"What are you waiting for, boys?"
How the Norilsk Uprising was suppressed
Author: Sergey Tashevsky
Even today, the Arctic Circle of Norilsk remains one of the most difficult cities to live in. A month and a half of polar night, temperatures below -50 degrees Celsius, hurricane-force winds, and "black blizzards" when visibility drops to zero and leaving the house feels like an astronaut's spacewalk. But now, homes have powerful heating, streets are lit, public transportation and taxis operate, and many even have heated garages and cars… But in the early 50s, none of this existed. Instead, there were camps where prisoners were required to work even in the most severe frosts. It was these camps that worked almost around the clock to build the city and the mining and metallurgical plant, now known as Norilsk Nickel. Nickel was in demand everywhere back then, especially in the defense industry. It was used in alloys for missile and aircraft bodies, armor, ammunition, and electronics. And Stalin needed this metal at any cost, even at the cost of thousands of human lives.
It is not surprising that soon after Stalin's death in May 1953, it was here in Norilsk that the longest and most massive uprising in the history of the Gulag broke out.
Serious uprisings in the Gulag began towards the end of the war and in the immediate postwar years, but why not earlier? After all, the brutality of the system in the 30s was bound to provoke an explosion somewhere. And it did, but these were isolated, unorganized outbreaks, brief prisoner revolts that were easily suppressed by the guards. Because before the war, the camp population was largely heterogeneous: peasants, intellectuals, "nationalists," criminals, and the occasional victims of denunciations. And in most camps, a hierarchy was established that suited the authorities, with criminals and "thieves" constituting the main force. It was always possible to negotiate with them, and they imposed their brutal rules on the other prisoners. Even if they didn't constitute the majority, they were united, bound by the "thieves' code," and anyone who tried to resist risked their life. But by the end of the war, a different kind of person began to end up in the camps en masse: former Red Army officers who had survived captivity and remained undeterred, members of the Ukrainian, Baltic, and Polish resistance, soldiers of Anders's army, members of the OUN-UPA, and the "Forest Brothers" of Estonia and Lithuania. In other words, people who knew how to fight, who knew how to hold their own under interrogation, and who knew how to organize. In some camps, they seized "internal" power and began to defend their rights—sometimes even with weapons in hand.
The earliest and perhaps most dramatic Gulag uprising occurred in January 1942 near the village of Ust-Usa in Komi. Led by former military pilot Mark Retyunin, a group of prisoners seized weapons, broke out of the camp, and attempted to escape into the taiga, intending to wage guerrilla warfare. A hundred men against the Arctic winter—the outcome was a foregone conclusion. The pursuit caught most of the escapees; those who survived the raid were executed. Retyunin shot himself, refusing to surrender. This was an uprising of despair—without demands, without negotiations, without hope of victory. It served as a lesson not only for the prisoners but also for the camp commanders: seizing weapons became virtually impossible. However, uprisings (usually relatively peaceful, with negotiations and prisoner petitions) continued, and their number increased with each passing year.
Of course, these attempts to reach an agreement with the utterly cannibalistic camp administration were doomed to failure and may seem pointless to outsiders. However, they had a purpose, and it didn't depend on the outcome: they were people's attempts to preserve their sense of self-worth. And the more strong and proud people, forged in the crucible of war, were sent to the camps, the more frequent the uprisings became.
A partial list of major unrest from 1946 to 1952 covers the entire geography of the Gulag: Kolyma and Dzhezkazgan (1946), Ust-Vym, Vorkuta, and Arzamas-16 (1947), Salekhard, Pechora, and Seida (1948). Unrest continued from 1949 to 1952: Inta, then Kolyma again, then Vorkuta again, and finally, the Karaganda region. And in 1953, major unrest was recorded in Rechlag, Steplag, Ozerlag, and several other camps.
Yes, these were peaceful uprisings—strikes, demands, sometimes hunger strikes and protests. And, of course, they were peaceful only on the part of the prisoners. The camp authorities dealt with these situations in a standard manner: executions, tightening the regime, transferring "ringleaders" and "unreliable" prisoners to other camps. But this only worked briefly, and then backfired: each suppressed uprising generated new people who had lost their fear, spreading the experience of resistance across thousands of kilometers. In September 1952, a convoy from the Karaganda camp arrived at the Norilsk Gorlag—1200 people who had already participated in the 1952 unrest there. The guards later called them a "rebellion virus," but even so, the virus had landed in very favorable conditions. Gorlag was already on the brink of rebellion.
