Within the camp, "observers” or "operationals” had direct contact with inmates. They assigned them their tasks, monitored their whereabouts within the camp grounds, and spied. According to camp records, there were almost 140,000 "informers” among the inmates, of whom one half were to report planned escapes.15 Contact between guards and prisoners was to be strictly limited. Armed guards manned the watch-towers and patrolled the area around the camp, they escorted prisoners to work and back, and they transported prisoners from one camp to another. Other than that, they were to have no contact. Such antifraternization rules were to prevent guards from exchanging information with inmates, from being "infected” by their political views, or from developing friendly relationships that might lead to assistance in escape attempts. Gulag guards were subject to a drumbeat of political education, instructing them that they were guarding vicious and dangerous enemies of the people.
One can imagine why these anti-fraternization rules would be ignored. Many guards were themselves only a step removed from being inmates themselves. A large number were former inmates who had served out their term and had no where else to go. Others had passed through filtration camps at the end of the war and had narrowly escaped imprisonment themselves. Still others had their papers confiscated and were tied to the camp. If the guards obeyed fraternization rules, they had to keep company only with other guards, and they would probably be deprived of female companionship, which they could "find” among female inmates.
Indeed, fraternization was rampant: A representative 1946 MVD report criticized the "unsatisfactory political-educational work of camp staff and cases of contacts with prisoners, group drunkenness, and hooliganism.”16 Another typical report (dated October 1941) entitled "Co-habitation of armed guards with female prisoners, drunkenness and other violations of military discipline” complained:
Discipline among the guard staff is lax. There are cases of guards going on watch drunk, of co-habitation with women inmates. . . . The commander of the division, Shevchuk, knows about this but takes no action. In the fourth platoon, the guards Rezepov, Grishchuk and Girnev co-habit with female prisoners. A guard of this platoon, Novikov, co-habited with female prisoners Tomlina, Arkhipova, Kbardinova and Vasilieiva. When this became known in the platoon, he committed suicide. [We wonder whether the term "co-habitation” was code for rape?]. . . . Another guard of this platoon, Churkin, on October 4, 1941, guarding nine prisoners at the ZhanaArka station, left the prisoners by themselves, went to drink with a female friend and remained there until the prisoners found him themselves.17
The murder of two inmates by an NKVD guard in the Agrinskii Labor Camp began with fraternization that ended in a deadly argument. The incident was reported directly to the head of the Gulag administration and to the NKVD deputy minister in the following 1942 report:18
In the electro station of construction site 203, the guard, Ananevy, and the prisoner, Khvatovy, argued over cigarettes. During the ensuing scuffle, Khvatovy struck Ananevy, after which the guard took a hammer and killed him with a blow to the head. Another inmate and a free worker responded to the noise. Fearing that he would be caught at the scene of the crime, Ananevy killed the second inmate with a hammer blow and seriously wounded the free worker, leaving him unconscious. As these murders were taking place, the other prisoners returned from work.
The report ends with the terse statement: "The guard was arrested and the investigation is under way.” Given the high level of this report, we imagine that the guard's punishment was quite severe. The guard's major offenses were, first, the near killing of a free worker, and second, engaging in fraternization. In 1942, the killing of an inmate alone would probably not have attracted much attention.
Some fraternization reached comedic proportions: A January 2, 1951, report described a guard in the Krasnoiarsk region, "fulfilling the temporary duties of the head of a convoy, who took two prisoners with him beyond the zone of production and organized a drunken spree with them. The drunken guard gave his automatic rifle to a prisoner, who opened fire and wounded the guard in the leg.” The report concludes that "such cases are not rare.”19
The widespread practice of fraternization did not mean the absence of widespread cruelty and violence by guards against inmates. Some examples: An overseer aided by male prisoners forcibly shaved and beat female prisoners.20 Transport guards withheld supplies from prisoners in transit, many of whom arrived at their destinations in a state of starvation. Drunken guards stole prisoner belongings, raped women prisoners, and beat prisoners for no reason. Prisoners were forced to stand freezing in the snow and were set upon by guard dogs.21
World History
