VlaRiSsiAn Gulag

Suspected dissidents undergoing forced labor during the Green Terror(c.2095)

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Established: October 31, 2094
Average Population: >69 million
Annual Incarcerations: ~6.5 million/year
Annual Excess Mortalities: 2.6-3.5 million/year
No. Labor Colonies: 9,000+

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- 420 million people are believed to have passed through these labor camps
- Sources estimate that between 168 and 230 million prisoners perished in the Gulag
- Thousands of Labor colonies are scattered around VlaRiSsiA

The Gulag, also known as “VlaRiSsiAn Re-Education Facilities” or “VlaRiSsiAn Death Camps” according to outside critics, is a system of forced labor camps used by the VlaRiSsiAn government to suppress any form of dissent and to quash all criminal activity. Established by Shrek in 2094, they have been primarily used for lesser crimes such as lying or very petty theft. Crimes such as robbery, dissent or many other offenses are usually punished by execution. Usually the families of dissidents are sent to Gulag in order to act as a deterrent. When families are sent, they will stay forever and all offspring and future generations will be worked in these camps as well. That, and the extremely strict policies of the regime, is why nearly half a billion people have been in the camps. Hundreds of millions have died in them, mostly from starvation, disease or execution. This system has been used as an extrajudicial punishment for petty criminals or their families.

They were first being used during the Green Terror, where 3 million suspected dissidents were publicly executed and another 7 million where sent to the gulags over the course of 2 months. Millions more would be sent to the labor system following the purge, creating a prison population of 15 million by the end of 2095. The population of prisoners would increase by millions on an annual basis. An average of 6 million citizens have been imprisoned on a yearly basis, with up to 70 million or more people being in the labor camps at any given time. The Camps have been used extensively during the numerous politicides where millions would be sent in a short period of time. Even during times of peace, many hundreds of thousands are imprisoned monthly. The Daily Dispatch, a martian news outlet which is critical of the VlaRiSsiAn regime claims that an average of 3 million prisoners die either from starvation, disease, torture or execution on a yearly basis. Many now-executed officials have openly condemned the VlaRiSsiAn Gulag system, calling it “Almost as bad as the Concentration Camps utilized by the Third Duloch during the Dulocaust”.

Brief History

Supreme Leader Shrek(c.2130)

Contrary to popular belief, most prisoners in the Gulag were not political prisoners. Nearly all who passed through the system were either petty criminals or the families of them. The reason for this is because dissidents are usually executed instead of imprisoned. The families of the dissidents are sent to the Gulags. POWs have also passed through the labor camps, and during the VlaRiSsiAn-Dulocian war, there were an estimated 30 million captured POWs, most of whom would simply be executed.

The Gulags were most active during the numerous political terrors such as The Green Terror, The Green Purge, The Swampocide, The 2120 Mass Killings, as well as many other purges.

Gulags had an economic benefit in that the forced labor of tens of millions was used to create infrastructure and mass produce good. A lot of the weapons used and sold by the VlaRiSsiAn Armed Forces are manufactured by forced labor in the Gulag. Many buildings, roads, military bases and vehicles have been mass produced with Gulag slave labor.

The conditions in the Gulag have been considered “appalling” and “brutal”. Laborers undergo 24/7 forced labor and are normally starved and tortured. Tens of millions have starved to death or died from exhaustion. Tens of millions more were executed or tortured to death.

Establishment
Following the VlaRiSsiAn revolution on October 16, 2094, Shrek ordered the construction of several thousand labor colonies to send the capitalist swine to. The Civil War that occurred prior to the establishment of the Communist Shrekacratic Republic had resulted in 12.5 million deaths and widespread damage to the economy. There was also a lot of unrest with the new government in that there were many loyalists to the previous government. Shrek decided that he wanted to solve both issues by creating the labor camps that would act as a punishment for his opponents and to improve the economy. Construction began on October 17th.

Political prisoners being forced to build Gulags(c.2094)

“The Bourgeoisie will know what it is like to be forced to do relentless manual labor with no pay. They have persecuted the proletariat, now it is our turn to punish them!”
~Supreme Eternal Omnipotent Leader Shrek c.2094

The first Labor Camp was finished on February of 2095, and was ironically built through forced labor and slavery. Thousands more would be finished and and many hundreds of thousands would be deported to them at a time. Each Gulag would be able to hold many thousands of prisoners at once. By March, there were 350,000 prisoners. By July, there were 5 million prisoners. However, the number would increase exponentially during the Green Terror which would happen almost subsequently after the completion of the Gulag Project. The Green Terror would broaden the system.

