Stalin's deadly 'railway to nowhere'

[Dennis the 'Bloody Peasant']

Just found this interesting, I know there will some backlash from Stalinists or what have you but can't help that.

In the Russian Arctic lies buried an unfinished railway built by prisoners of Stalin's gulags. For decades no-one talked about it. But one woman is now telling the story of the thousands who suffered there - and there is talk of bringing back to life the abandoned railway itself.

The snowdrifts come up to our waists and the wind stings my face, but Lyudmila Lipatova, a sturdy woman in her 70s, does not seem to notice and hands me a shovel.
"This is the place", she says. "Now let's start digging!"
After a bit, my spade hit something metallic. We scrape away the snow and examine the rusty rails. Along the side of one piece of track I notice some writing: the acronym ZIS followed by Zavod Imeni Stalina, Factory - named after Joseph Stalin.

Lyudmila and I had uncovered a tiny section of one of Joseph Stalin's cruellest and most ambitious projects - the Trans-Polar Mainline.
It was his attempt to conquer the Arctic - part of what he called his Great Plan for the Transformation of Nature.
The scheme was supposed to link the eastern and western parts of Siberia with a 1,000-mile (1,609km) railway stretching from the city of Inta, in Komi Autonomous Republic, through Salekhard to Igarka, on the Yenisei River.

The labour force was almost entirely made up of "enemies of the people" - prisoners convicted of "political" offences.
Gulags 501 and 503 were created specially for the railway and every 6-8 miles (10-12km) along the track there were camps.
Prisoners built their own wooden barracks but the unlucky ones in the front units had to take shelter in canvas tents.
"You think it's cold now but it's spring," says Lyudmila.
"In winter the temperature can go down to -50 Celsius. Just imagine working in that. And in the summer the terrible heat, the mosquitoes."
Some guards used the insects to inflict merciless punishments.
"They'd undress the prisoner and tie him up for the mosquitoes and that was worse than any torture instrument."

(Full article at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18116112 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18116112))

[Geiseric]

Sounds maniacal. The trans american railway was pretty bad too, I mean i've never seen a railway construction process in an unindustrialized country look like a nice place to live. Those polical prisoners probably didn't have to be there though.

[TheGodlessUtopian]

Off topic posts deleted. Stay on track.

[Offbeat]

Off topic posts deleted. Stay on track.
I get it :laugh:

[Comrade Hill]

Oh my Marx, a BBC News story. Us "Stalinists" are all going to die.

My question is, why are you posting historical articles from reactionary sources, where people are only interested in getting views?


The snowdrifts come up to our waists and the wind stings my face, but Lyudmila Lipatova, a sturdy woman in her 70s, does not seem to notice and hands me a shovel.

This "sturdy woman in her 70s" was little teenager when Stalin was an old man. She also, is a so called "researcher" at the Salekhard museum. It sounds like another one of those "dedicated" institutions who are not interested in archival evidence.


Lyudmila and I had uncovered a tiny section of one of Joseph Stalin's cruellest and most ambitious projects - the Trans-Polar Mainline.

I thought it was called Stalin's deadly road to nowhere. It has another name now?

Also, about those cruel Gulags and projects. Here's a quote about them from an American historian, who actually visited the Soviet Union, unlike this poor excuse for a researcher who BBC is interviewing.

"The Soviet prison system, as applied to ordinary criminals, embodies a number of progressive penological ideas. Educational and manual training instruction courses exist in the more advanced prisons; prisoners are not required to wear uniforms; and the well-behaved prisoner receives a vacation of two weeks every year, which is certainly a unique Russian institution. "
Chamberlin, William Henry. Soviet Russia. Boston: Little, Brown, 1930, p. 124

And of course, they had to sneak in their article that the Soviet prison system somehow belonged to the evil Stalin. It's pretty obvious that this is just a farce they threw in for hype.


The labour force was almost entirely made up of "enemies of the people" - prisoners convicted of "political" offences.

