On Managing Places of Confinement in the Early Soviet Period
Udovenko I.V. On managing places of confinement in the early Soviet Period. Penitentiary Science, 2026, vol. 20, no. 3 (75), pp. 234–240. doi 10.46741/2713-2811.2026.75.3.001.
the article examines the institutional system for managing places of confinement
in the RSFSR, starting from the October Revolution of 1917 and up to the establishment of the
USSR in December 1922. Purpose: based on the analysis of legal and regulatory acts, to reveal the
mechanism for managing places of confinement in the early years of Soviet power. Methods: the
study is based on general principles of historical objectivism and a systematic approach to working
with sources and scientific literature, as well as formal‑legal methods. Results: the development of
places of confinement during the formative years of Soviet power is of a dual nature. In the RSFSR,
two types of detention facilities developed simultaneously: those under the People’s Commissariat
of Justice, which were largely represented by traditional forms such as prisons, reformatories,
etc., and those under the Cheka and the NKVD of the RSFSR, which acquired legal form after the
Bolsheviks announced the policy of the Red Terror on September 5, 1918. These detention facilities
included concentration camps, forced labor camps, and some prisons. Throughout the entire period
under consideration, these three agencies fought for control over the entire penitentiary system in
the country. If the People’s Commissariat of Justice largely represented a progressive system of
imprisonment based on the principle of reforming and re‑educating prisoners, then the NKVD, in
turn, saw the foundation of penitentiary work in the forced labor and in removing detention facilities
from state subsidies. A compromise solution was found in the autumn of 1922, when a new agency
was established within the NKVD – the GUMZ (Main Directorate of Places of Confinement), which
took over all the detention facilities in the country. Despite the apparent victory of the NKVD, people
from the People’s Commissariat of Justice of the USSR were appointed to leadership positions in the
GUMZ. In turn, the newly created GPU (State Political Directorate), which also became part of the
NKVD, retained control over the camps in the Arkhangelsk Governorate, on the basis of which the
Solovetsky Special Purpose Camp of the OGPU was established in October 1923.
Keywords: places of detention; penitentiary system; concentration camps; forced labor camps; prisons; correctional facilities; the NKVD; the Cheka; the GPU; the People’s Commissariat of Justice of the USSR.
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