This wasn't just another Gulag camp (of which there were some harsh and some relatively lenient ones). Compared to them, Gorlag resembled some kind of insane experiment in the most brutal treatment of prisoners.
The Mountain Camp (also known as Gorlag, State Special Regime Camp, or Special Camp No. 2) was established in Norilsk in August 1948 on the premises of the existing Norillag, one of the oldest and largest subdivisions of the Gulag. But there was a fundamental difference between the two: Gorlag was part of a system of "special camps" created specifically for "especially dangerous state criminals." Formally, this meant no workdays (meaning no opportunity to reduce one's sentence through labor), minimal correspondence with family (two letters per year), and maximum isolation from the outside world. In practice, however, it was a place of daily, minute-by-minute abuse: beatings, humiliation, executions.
By the spring of 1953, Gorlag comprised six camp divisions, each holding between three and a half and six thousand people. The total population, according to various estimates, ranged from 16 to 40 people (the figures differ due to different accounting practices for the "joined" units of Norillag). Adjacent to Gorlag was Norillag itself—35 camp divisions and 14 camp points. And, of course, this entire archipelago worked for a single facility—the Norilsk Mining and Metallurgical Plant. This meant that both the development of production and the ongoing nickel mining depended on the labor of many thousands of prisoners. And nickel was demanded at the very top.
But to ensure the plan was met, everything in this camp system had to run smoothly. And to maintain discipline, camp authorities redoubled their pressure on the prisoners, forcing them to work themselves to the point of exhaustion. The workday during construction of the plant's facilities was nominally 10-12 hours, but in reality, longer; there were night shifts. Rations were slightly higher than those during the siege of Leningrad. Outdoor work ceased when the temperature dropped below -45 degrees Celsius, but continued at -40 degrees Celsius.
But who was imprisoned in Gorlag back then? Historian Anna Makarova, who was the first to gain access to some of the camp archives in the late 1980s, describes the composition of the prisoner population as having changed dramatically compared to pre-war times. Among the prisoners were Red Army soldiers and officers who had been captured by the Germans and indiscriminately labeled "traitors to the Motherland"; residents of the occupied territories arrested "for intent" or "on suspicion"; partisans accused of collaboration; and members of national liberation movements—Ukrainians, Balts, Poles, and Chechens.
Article 58 of the Criminal Code ("anti-Soviet activity") covered all this diversity of biographies with a single label. The average sentence was 15-25 years, with many serving hard labor. It's especially important to note that, according to various estimates, 60 to 80 percent of Gorlag prisoners were Ukrainians, primarily UPA fighters and commanders, OUN members, and ordinary residents of the western regions caught up in the deportations of 1945-1950. This meant they had something to rally around. Besides Ukrainians, the camp also housed Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians, Poles, Germans, Hungarians, and Japanese. There were relatively few Russians among the prisoners.
And criminals, the so-called "blatnye," were few among the prisoners: they were rarely sent to special camps. Therefore, while in Norillag the thieves' gangs continued to be the primary power, in Gorlag the camp administration could no longer rely on them. Political prisoners constituted the overwhelming majority and quietly built what are now called horizontal structures of mutual support—especially the OUN members, who had experience in underground work. Even secret political parties and organizations emerged (for example, the Russian Democratic Party), and Ukrainian, Lithuanian, and Russian underground centers were active. The authorities knew of their existence, but could do nothing.
All of this made the guards afraid of the prisoners, and it was this fear that most likely became the root cause of the events that led to the uprising in the camp.
When news of Stalin's death spread through the barracks on March 5, 1953, the inmates immediately responded. One of the Gorlag prisoners, who later described that day, conveys their reaction bluntly: "The devil is dead!" and people's faces lit up. As is well known, their hopes proved premature, although at the end of March, Beria's amnesty decree was indeed issued—one of the first steps of the country's new leadership. However, the amnesty applied to criminals with short sentences and some other categories. Political prisoners under Article 58—the bulk of Gorlag—were not covered. The gates opened only to those imprisoned for theft or hooliganism. Those imprisoned for "espionage" or "nationalist activity" remained closed.
