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The Gulag, a repressive
and criminal system,

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whose sheer size and
longevity are unusual,

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is a major historical
phenomenon of the 20th century.

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These Soviet camps
were created in 1918

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and reached their
peak during the 1950s.

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Around 500 concentration
camp-like facilities

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have locked up in total 20
million people over 40 years.

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Innocents made guilty.

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One adult out of six has
been in a camp or deported.

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The Gulag Archipelago, as it was
named by author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn,

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used to spread over thousands of kilometers
from the White Sea to the Black Sea,

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from Moscow to Vladivostok,
from the Arctic Circle to Central Asia.

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For decades, the Soviet Concentration
Camp System has been hidden,

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concealed, ignored, denied.

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The gulag was like a
country within a country,

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a lost continent,

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an independent civilization
difficult to see and to this day,

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still unknown and misunderstood.

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GULAG: THE STORY

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THE TESTIMONIES USED IN THIS FILM HAVE
BEEN GATHERED BETWEEN 1988 AND 2014,

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MOSTLY BY "MEMORIAL", A RUSSIAN
NON-GOVERNMENTAL ASSOCIATION

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EPISODE 1: ORIGINS (1917-1933)

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In the aftermath of the
revolution of October 17th,

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the Orthodox monastery of the
Solovki Islands in the White Sea

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is emptied of its monks.

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This holy place has been chosen to
experiment the principles of the gulag.

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A locked area far away,
isolated, and with a harsh weather.

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Starting in 1923,

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the Solovki Islands become
the first concentration camp

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where political opponents deemed
dangerous by the Bolshevik regime are sent.

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In June, 1923, I
disembarked in Solovki.

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Andrei Roschine is 18 when he reaches
the Solovki Islands to serve his sentence.

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On the boat with me were
several political prisoners.

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Mensheviks, revolutionary
socialists and anarchists.

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There was also a group of
clergymen and many common criminals.

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Alexander Nogtev, the
first commander of the camp,

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welcomes the newcomers
with these words.

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You can forget all
the rights he once had.

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For here, we have our own rules.

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Dmitri Likhatchev is
arrested when he's 22,

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because he belong to an
illegal group of students.

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When reaching
the Solovki Islands,

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his group is welcomed by
the head of the camp like this:

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Here there's no Soviet power.

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Here there's Solovki's power.

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Here the prosecutor never comes.

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No late comer will be
allowed in the convoy.

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A step to the left or the right will
be deemed an attempt to escape.

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The Solovki lure means that absolute
arbitrariness has become the rule.

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The punishments the watchmen
inflict upon the prisoners in this prison

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are on the edge of sadism.

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At the center of the circle of
hell the Solovki Islands represent

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lies Mount Sekirnaya

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and, on top of it, the Church
of the Lord's Ascension,

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a place the prisoners
call the Hill of the Axe.

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It is turned into a disciplinary isolation
chamber where executions are carried out.

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The victims are
attached to a heavyweight

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and thrown off the top
of a 375 steps staircase.

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The watchmen are usually former criminals
and display unrestricted violence.

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Women represent about
10% of the prisoners,

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but their fate is
particularly awful.

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In a world without any rights,

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they are but sexual
slaves for the prison guards.

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As the months go by,

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new inmates keep coming
to the Solovki Islands.

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There were around 200 in 1923,

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but three years later,

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as the repression against anyone
not fitting the Bolshevik model hardens,

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there are almost 20 thousand.

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The dictatorship started right
after Lenin's companions took power

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in October 1917.

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The Bolsheviks are a
minority in such a huge country

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and so they begin early on
to use violence and coercion

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to strengthen their domination.

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Lenin believes that
power can't be shared.

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The repression is
based on the conviction

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that the new regime has the right to
remove mercilessly all its opponents,

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called enemies of the people.

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In order to
implement such terror,

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the Bolshevik government created
in December 1917 the Cheka.

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The Cheka, which means
extraordinary commission,

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is the party's sword and shield
and exists and acts beyond the law.

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Lenin places Felix Dzerzhinsky
as the head of the Cheka.

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He's 40 years old and has
spent 11 years in prison or exiled.

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Among all of us, Felix has spent
the most time in the tzarist prisons.

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He knows his job.

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That was Lenin's comment
to justify his choice.

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Felix Dzerzhinsky has
the full support of Lenin

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and in less than a
year, he puts together

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an incredible repressive
machinery above all laws

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and sometimes
even above the party.

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It's a state within the state,

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with its own network of informers,
special troops, and intelligence services.

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In short, a political police of
more than 200,000 people.

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Following an attack against Lenin on
the 30th of August 1918 by an anarchist,

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Dzerzhinsky sets
off the repression.

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The Cheka is in charge of
implementing the "Red Terror".

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The number of victims of
the Red Terror of autumn 1918

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is estimated to be between
10,000 and 15,000 people.

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LONG LIVE THE RED TERROR!

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During the summer of 1918,

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the first concentration
camps called Konzlager,

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a name derived from
German are created.

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They are here to protect the Soviet
Republic against its so-called enemies.