That's a pretty oversimplified analysis of the Soviet Penal system. Most prisoners sent to work on railroads were violent peasants or counter-revolutionaries, it is a lot more than just "politics." There were many different camps with various degrees of work for certain punishments.


Prisoners built their own wooden barracks but the unlucky ones in the front units had to take shelter in canvas tents.


Wow, she saw it with her own eyes? Can she provide at least provide a little bit of evidence?


Lyudmila added that one young man, enslaved on the railway because of his politically incorrect poetry, was stripped naked and tormented in this way after he refused to give the names of some prisoners who had escaped.

Well yeah, take a look at Article 58 of the NKVD. Stalin and many members of the party fought against this.


A 16-year-old girl, whose mother had died and whose father returned wounded from the front, was desperate to feed her four younger siblings. When she was caught stealing half a sack of beetroots she too was sent off to build the railway.
"She got 10 years hard labour for that supposedly political crime," explains Lyudmila, "but what did it have to do with politics?"


You know, that's pretty unfortunate, because there are numerous accounts of this same thing happening in capitalist systems. Not a complete story that deserves any attention.


Nadezhda Kukushina was a book-keeper at a state enterprise in Ukraine. When rats got into the safe and chewed up some banknotes, she was accused of embezzlement and sent to work on the railway.

WHERE is the evidence for this?


Other prisoners had already endured German prisoner-of-war camps. When they eventually returned home to the Soviet Union, the authorities branded them traitors and sent them to the Arctic.

This has nothing at all to do with the article. Sounds like more of the gossip propaganda of Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Robert Conquest. All this so called "research" was done before the archives were open. Such useless research should be dismissed.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Sounds maniacal. The trans american railway was pretty bad too, I mean i've never seen a railway construction process in an unindustrialized country look like a nice place to live. Those polical prisoners probably didn't have to be there though.

Yeah US rail-lines were notoriously cruel and dangerous. The trans-american railroad probably isn't a bad historical analogue either - sounds like similar motivations of modernizing the frontier.


Also, about those cruel Gulags and projects. Here's a quote about them from an American historian, who actually visited the Soviet Union, unlike this poor excuse for a researcher who BBC is interviewing.Um, so your entire argument against the OP was that the information was invalid because of connections to bourgeois institutions and that it was a published in a bourgeois paper, but then you cite a mainstream historian probably also connected to various bourgeois-institutions to counter the bourgeois-tainted article? I just don't know what to believe anymore!

But seriously, you can't prove that this rail line built in harsh environments was not using prison labor or that people weren't mistreated through simply casting doubt onto the sources and evidence. I think the most probable way that anti-communist sentiment taints this article is in sensationalizing things and the whole Stalin boogyman thing -- I doubt that they'd have an interest creating this story for the sake of demonizing the long-gone USSR. It's also highly probable that any rail line built in that time period in the USSR in that location would not be very easy on the labor used to make it.


"The Soviet prison system, as applied to ordinary criminals, embodies a number of progressive penological ideas. Educational and manual training instruction courses exist in the more advanced prisons; prisoners are not required to wear uniforms; and the well-behaved prisoner receives a vacation of two weeks every year, which is certainly a unique Russian institution. "
Chamberlin, William Henry. Soviet Russia. Boston: Little, Brown, 1930, p. 124 Seriously? I can't think of a better encapsulation of USSR-apologia on the radical left: yeah it was a prison, but a really nice one with benefits.

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

Oh my Marx,

http://i575.photobucket.com/albums/ss194/GAT_00/Funny/No-Country-for-Old-Men_Tommy-Lee-Jo.jpg


My question is, why are you posting historical articles from reactionary sources, where people are only interested in getting views?

Somewhat of a valid point, considering the history of the BBC, it's dubious reporting of 7/7 and so on but still, just because it's from BBC is no reason to automatically reject or dismiss it.


