Why GULAG Camps Were ESSENTIAL For the Soviet Union

You probably already know everything about Gulag camps in Soviet Union. Stalin's terrible concept that was used to simultaneously keep his own people trembling in fear while ruthlessly using them for the needs of the state. And I'm not going to convince you that forced labour camps were okay or that only "those who deserved it" went to gulag camps. We know it's not true. But what if I tell you that without those camps would we not have seen the mighty Soviet Union as it was?

00:00 - Introduction
01:47 - How first Gulag camps were formed
05:00 - Effectiveness of Gulag
09:42 - Inefficiency of Gulag

The system of concentration and correctional labor camps in Soviet Russia began to take shape as early as in 1919. The Gulag is an abbreviation used in 1930 for the Soviet Union and the Soviet Union. Gulag is an acronym that has been in use since 1930. It stands for Main Directorate of Correctional Labor Camps, a special department of the OGPU and NKVD, which supervised the camps and the use of prison labor. Historians estimate that between 15 and 18 million people passed through the Gulag, 1.5 million of whom died in the camps.
The vast network spread throughout the Soviet Union consisted of nearly 500 camp directorates with dozens and even hundreds of camp divisions and stations (their approximate number exceeded 30,000). Already by the early 1930s, prison labor in the USSR was seen as an economic resource. The Resolution of the USSR SNK of 11 July 1929 instructed the OGPU to "expand the existing and organize new correctional-labor camps (on the territory of Ukhta and other remote areas) in order to colonize these areas and exploit their natural riches by using the labor of the imprisoned". Slave labor of prisoners was used for logging, mines, large-scale construction projects (e.g., the Belomorkanal), construction of dams, laying roads and railroads, etc. After Stalin's death in 1953, the number of prisoners decreased markedly, and in 1960 the Gulag was officially disbanded. Today we will discuss the economic effect that the Gulag had on the USSR, and try to understand whether it was possible to rebuild the country without this terrible instrument.

Hey there. Somehow you found my video and decided to watch it. So let me introduce myself. I'm Sergei and I'm from Russia. My channel is about my native country. I want to tell English-speaking viewers about the real Russia, about its past and present. Unfortunately, you can find a lot of propaganda about Russia on the Internet, both from the Russian media and from the Western ones. I want to tell you about Russia, as it really is, the country in which I was born, grew up, and lived all my life.

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