Chapter 53 Chapter 22 We are building

After hearing all the facts about the labor camps mentioned earlier, I couldn't help but ask: Enough!But is the labor of prisoners beneficial to the country?If it's not profitable--is it worth it to set up an entire archipelago like this? Inside the camp, both views were shared among the prisoners, and we liked to argue about it. Of course, if the leaders are to be believed, there is nothing to dispute in this matter.Comrade Molotov, who was once the number two man in the country, once declared to the Sixth Soviet Congress of the Soviet Union on the issue of the use of prison labor: "We have done this in the past, we are doing it now, and we will continue to do it in the future. It's good. It's good for criminals."

Be careful, it's not good for the country!Rather, it is beneficial to society itself.Good for criminals.We will continue to do so in the future!So, what's there to argue about? The whole system of planning construction projects and then recruiting criminals for them during the decades of Stalin's reign also testifies to the fact that the government never seemed to have doubted the economics of setting up labor camps.The economy has always been ahead of the judiciary. But the questions raised above obviously need further elucidation, and need to be broken down into several parts:

-- Did the labor camps make sense politically and socially? --Are they economical? --Are they self-financing? (The second and third questions, while superficially similar, have differences.) The first question is easy to answer: according to Stalin's intentions, labor camps are wonderful places into which millions of people can be driven in order to terrorize the rest.It can be seen that it is politically cost-effective.The camps also had practical benefits for a large social class - the countless camp officers: offering them the opportunity to "do military service" in a safe rear, special rations, salaries, uniforms, housing, Social status.Crowds of wardens, bewildered guards dozing on camp watchtowers, find warm nests here too (while driving thirteen-year-old boys into vocational schools).These parasites are all in support of the archipelago - the nest of serfdom exploitation.They are as afraid of the great religion as they are of the plague.

But we have seen that far more than dissidents were recruited into the camps, far more than those who tried to escape the path Stalin had drawn for the herds.The labor camps were taking more people than politics needed, more than the policy of terror needed.It is directly proportional to the size of the economic plan (this ratio may only be installed in Stalin's head).Didn’t the crisis-level unemployment in the 1920s get rid of through Daxing labor camps (and exile)?From 1930 onwards, the method of digging canals was not invented because the existing labor camps were dozing there, but labor camps were assembled urgently for the designed canal.It is not the actual number of "criminals" (even suspects included) that determines the activity of the courts, but the labor applications filed by the various economic administrations.As soon as the construction of the Baibo Canal started, it was immediately clear that Solovitz had not enough prisoners. At the same time, it became clear that three years' imprisonment was too short for the "Fifty-eight" and could not be profitable, so two sentences should be given at a time. A five-year plan is used.

In what ways did the labor camps prove to be economically beneficial? -- This great-grandfather of socialism, Thomas Moore, had already predicted it in his book.The degrading and particularly heavy labor that no one wants to do under socialism is precisely performed by the prisoners.To build in remote and barren areas where houses, schools, hospitals, and shops will not be built for many years, to build with pickaxes and shovels in the prosperous era of the twentieth century, and to build socialism when the economic conditions were not yet available The great project is using the labor of prisoners.

On the site of the great Baibo Canal, not even a car is a rare item.Everything is built by, as the reform-through-labor prisoners say, "fart power". On the even greater Volga Canal construction site (the workload is seven times greater than that of the Baibo Canal, which can be compared with the Panama and Suez Canals), a total of 128 kilometers in length and 5 meters in depth and 85 meters in width were dug.Almost all was done with picks, shovels and wheelbarrows.The seabed of the future Rybinsk is covered with an entire forest.The entire forest was felled by hand, and I have never seen a chainsaw.Trees and dead branches are burned by completely disabled people.