"The Soviet prison system, as applied to ordinary criminals, embodies a number of progressive penological ideas. Educational and manual training instruction courses exist in the more advanced prisons; prisoners are not required to wear uniforms; and the well-behaved prisoner receives a vacation of two weeks every year, which is certainly a unique Russian institution. "
Chamberlin, William Henry. Soviet Russia. Boston: Little, Brown, 1930, p. 124

Because obviously if you have one quote from some American asshat that is ten times better than the assertions of someone whom actually fucking lived there.

I hate to ask, but are you really trying to just deny everything and hope you're right in the end? Seriously, it's akin to watching a Holocaust denier talk about WWII.



Wow, she saw it with her own eyes? Can she provide at least provide a little bit of evidence?

Because everyone just has a camera on them at all times back home and pictures are reality, you're right.

[Luís Henrique]

Us "Stalinists" are all going to die.

What is already dead may never die, but rises again, stiffer and stinkier.

How about discussing the railroad itself? What was the strategic plan behind it, if any? Why was it abandoned, and when?

Luís Henrique

[Comrade Hill]

Um, so your entire argument against the OP was that the information was invalid because of connections to bourgeois institutions and that it was a published in a bourgeois paper, but then you cite a mainstream historian probably also connected to various bourgeois-institutions to counter the bourgeois-tainted article? I just don't know what to believe anymore!


My argument is that the bourgeois institutions connected to this article are likely ones that don't use archival evidence.

If you want an argument from a non-bourgeois source, the sociologist and labor organizer in the USSR Jerome Davis says similar things.

"Russia's pre-revolutionary prison system was probably the most backward in Europe. Today Russia has the most advanced penal code in the world....
On must understand the underlying ideology of Marxism if one would comprehend the prison system of the USSR. With the Revolution the old penological theories were junked along with all the rest of the prevailing cultural bases. According to Marx, Engels, and their modern interpreter, Lenin, crime is the product of the capitalistic economic system. Change the economic order and the fountainhead of all crime dries up. Since, however, the revolution cannot accomplish the change from a capitalist to a communist society at once, there are forms of anti-social activity due to the transitional stage through which Russia is now passing."
Davis, Jerome. The New Russia. New York: The John Day company, c1933, p. 219



But seriously, you can't prove that this rail line built in harsh environments was not using prison labor or that people weren't mistreated through simply casting doubt onto the sources and evidence.


I don't deny the harsh conditions. What I deny is the suspicious "detailed stories" of little girls being arrested for "political reasons" that aren't even explained in the article.



Somewhat of a valid point, considering the history of the BBC, it's dubious reporting of 7/7 and so on but still, just because it's from BBC is no reason to automatically reject or dismiss it.


Well, if you want to learn about history, you should probably try reading history books. It makes a lot more sense than paying lip service to the bourgeois media.



Because obviously if you have one quote from some American asshat that is ten times better than the assertions of someone whom actually fucking lived there.


Mr. "Some American asshat" lived in the Soviet Union before this woman was even born.



I hate to ask, but are you really trying to just deny everything and hope you're right in the end? Seriously, it's akin to watching a Holocaust denier talk about WWII.


Except with the Holocaust, the overwhelming majority of witnesses believe that it happened, and it is even considered to be the most documented tragedy in history. Does this article even mention any witnesses? No. This article has no evidence or cited sources. Also, comparing holocaust denial to me asking for archival evidence for specific arrests is a dirty game.



Because everyone just has a camera on them at all times back home and pictures are reality, you're right.

It doesn't take a camera to tell the FULL STORY with witnesses or archival evidence.