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The concentration camps
are managed by the Cheka

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and gather people that
have been arbitrarily arrested

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because they belong to a
category the regime didn't like.

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Upper class, nobles,
social dangerous elements.

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Along with these camps
targeting political opponents,

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the Bolshevik regime is experimenting
with corrective labor camps.

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Camps that gather people sentenced
by a court usually for ordinary crimes.

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Corrective labor camps were intended to
replace jail by re-education through labor.

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But the border between concentration
camp and labor camp remains blurry.

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Many camps gather both political,
opponents locked up without a trial,

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and sentenced criminals.

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In the autumn of 1921, there are
120,000 prisoners in about 200 camps.

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However, the number of opponents
and malcontents keeps growing.

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In 1922, the revolutionary
socialists party,

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at once brother and rival of
the Bolsheviks, is eliminated.

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Its leaders are pilloried during a
spectacular trial and presented as traitors.

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Eight of them are
sentenced to death,

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but the reactions of the international
community commute the sentence.

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Clergymen also fall
victim to the repression

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In spring 1922, the campaign of seizure
of everything that belongs to the church

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leads to the arrest of
thousands of priests and monks.

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Several major public trials of clergymen
are held in Moscow and Petrograd.

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Hundreds of them are
sentenced to capital punishment.

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Thousands are deported to camps.

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Choosing a monastery as
the location of the testing lab

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for a Soviet concentration
camp-like system

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is not a random choice.

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In the middle of the 1920s,

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the Bolsheviks wanted Solovki Island to
become a model of re-education through labor.

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The OGPU, the new
name of the Cheka,

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assigns to the camp an ambitious plan of
exploitation of both the forests and peat deposits.

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The new internal rules
plan for 12 hour work days,

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one day of rest every 10
days, and high rates of felling.

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Oleg Volkov refused to
become an informer of the GPU.

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He was sentenced to
just three years in a camp,

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but ended up spending 27 years
there, a major part of it in Solovki.

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The jail regime was very
strict, especially in the logging.

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Those who hadn't completed
their task could be shot.

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That's what happened if
you didn't respect the quotas.

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A former prisoner, Naftaly Frenkel,
becomes head of the economy.

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His motto: "we must put maximum pressure on
a prisoner during their first three months".

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After that, they're useless.

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Frenkel decides that the food ration will
be proportional to the amount of work done.

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This practice will be at the core of the
whole Soviet concentration camp system.

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The life and working conditions in
Solovki become harsher and harsher,

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especially during winter,
when the temperatures drop.

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Later on, I saw with my own two eyes people
being brought outside in their underwear.

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Whereas everything was frozen.

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They've been locked
in an empty hangar.

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I, myself, had to spend the
winter in a cell that wasn't heated.

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A Georgian officer who had
managed to escape Solovki

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publishes in London in
1926 a book that narrates

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the atrocious living
conditions in the camp.

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The same information
is then published in 1927

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by a French jurist named
Raymond Duguet in his book

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"A Prison in Red
Russia, Solovki",

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the first book in French dealing
with the camps in the USSR.

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Almost from its birth, the gulag is
known and denounced in the west.

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MORE THAN FIFTEEN THOUSAND UNHAPPY,
INNOCENT FOR THE MOST, ARE AWAITING DEATH.

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The Soviet government answers in 1928 by
ordering from the OGPU a movie about Solovki

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in order to show that
this hell is actually heaven.

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A cinema team comes to Moscow
to film a nice summer camp.

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Cute white table cloths, smoking
rooms, games of chess, bathing,

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Even some shows with music.

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The guided tour of Solovki of the then
popular author Maxim Gorky in 1929,

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also aims at falsifying information
and hiding the true horror of the camp.

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We suspected he had
come to Solovki for a purpose.

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To write that nothing
horrible was happening there.

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In exchange he had been promised that the
living conditions of the prisoners would soften.

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Before he arrived, every patient
in the hospital had been removed

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and the bedsheets had
been replaced by clean ones.

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When he came in the hospital and saw the
nurses with their white uniforms, he said:

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I'm quoting with
absolute precision.

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I don't like theater.

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And he left.

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He didn't visit the patients.

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When he reached Mount Sekirnaya,

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the place where the
worst was taking place,

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with the dungeons and
where people were tortured.

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He found a table
with newspapers on it.

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The inmates in that cell was
supposed to read the newspapers

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to show that they
were being reeducated.

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However, they held the
newspapers upside down on purpose.

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Gorky realised it.

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Put one of the newspapers
back correctly and then left.

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Showing that he had
understood the message.

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Despite some reluctance,

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the author ends up writing a long
article showing the benefits of Solovki.

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Camps such as
Solovki are necessary.

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It is through them that the state
will quickly reach one of its goals,

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putting an end to prisons.

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Gorky supports the system and sings the
birth of a new man regenerated through labor.

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00:19:15,268 --> 00:19:18,393
Four months after the
visit of Maxim Gorky,

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the camp's leaders order the most extensive
mass execution in the camp up till that point.

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They were shot in the neck.

