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Within the first forty years of operation, the Soviet Gulag system imprisons at least 18 million people and kills more than one and a half million; three tales of the fight for survival.
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00:00PRISONS
00:12Prisons are dark and dangerous places, full of brutal violence, cold-blooded murder, deadly uprisings, and audacious escapes.
00:24Every day is a fight for survival, especially within history's largest forced labor camp system, the Soviet Gulag.
00:38In its first 40 years of operation, at least 18 million people were imprisoned, and more than one and a half million die.
00:48These are three of the most incredible tales of the fight for survival.
00:53First, a system designed to starve and work inmates to death.
00:58Those who try to work really hard to get the full rations end up dying of malnutrition.
01:05Then, a 40-day siege that comes to a terrible end.
01:10Soviet authorities come in with tanks. They run over prisoners.
01:16And finally, a political prisoner who risks his life to expose the system to the world.
01:23His wife would come on her yearly visits, and he would pass it on to her.
01:29These are the stories from inside the Soviet Gulag. This is Prison Chronicles.
01:42Following the 1917 Russian Revolution and the establishment of the Soviet Union, Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin sets up a large nationwide network of forced labor camps known as the Gulag.
01:56The word Gulag is actually an acronym for the chief administration of labor camps.
02:05The Gulag is the Soviet penal system.
02:08At its peak, the Gulag is comprised of nearly 500 prison districts with up to 30,000 individual prison camps.
02:18They stretch across the vast country, many of them in remote locations in harsh climates like Siberia and Central Asia.
02:27Starting in 1924, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin imprisons not just common criminals, but anyone he sees as a threat to his power.
02:40And the reason for that was that Stalin really ruled by fear.
02:48The millions of people sent to the Gulag are put to work in an effort to transform the Soviet Union from an agrarian economy into an industrialized nation.
03:03The central idea of the Gulag is not just to provide a place to lock up prisoners.
03:08It's to use prison labor to contribute to the national economy.
03:14Some of the most prominent labor camps were associated with the production of coal, the establishment of railroad tracks, nickel mining, the mining of gold.
03:29So the Soviet economy relied very heavily on Gulag labor.
03:34They believed that forced labor was free, that these prisoners were slaves.
03:41Prisoners are barely kept alive to work in the forced labor camps of the Gulag.
03:47A large number of them are worked to death, and an even greater number are starved to death when what little food there is, is withheld.
03:59One way to motivate prisoners to work was to tie the amount of food that they received to the amount of labor that they performed.
04:07As you might imagine, this has a very real connection to people's ability to survive the Gulag.
04:14At mealtimes in most camps, prisoners line up behind one of three pots, or cauldrons, based on the amount of work they had completed that day.
04:25The first cauldron had the fewest calories, it was the least amount of food.
04:32The second cauldron was the ordinary cauldron for prisoners who met their production targets.
04:38The second cauldron is only slightly better than the first, adding a piece of spoiled meat or fish.
04:46The third cauldron was for Stahanovites, the so-called heroes of socialist labor, those who exceeded the production plan.
04:55The third cauldron has the most calories.
04:59It seems like every prisoner would be working hard to eat from the third cauldron.
05:04Rationally, they often wanted to work the hardest so that they can earn the best ration.
05:09But those who try to work really hard to get the full ration, or even extra rations, often end up dying of malnutrition.
05:20Because they're simply exerting more energy than is compensated for by the extra rations.
05:27The body literally starts to eat away at itself.
05:31Although they came in in relatively good health, after months in the camp, they would succumb to the difficulties of malnutrition and overexertion.
05:46Over the course of the Stalin era, about one and a half million prisoners died while they were in the camps.
05:54We have no doubt, however, that this number is lower than the actual number of prisoners who died.
06:05The gulag is designed to treat inmates as disposable labor, to be used up and replaced as needed.
06:14For many, the only true chance of survival is to fight back.
06:19March 5th, 1953.
06:22Joseph Stalin, the Soviet leader and architect of the most brutal era of the gulag, dies.
06:32As the nation plunges into turmoil, prisoners of the gulag worry about their fate.
06:38Will it be newfound freedom or horrors beyond imagination?
06:42And there was, in fact, a massive amnesty that was announced less than three weeks after Stalin died.
06:49A lot of prisoners are released, albeit not political prisoners, and they're frustrated by that.
06:55At the Ken Gear political prison camp, the prisoners take matters into their own hands.
07:02The prison camp was located in the steppes of Kazakhstan.