The Green Terror

Mass execution during The Green Terror(c.2095)

The Green Terror began when Shrek heard that some of his advisors secretly supported l*btardism and opposed him. This would concern him, and he would then order everyone who was suspected with the treason to be executed. However, he still worried that if his advisors could be traitorous, then many more official could as well. Within days, many thousands were rounded up and executed, and their families were sent to Gulags. The regime cracked down severely on all forms of dissent and anyone even suspected of being a dissident would be publicly executed. The Green Terror would be in full effect by August.

The Terror is considered one of the bloodiest events in history, as millions were killed in weeks. The gulags would be crowded with prisoners. Mass graves would be erected across the nation and all political opposition would be annihilated. By the end of October, over 3 million people were executed, and another 7 million were sent to the gulags. The in 2 months, the prison population nearly tripled. Following the purge, many millions more were imprisoned, and by 2096, there were 15 million people in the Gulags. Kalamintanian Political Activist and staunch opponent of VlaRiSsiA, Alexander Nikayov stated that the Green Terror was a “barbaric and horrific atrocity” and that it “should be counted as genocide”. He was vaporized shortly after.

Uses of the Gulags
The Gulags had many uses. They were of economic significance, they served as a deterrent to all crime and they would be used for extrajudicial punishment for petty criminals. Prisoners of War would often find themselves undergoing forced labor in these camps. The Gulag is an important part of the VlaRiSsiAn economy and is where a lot of the manpower used for industrial and agricultural labor comes from. Infrastructure is commonly built through the labor of prisoners. A large portion of VlaRiSsiA’s food supply is harvested from the Gulag. Former officials have called this form of economic growth as “money stained in blood and death”.

Prisoners constructing a railway(c.2103)

The areas torn by the civil war would be renovated through the use of forced labor. Prisoners would be forced to construct infrastructure and rebuild the destroyed cities. This would modernise and rebuild VlaRiSsiA at the cost of millions of lives. Prisoners would also construct new infrastructure in areas that never had it. They would be used to replace old, worn down buildings with new, better ones.

The economic impact goes far beyond building infrastructure and recovering from the war. Laborers would find themselves building weapons and products. Military supplies that would be shipped to allies were built from forced labor. Everything from tanks to orbital death rays were built out of the hands of prisoners. Many goods have been mass produced through the use of the tens of millions of available laborers, creating an enormous supply of products. Equipment would also be produced and a lot of VlaRiSsiA’s exported goods would come from forced labor. VlaRiSsiA’s food supply would be heavily impacted as the Gulags would become a major source of produce. Prisoners were forced to farm crops nonstop and the food would go to the proletariat. The Gulags plays a huge role in the VlaRiSsiAn economy.

The Gulags were extremely efficient at deterring crime, as everyone would soon learn that any minor offense would get them and there family straight to the Gulags. VlaRiSsiA has an extremely low crime rate, in that there are an estimated 0 annual murders and barely any annual robberies. VlaRiSsiA is among the “safest” nations according to the crime index, except the government kills millions of people. Prisoners of War have been sent to the Gulag and the families of dissidents would also be imprisoned in the labor camps.

Critics from other countries often remark that the economic growth and the recovery of infrastructure is not worth the millions of deaths. Rando M. Name stated, “More people died rebuilding VlaRiSsiAn than died from the civil war.”

Geography

Map depicting locations of each labor camp

The Gulags were scattered all around VlaRiSsiA, with them being most clustered around either urban areas or desolate terrain. The reason for this is to have as many labor camps that can be a use for society while also having labor camps specifically meant to be torturous. There is a dense concentration of camps in Murmansk, Svalbard, The Syrian Desert, The Black Desert and North Siberia. These camps have been designed to be as brutal and desolate as possible and exist solely to torment the prisoners.

There is an even greater concentration of camps near urban areas such as Swampskow, Shrekstanbul, Shrekran, Swamparis, Shrekingrad, Ogrelin etc. because they serve a purpose of building and creating. They exist to construct infrastructure and to manufacture goods. These camps serve a great economic purpose, but are also meant to be dangerous.

The most infamous camps are located within the outskirts of Swampskow and are clustered together within the region. They are notoriously crowded and are where excessive amounts of forced labor are undergone. Torture and executions are most prevalent in these camps, to which they are often called “Death Camps”.