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00:19:31,740 --> 00:19:34,598
There were 300
shots, more perhaps.

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00:19:35,073 --> 00:19:37,617
I think there was only
one bullet per person.

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00:19:40,315 --> 00:19:43,062
They couldn't aim well
enough to kill with one shot

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00:19:43,087 --> 00:19:45,266
and would just throw
the bodies in a pit.

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00:19:45,521 --> 00:19:49,084
The day following the executions,
there were still people moving in the pit.

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300 inmates are shot
without any form of trial,

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00:19:58,365 --> 00:20:02,394
with the excuse that they tried
to organize a mass breakout.

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00:20:16,684 --> 00:20:21,676
Lenin dies in January 1924,
after several months of illness.

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00:20:21,887 --> 00:20:24,644
Stalin supervises the funeral.

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00:20:27,486 --> 00:20:32,237
Stalin had been the General Secretary
of the Central Committee since 1922.

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00:20:32,262 --> 00:20:38,064
This allowed him to supervise all promotions
and transfers of high-ranking party officials.

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00:20:38,216 --> 00:20:42,181
This power was a key element in
the battle among the Bolshevik leaders

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00:20:42,206 --> 00:20:45,387
to decide who would
take over Lenin's place.

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00:20:55,238 --> 00:21:00,480
In July 1926, during the funeral of
Dzerzhinsky, the founder of the Cheka,

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00:21:00,505 --> 00:21:05,457
the Bolshevik leaders are all here
side by side, Stalin and Trotsky.

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00:21:11,793 --> 00:21:14,262
Yet their brotherhood
is but a facade.

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00:21:14,287 --> 00:21:20,512
Stalin is moving in secret to isolate his
most dangerous political opponent, Trotsky.

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00:21:23,410 --> 00:21:27,058
In 1927, weakened, he is exiled.

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00:21:38,371 --> 00:21:42,262
Stalin becomes Lenin's
heir and carries on his cult.

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00:21:44,276 --> 00:21:47,432
He relies on the support
of a tight group of followers,

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00:21:47,457 --> 00:21:55,074
including Molotov, Kaganovich,
Ordzhonikidze, Kirov, Mikoyan, Voroshilov.

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00:21:59,299 --> 00:22:01,721
As soon as the
Bolsheviks came to power,

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00:22:01,746 --> 00:22:06,691
the dictatorship of the party replaced the
so-called dictatorship of the proletariat,

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00:22:06,879 --> 00:22:11,503
but now begins the dictatorship of
the General Secretary over the party.

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00:22:24,512 --> 00:22:29,783
In 1928, Stalin begins, with much
fanfare, the first five years plan,

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00:22:29,808 --> 00:22:34,043
whose main goal is to accelerate
the country's industrialization.

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00:22:37,151 --> 00:22:42,933
The objective of increasing production
by 20% every year is unrealistic.

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00:22:47,355 --> 00:22:52,183
Thus, they need to find people
guilty of the mistakes and delays.

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00:23:02,457 --> 00:23:06,762
A trial of the Industrial
Party opens in 1930.

229
00:23:06,860 --> 00:23:12,441
The accused are engineers and technicians
charged with sabotaging production.

230
00:23:19,512 --> 00:23:22,051
Vyshinsky is the
president of the court

231
00:23:22,076 --> 00:23:27,637
and leads the process according to a ritual that
will become a standard for all Stalinist trials.

232
00:23:30,710 --> 00:23:34,093
The Supreme Court
is about to examine

233
00:23:34,118 --> 00:23:41,075
the case against the counter-revolutionary
organization, the Union of Engineers' Organizations,

234
00:23:41,100 --> 00:23:43,905
also known as
the Industrial Party.

235
00:23:46,256 --> 00:23:51,038
The accused have been tortured,
and confess imaginary crimes.

236
00:23:53,506 --> 00:23:59,585
I am guilty of having joined the counter-revolutionary
organization, the Engineers' Center,

237
00:23:59,610 --> 00:24:02,116
later called the
Industrial Party.

238
00:24:02,289 --> 00:24:05,943
I acknowledge doing sabotage

239
00:24:05,968 --> 00:24:09,748
in collaboration with the French government
and groups of white Russian émigrés.

240
00:24:09,779 --> 00:24:16,180
I fully acknowledge my responsibility
and plead guilty to these crimes.

241
00:24:16,205 --> 00:24:19,665
The goal was to
destroy Soviet power

242
00:24:19,690 --> 00:24:25,784
by provoking an
industrial crisis.

243
00:24:27,147 --> 00:24:30,796
The trial is mentioned
in all Soviet newspapers

244
00:24:30,821 --> 00:24:34,944
and highlights the myth of "the
saboteur for a foreign power".

245
00:24:34,969 --> 00:24:39,217
A myth that can explain the
regime's economic failures.

246
00:24:41,796 --> 00:24:45,733
Death to the saboteurs!

247
00:24:47,091 --> 00:24:50,983
Demonstrations asking
for punishment take place.

248
00:24:53,812 --> 00:24:57,302
WE DEMAND THE DEATH PENALTY!

