White Sea Canal

From Wikinfo

In the Soviet Union with vast reserves of people in concentration camps during the Red Terror the plan gradually developed that the prison camps of the Gulag would be self supporting using the slave labor of the prisoners. The first big project built using prisoner labor was the White Sea Canal, or White Sea-Baltic Canal, a pet project of Stalin's, stretching from the White Sea to St. Petersburg. The project required excavation of 141 miles of canal 12 feet deep using only hand tools and such equipment the concentration camp inmates were able to construct for themselves. Stalin expected the canal to be complete in two years. At great sacrifice it was, during 20 months in 1931 to 1933.

External Links

• Photos and some info from Open Society Archives
• Chapter from Economics of Forced Labor: The Soviet Gulag

Further Reading

• Paul R. Gregory, Valery Lazarev and V. V. Lazarev, Economics of Forced Labor: The Soviet Gulag, Hoover Institute Press, October, 2003, trade paperback, 356 pages, ISBN 0817939423