Working ten hours a day on the logging field, you still need to walk seven kilometers in the dark before dawn to work in the forest; you have to walk the same amount of way back at night, braving the severe cold of minus 30 degrees, and except for May 1st and November Apart from the seventh day of the month, there are no other days off within a year (Volgalag, 1937).If not prisoners, who can work here? If not the natives of the archipelago, who else can dig roots out of the ground in winter?Who else can carry ore in a back basket on an open pit gold mine in Kolyma?Who else can put their necks in a horse harness (to make it softer, they wrap it in rags and slung it over the shoulders) and two people pull a Finnish sledge, stepping on the thick snow, and taking the horses? Timber felled a kilometer away from the bank of the Inn (a tributary of the Wim) and reported to the river?

Of course, the plenipotentiary reporter Zhukov assures us that the Komsomolets built Komsomolsk-on-Amur (1932) like this: deforestation, no axes, no blacksmith stove; no bread , A large number died of scurvy.He then exclaimed: Ah, with what heroic spirit we are engaged in construction!But shouldn't we be more outraged by this phenomenon?Which guy who doesn't love his own people sends young people to do construction like this?However, there is no need to be outraged.At least we know what kind of "Communist Youth League members" are building the Komsomolsk City.The current article has made it clear: those "members of the Communist Youth League" are also the founders of Magadan. "

Who could be put into the mines of Jezkazgan to dry-drill twelve hours a day? --The sand and dust of the mine rocks stayed in the air like a dense fog, and without a mask, I was sent outside to die after four months with irreversible silicosis.Who can be lowered into a roadway without roof fall and flood protection in a cage without brakes?For what kind of people in the twentieth century do not need to spend a penny on expensive security technology? So how can labor camps be economically disadvantageous? ... Read Poborz's "Road of Death" about the disembarkation and unloading of barges on the Taz River. Under the supervision of a similar escort team, thousands of logs were carried on the permafrost untouched by humans, the pier was built, the railway track was laid, and the locomotive and carriages were pushed into this permafrost zone.But these locomotives and vehicles are destined to never be able to drive out of this place by their own strength.Prisoners slept in an open space surrounded by "camp" signs and could only sleep five hours a day.

He goes on to describe how the prisoners set up telephone lines in the tundra: they lived in huts made of branches and moss.Mosquitoes bit their naked bodies.The swamp mud never dries on their clothes, let alone their shoes and socks.The surveying of the line was sloppy and the construction was sloppy (and thus doomed to be reworked).There are no trees nearby that can be used as utility poles. They have to go out for two or three days to carry the utility poles back from there. It is a pity that there is not another Pobor day, in order to tell us about the construction of another railway before the war - the Kotlas-Vorkuta line.Two human heads were left under each of the sleepers there.Let alone the railway--tell how the simple cross-log road through the impassable forest was built before the railways, with thin hands, blunt axes, and useless bayonets.

Who could have done this if there were no prisoners?How can a labor camp be unprofitable? The only advantage of the camps was the tameness and cheapness of slave labor—no, not even the cheapness, but the unpaid nature of it.Because after all, you have to pay to buy an ancient slave, but you don't pay a penny to buy a labor prisoner. Even at the reform work conference held after the war, the industrialists admitted; "The prisoners played a huge role in the struggle for victory in the work in the rear." But no one will ever write their forgotten names on the marble monuments that stand over the bones. During the Khrushchev era, when they mobilized the Communist Youth League to mobilize to participate in the reclamation and Siberia projects, they finally understood how irreplaceable the labor camp was. As for the self-financing of labor camps, the situation is different.The country has long coveted this matter.The "Regulations on Places of Imprisonment" in 1921 stipulated that "the cost of maintaining places of imprisonment