Hard Labour Prisoners in the Penal Institutions of the Vologda Region (1943–1954)

Abstract

This article studies the penitentiary treatment during the war and post-war years in the Vologda Region penal institutions of a specific category of convicts, namely, those sentenced to hard labour (katorga) for aiding the fascists by the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR No. 39 of April 19, 1943. Based on the analysis of archival documents and published sources, the following are considered: prisoner transport, placement of disabled and diseased convicts of this category in the region’s prisons, their material and living conditions as well as medical care during the sentence period. Moreover, attention is paid to the specifics of intelligence and operational work among the prisoners and additional regime restrictions applied to them. It is concluded that, since these people presented a particular threat to the state, irrespective of their physical condition they were kept in close confinement and deprived of a number of privileges given to the less dangerous categories of prisoners. The legal status of convicts during their sentence was determined by departmental normative legal acts; how well their requirements were met by the region’s penal institutions was continuously monitored by the local and central authorities of the NKVD–MVD of the USSR. In 1950, the convicts were relocated from Vologda Prison No. 1 due to its repurposing. The special penitentiary treatment of those sentenced to hard labour in Camp Department No. 6 in Novozero village, Belozersk district, was abolished in 1954 due to the revision of the punitive policy after Joseph Stalin’s death.