THE PROCESS OF FORMATION OF THE CORRECTIONAL LABOR AND CAMP SYSTEM OF EXECUTION OF PUNISHMENTS IN THE EARLY 1920-S

Abstract

The period of formation of the Soviet criminal-executive system from 1918–1924 can be qualified as «revolutionary» or «transitional system». From the first years of the establishment of Soviet power, its apologists proposed the correctional and labor nature of the criminal-executive system. A general shortcoming of the Soviet criminal-executive system in the early 1920s was that at the same time the People’s Commissariat of Justice, in whose system correctional institutions functioned, was being formed into the People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs, in the structure of which there were institutions for the temporary detention of suspected persons in committing various kinds of violations. In addition, the All-Russian Emergency Commission of the United State Political Administration owned its own places of execution – these were either prisons (places of temporary detention of suspects) or camps (detained extremely dangerous criminals, usually political ones). DOPR was divided into: a) men’s, b) women’s, c) probation, d) temporary, e) forced. A mandatory attribute of being in the DOPR was the performance of labor duties. The main type of penal institutions in Ukraine at the beginning of the 1920s were forced labor camps – the predecessors of correctional labor colonies, which were also organized according to the gender principle. Since October 1920, forced labor camps began to be formed in each province. By the beginning of 1921, there were five types of forced labor camps: special-purpose camps, general-type concentration camps, production camps, prisoner-of- war camps, and distribution camps. It was established that in the official records of the first years of Soviet power, the terms «forced labor camp», «concentration camp», «forced labor concentration camp», «concentration labor camp» and others were used in parallel. Over time, the approach was established that in institutions in relation to which the concept of «concentration» was applied, the work of prisoners was mandatory. It is argued that in the first half of the 1920-s, the main problem of penal institutions was the lack of proper sanitary and material conditions for keeping prisoners, a system of medical care and compliance with the law.