Chris Coughlin
International Security – Professor Byman
2/8/15
Book Report - Gulag
Life and Survival in the Gulag: Identification
Anne Applebaum’s Gulag: A History offers an elaborate, detailed description of the
Soviet Union’s famous “network of labor camps,” known as the Gulag (Applebaum, XV). Using
survivors’ testimonies, formerly-private data collections, and memoirs as analytical references,
Applebaum creates a remarkable work that thoroughly explains the relationship of the Gulag to
the Soviet agenda, the conditions of Gulag’s prisoners, and the transformation of the Gulag
throughout its brutal history. One feature of the Gulag that this book emphasizes is the large
variation of prisoners’ experiences. The Gulag was never quite the uniform, organized system
Stalin intended for it to be; despite the often-specific “rules emanating from Moscow,” life
throughout the Gulag varied for prisoners from place to place and even within each camp
(Applebaum, 185). What can explain such a variation, the result of which essentially determined
the likelihood of survival in the system? This paper asserts that identification of prisoners
determined the relationships and experiences of prisoners in the camp, and ultimately decided
whether one were to survive or succumb to the Gulag. The enormous impact of identification is
not unique to the Gulag, but rather, the Gulag is a representation of the great influence that
identification can have on human life and society.
This paper is organized in the following way: I will define identification for the context
of this paper, and then I will provide a brief description of the Gulag based on the Applebaum
book. Next, the paper will transition into an analysis of how identification affected the life and
survival of prisoners in the Gulag. Then, I will analyze the importance of identification in other
contexts and situations. This will be done by looking at examples of identification and its impact
in different time periods, and when it is applied to different types of groups and organizations.
Chris Coughlin
International Security – Professor Byman
2/8/15
Book Report - Gulag
Finally, I will briefly respond to arguments that would say that identification is not an effective
component of analysis for studying international affairs.
It is first necessary to develop an understanding of identification, how it differs from
identity, and what identification means in this paper. Identity, defined in a political science
context, refers to the “varying constructions of nation- and statehood,” which are depicted
through “national ideologies of collective distinctiveness and purpose” (Katzenstein, 4). Using a
description presented by Finnemore, identification refers to the perception of a group by others
(159-160). Finnemore states that “identification emphasizes the affective relationships between
actors rather than the characteristics of a single actor” (160). So, in this context, identity would
refer to the characteristic(s) or classification, while identification would be what the perception
of that classification is, and how that perception affects relationships. In the Gulag,
identification, or perception, shaped the experiences of prisoners and essentially determined what
life in the Gulag was like for them.
Before analyzing identification and its relation to survival in the Gulag, it is important to
gain an understanding of the Gulag system itself. With origins dating back to Lenin’s rule, the
Gulag was transformed under Stalin into “self-sufficient” and “profitable” labor systems that
would support the Soviet economy and industrialization process (Applebaum, 30-31, 114). The
Gulag camps were run by the “secret police,” whose name took on several new forms, including
the Cheka, GPU, OGPU, NKVD, and then the MVD (Applebaum, Glossary). Prisoners in the
Gulag were sentenced through the “legal system” of the Soviet secret police, and they were
either labeled as “political” or “criminal” prisoners (Applebaum, 122; 6). If a prisoner was
labeled a “political prisoner,” he was someone who committed “counter-revolutionary crimes”
and according to Jacques Rossi, was declared an “enemy of the people” (cited in Applebaum,
Chris Coughlin
International Security – Professor Byman
2/8/15
Book Report - Gulag
101). A “criminal prisoner,” on the other hand, was someone who was guilty of a crime ranging
from murder to “petty theft” (Applebaum, 282). The kinds of work done by prisoners in the
Gulag had a great variety, and the types of work can be broken down into two main categories:
some were sentenced to “general work,” which consisted of “unskilled, physically demanding
hard labor,” and some were designated as “trusties,” who held better positions and improved
“status” in the camp (Applebaum, 218; 362). Types of jobs in the first group included cutting
down trees and digging for gold, while those for the second group ranged from engineers to
doctors to even, what Bien says, “official food-tasters” (cited in Applebaum, 363; Applebaum
217; 362-363). It is important to note that the locations of the camps in the Gulag extended
across the Soviet Union. The range of this territory was enormous, with camps spanning from
“the vast Kolyma region in the far northeastern corner of Siberia,” and all the way to Leningrad
and beyond, as noted by Okhotin and Roginskii (cited in Applebaum, 91; Applebaum, 85). This
meant that terrain, level of isolation, and perhaps most importantly, climate, among other things,
varied throughout the Gulag. The extent of isolation affected supplies like food, clothing and
medicine, and essentially rendered escape to be “pointless” (Applebaum, 80). Climate
differentiation among camps, on the other hand, “exacerbated the difficulties” because of the
extreme temperatures that prisoners had to work through, especially in the northern camps where
“temperatures could fall to 30, 40, or 50 degrees below zero” (Applebaum, 222-223).
