Gulag town, company town: forced labor and its legacy in Vorkuta
2015; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 57; Issue: 1-2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/00085006.2015.1037180
ISSN2375-2475
Autores Tópico(s)Arctic and Russian Policy Studies
ResumoGulag town, company town: forced labor and its legacy in Vorkuta, by Alan Barenberg, The Yale-Hoover Series on Stalin, Stalinism, and Cold War, New Haven CT, Yale University Press, 2014, xv + 331 pp., Appendices, Notes, Maps, Index, $65.00 (hbk), ISBN 978-0-300-17944-6In Gulag Town, Company Town, Alan Barenberg aims to free Gulag from Solzhenitsyn's metaphorical ?archipelago' by demonstrating close connection between system of forced labour and Soviet society, and fundamental role of Gulag in Soviet system (14). Utilizing Arctic coal-mining town of Vorkuta as focus of his examination, Barenberg adeptly traces both establishment and growth of Vorkuta labour camp ( Vorkutlag) and its conversion from Gulag town to company town in years following death of Joseph Stalin.The first half of book begins with a discussion of Vorkuta's establishment as a colony designed specifically for puiposes of coal extraction, and its transition from outpost on margins of Soviet society to home in war with Germany. Here, connection between terror and rapid expansion of Vorkutlag camp is well detailed, and Barenberg offers a brief but interesting analysis of Vorkuta's changing myth of discovery, which he sees as symbolic of its shift from colony to important part of Soviet home front (53-54). Next, establishment of civilian city of Vorkuta during war is examined with a particular emphasis on interconnectedness of prisoner and non-prisoner populations, despite official efforts to maintain a strict separation between two. Indeed, the proximity of these two worlds and porousness of borders between them made it virtually impossible to isolate them from each other, and Barenberg does well to highlight ways in which social boundaries were blurred, and hierarchies violated, as a result (118).Vorkuta's rapid transition from a Gulag town into a company town after death of Stalin forms basis of second half of book, as Barenberg guides reader through so-called Beria amnesty, well-documented Rechlag strike, and subsequent efforts to shift labour composition in Vorkuta's mines from prisoner to nonprisoner (123). In Barenberg's estimation, these efforts were a qualified success, as aggressive recruitment policies and attempts to retain services of former prisoners and exiles had virtually ended need for prisoner labor to be contracted from camps by 1960 (189-190). And while prison labor continued to play an economic role in city, Barenberg successfully delineates process by which Gulag zone was gradually transformed into a civilian space, albeit one dominated by former Gulag inmates and exiles (189). …
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