The phenomenon of denunciation in the Soviet labor camps of 1929-1938 through ego-documents

Denunciation practice among prisoners in the Soviet corrective labor camps is studied as part of a widespread social phenomenon in the Soviet society. The study is based on the revision of two different types of sources: the documentation of the Soviet People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD) and the set of ego-documents created by the people who were imprisoned in the Gulag camps during the period from 1929 to 1938. The article analyzes the motives that guided the state security agencies when creating an intelligence network of prisoners in camps and the motives of the prisoners who were recruited as informants. The study examines the recruitment process, possible consequences of prisoners’ refusal to work as informants, the sources of informants’ recruitment in corrective labor camps, the subjects of their reports, as well as the risks and opportunities of such denunciation practice for the prisoner. The influence of denunciations on the fate of both the informants and their targets is being studied, as well as the question of a moral and ethical dilemma of denunciation. The author comes to the conclusion that denunciation practice can be considered one of the most common forms of cooperation between the prisoners and camp authorities in the Gulag.