Conflict and complicity: The expansion of the Karelian Gulag, 1923-1933

Using recently declassified archival documents, this paper traces the expansion of the Soviet 'special' camp system in Karelia from the establishment of the Solovetskii Camp of Special Designation in 1923 to the completion of the Belomor Canal in 1933. The "special" camps came under the authority of the Soviet political police, rather than the Karelian civil or judicial organs, and were initially intended to isolate the most dangerous political prisoners and recalcitrant criminals. However, the Solovetskii camp evolved in the course of the decade into a powerful economic organisation which employed its prisoners in many sectors throughout the region. The Karelian government strove to resist the camp's progressive expansion throughout its territory, but could do nothing to halt the growing use of the prisoner workforce under contract in the regional economy, which suffered from an intense shortage of free labour. After 1929, the Karelian and Solovetskii camp authorities came reluctantly to find common cause in the promotion of regional development. The political police's interest in Karelia culminated with the construction of the Belomor Canal, for which the "special" camp mobilised over 175,000 prisoners. As well as describing the expansion of the Karelian Gulag, this paper focuses on the changing relationship, at times conflictual and at times complicitous, between the Karelian authorities and the "special" camp administration in this process.