shall be compensated as far as possible from the labor of prisoners."From 1922 onwards, certain local executive committees ignored their own nature as workers and peasants, and showed a "inclination of non-political transactionalism". Squeeze profits for local budgets and achieve economic accounting that is more than self-sufficient.The "Reform Through Labor Code" of 1924 also required prisons to be responsible for their own profits and losses.In 1928, at the First All-Soviet Conference of Penitentiary Workers, a firm demand was put forward that "the entire network of penitentiary establishments" must "repay the State for the expenses paid by the State for penal establishments". Would love to have some cute labor camps - and for free!Beginning in 1929, all reform-through-labor institutions throughout the country were included in the national economic plan.And from January 1931, it was clearly stipulated that all labor camps and reformation centers in the Russian Federation and Ukraine should implement a complete self-financing system. The results of it?Naturally, it takes immediate effect!In 1932 the jurists declared triumphantly: "The expenditures of the labor reform institutions are gradually decreasing (this is to be believed), while the living conditions of the deprived of liberty are improving year by year. (?)" If we hadn't experienced firsthand how that living condition improved, we might have been surprised, and we might have tried to figure out, where did it come from, and how did it do it? ... But, if you think about it, it's actually not that hard to do! !What needs to be done?Make camp expenses match their income?We read above that expenses are gradually decreasing.Increasing income is even simpler: just squeeze the prisoners tighter!If in the time of Solovets in the archipelago there was an official discount of forty percent on the productivity of forced labor (for some reason at that time it was thought that the productivity of labor under the stick would not be so high), then since the implementation of the "stomach scale "The Baibo Canal project began, and the Gulag scholars discovered the exact opposite: forced starvation labor happens to be the most productive labor in the world!After receiving the order to switch to the self-financing system from 1931, the Ukrainian Labor Camp Administration decided straightforwardly: to increase the labor productivity in the next year compared with the previous years - no more than 2 per cent One hundred and forty-two, in other words, increase by two and a half times at once, and without any mechanization! (The calculation is really scientific: two hundred and forty plus two. There is only one thing that the comrades at the time did not know: this is called the "Great Leap Forward under the Three Red Flags".) See how well the Gulag knows the direction of the wind!At this time, Comrade Stalin's six conditions of immortal historical significance happened to be poured in - one of which is the economic accounting system, and we already have it!And we already have!There is another item in it that is "play the role of an expert"!This is the easiest thing for us: take the engineer out of the general labor!Put them in production chores! (The early thirties were the most favorable period for technical intellectuals in the archipelago. Almost all of them did not suffer in general labor, and even the new arrivals immediately arranged professional work. Before that, in the twenties, engineers and technicians have been working in vain in general labor, because there is no place for them to use their talents. After this, from 1937 to the 1950s, economic accounting and all six conditions of historical significance are all forgotten .At that time vigilance took center stage in history. Individual infiltrations of engineers in the ranks of handymen alternated with waves driving them en masse to general labor.) But after all it is cheaper to keep a convict engineer than a freeman engineer Much more: no salary required!So we talk about interests again, and we talk about economic calculations again!Once again Comrade Stalin was right! So, this route has a long history, and to be precise, it has always been implemented: turning the archipelago into a unit that costs no cost. But no matter how anxious and desperate they were, whether they cut off all their nails on the rocks, revised the report of completing the plan twenty times, or wiped out holes in the paper with an eraser, the goal of self-sufficiency has not been