On 11 July 1929 the SNK USSR adopted a resolution

Refers to the 11 July 1929 SNK resolution “On the employment of criminal convicts” (GARF, fond R-5446, opis' 1, delo 493, listy 210–212), published in M. I. Khlusov (comp.), Ekonomika GULAGa i ee rol' v razvitii strany v 1930-e gody. Sbornik dokumentov (Moscow, 1998), pp. 19–20.

seeking “to transfer those sentenced by Soviet and republican judicial organs to three

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or more years to the OGPU corrective labor camps until the end of their terms.”

The resolution (paragraph 2) also orders the OGPU to expand the existing corrective labor camps and build new ones to accommodate and employ convicts.

Following this directive, the OGPU organized the economic activities of the camps to meet the needs of the most important and difficult projects related to the urgent government tasks in timber export, railroad and road construction, mining, fishing, and everything else.

Thus, the newly opened northern camps are responsible for constructing, in two years' time, the Ust-Sysolsk-Piniug railway (300 kilometers) and Ust-Sysolsk-Ukhta railroad (290 kilometers). At the same time, they are managing large timber-cutting projects and loading timber for export at the Arkhangelsk port, as well as conducting geological surveys of oil, helium, radium, etc., in the Ukhta and Pechora regions. To successfully complete the above projects, 50,000 workers are required, whereas only 41,000 are available.

The Far Eastern camps are also busy with building the 82-kilometer Boguchachinsk railroad, fishing on the Pacific Coast, lumbering for their own export, and handling export operations for Dalles [Far Eastern State Timber Company]. For these tasks, the Far Eastern camps need 23,000 workers, but only 15,000 are available.

The Vishersky camp specializes in constructing paper factories for the Vishersky chemical plant on an accelerated schedule, lumbering in the northern Urals, and serving in the chemical factories on the Lenva and in Perm (Bereznikovsky chemical plant). These projects require 26,000 people, but only about 20,000 are on hand.

The Siberian camps are building the Tomsk-Yeniseisk railway, producing bricks for Sibkombainstroi and Kuznetskstroi, serving Lenzoloto, and providing timber for Komsevmorput, etc. Timely completion of these projects requires 30,000 workers, but only 24,000 are available.

Finally, the Solovetsk camps are participating in the important tasks of building the apatite railroad, handling independent timber export, building the Kem-Ukhta railroad, working in the fishing industry (processing 40 percent of the catch along the White Sea coast), etc., and require 45,000 people, while only about 40,000 are available.

Today the workforce deficit in the mentioned camp industries is tremendous (about 35,000 workers) and threatens the economic plans of the camps. The situation is worsened by the systematic delays, under different pretexts, in transferring convicts from the NKVD prisons. The latest survey revealed that, in the RSFSR alone, the NKVD failed to transfer more than 20,000 prisoners to the OGPU.

In particular, the workforce crisis worsened in connection with the latest decision by the government to build the canal between the White and Baltic seas. This task is given to the OGPU directly. To do it as planned, in two years, 120,000 people are required right away.

It is obvious that to do this task, a significant increase of the camp population is required. At the same time, the current supply of prisoners is insufficient and hardly compensates for the natural decline in camp population as prisoners reach the end of their terms. The only solution to this problem would be the urgent increase in the number of prisoners transferred from the NKVD prisons, including, in addition to those sentenced to three years, those sentenced to two or more years.

Resolution no. US080 of 18 July 1930,

The resolution allowed the NKVD RSFSR to delay the transfer of those sentenced to three or more years for a month and a half and to employ them at peateries (GARF, f. 5446, op. 11a, d. 725, l. 7).

which was adopted at the meeting of the chairman of the SNK USSR and his deputies and which delays by one and one-half months the delivery of convicts to the OGPU (the OGPU was not informed about those plans, and its representatives were not invited to discuss them), seriously complicates the situation with the workforce and threatens to disrupt a number of projects of national importance.

In connection with the planned meeting of the deputies to review the whole issue, the OGPU believes that, considering the projects of national importance begun by the OGPU, and especially the newly imposed task of building the White Sea–Baltic Sea canal, any, even temporary delay in transferring the contingents to the camps would stop the work already under way, in particular the Belomorstroi project.

Likewise, it is impossible and inappropriate to consider canceling the transfer of convicts to OGPU camps.

In consideration of the above, the OGPU offers the accompanying draft resolution to the SNK.

The document, the main idea of which is summarized in the cover letter, is not published.