prisons

Main Directorate of Camps (GULAG), as a system of detention facilities existed in the Soviet Union, was a multi-faceted phenomenon. This was expressed most clearly in the regulatory procedure and conditions of her sentence in the various categories of prisoners. Patterns of change in the regulatory framework prison system, as well as their relation to the characteristic of the convicts, was closely connected with the changing policies of the state of those years in respect of class-alien elements. Theoretical analysis. Examine the quantitative and qualitative composition of convicts serving time in prison during the operation of the GULAG (30–60th of the XX-th century). The factors that affected the terms and conditions of detention in the prisons of the special contingent of the Soviet state, based on the views of his contemporaries, as well as the results of a study of archival documents. Conclusions. Can not be treated as prisoners of equal subjects of a labor policy of the Soviet state, because inequality pawned the laws themselves. Up to now, a lot of regulations that have historical value in closed archives of the state. Their declassification would allow a more objective analysis of the named subject.