realized on the archipelago. , and it will never happen!Their incomes and expenditures can never be balanced, and our young worker-peasant state (and later the older all-people state) must carry this bloody burden on its back. The reason is here.The first and chief cause was the lack of consciousness of the prisoners, the carelessness of these stupid slaves.Not only can you not expect their socialist self-sacrifice, they can't even show simple capitalist diligence.They just took a chance to ruin their shoes--so they wouldn't go to work; break the winch, bend the wheels, snap the shovels, sink the pails--so they could have an excuse to sit and smoke.Everything that the convicts do for their dear country is blatant and the highest degree of foolishness: the bricks they make can be broken with hands, the paint flakes off the wainscoting, the plaster falls, Pillars fell down, tables wobbled, furniture fell off legs, and the handles would come off when you pulled them.Everywhere is ill-considered and full of mistakes.It is often necessary to throw down the iron sheet that has been laid on the roof, dig the trench that has been filled, and level the wall that has been built with iron rods and long drills.A brand new Swedish turbine was delivered to Sjjprag in the fifties.It arrived in a big box made of logs like a log house.It's winter, and it's cold, so the nasty prisoners got into this wooden box, hid in the gap between the logs and the turbine, and still built a fire there to keep warm; the silver solder joints of the blades melted--so Throw away this turbine.Its value is 3.7 million.This is your economic calculation! Mixing with the prisoners—this is the second reason—the free people also seem to be indifferent to everything, as if they are not building their own things, but building something for someone like Jack San Lisi.Besides, they stole furiously, very fiercely. (In the construction of a residential building, freedmen stole several bathtubs, which were obtained according to the number of units. How can this building be handed over? Of course, the site director could not admit it truthfully. He solemnly took the acceptance committee to inspect a Each suite on the first floor. Every bathroom must be entered, and every bathtub must be turned in. Then take the committee to look at the second floor and the third floor, without rushing, or go in every bathroom. At this time, a group of Under the guidance of an experienced sanitation engineering foreman, well-trained prisoners removed the bathtubs from the units on the first floor, lifted them up to the fourth floor on tiptoe, and quickly installed and puttyed them before the committee arrived. Who He has been deceived, let him account for it himself after the fact... It would be nice to make a movie comedy, but it will definitely not pass: there is nothing ridiculous in our life, all the ridiculous phenomena are in the West! ) The third reason is that prisoners lack independence.There are no guards, no camp administration, no guards, no camps with watchtowers, no production planning section, no registration and distribution section, no Cheka operation section and cultural and educational section, no layers of labor camp management Bureau, down to the Gulag itself; without the mail censorship department, without the disciplinary isolation unit, without the control shed, without the handyman, without the safekeeping room and the warehouse, they would not be able to live.Without escort teams and police dogs, they have no ability to act.So the state needs to support at least one overseer for every native who works (and every overseer has a family!).But it's still a good thing, otherwise, what do you want these overseers to live on? Some smart engineers pointed out the fourth reason: they said that because every step required to set up a quarantine area, strengthen the security, and send additional escorts, the technical command of these engineers was disturbed.This was the case, for example, when landing on the Taze.Everything is not done on time, everything costs more money, and that's why, according to them.But this is already an objective reason, which is already an excuse.Call them to the party committee to talk about it, beat it hard, and this reason will disappear.Let them rack their brains to figure out a way. To these reasons, there is the natural and quite forgivable inconsideration of leadership itself.As Comrade Lenin said, only those who do not work do not make mistakes. For example, no matter how you plan