The experiences of prisoners varied immensely throughout the Gulag, and a combination
of factors determined what their experiences would be like. Looking at a factor previously
mentioned, work type, one can see how just this factor alone could be the difference between life
and death for a prisoner. Prisoners, such as Evgeniya Ginzburg, described the production
demands, or norms, of some jobs like tree cutting as “impossible,” especially when factoring in
Chris Coughlin
International Security – Professor Byman
2/8/15
Book Report - Gulag
the exhaustion that prisoners had accumulated (qtd. in Applebaum, 222). The work a prisoner
was assigned was determined by the perception of guards towards that individual. Being an
“intellectual” or a “political” was seen as much worse in the Soviet Union and Gulag than being
a “criminal” (Applebaum). “As a group, the status of counter-revolutionaries was lower than that
of the criminals” (Applebaum, 294). These political prisoners were perceived as “‘socially
dangerous,’ less compatible with Soviet society than the ‘socially close’ criminals” (Applebaum,
294). The criminal prisoners, therefore, were much more likely to get the better “trusty” jobs
(Applebaum, 364). As described by a political prisoner in a work by Nikita Petrov, “Everywhere
and at all times these convicts enjoyed almost unlimited confidence of the prison and camp
administration, and were appointed to such soft jobs as working in offices, prison stores,
canteens, bath-houses, barber shops, and so on” (qtd. in Applebaum, 364). By getting a better
job, the labor would be less physically demanding, and the prisoner’s likelihood of survival
would improve. This example shows how the identification of prisoners, and the relationships it
established between guards and prisoners, could directly affect the work that the prisoners were
assigned to, and thus, their lives and survivability in the Gulag.
The identification of prisoners affected life in the Gulag in less-direct ways than job
assignment, though. As noted above, the means by which prisoners were identified by other
prisoners also impacted the likelihood of survival in the Gulag. Applebaum describes this point
when she says, “in practice, every aspect of life was also affected by the prisoners’ relationships
with those who controlled them, and with one another” (185). In the Gulag, criminal prisoners
felt superior to political prisoners, and this perception gave criminals “a degree of real power,”
according to Abramkin and Chenokova (cited in Applebaum, 284). The criminals could have
privileges in the camps, as noted by Korallov, which could be something as simple as better
Chris Coughlin
International Security – Professor Byman
2/8/15
Book Report - Gulag
sleeping positioning in the barracks (cited in Applebaum, 284). Abramkin and Chenova said that
Soviet guards actually even collaborated with the highest-ranking criminals, known as
“professional criminals,” to ensure control over other prisoners in the camps (cited in
Applebaum, 283). These criminal prisoners were thus more trustworthy than the dangerous
political prisoners. This description shows how the identification of prisoners, by both guards
and even other prisoners, created a social hierarchy in the Gulag, which affected likelihood of
survival for prisoners.
The Gulag is a perfect example of how identification is distinct from identity, and how
identification can have such an enormous impact on one’s life. Who would ever think that it
would be favorable to be a murderer or rapist, rather than a political activist? In Soviet Russia,
this was exactly the case. Given the context of this time, the perception of criminals, as
demonstrated by Lenin, was that they were “potential allies” who committed crimes as a result of
the system they were in (Applebaum, 5). By reforming the system and its “exploitation,” said
Lenin, crime would vanish from society (Applebaum, 5). Political dissidents on the other hand,
referred to as “class enemies” by Lenin, were those people who “could never be trusted to
cooperate with the Soviet regime, and required harsher punishment than would an ordinary
murderer or thief” (Applebaum, 5-6). These two types of prisoners clearly were perceived
differently in the Soviet Union, and this perception determined the relationships they held with
others. This ideology therefore demonstrates that in Soviet Russia, identity alone is not
necessarily determinant of one’s life, but rather, how one is perceived, or identified.
