The Vorkuta Uprising was a major uprising of forced

labor camp A labor camp (or labour camp, see British and American spelling differences, spelling differences) or work camp is a detention facility where inmates are unfree labour, forced to engage in penal labor as a form of punishment. Labor camps have ...

inmates at the Rechlag

Gulag The Gulag was a system of Labor camp, forced labor camps in the Soviet Union. The word ''Gulag'' originally referred only to the division of the Chronology of Soviet secret police agencies, Soviet secret police that was in charge of runnin ...

special labor camp in

Vorkuta Vorkuta (; ; Nenets languages, Nenets for "the abundance of bears", "bear corner") is a coal-mining types of inhabited localities in Russia, town in the Komi Republic, Russia, situated just north of the Arctic Circle in the Pechora coal basin a ...

Russian SFSR The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (Russian SFSR or RSFSR), previously known as the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic and the Russian Soviet Republic, and unofficially as Soviet Russia,Declaration of Rights of the labo ...

, USSR from 19 July (or 22 July) to 1 August 1953, shortly after the arrest of

Lavrentiy Beria Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria ka, ლავრენტი პავლეს ძე ბერია} ''Lavrenti Pavles dze Beria'' ( – 23 December 1953) was a Soviet politician and one of the longest-serving and most influential of Joseph ...

on 26 June 1953. The uprising was violently stopped by the camp administration after two weeks of bloodless standoff.

Background

Vorkuta '' Rechlag'' (River Camp) or Special Camp No. 6 consisted of 17 separate "departments" engaged in construction of

coal mine Coal mining is the process of resource extraction, extracting coal from the ground or from a mine. Coal is valued for its Energy value of coal, energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to Electricity generation, generate electr ...

s, coal mining and forestry. In 1946 it housed 62,700 inmates, 56,000 in July 1953. A substantial portion of the camp guards were former convicts. According to

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn. (11 December 1918 – 3 August 2008) was a Soviet and Russian author and Soviet dissidents, dissident who helped to raise global awareness of political repression in the Soviet Union, especially the Gulag pris ...

, the uprising was provoked by two unconnected events of June 1953: the arrest of Lavrentiy Beria in

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

and the arrival of Ukrainian prisoners who, unlike long-term Russian inmates, were still missing their freedom (similar dissent existed between

Baltic Baltic may refer to: Peoples and languages *Baltic languages, a subfamily of Indo-European languages, including Lithuanian, Latvian and extinct Old Prussian *Balts (or Baltic peoples), ethnic groups speaking the Baltic languages and/or originatin ...

, the second largest group, and

Polish Polish may refer to: * Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe * Polish language * Polish people, people from Poland or of Polish descent * Polish chicken * Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin ...

inmates). Another major factor was the application of the March 1953 general amnesty, issued after the

death of Joseph Stalin Death is the end of life; the irreversible cessation of all biological functions that sustain a living organism. Death eventually and inevitably occurs in all organisms. The remains of a former organism normally begin to decompose shor ...

, to only convicts with criminal sentences and small prison terms, of which there were few in Vorkuta, as a large part of the inmates were

political prisoner A political prisoner is someone imprisoned for their political activity. The political offense is not always the official reason for the prisoner's detention. There is no internationally recognized legal definition of the concept, although ...

Uprising

The uprising, initially in the form of a passive

walkout In labor disputes, a walkout is a labor strike, the act of employees collectively leaving the workplace and withholding labor as an act of protest. A walkout can also mean the act of leaving a place of work, school, a meeting, a company, or an ...

, began on or before July 19, 1953, at a single "department" and quickly spread to five others. The initial demands were to give inmates access to a

state attorney In the United States, a district attorney (DA), county attorney, county prosecutor, state attorney, state's attorney, prosecuting attorney, commonwealth's attorney, or solicitor is the chief prosecutor or chief law enforcement officer represen ...

and due justice, and they quickly changed to political demands. According to the inmate Leonid Markizov,

Voice of America Voice of America (VOA or VoA) is an international broadcasting network funded by the federal government of the United States that by law has editorial independence from the government. It is the largest and oldest of the American internation ...

and the

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

broadcast regular news about the events in the ''Rechlag'', with correct names, ranks and numbers. Even without foreign assistance, strikes at nearby sites were clearly visible as the wheels of the mine

headframe A headframe (gallows frame, winding tower, hoist frame,Ernst, Dr.-Ing. Richard (1989). ''Wörterbuch der Industriellen Technik'' (5th ed.). Wiesbaden: Oscar Brandstetter, 1989. pit frame, shafthead frame, headgear, headstock, poppethead) is t ...

s stopped rotating, and the word was spread by trains, which had slogans painted by prisoners on the sides, and whose crews spread news. The total number of inmates on strike reached 18,000. The inmates remained static within the barbed wire

perimeter A perimeter is the length of a closed boundary that encompasses, surrounds, or outlines either a two-dimensional shape or a one-dimensional line. The perimeter of a circle or an ellipse is called its circumference. Calculating the perimet ...

s. For a week following the initial strike the camp administration apparently did nothing; they increased perimeter guards but took no forceful action against inmates. The mines were visited by State Attorney of the USSR,

Roman Rudenko Roman Andreyevich Rudenko (, ; – 23 January 1981) was a Soviet Union, Soviet lawyer and statesman. Procurator General of the Soviet Union , Procurator-General of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic from 1944 to 1953, Rudenko became Procu ...

, Internal Troops Commander, Ivan Maslennikov, and other top brass from Moscow. The generals spoke to the inmates who sat idle in camp courtyards, so far peacefully. However, on July 26 the mob stormed the maximum security punitive compound, releasing 77 of its inmates. The commissars from Moscow remained in Vorkuta, planning their response. On July 31 camp chief Derevyanko started mass arrests of "saboteurs"; inmates responded with

barricade Barricade (from the French ''barrique'' - 'barrel') is any object or structure that creates a barrier or obstacle to control, block passage or force the flow of traffic in the desired direction. Adopted as a military term, a barricade denotes ...

s. The next day, August 1, after further bloodless clashes between inmates and guards, Derevyanko ordered direct fire at the mob. According to Leonid Markizov, 42 were killed on the spot, 135 wounded (many of them, deprived of medical help, died later). According to Solzhenitsyn, there were 66 killed. Among those shot was the Latvian Catholic priest Jānis Mendriks.Servant of God Fr. Janis Mendriks MIC 1907–1953
/ref> After submission of the mob, many "saboteurs" were arrested and placed in maximum security cells, but without further punitive executions. Conditions were marginally improved (especially for "political" inmates).

In popular culture

A similar fictional uprising at Vorkuta, however in 1963 when the camp had already been shut down, was depicted in the story mode of the 2010 video game '' Call of Duty: Black Ops''.

Literature

Rislakki, Jukka. Vorkuta! Gulag Uprising (Vorkuta! Vankileirin kapina ja sen suomalainen johtohahmo), WSOY, 2013.

References

Sources

* Markizov, L. P. ''Uprising, not sabotage'' (Маркизов Л.П., Не "волынка" - восстание - "Дым Отечества", 1993) *

, ''

The Gulag Archipelago ''The Gulag Archipelago: An Experiment in Literary Investigation'' () is a three-volume nonfiction series written between 1958 and 1968 by Russian writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, a Soviet dissident. It was first published in 1973 by the Parisian ...