249
00:25:01,956 --> 00:25:05,956
I will now read the judgment in
the case against the Industrial Party.

250
00:25:07,639 --> 00:25:11,776
The Supreme Court of
the USSR has decided

251
00:25:11,801 --> 00:25:15,945
Vyshinsky, a kind of a
Bolshevik Torquemada, declares:

252
00:25:15,970 --> 00:25:19,978
Under articles 58.3,
58.4, 58.6 and 58.11

253
00:25:20,003 --> 00:25:25,650
and, as a measure of social protection, the sentence
is death by firing squad with confiscation of assets.

254
00:25:25,972 --> 00:25:29,149
The verdict is final
and irrevocable.

255
00:25:31,735 --> 00:25:37,165
Five of the accused are sentenced
to death, three are sent to camps.

256
00:25:58,149 --> 00:26:00,876
On top of forced
industrialization,

257
00:26:00,901 --> 00:26:05,759
Stalin's economic strategy includes
the collectivization of the lands.

258
00:26:08,329 --> 00:26:12,413
In a country where 80% of the
population lives in the countryside,

259
00:26:12,438 --> 00:26:14,884
the money needed
for industrialization

260
00:26:14,909 --> 00:26:20,384
can only be found through massive purchase
of farming goods at an extremely low price.

261
00:26:23,618 --> 00:26:27,921
The purpose of collectivization
is to gather farmers by force

262
00:26:27,946 --> 00:26:31,649
into state-owned
farms called Kolkhozes.

263
00:26:36,407 --> 00:26:41,165
Maria Mikliaeva is deported along
with her family when she's eight.

264
00:26:44,884 --> 00:26:46,810
Collectivization began.

265
00:26:49,086 --> 00:26:52,102
Our village became a Kolkhoz.

266
00:26:53,876 --> 00:26:56,782
And they started to get rid
of the most wealthy people.

267
00:27:04,501 --> 00:27:08,024
The Soviets decide
to expropriate kulaks,

268
00:27:08,049 --> 00:27:12,655
farmers that are supposedly wealthy
yet often turn out to have a scant income.

269
00:27:12,680 --> 00:27:16,838
These kulaks are generally
against the collectivization of the land.

270
00:27:23,836 --> 00:27:26,056
The leaders called them kulaks

271
00:27:26,541 --> 00:27:29,127
and decided to evict
them from their lands.

272
00:27:29,965 --> 00:27:33,208
So as to enable the villagers
to build their new lives.

273
00:27:34,892 --> 00:27:37,783
My family was part
of that category.

274
00:27:52,650 --> 00:27:56,095
Brigades requisition
the harvests and cattle.

275
00:28:01,884 --> 00:28:09,361
They moved from house to house
and took everything up to the last seed.

276
00:28:11,463 --> 00:28:15,517
And they did the same for
us. They took everything.

277
00:28:16,799 --> 00:28:20,619
They forced our family
to certain starvation.

278
00:28:30,142 --> 00:28:33,002
Kulaks are used as scapegoats.

279
00:28:52,890 --> 00:28:58,578
Within a very short time, tens of millions
of farmers are forced to leave their lands.

280
00:29:04,953 --> 00:29:08,023
I remember it. It was
a beautiful sunny day.

281
00:29:08,048 --> 00:29:11,826
A man wearing bloomers and carrying a
book or a newspaper came to our home

282
00:29:11,851 --> 00:29:13,710
and told us to
get ready to leave.

283
00:29:15,483 --> 00:29:20,010
My mother asked,
where to? Deportation.

284
00:29:20,698 --> 00:29:25,143
My mother started to scream at my sister to
cry and I grabbed the shelf with my dolls.

285
00:29:25,271 --> 00:29:26,887
I was 6 years old.

286
00:29:41,324 --> 00:29:43,934
They didn't even tell my
mother where they took her.

287
00:29:43,959 --> 00:29:47,510
They just took her without even
giving her time to change her clothes.

288
00:29:47,535 --> 00:29:52,652
She told me I was sitting next to the
stove and they took me dressed like that.

289
00:29:52,793 --> 00:29:54,832
She didn't take
anything with her

290
00:29:54,857 --> 00:29:56,758
and they brought her to Kulay.

291
00:29:56,783 --> 00:30:02,325
It was in March and they threw her
in the snow, in the middle of the forest.

292
00:30:11,028 --> 00:30:16,754
My parents were very sad to see all
the convoys with entire families on board.

293
00:30:17,082 --> 00:30:19,777
Going away while
keeping their dead.

294
00:30:20,621 --> 00:30:24,379
One day, my mother and her
friend had just milked the cows

295
00:30:24,404 --> 00:30:26,861
and decided to go to
the road with a pot of milk

296
00:30:26,885 --> 00:30:29,762
to give some to those
who still had young children.

297
00:30:33,387 --> 00:30:37,785
Then someone threw her a
package and said: pretend it's yours.

298
00:30:40,363 --> 00:30:42,426
She didn't know what
was in the package.

