The Economist - 04.12.2021

TheEconomistDecember4th 2021

Graphic detail The gulag’s legacy

93

“Levelling up”

at gunpoint

“T

he bedbugs infested the board

bunks  like  locusts...in  autumn  the

typhus  arrived...We  crawled  to  the  fence

and  begged:  ‘Give  us  medicine.’  And  the

guards  fired  a  volley  from  the  watchtow­

ers.” In “The Gulag Archipelago” Alexander

Solzhenitsyn chronicled the soul­crushing

torment of Soviet prisoners. Jailed for crit­

icising the government, Solzhenitsyn was

one of the 2.65m people in 1921­59 arrested

for  “counter­revolutionary  activities”  and

labelled “enemies of the people” (eotp).

Not all eotpwere dissidents: simply be­

longing to the petite bourgeoisie often led

to a trip to the gulag. As a result, eotptend­

ed to be well­educated. In 1939, 1% of cen­

sus  respondents  and  2%  of  gulag  inmates

had  university  degrees.  Among  eotp in

1927­53,  the  rate  was  15%.  Incarcerating

eotpthus entailed relocating much of the

Soviet  intelligentsia.  And  a  new  paper  by

Gerhard  Toews  of  the  New  Economic

School in Moscow and Pierre­Louis Vézina

of  King’s  College  London  shows  that  re­

gions where eotpwere jailed still reap eco­

nomic benefits from this forced migration.

The study began with data on the share

of  inmates  in  each  of  79  prisons  in  1952

who were eotp. Save for nine special eotp

camps,  political  prisoners  were  mixed  in

with common criminals. Aside from a few

patterns—eotptended to cluster in big pri­

sons  in  thinly  populated  areas  with  weak

transport  links—the  choice  of  camps

where they were sent appeared random.

Next, the paper measured current levels

of economic development within 30km of

prison  sites.  It  found  that  the  greater  a

camp’s share of eotpin 1952, the richer and

better­educated  people  living  nearby  are

today—even  after  accounting  for  regional

differences and factors that affected where

eotpwere sent. A ten­percentage­point in­

crease  in  the  share  of  inmates  who  were

eotpcorresponded to gains of 8% in wag­

es; 23% in profits per worker; 23 percentage

points in the share of firms at which the av­

erage  worker  went  to  university;  and  21%

in the strength of light emitted at night per

person, ameasure ofeconomic output.

After the Soviet Union broke up, the num­

ber of registered firms also grew unusually

fast near former camps with lots of eotp.

To explain this trend, the authors stud­

ied where eotpwent after being freed. Un­

til 1959 eotpwere not allowed to go home.

Their  “wolves’  passports”  stopped  them

from living in big cities. As prisons became

company  towns,  managers  at  state  enter­

prises recruited ex­cons, who often stayed

where they had new friends or families.

No data were available on the post­pri­

son  locations  of  eotp.  But  a  poll  in  2016

found  that  people  living  near  the  sites  of

camps with high shares of eotpwere espe­

cially likely to have relatives who were po­

litical prisoners. Moreover, 42% of respon­

dents  whose  grandparents  were  eotphad

attended  university,  compared  with  31%

for everyone else. These data imply a cause

behind the correlation. Lots of eotpsettled

near their jails and had well­educated kids,

who stayed in the same areas and spawned

another educated, rich generation.

Joseph  Stalin  did  his  best  to  wipe  out

perceived enemies. It might have comfort­

ed eotpto  know  that  their  humancapital

has outlived the gulag by six decades.n

How regions near Stalin’s prisons

benefit today from his victims

RUSSIA

Moscow

KAZAKHSTAN

UKRAINE

BELARUS

0.1

1

10

Size=totalprisoners logscale 100

↑Brighterlights

(moreeconomic

development)

0525 075 100

“Enemiesofthepeople”, %

040608010020

“Enemiesofthepeople”

Eachdotshowsthepre-gulag

residenceofoneprisoner

1.5

1.0

0.5

0

1935 1945 1952

25,000

20,000

15,000

10,000

5,000

0

1980 90 2000 1810

→ Areas near camps that imprisoned lots of educated “enemies of the people” are now unusually rich

PrisoncampsintheSovietUnion, (^1952) Totalprisoners,m
170
50
Prisoner
population, ’
“Enemies of the people”
as share of prisoners, %
“Enemiesofthepeople” as
shareofprisonersin 1952
Night-time illumination per person
in 215 v “enemies of the people”
as share of prisoners in 1952
Firms registered, 199=1
Excluding Moscow
*Within0km of camp locations
Source:“Enemies of the people”, by Gerhard Toews
andPierre-Louis Vézina, working paper, 2021
1-20%
Over 20%
Below 1%