earthworks, it seldom happens in summer, but for some reason in autumn, and in winter, mud and cold. Another example is that at the Zarosh Spring in the Shturmovoi Gold Mine (Kolyma), in March 1938, 500 people were sent to dig some 8 to 10 meters deep in the permafrost. exploration well.They were done (half the prisoners lost their lives).It was time to blast, but they changed their minds: the metal content was too low.give up.In May, the exploratory well thawed and collapsed, and all previous efforts were wasted.But two years later, again in March, when Kolyma was cold, I had another whim: Drill the manhole!Still in place!Urgent task!Don't regret human life! Isn't this just unnecessary expenses? ... Another example is on the Sukhona River near the new village of Oboki - the prisoners transported soil and built a dam.As soon as the spring flood comes, it will be overwhelmed immediately.It's all gone, wasted effort. Another example is that the Taraga lumberyard of the Arkhangelsk Labor Camp Administration was given a plan for the production of furniture, but it was forgotten to give them wood for their furniture.A plan is a plan and must be executed!Taraga had to organize some special teams to salvage "accident wood" from the river--that is, wood that fell off the raft.not enough.So I took a surprise attack and started to break up the entire wooden raft, and then dragged it back.But these rafts are also within the plans of other units, and now they will not be enough.And Taraga, on the other hand, doesn't fill out the worksheets for these brave lads: it's theft.That's what economic accounting is all about... Another example was in Ustvemlag once (1943) they wanted to overfulfill the plan for the flow of loose wood (single logs) and exerted pressure on the lumberyard, sending those who could work and those who could not Quan rushed to log, and as a result, an excessive amount of wood—200,000 cubic meters—was gathered in front of the main floating fence.Before the arrival of winter, there was no time to fish it out, and the wood was frozen in the ice.Downstream of the floating gate is a railway bridge.If in the spring the timber, instead of breaking up into individual logs, had flowed down in one piece, it would have knocked down the piers, and it goes without saying that the battalion commander had to go to court.There is no other way but to apply for a few wagons of dynamite, put the dynamite on the bottom of the river in winter, blow up the frozen wood, and then quickly roll these logs to the bank--burn them (they are no longer suitable for making in spring anyway) sawn timber used).There are 200 people in a whole labor camp, all engaged in this work.In order to work in the ice water, lard is specially distributed to them, but any process cannot be filled in the work report, because it is all superfluous labor.Burnt wood is also considered useless.This is the so-called financial self-sufficiency. The entire Pechora railway labor camp was responsible for building a railway to Vorkuta - twists and turns, no matter where you go.Later, he started to straighten the repaired railway.Which account is this on?And what about the railway from Larsk (on the Ruza River) to Pinyug (even thought of extending it to Sktyvkar)?What huge labor camps were driven there in 1938 to build that forty-five-kilometre railway line—it's over when it's done...all the effort was wasted like that. Of course, such small mistakes are inevitable in any work.No leader can be guaranteed not to make such mistakes. But what about the Salekhard-Igarka railway, which was started in 1949? --in hindsight it was entirely redundant, there was nothing to ship on this line.So no more.Whose fault was this, it's scary to say it out.You know it's--his own... Economic calculation sometimes tosses people to such an extent that the labor camp commander doesn't know where to hide and how to make up for the shortfall.The Kacha camp for disabled prisoners near Krasnoyarsk (1,500 disabled people!) was also ordered after the war to carry out all economic accounting: make furniture!The cripples cut logs with frame saws (not a logging camp, so no mechanical equipment) and cows to transport the logs back to the camp (nor were they given transportation, but they had a dairy).The cost of a pair of sofas was calculated to be as high as eight hundred rubles, and the selling price was six hundred rubles! …Under such circumstances, it would be beneficial for the labor camp authorities to convert as many disabled people