[Tovarish Spetsnaz]

The statistics are very disturbing...

The death rate among the Russian population of today is an astonishing 14.6 per 1000 persons. That translates to a 1.46% death rate among the population at large!!

The average death rate of the Soviet Gulag, prisons and Labor colonies from the 1920s to the 1950s was 1.6%. In Russia today...the general population has a similar death rate.

That means...that living free in Russia today equates to being in a Gulag in the 1930s.

Truly shocking!!!

From some source on the internet...I read that the death rates in Russian prisons was 17 times higher than the general population. Could this possibly be true??? That would mean a 25% death rate in prisons!!! I think this is horrificly high...if indeed it is true (which I doubt becasue it would be too high!!). But regardless if it is true or not...it is clearly much higher than Soviet prisons in the 1930s, 40s and 50s...

I hope this puts an end to the beleif that Gulags in the USSR was death prisons with 10% death rates per month (as some brillinat minds like Solzhenitsyn write!)


Russia today is FAR worse than even Soviet prisons 50 years ago.

[Putinist]

Russia today is FAR worse than even Soviet prisons 50 years ago.

So is the fact that Putin has reopened the Soviet-era gulags, now home to an estimated 30,000 unfortunate folk, a good thing or a bad thing?

[Gandalf]

Surely it cannot be that bad, though are people working less then they did in the gulags?

[Tovarish Spetsnaz]

Well the fact is that in the Gulags...or rather the Gulag labor colonies (two different institutions)...prisoners worked 8 hours a day...receieved wages...and were not required to work harder than the average worker.

And from the figures in the archives...the death rate in the Gulag Labor Colonies was actually slightly less than in the Gulag prisons.

Today the situation is considerably worse in Russian prisons. The death rate...from my estimations...in 1996 was at LEAST 3% of the population. This is higher than in the 1930s...But considering in 1930s medicines and health care did not exist for most of the diseases in prisons...it was only expected that a lot of people would die from them. Today...the medicines exist...but they are simply not available to prisoners.

In the late 40s and early 50s...when medicines did become available...the death rate was as low as 0.2 and 0.3% of the population...which is comparable to US prisons today.

And yes...apparently the Gulag Labor Colonies have been reopened...and I am sure the condtions there are even worse than they were in the 1930s.

In fact many human rights researchers have said that conditions in Russian prisons today are a lot worse than they were even in the 1930s.

[Tigerlily]

Well, there's more factors today that can cause death than in the 30's.

The number of cars on Russian roads have increased since the 30's, so there's more deaths due to accidents.

Maybe there's some health reasons too, like obseity and high blood pressure (although those seem to be lower in Europe).

Number of murders could have increased, causing more deaths.

Now for the prisons....I don't know what to say. How did these 3% of the population die? Increase of violence in prisons? More smokers? Drug users?

[Tovarish Spetsnaz]

There should be a lot less causes of death today than in the 1930s. In those times...many comon diseases whcih today could be easily cured...could kill.

I don't think Russians have an obisity or high blood pressure problem...not more than other European countries. Alcohol has always been high in Russia...but now is higher..that is true...and that probably contributes a lot to the higher death rates.

In prisons...1/3 of the deaths (10,000 a year) are due to TB (tuberculosis). Disease seems to be the main cause of death...but that is really inexcusable today...when the medicines do exist...but are just not made available.

In the US...1/3 of the deaths are due to AIDS (about 1000 a year)...but there is nothing that can be done about that. Most other deaths are from violence...so it is a different cause than in Russian prisons.

And when you consider that by 1950 the death rate in Soviet prisons was as low as in US prisons today...that clearly shows that Soviet prisons were in a much better condition that prisons in Russia today...as good as in the US today if one looks at the death rate.

[Gothmog]

The statistics are very disturbing...

The death rate among the Russian population of today is an astonishing 14.6 per 1000 persons. That translates to a 1.46% death rate among the population at large!!

The average death rate of the Soviet Gulag, prisons and Labor colonies from the 1920s to the 1950s was 1.6%. In Russia today...the general population has a similar death rate.

That means...that living free in Russia today equates to being in a Gulag in the 1930s.

Truly shocking!!!

From some source on the internet...I read that the death rates in Russian prisons was 17 times higher than the general population. Could this possibly be true??? That would mean a 25% death rate in prisons!!! I think this is horrificly high...if indeed it is true (which I doubt becasue it would be too high!!). But regardless if it is true or not...it is clearly much higher than Soviet prisons in the 1930s, 40s and 50s...