And, of course, this effect proved toxic: according to some accounts, the released criminals openly mocked the political prisoners as they left: "We're leaving, and you're staying." The prisoners' discontent grew.
The camp administration was well aware of this, and they were obviously agonizing over the best course of action. Conflicting orders were coming from Moscow: "Act yourselves," they said. But what should they do? Or sit and wait for these "politicals" to revolt and kill everyone?
Probably out of fear, trying to contain a potential riot, the camp administration decided to preempt the situation and tighten the screws as much as possible. In other words, they tightened the screws, as the standard Soviet method of intimidation (beat, kill, humiliate!) usually worked well with criminals. But no one in the camp administration apparently took into account that Gorlag housed people of a completely different temperament. After all, as Alexander Galich put it, "a warden can't be smart—because he can't be."
And so, in April and May of 1953, true tyranny began in Gorlag—with provocations, beatings, and executions for the slightest offense, and sometimes for no reason at all. "They would simply open fire on the zone; someone said something they didn't like, sang a loud song, or refused to sit in a puddle... This happened several times in a row at the end of May," recounted Gulag historian Nikolai Formozov. And one of the surviving Gorlag prisoners, Lev Netto, adds another important detail: "Those guards who ingratiated themselves received certain privileges, and most importantly, leave home. And this happened in six of our zones. True, they didn't shoot at the women's zones; the women were treated very 'humanely'—they weren't killed, only beaten with shovels or hatchets."
So, if you look at it, the "rebellion virus" in Gorlag was the camp guards themselves, blessed for their "exploits" by their superiors. And the uprising was a natural reaction to this virus, and it began after yet another incident that overwhelmed the prisoners' patience. Here's how another Gorlag prisoner, Semyon Bomshteyn, recalls this moment:
"The day of May 25th itself was surprisingly sunny, and the prisoners who had just returned from the first shift had lunch and were warming themselves on the barracks' porch. About 50 meters from the barracks stood a second gate with a small wicket, through which no one was passing. Suddenly, the commander of the 122nd convoy appeared at the wicket and fired a burst of machine gun fire into the barracks. Three people were killed. This caused a violent explosion... The next day, not a single person showed up for morning roll call. The night shift was no longer in place. Black flags appeared on the barracks, and then on the cranes in the work area. We declared that we would only speak with the commission from Moscow."
A few days later, the 4th, 6th, and 1st camp sections joined the strikers, then the 3rd, where convicts were held. And finally, the women's sections (approximately every fourth or fifth camp in Gorlag was for women). When the men's sections went on strike, the women joined in: at first simply observing through the barbed wire, and then by stopping work themselves. Their rations were reduced—in response, they declared a hunger strike and boarded up the kitchen doors, as everyone awaited a commission from Moscow.
By mid-June, the entire Gorlag was on strike, and black flags with a red horizontal stripe in the middle fluttered over the barracks—mourning the dead, blood on a black background. The guards were now afraid to enter the zone, remaining only in the machine-gun towers and outside the barbed wire.
The organization with which the desperate prisoners waged their struggle against the camp administration seems astonishing today: no spontaneous uprisings, no violence. In each camp division, prisoners elected strike committees, representing all nationalities, from Ukrainians to Estonians and Russians. Everyone understood perfectly well that any spontaneous rebellion or attempt to break out of the barbed wire would lead to more executions. Therefore, they demanded only the most basic things—compliance with the laws and the constitution, the very same Stalinist one. Of course, few in Gorlag believed in Soviet laws, but none of the prisoners' demands contradicted them.
Here are the requirements:
- review the cases of political prisoners and apply amnesty to them;
- punish those guilty and responsible in the Ministry of Internal Affairs-MGB for the riots and shootings;
- abolish shackles, torture, wearing numbers, remove bars and locks from barracks;
- do not restrict correspondence with relatives, send the disabled, sick, women and the elderly to the mainland;
- to bring foreigners back to their homeland;
- respect human rights.
No one made any political demands; the camp continued to function, and order was now maintained by the prisoners themselves, who had created self-government committees. Gorlag even launched its own trials for informers (which, however, did not impose death sentences) and even its own propaganda! Using kites, prisoners launched leaflets into the air, spreading information about the uprising and the rebels' demands (some are said to have even reached Igarka). Concerts, sports competitions, and club rehearsals were staged in the rebellious camp. Taras Shevchenko's play "Nazar Stodolya" was performed to full houses six times on the camp club stage. Activists maintained order and oversaw the cleaning of the barracks and the grounds. Some even called the events the creation of a new republic, so well-organized was life there in the absence of the camp authorities.
