All for the front, all for victory! The mobilization of forced labor in the Soviet Union during World War Two

The Soviet Union, in its drive to mobilize its every resource to turn back the German invaders used a unique institution: the Gulag, a forced-labor, d etention, and exile system isolating millions of citizens from the body pol itic. This essay seeks to understand the wartime Gulag both as a microcosm of the Soviet home front and as an integral participant in the campaigns to mobilize Soviet labor power in support of the war effort and to cleanse th at very labor force of real and potential enemies of the Soviet state. Focu sing on the institutions and population, economic production, political edu cation, and the rigidification of detention of those defined as 'especially dangerous', the essay explores the relationship between the Gulag and the larger Soviet polity. Although in economic and administrative terms the Gul ag emerged as a burden to the Soviet state during the war, the Soviet leade rship never even entertained the notion of dismantling the system. The Gula g was a pillar of the Soviet system, as important for its role in the battl e to cleanse and shape the Soviet home front as for its role in military pr oduction.