299
00:30:43,319 --> 00:30:47,543
Once home, my mother opened the
package and discovered a dead baby.

300
00:30:47,912 --> 00:30:50,441
Its mother had probably
given birth during transfer

301
00:30:50,466 --> 00:30:54,340
and wrapped the baby in a rag in the
hope of giving it to someone to save it.

302
00:31:02,816 --> 00:31:08,301
The Bolshevik regime tries to convince
farmers of the benefits of collectivization.

303
00:31:17,934 --> 00:31:23,176
My father found a spot where he could,
stood on his tractor and gave a speech.

304
00:31:23,402 --> 00:31:25,988
He said that our
lives would change,

305
00:31:26,013 --> 00:31:28,707
that there would be more
equipment every year.

306
00:31:31,734 --> 00:31:34,069
That physical labor
would decrease.

307
00:31:34,346 --> 00:31:38,042
There would be more
machines and we'd control them.

308
00:31:40,346 --> 00:31:42,651
That the roads
would be asphalted,

309
00:31:42,676 --> 00:31:45,424
there would be
electricity in the village,

310
00:31:45,449 --> 00:31:47,554
houses would be built in bricks,

311
00:31:47,894 --> 00:31:51,406
there would be new
schools, a hospital,

312
00:31:51,683 --> 00:31:53,459
people were really happy.

313
00:32:02,522 --> 00:32:04,416
After labor by hand,

314
00:32:04,440 --> 00:32:08,387
comes the time of the machines
and of beautiful modern innovation.

315
00:32:08,412 --> 00:32:10,880
These tractors
filmed by Eisenstein

316
00:32:10,905 --> 00:32:14,678
paved the way towards the
socialism of the twentieth century.

317
00:32:17,645 --> 00:32:20,623
ONWARD TO SOCIALISM!

318
00:32:21,568 --> 00:32:22,830
In truth though,

319
00:32:22,854 --> 00:32:27,161
chaos in the harvest caused by
collectivization and forced requisition

320
00:32:27,186 --> 00:32:28,645
creates famine.

321
00:32:29,178 --> 00:32:36,428
Between 1932 and 1934, 6 to 7
million farmers die, mostly in Ukraine.

322
00:32:43,875 --> 00:32:46,700
The most terrible night was
when they took my father.

323
00:32:46,725 --> 00:32:51,587
I cried a lot and I still cry when
I think about it. Excuse me.

324
00:32:57,537 --> 00:33:05,444
And also when I remember the face of my friends
at school and my family who died of starvation.

325
00:33:13,615 --> 00:33:16,436
The removal of
kulaks as a social class

326
00:33:16,461 --> 00:33:20,444
causes 300,000 people to
be sent to camps in three years

327
00:33:20,469 --> 00:33:26,514
along with the deportation of more than 2 million
men, women and children in special settlement camps

328
00:33:26,539 --> 00:33:28,625
where they are
under house arrest.

329
00:33:38,174 --> 00:33:43,782
In 1930, every inmate in
prison is sent to labor camps.

330
00:33:48,131 --> 00:33:51,772
The management of these
camps is the OGPU's job.

331
00:33:53,227 --> 00:33:57,068
The OGPU creates a
central direction of the camps,

332
00:33:57,093 --> 00:33:59,881
whose acronym in
Russian is written Gulag.

333
00:34:13,156 --> 00:34:17,664
This reform and the creation of
the Gulag have an economic goal.

334
00:34:20,648 --> 00:34:26,287
During the 1930s, while Stalin launches
Russia into an industrialization frenzy,

335
00:34:26,312 --> 00:34:29,797
deported people become
a key economic element.

336
00:34:33,609 --> 00:34:39,406
This is no longer about assigning a couple of
thousand inmates to logging like they did in Solovki.

337
00:34:39,438 --> 00:34:44,398
This is about using cheap labor on a bigger
scale for massive infrastructure work.

338
00:34:57,406 --> 00:35:03,445
The first major work of the communists
carried out by Gulag prisoners begins in 1931.

339
00:35:03,470 --> 00:35:08,773
It's the construction of the canal connecting
the White Sea to the Baltic Sea, the BBK.

340
00:35:17,570 --> 00:35:21,844
120,000 prisoners guarded
by thousands of watchmen

341
00:35:21,869 --> 00:35:26,915
work for 18 months to build
a 227 kilometer long canal,

342
00:35:26,940 --> 00:35:32,648
including 39 kilometers carved
in rocks, 19 locks, and 64 dams.

343
00:35:42,101 --> 00:35:43,687
Naftaly Frenkel,

344
00:35:43,712 --> 00:35:49,953
the man who had implemented the food for work
rationing system in Solovki is leading the work.

345
00:35:57,003 --> 00:36:00,363
Digging the canal between
the White Sea and the Baltic Sea

346
00:36:00,388 --> 00:36:04,041
is the first step in gigantic
infrastructure projects.

347
00:36:04,066 --> 00:36:08,720
Railways, canals, roads,
airports, hydroelectric plants,

348
00:36:08,745 --> 00:36:12,589
projects on which hundreds of thousands
of prisoners will break their backs.

