MEDICAL CARE IN THE SOVIET GULAG: STATE CONTROL, PUNISHMENT, AND HUMAN SOLIDARITY

Abstract

Abstract. This paper examines the medical system of the "Gulag" (Chief Administration of Camps) as an integral part of the Soviet repressive apparatus. The objective of this study is to determine how medical care, in alignment with ideological and economic requirements, became a tool for the exploitation and control of human resources. The paper analyzes the medical infrastructure of the Gulag and contrasts it with the actual health status of the prisoners. The study employs a historical-comparative method, utilizing both archival data and the memoir literature of survivors (e.g., V. Shalamov, E. Ginzburg, and others). The research demonstrates that the formal structure of the medical system often masked systemic dehumanization, while the efforts of prisoner-physicians to maintain professional ethics represented a rare but significant form of resistance. The findings confirm that violations of medical ethics in the Gulag were not the result of individual moral failures, but rather the inevitable consequence of an ethical infrastructure deliberately dismantled by the state.

Keywords: Gulag, Soviet repressions, medical ethics, forced labor, penitentiary system, dehumanization, camp medicine.