They watched everything from the sidelines, scratching their heads. It seemed the protest was peaceful and didn't warrant a brutal military crackdown (which also had to be coordinated with Moscow). But it was disrupting the plan and the defense order, for which they now had to answer to Beria, since the Norilsk Combine had practically ground to a halt. What was to be done?
Ultimately, it was decided to make concessions to the strikers, or at least pretend to do so. And on June 5, a commission from Moscow, headed by Colonel Kuznetsov, head of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs' Prison Administration, did indeed arrive at Gorlag. Ten prisoners representing various camp units were sent to negotiate with them, demanding security guarantees for the negotiators. Guarantees were granted, and even some (minimal) concessions were made: permission to remove numbers from clothing and bars from windows, and to send a letter to relatives each month. They agreed to introduce a nine-hour workday and allow prisoners to use cash—but that's all. As for reviewing political cases, they declared they weren't authorized to do so and would discuss the matter in Moscow. As for you, comrade prisoners, come on, get to work!
That same day, the bars were torn off the barracks' windows and the numbers were ripped off the pea coats. Gorlag celebrated a victory, albeit a relative one, and the next day, most of the prisoners agreed to return to work—and it seemed the uprising was over. But…
The warden couldn't be more smart, and the very next day, camp authorities ordered the arrest of all participants in the negotiations and their transfer to a separate prison outside the zone. The prisoners immediately stopped work, and the uprising flared up with renewed vigor.
The commission led by Kuznetsov attempted to continue negotiations, but the prisoners no longer trusted them. They demanded that at least Voroshilov come to them, but then news suddenly arrived from Moscow of Beria's arrest. Hastily grabbing their briefcases, the commission members departed for the capital overnight, leaving the camp authorities once again alone with the prisoners. And then they decided to resort to force.
“…Soldiers entered the zone in formation, machine gunners; additional machine guns were installed on the towers - we saw this, we could observe; there were machine gun points behind the wire along the perimeter of the camp, — Lev Netto recalled. …And then a cry rang out: “What are you waiting for, boys?” There was no command to open fire, no one gave the order; apparently, such an order had already been given earlier, and they began shooting.”
"It was a real massacre," recalled another participant in the uprising, Ostap Chernobay. "Everyone who was in the club at the time was shot; about fifty people were killed, about a hundred were wounded; during the arrests, everyone was brutally beaten, even the wounded. My comrade was there after the shooting; he said the blood was almost knee-deep."
Between 200 and 400 people were killed during the suppression of the uprising (the exact number remains unknown). 150 prisoners were buried unmarked in just one mass grave. The surviving resistance leaders and activists were thrown into the central punishment cell, which was known in Gorlag as a "meat processing plant." After torture and abuse, they all received additional sentences and were transported to various camps. Some were sent to Krasnoyarsk, others to the Irkutsk region, Mordovia, and Magadan. However, Gorlag itself only existed for a few months after this. In late 1953, it lost its "special" status, the locks and bars were removed from the barracks, and in 1954, it was completely liquidated. At the same time, the Special Council (which handed out most of the "political" sentences) was abolished, and a review of political cases began. In essence, almost all of the demands put forward by the rebels were met. And a couple of years later (when the 20th Congress of the CPSU began), they were even exceeded. But the participants in the Norilsk uprising remained in the camps perhaps longer than anyone else—most of them were released only at the end of 1956.
The uprising lasted from May 26 to August 4, 1953—71 days. It was an absolute record in the history of the Gulag: nearly 17 people went on strike, and at some points, when Norillag branches joined the protests, their number reached 30. Today, these events are often remembered as an important example proving that change in Russia depends on more than just the authorities. Indeed, the uprising largely spurred the "thaw," frightening Khrushchev and forcing him to hasten the dismantling of the Gulag. It demonstrated human dignity and a love of freedom—qualities that seem so lacking in many in today's Russia. But it's worth remembering: most of the participants in this uprising were not Russian: they were Ukrainians, Estonians, Poles, Germans, and Latvians. And the Russians (as it happened) were mostly the guards - the very same ones to whom someone once said in a quiet voice: “What are you waiting for, boys?”
