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Gulag Boss

A Soviet Memoir

Fyodor Vasilevich Mochulsky
Translated and edited by Deborah Kaple

The first memoir from an NKVD (KGB) employee translated into English
Helps to define the Gulag experience
A unique addition to the literature on terror in the twentieth century

$31.95

Paperback

Published: 12 November 2012

272 Pages | 17 halftones, 4 maps

5-1/2 x 8-1/4 inches

ISBN: 9780199934867

Also Available As:

Ebook

This title is available as an ebook. To purchase, visit your preferred ebook provider.

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Gulag Boss

A Soviet Memoir

Fyodor Vasilevich Mochulsky
Translated and edited by Deborah Kaple

Description

The searing accounts of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Evgeniia Ginsberg and Varlam Shalamov opened the world's eyes to the terrors of the Soviet Gulag. But not until now has there been a memoir of life inside the camps written from the perspective of an actual employee of the Secret police.

In this riveting memoir, superbly translated by Deborah Kaple, Fyodor Mochulsky describes being sent to work as a boss at the forced labor camp of Pechorlag in the frozen tundra north of the Arctic Circle. Only twenty-two years old, he had but a vague idea of the true nature of the Gulag. What he discovered was a world of unimaginable suffering and death, a world where men were starved, beaten, worked to death, or simply executed. Mochulsky details the horrific conditions in the camps and the challenges facing all those involved, from prisoners to guards. He depicts the power struggles within the camps between the secret police and the communist party, between the political prisoners (most of whom had been arrested for the generic crime of "counter-revolutionary activities") and the criminal convicts. And because Mochulsky writes of what he witnessed with the detachment of the engineer that he was, readers can easily understand how a system that destroyed millions of lives could be run by ordinary Soviet citizens who believed they were advancing the cause of socialism.

Mochulsky remained a communist party member his entire life--he would later become a diplomat--but was deeply troubled by the gap between socialist theory and the Soviet reality of slave labor and mass murder. This unprecedented memoir takes readers into that reality and sheds new light on one of the most harrowing tragedies of the 20th century.

Gulag Boss

A Soviet Memoir

Fyodor Vasilevich Mochulsky
Translated and edited by Deborah Kaple

Introduction by Deborah Kaple
Preface by Fyodor Mochulsky

Part 1: Gulag from the Outside
Chapter 1. The NKVD: Villain or Protector?
Chapter 2. First Acquaintance with Gulag NKVD: Meeting at the Central Committee of the CPSU
Chapter 3. Meeting in the Cadres Department of Gulag NKVD
Chapter 4. 45 Days to Pechorlag

Part 2: Gulag from the Inside
Chapter 5. At the Construction Administration
Chapter 6. Unit Foreman. First Contingent of Prisoners: Soviet Volunteer Ski Troops in the Finnish War
Chapter 7. The Unit Bosses
Chapter 8. A Change in Leadership at Pechorlag
Chapter 9. Transferred to the 93rd Unit. Labor Force: Hardened Criminals
Chapter 10. Attempted Prisoner Revolt in the 93rd Unit
Chapter 11. Boss and Foreman at the 93rd Unit. Labor Force: Political Prisoners
Chapter. 12. Threat of Arrest
Chapter 13. The War
Chapter 14. Illness
Chapter 15. Recovery and Return to Work in the Southern Part of the Camp
Chapter 16. Boss of a Militarized Section. Labor Force: Captured German Prisoners of War
Chapter 17. Boss of a Railway Division. Labor Force: Professional Railwaymen
Chapter 18. The "Liberated" Secretary of the Communist Youth Organization
Chapter 19. Fascist Military Landing Force
Chapter 20. Deputy Boss in the Political Department for Komsomol Work at the NKVD's Road Building Camp No. 3

Part 3: Interesting Asides
Chapter 21. Some Railroad Recollections
Chapter 22. Peschanka, a Village of De-Kulakized People on the River Pechora
Chapter 23. The Countryside of Komi on the River Usa
Chapter 24. Women at Pechorlag
Chapter 25. A Fellow Traveler from Abez to Pechora

Part 4: Final Words
Chapter 26. The End of My Story
Chapter 27. The Real Essence of the Gulag

Afterword: The Nature of Memoir
Appendix 1: Pretexts for Arrest during the Stalin Period
Appendix 2: Article 58 of the RSFSR Criminal Code
Appendix 3: Glossary
Acknowledgments
Selected Bibliography

Gulag Boss

A Soviet Memoir

Fyodor Vasilevich Mochulsky
Translated and edited by Deborah Kaple

Reviews and Awards

"Gulag scholars should mine Mochulsky's memoir for insights into the decision-making process of a local camp boss facing often contradictory directives, knowing that failure could easily turn a boss into a prisoner."--The Journal of World History

"This is a fascinating memoir, presenting for the first time the voice of a 'gulag boss.' It offers a devastating counterpoint to the existing picture of Stalin's gulag that we have from victims' memoirs. The discovery and superb translation of this memoir by Deborah Kaple represents a major contribution to Gulag studies."--Lynne Viola, author of The Unknown Gulag: The Secret World of Stalin's Special Settlements

"Many memoirs by people who lived under the Stalinist regime in the USSR have appeared, but few give any real sense of how the repressive apparatus functioned. Fyodor Mochulsky's memoir offers the perspective of a Gulag prison camp official who, despite being a committed Communist, was able to sense a disjuncture between his expectations and the terrible reality he confronted. Although Mochulsky's memoir is necessarily selective and was written with the benefit of hindsight, it gives a valuable sense of some of the things he felt and the dilemmas he faced while overseeing Gulag operations. The memoir undoubtedly leaves out the worst aspects of Mochulsky's job, but he does not pretend to have been a hero or a closet dissident. If only inadvertently, his account lays bare the evils of the system he loyally served."--Mark Kramer, director of Cold War Studies, Harvard University

"Gulag Boss provides a unique and fascinating insight into the mind and morality of the men who ran the Soviet concentration camps."--Anne Applebaum, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Gulag: A History

"A fascinating memoir..."--American Thinker

"This unique viewpoint on the harsh Stalinist prison system is an important historical document..."--New York Post

"Essential reading...I could hardly put it down."--Simon Sebag Montefiore, Literary Review