I hope this puts an end to the beleif that Gulags in the USSR was death prisons with 10% death rates per month (as some brillinat minds like Solzhenitsyn write!)


Russia today is FAR worse than even Soviet prisons 50 years ago.

-Hmmm....where are your sources? Getty estimates that the death rate in the Gulag (who was, btw, created in 1934, not in the 20´s) were around 2-4% until 1937, when it peaked to 8% due to disorganization caused by mass arrests. Then returned slowly to baseline values until 1941, when the war caused an abrupt peak of mortality (18% in 1941) and then decreased until 1945. After the war, it seems the death rates approached overall population death rate (around 1%). I don´t know the mortality rates for the general population of USSR in this time. You also must be cautious to avoid comparisons of crude mortality rates between diferent populations. Overall mortality rates depend on the age distribution of a population, and is higher in the extremes (children and older people). Those groups were under represented in the Gulag, so comparing Gulag mortality with overall mortality in the post Soviet Russia may be misleading.

This said, it is clear that mortality in post Soviet Russia increased a lot (althought some increase was already seen from 1965 to 1985, with a small improvement until 1988).

I don´t know if your data on prisons is ok., but I wouldn´t be surprised if you were right. Getty estimated the death rates in the Gulag as being 5-9 times higher than general population (in the 30´s and until 45). If this 17 fold increase is true, than we can say that prisioners were better treated in the Stalin era than today.

[Gothmog]

Well, there's more factors today that can cause death than in the 30's.

The number of cars on Russian roads have increased since the 30's, so there's more deaths due to accidents.

Maybe there's some health reasons too, like obseity and high blood pressure (although those seem to be lower in Europe).

Number of murders could have increased, causing more deaths.

Now for the prisons....I don't know what to say. How did these 3% of the population die? Increase of violence in prisons? More smokers? Drug users?

-It seems that alcoholism is responsible by a large number of excess deaths among Russian men (the mortality for women changed very little since the 60´s). External causes (accidents and so on) are imprtant too. The collapse of healthcare also has claimed a heavy toll from Russian people.

[Tovarish Spetsnaz]

Well Getty is quite right actually. My sources are the same as his...the archives. In the 30s it was around 2-4%...and 1937 did have a major increase caused by the heavy influx...but after 1945 the rate was usually around 1% and by the late 40s and early 50s was well below 1%. Overall Gulags had an average 2.5-3% death rate.

I did not take WW2 into account however. I don't think it would be fair...

However...there were also the prisons and the labor colonies to take into account. These had a lower death rate...which lowered the overall death rate even more.

My comparison is primarely with the prisons of Russia today...not simply her population. By my estimations...which may be wrong...in 1996 Russian prisons suffered a 3% or more death rate!! This is comparable with some of the worst years in the 1930s...and 10 times more than 1951!!

I base this 3% figure on the estimate by several human rights organization that as many as 30000 prisoners had died in 1996...when the population was around 1 million inmates. This number...is probably lower than the actual number. Also, from data from Russian health agency, 20000 prisoners had died in 1999 and 2000 from TB alone. Clearly these numbers are very high.

And when you take into account the difference in medicines and health care between 1930 and 2000...you get an even more disturbing picture...

[Gothmog]

Well Getty is quite right actually. My sources are the same as his...the archives. In the 30s it was around 2-4%...and 1937 did have a major increase caused by the heavy influx...but after 1945 the rate was usually around 1% and by the late 40s and early 50s was well below 1%. Overall Gulags had an average 2.5-3% death rate.

I did not take WW2 into account however. I don't think it would be fair...

However...there were also the prisons and the labor colonies to take into account. These had a lower death rate...which lowered the overall death rate even more.

My comparison is primarely with the prisons of Russia today...not simply her population. By my estimations...which may be wrong...in 1996 Russian prisons suffered a 3% or more death rate!! This is comparable with some of the worst years in the 1930s...and 10 times more than 1951!!

I base this 3% figure on the estimate by several human rights organization that as many as 30000 prisoners had died in 1996...when the population was around 1 million inmates. This number...is probably lower than the actual number. Also, from data from Russian health agency, 20000 prisoners had died in 1999 and 2000 from TB alone. Clearly these numbers are very high.

And when you take into account the difference in medicines and health care between 1930 and 2000...you get an even more disturbing picture...

-Good information. Thank you