a million people are sent to Gulag.The Moscow Trials of 1936, 1937 and 1938

sentence hundreds of high party officials of treason.

The Great Terror decreased in 1938, but did not stop entirely.

1939

Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact’s secret part allows Soviet Union to invade eastern parts of Poland and Baltic countries.

Terror is expanded to the new land areas.

This photo is from 1939 and shows the building of Fergana Canal in Uzbekistan.

1941-1945

Germany attacks Soviet Union in June 1941 and any ethnic German living in the Soviet Union (for example, 450,000 Volga-Germans) is deported to Sibiria.

When German army is pushed back after Stalingrad, 8 ethnic groups from Caucasus ar deported to Sibiria. Chechnyans is one of the groups and they are accused of having co-operated with the Germans.

1946-1949

Communist Puppet states are established in the Eastern European countries that were controlled by Soviet troops at the end of the war:

Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and East Germany.

1949-1953

”Anti-Cosmopolitan Campaign”: Jews and other untrustworthy ”Cosmopolitans” are cleansed from the public sphere.

13 members of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee are executed for treason.

In January 1953, 6 Jewish doctors are pointed out as part of a conspiracy to kill the Soviet leaders.

This campaign is never finished, because Stalin dies in March.

After Stalin’s death, the Gulag system is phased out.