[Os Cangaceiros]

"Russia's pre-revolutionary prison system was probably the most backward in Europe.

sounds presumptious (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1978922&postcount=9)

[harte.beest]

This article is bias, it says 300,000 worked and 100,000 died, but "no records were kept" as if to say, even more died then that:

According to some estimates 300,000 prisoners were enslaved on the project and nearly a third of them perished in the process.
But Lyudmila says that the real death toll and exact number of camps and prisoners are not known since no accurate records were kept.
but wikipedia says only 80,000 to 120,000 even worked on the project, so how did they go from "about 100,000 worked on the project" to, 100,000 died and then suggest it may be even more? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transpolar_Mainline (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transpolar_Mainline)

This all occurred around the same time as the Korean war, by the way, America isn't any better
The war left 33,742 American soldiers dead, 92,134 wounded, and 80,000 missing in action (MIA) or prisoner of war (POW). Estimates place Korean and Chinese casualties at 1,000,000–1,400,000 dead or woundedAmerica also has more people in prison, then any country on earth, including China. They're filled with prisoner-on-prisoner violence, 60,000 people are raped every year in US prisons. They're certainly no better, and that's the modern US
The U.S. leads the world, both in absolute and in relative terms: it has the highest fraction of population in prison, 0.7% vs a world median (http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_pri_per_cap-crime-prisoners-per-capita) of roughly 0.1%, and it has the highest number of people in prison – more than 2 million. With 5 percent of the world population, the U.S. hosts upward of 20 percent of the world’s prisoners

If you add those on probation (convicted offenders not incarcerated) or on parole (under community supervision after a period of incarceration) to the incarceration totals, then over 7 million adults are under correctional supervision in the U.S.

http://filipspagnoli.wordpress.com/stats-on-human-rights/statistics-on-freedom/statistics-on-prisoner-population-rates/ (source)

What is already dead may never die, but rises again, stiffer and stinkier.

How about discussing the railroad itself? What was the strategic plan behind it, if any? Why was it abandoned, and when?

Luís HenriqueThe purpose of the railway was threefold: to facilitate export of nickel from neighbouring Norilsk; to provide work for thousands of post-war prisoners; and to connect the deep-water seaports of Igarka and Salekhard with the western Russian railway network. With Soviet industry relocated to western Siberia during World War II, it was seen as a strategic advantage to use the northward-flowing river systems to deliver supplies to Arctic Ocean ports.

It was estimated that anywhere from 80,000 to 120,000 labourers were engaged in the project. In the winter, construction was hampered by severe cold, permafrost, and food shortages. In the summer came bogged terrain, diseases, and the pestilence of mosquitoes, gnats, midges, and horseflies. On the technical side, engineering problems included construction across permafrost, a poor logistical system, and tight deadlines compounded by a severe lack of power machinery. As a result, railway embankments slowly settled into the marsh or were eroded by ponding. A shortage of materials also affected the project. One-meter segments of damaged rail lines from war-torn areas had to be sent in and re-welded to form 10-meter lengths.

As the project progressed, it became clear that there was actually little demand for this railway. In 1952 officials permitted a reduced tempo of work on the project. Construction was stopped in 1953 after Stalin's death.

New construction of the railway section between Salekhard and Nadym started on 19 March 2010 in Salekhard. This section is planned to be finished by 2014 :D

[The Young Pioneer]

Also, about those cruel Gulags and projects. Here's a quote about them from an American historian, who actually visited the Soviet Union, unlike this poor excuse for a researcher who BBC is interviewing.

"The Soviet prison system, as applied to ordinary criminals, embodies a number of progressive penological ideas. Educational and manual training instruction courses exist in the more advanced prisons; prisoners are not required to wear uniforms; and the well-behaved prisoner receives a vacation of two weeks every year, which is certainly a unique Russian institution. "
Chamberlin, William Henry. Soviet Russia. Boston: Little, Brown, 1930, p. 124

Chamberlain was a journalist, and where do you think the Soviets would show a journalist around, a state-of-the-art, newly-built prison, or a shitty gulag? Quoting him is probably not your best defense of Stalin or the USSR during the time he lived there, anyway. He wrote for some bourgie Christian journal number one, and two, he also wrote about the famines and his own "transcendence" from Marxism.

[Ismail]

It should probably be noted that Chamberlain became a right-winger and basically did a 180 on most of his views on the USSR just a few years after writing that.

Calling him "some American asshat" is weird though, since... it's W.H. Chamberlain, who wrote one of the main bourgeois history texts on the Russian Revolution.