as possible into first-class disabled or as sick and not take them to work outside the camp: they can immediately turn from loss-making units to stable ones. Eat the unit of the state budget. For all these reasons, the archipelago is not only unable to achieve self-financing, but the state has to provide a large amount of subsidies in order to maintain such a thing. Another factor that complicates the economic life of the archipelago is that this great socialist economic accounting of national significance is only needed by the whole country and the gulag, and that the commander of each labor camp misuses it one thing.It is inevitable to say something strange, and it is inevitable to keep some bonuses privately (the bonuses given above will still be issued).Every labor camp commander regards owning an independent natural economy, owning his own comfortable small manor and hereditary territory as his main source of income and room for activities, as his main convenience and enjoyment.Among the officers of the Red Army and the Ministry of Internal Affairs evolved and formed a thoughtful, respectful, proud, nice word - "Master".There is a master of the whole country on it.The monitor of each class below must also be the master. But the ruthless comb used by the hard-hearted Frenkel to divide prisoners into A-B-C-D categories has always remained in the Gulag's mane. To deftly navigate between the teeth of this comb, the camp masters needed to resort to some workarounds.If the Gulag should have only one tailor, then a whole sewing workshop would have to be set up; if there should only be one shoemaker - then a shoemaking workshop would have to be set up.How many other highly useful craftsmen the master wishes to keep at hand!Why not, for example, build a glass greenhouse so that officers' tables can be furnished with greenhouse flowers?Sometimes a wise battalion commander would even consider setting up a large-scale vegetable sideline base, so that prisoners can also eat a little vegetables-they will use their labor to pay for the vegetables, which is very cost-effective for the master, but never Where to get manpower? There was a way—to put a little more weight on the shoulders of the prisoners engaged in ordinary labor; to trick the Gulag a little, and to trick the production departments a little.To carry out some larger projects in the camp, such as building houses, the prisoners can be forced to work overtime on Sundays or at night after the end of the working day (ten hours).In order to carry out regular work, the method of exaggerating the number of workers in the work team is adopted: the manpower left in the camp area is regarded as the manpower who went out with the work team to construct the camp, and the work team leader must bring back from the construction site what should be paid for this group of people. The percentage accounted for, that is, the number of completed tasks deprived from other team members (the team members would not have been able to complete the quota).The coolies worked more and ate less than before—but the economy of the manor was strengthened, and the life of the officers and comrades became richer and more enjoyable. The battalion commanders of some labor camps had very far-sighted economic vision and could find an imaginative engineer-so a "general affairs compound" including various workshops grew up in the labor camp area, which was soon seen in Official documents were even made public and began to undertake the task of industrial orders.But it couldn't squeeze into the supply schedule for materials and tools, so it had to make everything from nothing. Let's talk about the situation in the "General Affairs Compound" in the Kenjill labor camp.We won't mention workshops of sewing, cured furs, bookbinding, joinery, and the like, which are trifles.Kenjill's general affairs compound has its own foundry, its own fitter's shop and even - just in the middle of the twentieth century - its own drilling and grinding machines by hand!True, the lathe was not built itself, but the Camp Lend-Lease method was employed: one was stolen from the production department in broad daylight.The arrangement was as follows: a truck was driven to a labor camp, and after the workshop director left the factory, the whole work team swooped on a lathe, no matter how hard it was to load it on the truck, it was easy to drive out. The factory gate, because it has been cleared from the gate post; the guards in the factory are also members of the Ministry of