Hard labor camp system for political prisoners, the development of which started in 1948 under Resolution No. 416 of the Ministerial Council of the USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics). Special hard labor camps replaced penal servitude in hard labor camps that existed in 1943-1948.
In February 1948, five special hard labor camps were established. In August No. 6, and in December No. 7 were set up.
In 1949-1952, five more special hard labor camps were established.
Lithuanians in the Kengir uprising.
Photos: Füsun Kavrakoğlu, Vilnius, 2026.
On 28 March 1953, GULAG’s board was transferred to the Ministry of Justice of the USSR, but special hard labor camps remained subordinate to the Ministry of the Interior affairs.
GULAG’s management planned to imprison approximately 145,000 people in special hard labor camps. The special commission of the Ministry of the Interior affairs selected 175,000 prisoners who had to be transferred to special hard labor camps. With detention rates kept high, the number of prisoners steadily increased, totaling to approximately 200,000 prisoners in special hard labor camps.
On 1 March 1949, one year after the establishment of the special hard labor camps, they already had 106,573 prisoners. The maximum number of prisoners was 257,000. It was reached on 1 January 1952.
Special hard labor camps imprisoned persons sentenced under Article 58 of the Criminal Code of RSFSR (Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic): treason; bourgeois nationalists and separatists; global bourgeois agents; spies; diversionists; terrorists; persons causing harm and economic saboteurs. It was a special contingent different from the usual contingent sentenced under other articles of the Criminal Code of RSFSR.
The established standard of residential space of 1 m2 per person was twice as low in special hard labor camps compared to ordinary camps. The convicts worked the hardest jobs in underground mines, quarries, construction of large industrial facilities, etc. Prisoners were guarded by special convoy units, not by paramilitary security force, as was the case in ordinary camps.
Prisoners of special hard labor camps had to be completely isolated from other prisoners, even in work areas. Freelance workers were only allowed to communicate with prisoners of special hard labor camps in exceptional cases. The regime in residential areas of special hard labor camps was the same as the prison one: bars on the windows, barracks locked at night, prisoners given numbers to be sewn in appropriate places on clothes.
Accommodating simple detention facilities (correctional hard labor camps) to the needs of special hard labor camps required considerable costs. The special hard labor camps generated economic losses.
After setting up special hard labor camps, political prisoners were pooled together separately from other prisoners (criminal offenders, administrative law offenders). These were the camps where the hugest uprising in GULAG history took place after the death of Stalin in 1953, namely the Norilsk uprising in Gorlag (Siberia) and the Vorkuta uprising in Rechlag (north of the Arctic Circle), and the Kengir uprising in Steplag (Kazakhstan) in 1954.
Special hard labor camps in Kazakhstan. Places of deportation and imprisonment of Lithuanian residents in the Soviet Union.
Information panels of the Museum of Occupations and Freedom Fights in Vilnius.
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