349
00:36:17,370 --> 00:36:20,667
The word Zek, short
for prisoner of the canal,

350
00:36:20,692 --> 00:36:26,152
first appears on the BBK site before
designating every Gulag prisoner.

351
00:36:34,433 --> 00:36:39,644
The use of labor that can be exploited
at will overtakes the use of machines.

352
00:36:51,722 --> 00:36:54,816
We were carrying metal
cables with our bare hands.

353
00:36:56,797 --> 00:37:01,175
Most of these cables, all of
them actually were old and sharp.

354
00:37:02,238 --> 00:37:03,948
They were made of barbed wire.

355
00:37:04,247 --> 00:37:08,348
Our hands were wounded,
blood was flowing, people often fell.

356
00:37:09,708 --> 00:37:11,325
There were many wounded.

357
00:37:12,622 --> 00:37:14,388
Nothing was adapted.

358
00:37:15,301 --> 00:37:18,581
And of course, work in
prison was incredibly difficult.

359
00:37:22,216 --> 00:37:25,067
Indeed, the
technology is archaic.

360
00:37:25,092 --> 00:37:30,208
Very few machines, few trucks,
almost every tool is made on the spot.

361
00:37:30,233 --> 00:37:33,067
Wooden cranes,
wheelbarrow wheels.

362
00:37:38,911 --> 00:37:43,402
The inmates muscle strength compensates
for the absence of power hammers.

363
00:37:43,427 --> 00:37:49,177
Such methods dating from the Middle
Ages turned the prisoners into slaves.

364
00:38:04,684 --> 00:38:07,723
The workers are
exhausted and sick.

365
00:38:07,880 --> 00:38:13,013
12,000 of them die on the
site, 10% of the total workforce.

366
00:38:13,424 --> 00:38:16,981
The corpses are left
behind, in the snow.

367
00:38:22,277 --> 00:38:25,536
As spring drew closer and
the snow started to melt,

368
00:38:25,998 --> 00:38:30,558
we could see hands, arms,
and heads popping up next to us,

369
00:38:30,661 --> 00:38:34,094
150 meters away,
we saw all of this.

370
00:38:35,805 --> 00:38:38,539
It stuck out from under
the snow and the soil.

371
00:38:39,430 --> 00:38:42,598
And flocks of crows flew
over the frozen corpses.

372
00:38:42,692 --> 00:38:45,137
Still fresh after pecking them.

373
00:39:04,057 --> 00:39:06,631
The regime's propaganda
intends to show

374
00:39:06,655 --> 00:39:10,485
that the inmates are contributing to
the construction of socialism as well.

375
00:39:10,510 --> 00:39:13,229
Their labor is a
way to redemption.

376
00:39:18,760 --> 00:39:22,782
More than 30 authors
led by Gorky, him again,

377
00:39:22,807 --> 00:39:27,743
pay a visit to the BBK and celebrate
the rebirth of the prisoners through labor

378
00:39:27,768 --> 00:39:30,471
in a book dedicated to Stalin.

379
00:39:49,096 --> 00:39:52,690
Shows are organized all
along the canal for propaganda

380
00:39:52,715 --> 00:39:56,354
and orchestras play music
to support the workers.

381
00:40:06,823 --> 00:40:11,760
But the weariness on every face
crushes all propaganda efforts.

382
00:40:46,073 --> 00:40:53,776
In May 1933, Stalin, Yagoda, leader of the
GPU and in charge of the project and Kirov

383
00:40:53,801 --> 00:40:57,605
inaugurate the canal between
the White Sea and the Baltic Sea.

384
00:41:06,667 --> 00:41:10,019
The event is celebrated as
a great communist victory.

385
00:41:13,214 --> 00:41:18,760
However, in practice, the BBK is
less wide and less deep than anticipated

386
00:41:18,785 --> 00:41:21,956
and can only be used by
ships with a shallow draft.

387
00:41:22,160 --> 00:41:24,683
The canal will rarely be used.

388
00:41:26,155 --> 00:41:28,519
A waste paid for in blood.

389
00:41:28,544 --> 00:41:31,925
A staging to give the illusion
that the goal has been reached,

390
00:41:31,950 --> 00:41:33,988
that the party is always right.

391
00:41:34,013 --> 00:41:38,292
A bluff, also called tufta in
the language of the Gulag.

392
00:41:43,186 --> 00:41:45,202
But it doesn't
matter for Stalin.

393
00:41:45,227 --> 00:41:50,655
The BBK is a fantastic and huge display of
Soviet willingness in terms of production.

394
00:41:54,382 --> 00:41:58,560
The gulag's labor allows this
country, as vast as a continent,

395
00:41:58,585 --> 00:42:00,735
to develop key infrastructure,

396
00:42:00,760 --> 00:42:04,262
to colonize giant hostile
geographic expanses

397
00:42:04,286 --> 00:42:08,405
and to search for
resources, energy, and awe.

398
00:42:14,684 --> 00:42:19,971
In April 1933, the gulag
numbers almost 500,000 prisoners

399
00:42:19,996 --> 00:42:22,434
and gigantic
projects keep coming.

