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MOSCOW, October 30 (Itar-Tass) -- Fifty-two million political sentences were passed in the former Soviet Union in the 1920-50s, six million people were deported without any sentences, and one million were executed, according to the History of Stalin's GULAG presented at the Alexander Solzhenitsyn Russian Public Foundation on Sunday. Specialists of the Russian State Archives, the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Federal Security Service Archives, and the Memorial Society wrote seven volumes of the book, each of 1,000 pages. The book contains information about the makeup and personnel of the punitive system, the makeup of prison inmates and deportees, and prison mutinies. "The research has made the first ever assessment of the 30-year contribution of political prisoners to the Russian economy," head of the Russian State Archives Sergei Miroyenenko said. Four hundred and thirty administrations of labor camps were formed from the 1930th through 1953, the year of Stalin's death. "There were over 150 prison camps and settlements in the Perm region alone, in fact, every third resident of the Perm region lived behind bars," Perm historian Vladimir Shmyrov said. "The number of arrested people exceeded the number of convicts in certain years. Families were subjected to various kinds of discrimination. Therefore, the political repressions influenced the entire national life," specialist of the Russian State Archives Oleg Khlevnyuk said. |
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