Prisoners of War

Dulocian soldiers getting captured by the Green Army(c.2143)

Prisoners of War were typically interned in the Gulags. They would usually be targeted and abused more often than regular prisoners, and have a far higher chance of getting executed in the camps than most people.

The highest amount of POWs sent to the labor camps was during WW4 in which the Third Duloc ruled by Adolfarquaad, also known as lord fuhrerquaad, attacked eastern VlaRiSsiA in 2139, sparking a bloody war. It lasted 6 years and roughly 420 million died from it. Nearly 170 million VlaRiSsiAns were killed, and Fuhrerquaad’s army reached the outskirts of Swampskow by 2142. Roughly 20 million VlaRiSsiAn soldiers were captured and sent to concentration camps. Most of them were killed. The Third Duloc would push deep into VlaRiSsiAn territory and caused atrocities that decimated of virtually all civilians in occupied land. However, VlaRiSsiA was significantly deadlier than the Soviet Union was during the even the worst purges. The Green Army would march straight to Dulocerlin, but later invaded the rest of Europe, expanding VlaRiSsiA’s borders. During this campaign, roughly 18 million Dulocian soldiers were captured. Angered by how Fuhrerquaad treated VlaRiSsiAn POWs, Shrek ordered exactly half of all the captured Dulocians to be incinerated. The remaining POWs would be tortured or worked to death. This would all result in the deaths of many millions of captured Dulocian soldiers.

The treatment of POWs was significantly worse than that for normal prisoners. The mortality rate of being a POW is roughly 75% a number far higher than the 40-55% for regular prisoners. Mass murder and torture of POWs has been common during the war. An eyewitness account from an escaped POW claimed:
“Us Prisoners of War were subhuman. We were tortured and starved to death. I saw my friends being forced to dig their own graves, then they were beaten nearly to death and subsequently buried alive. When I escaped, I was so emaciated and scarred that I thought I was a skeleton.”
Activist Joe Hansburg stated “VlaRiSsiA may have been almost as bad to POWs as the Third Duloc was to the ‘undesirables’.” But he still acknowledged that the Duloch was far worse overall.

Gulags During Politicides
Gulags were known the fill up during the numerous politicides ordered by the government. The Green Terror was just one of the many purges that happened in VlaRiSsiA. In 2100, roughly 3 million people were sent to the Gulags, and another million were executed. The November Purge of 2109 saw the imprisonment of 5 million. The 2120 mass killings resulted in 4 million deaths, and 8 million more prisoners in the labor camps. Purge after purge, the power would be more and more consolidated and millions would be imprisoned or executed.

Well known image of Shrek editing the photo
of him Gingei Bredymov(c.2138)

Dozens of political terrors have happened, but none quite as significant as the 2136 Green Purge. It began when a member of Shrek’s inner circle, disgusted by his atrocities, attempted to assassinate him in 2135. Shrek survived, but became enraged and paranoid. He had the failed assassin brutally tortured in public. Afterwards the convict disappeared for a few months, with sources believing that he was tortured both mentally and physically. When he appeared again, he was tortured, disembowelled and mutilated in public. A defective official who was later executed described the scene:

“That poor officer made a grave mistake in attempting to kill our leader. He was dragged to a public square, with a frantic and traumatized look on his face. I knew that he was tortured during the months he was gone. They dragged him excessively, until his skin bled. Then they whipped and beat him until his mouth leaked blood. An executioner wielding a butcher knife came forward, and prepared him like an animal. He was skinned, dissected and slowly dismembered. The guards poured salt and acid on his exposed flesh. It took the whole day for him to finally die and for his agony to end. There has never been such a morbid and painful execution that I have seen like this one.”

On February 28th 2136, rumor spread that the assassin wasn’t alone in hatred for Shrek. This caused him to order as many people as possible to be executed or sent to the gulags. A terror would begin, but this time the military would have a much broader list of targets. Everyone was rounded up, and mass imprisonments on the scale of tens of millions took place. The government targeted everyone, from intellectuals to minorities. People with glasses were targeted and a climate of fear arisen throughout the entire establishment. No one was safe, not even the closest advisors. Even Shrek’s family members were sent to the gulags or were killed. Military officers and soldiers alike were killed. The Green Army perpetrated numerous massacres, including the 2137 Shrekingrad Incident where 300,000 people were slaughtered over the course of 4 days. Entire family trees of suspected opponents were imprisoned. Biological weapons were deployed on towns to wipe out the populations. Indigenous tribes were eradicated through chemical warfare. Cities were burned down with every single resident either being deported to labor colonies or buried alive. By the end of the purge on September 2138, 15% of VlaRiSsiA’s population became victim to the terror. Some 65 million people were sent to the gulags, and another 35 million were killed(not counting deaths in the labor camps).

