The Gulag was directly connected to Stalin’s dictatorship. It imprisoned over 22 million people and subjected them to forced labor. It expanded constantly between 1930 and 1953 but did not survive the Father of Nations.
The book clearly and concisely explains the place of this penitentiary system in Soviet dynamics, before demonstrating its importance, beyond its original context, in our understanding of the history of the 20th century.
Juliette Cadiot is an associate professor at the EHESS (School For Advanced studies in the Social Sciences). She has studied the question of nationalities in the Russian Empire and the USSR (Le Laboratoire impérial. Russie-URSS, 1860-1940, CNRS éditions, 2007) and is currently working on the crackdown on theft and petty theft under Stalin.
Marc Elie is a research fellow at the CNRS. He has studied the dismantling of the Gulag after Stalin’s death and is currently working on an environmental history of agriculture in the USSR.