In applying this theme of the importance of identification to a broader context, many
historical contexts demonstrate how significant identification can be in determining relationships
and their outcomes. The concept of identification can be applied to hunter-gatherers through the
Chris Coughlin
International Security – Professor Byman
2/8/15
Book Report - Gulag
following quote by Gat: “relationships with neighboring regional groups included exchange,
common ritual, alliances-and warfare” (13). During the time of hunter-gatherers, the perception
of hunter-gatherer groups towards other groups determined how they interacted, and what would
result from such interaction (i.e. whether or not they would trade, fight). The type of intertribal
relationship was not determined solely by identity of the tribes, but how the tribes perceived, or
identified, each other.
A more modern example that shows the significance of identification in determining
results of relationships is the U.S. military system. Builder describes how members of military
branches identify with certain aspects of their respective branches; for example, “air force pilots
often identify themselves with the airplane” (Builder, 23). This identification affects the behavior
of the Air Force and its interactions with other branches of the military, as the Air Force has true
passion for flying its planes and would promote their use as much as possible (Builder). In
relations with other branches, the Air Force is concerned with its “legitimacy as an independent
institution,” as other branches appear to be encroaching its autonomy (Builder, 28). The Air
Force therefore emphasizes its use of “strategic bombardment” as a means to legitimize its
independence (Builder, 28). So due to other military branches’ perception that the Air Force is
not legitimately independent, the Air Force adapts its behavior to address this issue. It looks for
ways to assert itself by promoting a certain behavior that it unique to it and differentiates it from
other military branches. In this context, the identification of the Air Force has a major impact on
its actions as a branch of the military and its relationship with other branches, which shows how
significant and influential identification can be.
In international affairs, identification holds a unique position as an analytical concept that
addresses characteristics different than those addressed by theories like liberalism and realism.
Chris Coughlin
International Security – Professor Byman
2/8/15
Book Report - Gulag
Finnemore groups identification under the umbrella of constructivism, and sees constructivism as
a useful theory because it helps explain, where realism and liberalism cannot, why states may
intervene in otherwise unimportant situations for humanitarian reasons (155). Finnemore says
that constructivism is able to consider international norms, or “coordinated patterns of behavior,”
and “the way they structure interests” of states, which ultimately shape actions (157-158). In the
context of the Gulag, looking at identification and constructivism is important because of the
context of the Soviet Union. Why did communism emerge; what made the USSR adopt the
behaviors and policies they did? If one considers the reasoning for the hostile climate in the
Soviet Union during this time, the most important factor is the “economic failures” in the country
(Applebaum, XXXVI). By framing the situation as caused by certain types of individuals, or
“enemies,” the leaders used “rhetoric” to justify the actions they would take and the relationships
they would have with those individuals (Applebaum, XXXVI). Through policies and actions like
creating the Gulag, the leaders were able to attempt to resolve the conflict with those they
opposed by identifying them as enemies and putting them to work in those labor camps with
certain tasks. This clearly shows how identification, and its effect on relationships, can provide a
unique analytical framework for looking at developments in society and international affairs.
Life in the Gulag for prisoners was based on how they were identified by others. Guards,
as well as other prisoners, had certain perceptions of prisoners in the Gulag, and through direct
and indirect mechanisms, identification affected their relationships in the camp, essentially
determining the likelihood of survival. In context, the Soviet Union perfectly represents how
identification can impact peoples’ lives and experiences, but it is not unique with respect to this
ability. Examples from different time periods, and involving other types of groups, demonstrate
how important identification can be in all features of human life and in society.
Chris Coughlin
International Security – Professor Byman
2/8/15
Book Report - Gulag
Works Cited
Applebaum, Anne. Gulag: A History. New York: Doubleday, 2003. Print.
Builder, Carl. Masks of War: American Military Styles in Strategy and Defense: A RAND
Corporation Research Study. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989. 17-43.
Finnemore, Martha. “Constructing Norms of Humanitarian Intervention.” The Culture of
National Security: Norms and Identity in World Politics. Ed. Peter Katzenstein. New
York: Columbia University Press, 1996. 153-185. Web.
Gat, Azar. War in Human Civilization. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. 1-157.
Katzenstein, Peter. “Introduction: Alternative Perspectives on National Security.” The Culture of
National Security: Norms and Identity in World Politics. Ed. Peter Katzenstein. New
York: Columbia University Press, 1996. 1-37. Web.