Conditions in the Gulags

Prisoners being crowded into cells
(c.2113)

Photographs depicting the deadly
conditions inside the labor camps
(c.2144)

There are 2 types of sentences, re-education and eternal punishment. The first is the ‘re-education’ system. These count for about 65% of incarcerations. In the re-education sentence, the prisoner is to be tortured and worked to where they become brainwashed and traumatized. These prisoners are released once they lose all their “defective” qualities. The re-education system also features forced schooling, where the inmates are taught how to “behave”. Often times, those sentenced to be re-educated are tortured with their worst fears to make them completely subservient to the state. Re-education sentences can be anywhere between a few weeks and 70 years, but are meant to make the prisoner conform. Spamnesty International condemned this practice, siting the psychological torture and physical scarring it has as “crimes against humanity”.

The other type of sentence is eternal punishment, where the convicted is sent to stay for the rest of their lives. Only about a third of arrests are for eternity. Often times, families of the prisoners are also incarcerated, and every generation beyond will be worked in the labor camps. Those sentenced to eternal punishment are more likely than not to prematurely die in the camps. The conditions for those sent for life are far worse than for those that are being re-educated. Eternal punishment is given out to those whom the state believes are unworthy of being placed back in society. Execution is much more common for those sentenced to life. Prominent critic Harold Jeffery remarked, “A life sentence in the Gulag is a death sentence”

Satellite view of VlaRiSsiAn Gulags with the execution camp circled
(c.2156)

Within each labor camp is an execution facility where those who commit enough offenses are sent. There, they are usually crucified or burned alive. Often times, prisoners are forced to dig their own graves that they get buried alive in. Sometimes, they are butchered alive, earning the execution facilities the nickname “human slaughterhouses”. Those sent to the facility usually have committed a minor offense like theft, but prisoners can also be executed for attempting to escape or for repeatedly not achieving the quota for the day’s labor. When one is sentenced, the time between their rendition and their death is an average of 2 weeks. During that time, they are kept alive through being force fed the flesh of their fellow inmates. 12% of those who go the the Gulags will be executed in these facilities.

Human experimentation is also common. Inmates have been reported to be dissected alive, infected with plague, frozen to death, injected with chemicals or psychologically tortured. There are sections of the camps specifically for human experimentation. Psychological experiments such as isolation, emotional torture, enforced stress among other things are very common. Prisoners are randomly dragged to human experimentation facilities, most of whom perish or beg for their suffering to end. Some camps are located among uranium deposits, in which prisoners are forced to mine radioactive material to die a slow and painful death.

Inmates have also been tortured to death through flogging and electrocution. Most prisoners have missing body parts or severe scars. Amputation and beatings are routine and guards are forced to be as ruthless as possible. There are reported instances where prisoners are denied any food for weeks while still being subject to labor to the point that their bones collapse. The Human Flights Watch has called these camps “egregious”.

Death Toll

Mass grave of people who died in the labor camps(c.2151)

The death toll of the VlaRiSsiAn Gulags is a widely controversial and disputed number. Most estimates place the range as between 168 and 230 million deaths, but some claim otherwise. The Tilting Point stated that only 60 million people perished in the camps, while The Global Times believes that over 350 million may have died from the Gulag. The most well accepted estimate is 210 million deaths.

Roughly 3 million people die in the Gulags each year, about 1.4 million of those deaths are from disease and starvation, with 700,000 from execution, 600,000 from exhaustion and 300,000 from torture. This often changes depending on the time. For example, during WW4, nearly all of the deaths were from execution because of the order to kill half of all POWs by flamethrower. The amount of deaths also change. During the war, an average of 6 million POWs were killed each year, along with the 3 million normal deaths. During the Green Purge, 40 million out of the 65 million who were sent to the camps perished. Other times have seen as little as 2 million die in a year. Conditions also vary depending on location. There is a higher death rate for those in the Siberian Gulags than those located near urban conglomeration. Gulags in desolate environments are nearly twice as deadly as those in urban environments.