400
00:42:30,527 --> 00:42:32,691
At the same time as the BBK,

401
00:42:32,716 --> 00:42:37,129
the GPU starts a massive construction
site in the far east of the country,

402
00:42:37,154 --> 00:42:41,145
in a region of Siberia that reaches
minus 50 degrees centigrade

403
00:42:41,170 --> 00:42:43,598
and is home to just a
few reindeer farmers.

404
00:42:47,309 --> 00:42:51,713
The project is to start exploiting
the huge gold deposits of the Kolyma,

405
00:42:51,738 --> 00:42:57,012
a lost territory almost unexplored
of 2 million square kilometers.

406
00:42:59,431 --> 00:43:02,965
The Kolyma has no road
connection with the rest of the country,

407
00:43:02,990 --> 00:43:06,332
so the inmates must be
brought to Vladivostok by train,

408
00:43:06,357 --> 00:43:11,746
a two-month journey, and then embark
on a boat for 2 weeks to the Nagaev Bay.

409
00:43:31,493 --> 00:43:33,385
My boat was called Kulu.

410
00:43:34,313 --> 00:43:37,377
And it's on that boat that we
were brought to the Nagayev Bay.

411
00:43:38,251 --> 00:43:39,650
To Magadan.

412
00:43:41,115 --> 00:43:47,408
Mikhail Tamarine is a student when he is
arrested in 1937 and sent to the Kolyma.

413
00:43:51,392 --> 00:43:54,080
When we disembarked,
we all had civilian clothes.

414
00:43:56,588 --> 00:43:57,998
We were freezing.

415
00:43:59,658 --> 00:44:01,822
It was the 25th of December.

416
00:44:02,846 --> 00:44:05,151
And by the time everyone
had disembarked,

417
00:44:05,724 --> 00:44:08,939
many of us had their
nose or ears frozen.

418
00:44:09,712 --> 00:44:12,806
Sometimes even fingers
and toes. It was awful.

419
00:44:19,610 --> 00:44:22,509
We start walking
and snow is falling.

420
00:44:22,859 --> 00:44:25,404
In some places, it
was five meters high.

421
00:44:25,898 --> 00:44:29,123
It was blizzard. I
remember that terrible night.

422
00:44:33,254 --> 00:44:37,084
In 1932, several
thousand prisoners arrive.

423
00:44:37,206 --> 00:44:41,497
First, they are tasked with building
the harbor and the town of Magadan.

424
00:44:41,522 --> 00:44:45,608
From a small village of
fishermen, it becomes a true city.

425
00:44:52,364 --> 00:44:58,278
Then the inmates trace the 1 thousand
kilometer road leading to the gold deposits.

426
00:45:04,481 --> 00:45:07,700
Eduard Berzin, one of
the leaders of the GPU,

427
00:45:07,725 --> 00:45:11,046
is tasked with organizing
the giant Kolyma complex

428
00:45:11,071 --> 00:45:13,714
spreading over several
thousand kilometers.

429
00:45:16,672 --> 00:45:20,574
This picturesque character
was like the tzar of Kolyma.

430
00:45:20,894 --> 00:45:23,382
He moved around with
a sidecar with his wife

431
00:45:23,407 --> 00:45:26,065
or in a Rolls-Royce that
belonged to Lenin's wife

432
00:45:26,090 --> 00:45:28,246
and was given to him by Stalin.

433
00:45:31,010 --> 00:45:36,129
10,000 kilometers away from
Moscow, his power is unlimited.

434
00:45:45,666 --> 00:45:51,463
80,000 prisoners living in dreadful
conditions dig the ground looking for gold.

435
00:45:55,533 --> 00:45:58,408
During the winter,
life is horrendous.

436
00:45:58,433 --> 00:46:02,139
A famous song known
all over the USSR says:

437
00:46:02,164 --> 00:46:05,240
Kolyma, Kolyma,
enchanted planet,

438
00:46:05,265 --> 00:46:09,010
winter has 12 months,
everything else is summer.

439
00:46:15,500 --> 00:46:20,148
Iouri Fidelgoltz will serve ten
years in the hellish camps of Kolyma.

440
00:46:25,639 --> 00:46:31,054
One thing is sure, I was
forced to dig by hand.

441
00:46:32,750 --> 00:46:36,249
Can you imagine what
it means to dig by hand?

442
00:46:36,274 --> 00:46:38,440
When it's -50ºC.

443
00:46:42,620 --> 00:46:44,858
Dig the ground with a spike.

444
00:46:47,471 --> 00:46:50,518
The norm was to
dig 10 holes a day

445
00:46:51,339 --> 00:46:56,026
and each had to be 60 or
70 centimeters deep at least.

446
00:46:58,176 --> 00:47:02,765
And that was in
a permafrost area.

447
00:47:03,956 --> 00:47:05,757
Frozen land.

448
00:47:06,971 --> 00:47:08,354
It was awful.

449
00:47:22,681 --> 00:47:26,729
Berzin is obsessed by
rationalization and results.

