The labor exploitation of detainees represents one of the repressive elements of policy of
totalitarian regimes. An example of this is the Gulag system that became known as a place for
political detainees and a mechanism of repression of political opposition in the Soviet Union.
The specifics of the Soviet repressive system consisted in the fact that its activity was based
on secret instructions, interpretations, additions and comments, which in most cases came
from organs without legislative powers. Neither simple people, nor Soviet and foreign public
were not informed about the existence of a whole series of documents with directive character,
which flagrantly violated the constitution and human rights. The work subordinated to the
Gulag prison camps was meaningless not only under the human aspect, but economically in
most of the cases. Following the labor exploitation of detainees in the prison camps died tens of
thousands of people; the branches of the economy where the labor of detainees was widely used,
developed extensively, maintaining the manual labor basically. Endowed with primitive work
tools, people worked in exhausting physical work, all this in horror climatic conditions.
Thus the activity of the Soviet camp system left a deep stamp, not only on detainees’ mentality,
but largely influenced the psychology, behavior and the way of life and thinking of a large
part of the population.