Internal Affairs-the lathes were pulled into the labor camp in one breath, and no free person can enter that place.So you're done!What could one ask from the mouth of a stupid and irresponsible native of the archipelago?The workshop director was furious - where did the bed go?But they don't know anything: Has there ever been a bed?We haven't seen it.The most important tools were brought back to the camp in this way, but it was easier to put them in the pockets and under the skirts. Once, the General Affairs Compound accepted the task of casting drainage manhole covers for the Kenjill Concentrator.The stuff was made, but the cast iron ran out--where did the camp get it?Just get it from the concentrator itself.So the prisoners were ordered to steal the high-quality British cast iron brackets (still left over from the concession period before the revolution) from there, and after being melted in the labor camp, they were cast into manhole covers, and then transported back to the concentrator, and a sum of money was transferred. to the account of the labor camp. Now the reader understands how this active General Affairs compound is strengthening self-finance and the national economy. This general affairs compound can do anything!Not even Kroeber can handle all the work.Manufacture of large pottery pipes for sewers, windmills, hay cutters, locks, water pumps, repair of meat grinders, sewing of transmission belts, repair of autoclaves for hospitals, grinding of drill bits for skull trepanation.Ducks have to be put on the shelves when there is no other way!You'll know what to do when you're hungry.If you say: We won't do it, we can't do it.Tomorrow you will be driven to work outside the camp.But it is much more comfortable in the general affairs compound: there is no need to gather in line, no need to walk under escort, you can work slower, and you can do something for yourself.If you do work for others, the hospital will give you two days of "sick leave" as compensation, the kitchen will give you some "additional hair", someone else will give you a horse cigarette, and the officials may even throw you some bread from the government. Ridiculous and funny.Engineers have to rack their brains on "what material to use?" and "how to make it?" all day long.A suitable piece of iron found from an unknown scrap heap can often change the entire structure of the original design.The windmill was finished, but the spring that could change its direction with the wind was not found.It had to be simply tied two ropes and the two prisoners were punished as follows: when the wind direction changed, they ran while pulling the ropes, reversing the direction of the windmill.Make bricks yourself: A woman cuts a moving strip of mud with wire to the length of future bricks.The adobe is then moved onto a conveyor belt, and this conveyor belt also needs to be driven by the woman herself.But what to use: You must know that both of her hands are occupied.Oh, the immortal inventiveness of cunning prisoners!They designed two small poles, which were tightly attached to the female worker's crotch when she cut the adobe with both hands.Rely on hard and frequent swings of the crotch while moving the conveyor belt!It's a pity that we can't show a photo like this to our readers. The manor of Kengil was finally convinced that there was nothing in the world that his general affairs compound could not produce.So once he called the chief engineer and ordered him: "Start making window panes and flasks immediately!"How is this thing made?No one knows.Check out an encyclopedia that no one uses.Only a general introduction, no recipe.But a batch of soda ash was ordered anyway, and quartz sand was found somewhere and shipped to the battalion.And the main thing was to instruct the buddies in the battalion to bring back broken glass from the "New City" construction site--there was a lot of broken glass.Fill it all into a furnace, melt it, stir it, draw it - and it turns out to be a plate window pane!It's just one centimeter thick at one end, and only two millimeters left at the other end.It is absolutely impossible to recognize one's good friend through such a glass.But the deadline to show the battalion commander the product is approaching.Do you know what life is like for a prisoner?He only cares about that day; as long as he can live through today, he doesn't care about tomorrow's affairs.They stole ready-made glass from the construction site, took it to the General Affairs Compound, and gave it to Battalion