Was the Gulag an Archipelago? De‐Convoyed Prisoners and Porous Borders in the Camps of Western Siberia

Abstract

This article focuses on the issue of de‐convoyed (raskonvoirovannye) prisoners in order to argue that Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's enduring analogy for the Gulag—the archipelago—is, in many instances, misleading. The practice of allowing significant numbers of prisoners to move, unguarded, outside of the camp zones was widespread throughout the Stalin era, and is especially interesting as a topic of study for Western Siberia, an area where the largest camp subdivisions were located within the city limits of major urban centers, such as Novosibirsk and Tomsk. This article is the first systematic study of the phenomenon during the Stalin era, and assesses the rules of and reasons for de‐convoyed status, prisoners' thoughts concerning unguarded movement, and problems and opportunities (including black market activity) arising from the widespread presence of unescorted prisoners. Ultimately, the Gulag's porous borders meant that Gulag space was not separate, isolated space, despite the best intentions of the regime.