Brutal camps where 1m died

THE gulag network was a system of forced labour camps that imprisoned around 18million people during Joseph Stalin’s murderous reign as dictator of the Soviet Union.

Conditions at the hundreds of camps were brutal, with inmates required to work up to 14 hours a day often in extreme weather.

Even the most conservative death toll is estimated to be more than a million – often due to starvation, disease, exhaustion and sometimes even execution. Though created by Lenin, the gulag network and its population dramatically expanded under Stalin between the 1920s and 1950s.

At first made up of criminals, it later became a destination for his political enemies in the Great Purge. However, it also included ordinary citizens sentenced to up to eight years – sometimes without trial – whose only crime was to be related to a suspected traitor.

Living in cold, filthy and overcrowded conditions, labour crews were given only crude tools and no safety equipment to work with.