Changchun.The battalion commander was very satisfied: "There is a way! It's just like the real thing! Let's start mass production now!" "Citizen Commander, I can't make more." "Why?" Aluminum is to be used. We used to have a little, and now we have used it up." "It's a pity. Can a tall glass bottle work without this drill?" "A tall glass bottle might work." "Okay, let's fire it." But the high The belly of the neck bottle was all crooked when blown out, and it didn't know why it suddenly burst by itself.A watchman took such a decanter to collect milk--there was only one neck left in his hand, and the milk drained away. "Ah, bastard!" he swore. "Assassins! Fascists! Shoot you all!" When demolishing a century-old house on Ogarev Street in Moscow to build the foundation for a new building, the rectangular skids under the floor were not only not thrown away, not only were they not used as firewood, but were used for fine work. Woodwork is used!This is still some good wood that bangs and bangs.You see how our great-grandfathers pre-dried wood. We are always in a hurry, we never have time.Is it possible to wait until the skids are dry?At the Kaluga checkpoint we painted the rectangular skids with the latest preservatives, and they still rotted, growing mold, and they rotted so fast that we had to pry open the floorboards and replace the long skids before the building was handed over. Square skids. So a hundred years from now everything we prisoners and the whole country have built will not be rattling like those old skids on Ogarev Street. On the day when the Soviet Union launched the first artificial satellite into the sky with great fanfare, in Ryazan, facing the window of my residence, two pairs of free women in prison coats and cotton trousers lifted the mortar up four floors with buckets building. --Yes, yes, that is the case,--someone will contradict me. --but what can you say?It's still spinning! I really ran into a ghost!You can't do anything with this one - it's spinning! It should have ended this chapter with a long list of projects carried out by prisoners from at least the first Stalin five-year plan up to the time of Khrushchev.But of course I have no conditions to make this list.I can only start at the beginning, hoping to add and continue. -- White Sea-Baltic Canal (1932), Moscow-Volga Canal (1936), Volga-Dun Canal (1952); -- Kotlas-Vorkuta Railway, Salekhard Branch Line; -- Rikasikh L Molotovsk Railway production--Salekhard-Igalka Railway (abandoned);--Larsk-Pinyug Railway (abandoned);--Karaganda-Mointa-Balkash Railway (193 6);--The Volga Right Bank Coastal Railway passing through Kamyshin;--The railway along the Sufen, Sui (Lan) border; -- Teixete-Lena Railway (beginning of the Bei-Ada Railway); Gongqingcheng-Soviet Harbor Railway; -- Sakhalin Island from Pobedino Station to the railway network built by the Japanese Railway at Ulaanbaatar and roads in Mongolia;--Moscow-Minsk road (1937-38);--Nogayevo-Atka-Neira公路；-古比雪先水电站工程；--下士洛马水电站工程（摩尔曼斯克附近）；--乌斯特一卡明诺戈尔斯克水电站工程；--巴尔哈什炼钢联合工厂工程（一九三四-三五）；--索利卡姆斯克造纸联合工厂工程；--别列兹尼基化学联合工厂工程；--马格尼托戈尔斯克钢铁联合工厂工程（部分）； --库兹涅斯克钢铁联合工厂工程（部分）；--各类工厂、平炉的工程；--莫斯科国立罗蒙诺索夫大学工程（一九五0-一九五三， 部分）；--建设阿穆尔河岸共青城；--建设苏维埃港市；--建设马加丹市；--"远北建设工程局"的全部建设项目；--建设诺里尔斯克市；--建设杜金卡市；--建设沃尔库塔市；--建设莫洛托夫斯克市（北德文斯克市）--自一九三五 年开始；--建设杜勃诺市；--建设纳霍德卡市；--萨哈林岛一大陆输油管；--几乎全部原子工业项目的工程；--放射性原素的开采（车里雅宾斯克、斯维尔德洛夫斯克、 图拉附近的铀和镭）；--在核原料分离和富集工厂内工作（一九四五-一九四 八）；--乌赫塔镭矿开采；乌赫塔石油加工，制取重水；--伯朝拉斯克、库兹涅斯克煤田及卡拉干达、苏曼矿区煤 炭开采；--杰兹卡兹甘、南西伯利亚、布里亚特一蒙古、朔尔地方、 哈卡斯地方、科拉半岛等地的矿物开采；--科雷马、楚克奇、雅库梯、瓦加奇岛、迈卡因（巴甫洛 达尔州巴彦阿乌尔区）等地的金矿开采；--科拉半岛磷灰石矿开采（一九三O年）；--阿姆迭尔马地方的氟石矿开采（自一九三六年开始）； --稀有金属开采（阿克莫林斯克省"斯大林矿区"）（五十 年代以前）； --为供应出口和国内需要的森林采伐。整个欧洲俄罗斯的 北部和西伯利亚。我们无法开出不计其数的伐木劳改点 的名单，它们等于群岛的一半。根据最前面的几个名称 就可以清楚地看到这一点：科因河沿岸各营；德维纳乌 夫秋加河沿岸各营；维契格达支流涅姆河沿岸各营（被 放逐的日耳曼族居民）；维契格达河上里亚鲍沃附近的劳 改营；北德维纳河上切列夫尼科沃附近的劳改营；小北 德维纳河上阿里斯托沃附近的劳改营…… 这样的清单有谁开得出来？……什么地图上，谁的记忆中，还保留着那些附近森林砍光后就完全撤销的仅仅存在一、二：三年的！病时林业劳改场？况且，为什么只说伐木作业？凡是在地面上存在过的属于群岛的所有小岛，有谁能开列出一个完整的名单吗？包括在固定地点存在了几十年的鼎鼎大名的劳改营以及沿施工线路游动的劳改营；庞大的长期犯中心监狱以及用"帐篷加树根"构成的劳改犯递解站。有谁能承担这样一个任务：把每个羁押室、城市监狱（每个城市都有好几个）、有着别草场和畜牧场的劳改农场、像瓜子壳似地撤遍各城市的小型工业劳改场统统标明在地图上？至于莫斯科和列宁格勒，那就需要各画一张单独的大比例地图，以便把这些单位所占据的地界勾划出来（不要忘记"苏维埃宫"施工初期离克里姆林宫半公里之遥的那个劳改点）。另外，二十年代的群岛是一种面貌，五十年代的面貌则全然不同，地点也完全不同。怎样表现出它们在时间中的动态？需要画多少张图？内罗勃拉格，或乌斯特维姆拉格，或利卡姆和波奇马的各劳改营，它们的面积要整片地用斜线标明出来，但是我们当中有谁巡查过它的边界？ 我们仍希望有一天能看到这样的地图。 --在卡累利阿从事木材装船工作（一九三0年前）。英国报刊发出拒绝接受由犯人装船的木材的呼吁以后，匆忙地把犯人从这些工作中撤走，赶进卡累利阿内地； --战争期间，为前方生产地雷、炮弹、弹药箱、被服； --建设西伯利亚和哈萨克斯坦的国营农场…… 即使撇开整个二十年代以及关押所、感化院、劳动感化院的生产不谈，那么，我国每个像样的城市都缺少不了的工业劳改场在四分之一世纪中（一九二九-一九五三）又从事着什么，制造着什么呢？ 列举犯人们从来没有从事过的工作倒是比较容易，那就是：制造灌肠和糖果。