The history of the Gulag : from collectivization to the great terror / Oleg V. Khlevniuk ; foreword by Robert Conquest ; translated by Vadim A. Staklo with editorial assistance and commentary by David J. Nordlander
Origins of the Stalinist gulag -- Famine -- Stabilization of the system -- The great terror -- Beria's "reforms" -- Mobilization and repression -- The victims -- Conclusion : The price of terror -- Brief biographies -- List of selected camps and projects of the OGPU-NKVD -- Excerpts from the Criminal codes of the RSFSR and the Constitution of the USSR
Summary
"The human cost of the Gulag, the Soviet labor camp system in which millions of people were imprisoned between 1920 and 1956, was staggering. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and others after him have written movingly about the Gulag, yet never has there been a thorough historical study of this unique and tragic episode in Soviet history. This book presents the first comprehensive, historically accurate account of the camp system. Russian historian Oleg Khlevniuk has mined the contents of extensive archives, including long-suppressed state and Communist Party documents, to uncover the secrets of the Gulag and how it became a central component of Soviet ideology and social policy."--Jacket