450
00:47:26,927 --> 00:47:28,896
He designs a new wheelbarrow,

451
00:47:28,921 --> 00:47:34,151
whose capacity is four times bigger than the
wheelbarrow previously used by the gold diggers.

452
00:47:39,534 --> 00:47:44,815
In 1933, the daily rate of
extraction of soil is one cubic meter.

453
00:47:45,026 --> 00:47:48,925
The following year, it
becomes two cubic meters.

454
00:47:52,417 --> 00:47:55,846
In 1937, for the same
quantity of bread,

455
00:47:55,871 --> 00:48:00,844
Berzin wants 4 to 6 six cubic meters
per day depending on the deposit.

456
00:48:05,594 --> 00:48:08,852
I stayed exactly five
years in this camp.

457
00:48:11,577 --> 00:48:13,742
I was working nights mostly.

458
00:48:20,242 --> 00:48:22,641
We were forced to
work a lot of course.

459
00:48:23,781 --> 00:48:25,430
The guards changed.

460
00:48:26,658 --> 00:48:29,578
We had to stay until
we had filled the quotas.

461
00:48:29,991 --> 00:48:32,705
And if we didn't, we weren't
allowed to go back to the camp.

462
00:48:34,018 --> 00:48:39,789
When it comes to our tools, we only had
spikes, shovels, pickaxes, and wheelbarrows.

463
00:48:40,127 --> 00:48:41,408
That was it.

464
00:48:43,573 --> 00:48:45,720
Among the prisoners
of the Kolyma,

465
00:48:45,745 --> 00:48:51,252
A Zek will become the writer of anything
related to the Gulag, Varlam Shalamov.

466
00:48:53,040 --> 00:48:55,799
He is arrested once in 1929,

467
00:48:55,824 --> 00:48:58,976
due to "counter-revolutionary
Trotskyist activities"

468
00:48:59,000 --> 00:49:01,384
and sentenced to
five years in a camp.

469
00:49:03,064 --> 00:49:07,267
In 1937, he is arrested a second
time and sent to the Kolyma.

470
00:49:07,292 --> 00:49:09,915
Shalamov faces the
most arduous labor

471
00:49:09,940 --> 00:49:13,854
with working days of 16
hours or more in the gold mines.

472
00:49:15,553 --> 00:49:20,565
He's starving and beaten up by common
criminals and guards and wishes for death.

473
00:49:20,703 --> 00:49:23,929
He will narrate his ordeal
in the "Tales of the Kolyma"

474
00:49:23,953 --> 00:49:26,792
where he'll stay 17 years.

475
00:49:42,229 --> 00:49:44,956
Amid terrifying
living conditions,

476
00:49:44,981 --> 00:49:49,048
the slaves extract up to
52 tons of gold per year,

477
00:49:49,345 --> 00:49:51,657
half of the Soviet production.

478
00:49:55,844 --> 00:49:57,204
Within five years,

479
00:49:57,229 --> 00:50:01,626
the Kolyma becomes the most
important currency reserve in the USSR.

480
00:50:13,124 --> 00:50:17,779
The gulag is the territory of all
those exiled from the Soviet society.

481
00:50:17,804 --> 00:50:21,857
They no longer have families,
belongings, rights, or dignity.

482
00:50:21,882 --> 00:50:25,358
They have nothing
left. They are nothing.

483
00:50:30,069 --> 00:50:35,241
Slaves of the Gulag went from
5000 to 500,000 within 10 years.

484
00:50:35,444 --> 00:50:39,811
They're nothing but labor that can be
exploited until exhaustion and death.

485
00:50:40,051 --> 00:50:43,421
The prisoners literally
work themselves to death.

486
00:50:46,741 --> 00:50:48,417
Such pre-arranged death

487
00:50:48,441 --> 00:50:53,944
matches the Soviet regime's goal
of social, political, and ethnic purge.

488
00:51:00,269 --> 00:51:02,481
In order to maintain
the production,

489
00:51:02,506 --> 00:51:07,528
hundreds of thousands of other more healthy
people are sent to the camp each year.

490
00:51:07,716 --> 00:51:10,051
These massive waves of people,

491
00:51:10,076 --> 00:51:14,169
this continuous supply of
labor supervised by the GPU,

492
00:51:14,403 --> 00:51:17,559
keep on feeding the
productive machine of the gulag

493
00:51:17,801 --> 00:51:20,933
like an endless
murderous process.

494
00:51:23,873 --> 00:51:26,496
The Zeks work until exhaustion,

495
00:51:26,521 --> 00:51:29,575
but the workforce
itself is never ending.

496
00:51:34,074 --> 00:51:41,333
The mortality rate in the Kolyma
reaches 10% per year during 1937-38.

497
00:51:42,759 --> 00:51:46,834
Later on, the prisoners called
the Kolyma the "white crematory".

498
00:51:49,589 --> 00:51:53,641
The road of the Kolyma,
nicknamed "the road of bones",

499
00:51:53,727 --> 00:51:57,691
is like a furrow of pain
across the frozen expanse.