07:07Brutally cold in the winter and scorching hot in the summer.
07:11It's one of a series of what they called special camps created in 1948 for those that they deemed especially dangerous state criminals.
07:22Along with former Red Army soldiers who had been taken prisoner by the Nazi army and suspected of collaborating in the POW camps.
07:34So there are people who have the experience of fighting.
07:39Because of this volatile mix of combat fighters and political prisoners, security at the camp is extremely tight.
07:47King Gear is divided into sub-camps.
07:52There are camp points that hold male prisoners, but also a camp point that holds women.
07:59On the corners are watchtowers.
08:03So that the guards of King Gear can see into the camp zone.
08:08The barracks within the camp zone are locked at night.
08:12After Stalin's death, the King Gear camp is thrown into disarray.
08:17Prisoners wonder if they will be released, or will their lives worsen.
08:23In the uncertainty, they begin to organize, demanding changes to their living and working conditions.
08:29So the Gulag guards lash out in very violent ways at prisoners who are demanding improvements to their living conditions.
08:41Soviet authorities respond to the prisoners' demands by sending 600 of the country's most violent criminals to the political camp to intimidate the prisoners and their leaders.
08:52That was to make the lives of the inmates more miserable, more unpredictable, and really to do the dirty work of the guards.
09:02But the strategy of placing violent criminals in the camp to control the political prisoners backfires.
09:10These 600 criminal prisoners are politicized by the politicals who are there.
09:14Instead of helping the guards, the criminals join forces with their fellow inmates and fight back.
09:27May 16th, 1954, with a makeshift battering ram, the prisoners break through the wall, dividing them from the food supplies and from the women's section of the prison.
09:40The guards did start shooting.
09:42And then the guards beat them with their guns, they beat them with their fists.
09:47The prisoners retreat to their barracks.
09:49But the next night, when the prisoners breach the walls again, the prison administration is ready.
09:55On May 17th, prison authorities prepared themselves for an assault on the prisoners.
10:01They came in with automatic weapons to try to re-establish order within the camp zone.
10:0918 prisoners were shot dead.
10:16At least 70 prisoners were wounded.
10:20But the prisoners still refuse to back down.
10:24The prisoners go on strike.
10:26They refuse to work until their list of demands is met.
10:30The prisoners wanted, one, nobody to be punished for their part in the uprising.
10:37Two, for there to be an investigation of the killings of prisoners on May 17th.
10:44And three, for the walls that separated the camp points within King Gear to remain down.
10:49To the prisoners' surprise, the authorities agree to their demands, the strike ends, and the prisoners return to work.
10:58But the next day, while the inmates are at work, the guards repair the walls in the camp.
11:03When the prisoners return and see that they've been tricked, they attack the guards with improvised weapons.
11:11This time, the guards flee, and the prisoners take control of the camp.
11:17But how long can they hold out?
11:19May 18th, 1954, prisoners have taken over the King Gear labor camp and driven the Soviet authorities out.
11:34One of the first things that prisoners did was to tear those numbers off their uniforms.
11:39To assert that they weren't numbers, but they were people.
11:42And they found in the storehouses of the camp zone their civilian clothing.
11:53They really created a new world for themselves.
11:58And this new world included having fun.
12:04While they're enjoying their new lives inside the camp, the prisoners try to negotiate peace with the authorities.
12:11Who are simultaneously amassing troops outside the camp.
12:16But when local industries demand the workers return to work, the negotiations break down.
12:22And the peace is shattered.
12:25June 26th, 1954.
12:2840 days after taking control of the prison, the hammer of the Soviet Union comes down hard on the King Gear uprising.
12:36Soviet authorities come in with tanks.
12:38They destroy the camp zone, they run over prisoners.
12:43There were 17,000 troops sent, and 90 attack dogs.
12:53After 90 minutes of terror, the authorities allow the prisoners to turn themselves in.
13:02It is estimated that 500 to 700 inmates were killed.
13:19Although the King Gear uprising is ultimately unsuccessful, the prisoners managed to control their fate for a blissful 40 days.
13:26And because of the King Gear and other uprisings, the Gulag's days are numbered.
13:39In 1960, the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev disbands them.
13:43But while the Gulag officially closes, some of its worst prisons secretly remain open.
13:52Like Perm 36, located near the Siberian border just outside of the town of Perm, is perhaps the most feared secret Gulag prison.
14:02Built in the 1940s as a typical Gulag prison under Stalin, in the 1960s, when most camps are closing, it transforms into the harshest political prisoner labor camp in the country.
