«Мы должны использовать их в местах отдаленных, в борьбе с природными препятствиями»: заключенные как трудовой ресурс в колонизаторских проектах Н.М.Янсона (1929–1930 годы)
“We Must Use Them in Remote Places, in the Fight against Natural Obstacles”: Prisoners as a Labor Resource in the Colonial Projects of N.M. Yanson (1929–1930)

Summary/Abstract: The article is devoted to the analysis of a separate stage in the life and socio-political activities of N.M.Yanson (1882–1938), a figure undeservedly overlooked by specialists in the historiography of Soviet socio-political processes during the period of the formation of the Stalinist dictatorship. Yanson is usually credited with the initiative to transition to a mass system of using forced labor of prisoners for developing the natural resources of the outlying territories of the Soviet state. The author’s goal — to obtain additional evidence of this version was achieved: in the course of the study, Yanson’s direct participation in the development of at least four versions of the project for using prisoners to solve both global and local-geographical problems of economic, industrial and general economic significance was documented. Thus, initially, for these purposes, it was planned to send professional repeat offenders to the OGPU concentration camps; later — all persons deprived of liberty for a term of more than three years and suitable for camp labor due to health and age; then, from the general contingent of persons held in places of detention of both the NKVD of the Union republics and the OGPU, it was planned to voluntarily select prisoners who had expressed their consent to work in the conditions of a semi-free settlement in Northern Sakhalin; and finally, for the same purpose, it was planned to send to the island a select contingent of persons convicted of various kinds of abuses and excess of power during the course of collectivization and dispossession. In the final part of the study, the author sets out his vision of the possible prerequisites for the manifestation of N.M.Yanson’s personal interest in the initiation and active promotion of plans for the state to use prisoners as its basic colonization resource.

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