14:15And one brave inmate and political dissident, Balis Gajowskis, wants the world to know it exists.
14:25Balis Gajowskis is a Lithuanian nationalist imprisoned specifically because the KGB had come to search his apartment.
14:36And they found a copy of Solzhenitsyn's Gulag archipelago.
14:43To have a copy was very dangerous because it was banned.
14:47The Gulag Archipelago, by renowned Soviet author Alexander Solzhenitsyn, is a historical novel which exposes the horrors of the Gulag and their enormous expansion under Stalin.
14:59Balis is sentenced to 10 years of hard labor and five years in exile for possessing the book.
15:07When he gets to Perm 36, he's already survived 25 years in other Soviet Gulag camps.
15:15Because they considered him someone who had committed crimes before, they treated Balis Gajowskis incredibly harshly.
15:23When he arrives, Gajowskis is first thrown into the Shizo.
15:29The Shizo is a punishment cell for inmates.
15:35New inmates would be told to strip down immediately.
15:39They were put in the Shizo for a week.
15:42They would have to suffer extreme cold, very little food and no bedding, just a plank to lie on.
15:48Balis Gajowskis is more determined than ever to tell the world that the brutal Soviet Gulag is alive.
15:59It takes time, but he devises a plan at great risk to himself and his wife to smuggle out his story and the writings of a fellow inmate from Perm 36, the most secure prison in the Soviet Union.
16:18At the secret political prison camp known as Perm 36, Lithuanian nationalist Balis Gajowskis wants to expose the deplorable conditions of the Gulag so the entire world knows what's going on.
16:36The only way to get the word out while he's locked up and watched all day long involves his wife during her annual visits.
16:44And it's very risky.
16:47When his wife would come on her yearly visit, she would bring a very thin, transparent piece of paper from the pharmacy.
16:56And with this paper, Balis Gajowskis would write an infinitesimal script.
17:04Balis describes the work conditions in the camp and hides the paper in the walls of his cell during the day.
17:10Before his wife's next visit, he folds and rolls the paper over and over, forming a slim capsule that he passes on to her.
17:20He smuggled out information about what had happened in the camp and he smuggled out the writings of Vasil Stuss, one of the greatest Ukrainian poets of the 20th century.
17:31The final manuscript that Balis Gajowskis and his wife smuggled out of Perm 36 leads to a scathing 10-page article titled On the Work Conditions of the Soviet Union, published in Switzerland in 1986.
17:49The Soviet officials suspect who wrote it, and despite his denials, officials intend to punish Balis.
17:58But the eyes of the world are on them, so they devise a scheme to silence him.
18:05They put a hardened killer in the cell with Balis, Boris Romashov.
18:10This convicted murderer is placed in the cell in order to intimidate, beat, if not murder, this Lithuanian nationalist.
18:27Each day, Balis worries about an attack from Romashov.
18:31In the morning hours, they would go to the same work room, and all of a sudden, Boris took a screwdriver and proceeded to stab Balis 12 times, narrowly missing his heart.
18:48Incredibly, Balis Gajowskis is taken to the Gulag Hospital and survives.
18:54He is transferred to other remote Soviet prisons to complete his sentence.
19:02In 1988, after serving nearly 10 years in Perm 36 and 37 total years in the Gulag, Balis is allowed to go to the United States.
19:13Eventually, he returns to his native Lithuania, and after the fall of the Soviet Union, he becomes the country's Minister of the Interior.
19:21That same year, when the Soviet Union collapses, every secret Soviet Gulag finally closes.
19:30But its legacy remains.
19:33The forced labor camps of the Gulag dominated Soviet history for much of the 20th century and destroyed millions of lives.
19:43Today, over 30 years later, Russian labor camps house more than 500,000 prisoners, including Russian opposition leader, Alexei Navalny.
19:56An American WNBA basketball champ and two-time Olympic gold medalist, Brittany Griner, who was sent to a Russian penal colony during her 10 months of detention in 2022.
20:08The Gulag represents one of the most inhumane institutions in human history, and so we need to learn about it just like we need to learn about Auschwitz and the Nazi camps.
20:24Perm 36 has been transformed into a living monument by former prisoners.
20:33It is the only preserved Gulag in the country.
20:36Yet its continued existence as a memorial remains under constant threat from current Russian authorities in an attempt to silence former Gulag inmates and prevent them from telling their stories of the Soviet Gulag and its forced labor camps.
20:53The
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