Trivia V: The Kengir Uprising
or
Forty Days of Freedom
Soviet in the postwar era wasn't that much of a happy place to live in. Especially if you did anything that could farfetchedly be connected to political opposition to Stalin. If so, then you went straight to the Gulag. For those of you who haven't heard of Gulag, they were a system of correctional or labor camps where people were sent as punishment for crimes. In practice, they were a way for the state to keep inconvenient people away from society when it needed to. And with Stalin in the top, the state needed that all the time. Often, people were worked to death. So in short, being a prisoner in a Gulag camp totally utterly completely sucked.
However, in 1953, the single most positive thing in Stalins career happened, as seen from the eyes of others. He died. His death was good news for the Gulag prisoners, who hoped that it could mean amnesty in part or even whole, or at least a reform of the Gulag system. Shortly after Stalin's death, his right hand Lavrentiy Beria fell too. He had been the chief of security, thus being the boss of the labor camps, police autorities and all that. Beria was shot, and power came into the hands of Nikita Khrushchev. The fall of Beria and the way he was declared to have been an "enemy of the people", made any association with Beria dangerous for those who had been close to him. Many of these people were in important positions of control of the Gulag apparatus. To say the least, relations within the hierarchy of the camp organization became a lot more tense. Whoever said good things about him could end up shot (better sade than sorry? why not both!) or as a prisoner themselves. This also applied to the lower ranks of the hierarchy, where you'd find the individual camp adminstrators.
Solzhenitsyn, who wrote the famous and Nobel prize awarded book The Gulag Archipelago, explained how Beria's fall weakened the camp administrators' position vis-a-vis prisoners on strike in some of the camps. He said that
“They had no idea what was required of them and mistakes could be dangerous! If they showed excessive zeal and shot down a crowd they might end up as henchmen of Beria. But if they weren't zealous enough, and didn't energetically push the strikers out to work — exactly the same thing could happen.”
As a result, Beria's death emboldened prisoners althroughout the Gulag system. They organized hunger strikes, work strikes and refused to obey orders. Kengir was one of the camps where such actions took place. The camp administration was losing control more and more. Kengir is a small town in the middle of Kazakhstan. (It is seriously not far at all from the actual geographical centre of Kazakhstan. Of course I looked that up.) The nearest cities are named Zhezqazghan and Nikolskiy. The climate is relatively mild, but dry. If you want to check out where the camp was, go to Google Maps, search for the coordinates 47°50'36.0"N 67°37'34.3"E and switch to satellite view. Much of the camp still remains!
In the Gulag system, there were two main types of prisoners. Politicals and thieves. Politicals were everyone who, for some reason (true or not), had become inconvenient for the Soviet autorities. The thieves, on the other hand, were "regular" criminals. Thieves, murderers, you know, those kinds of the criminals. The two groups hated each other, and the camp administrations often used this divide to make the prisoners keep themselves in check. Primarily, the thieves, being far more cunning in the uses of hugs and love the noble art of random violence, were used to keep the politicals in check. This made the administration's job much easier. And besides, what's the worst thing that could possibly happen? (Spoiler alert: they unite.)
The very uprising in Kengir began as a fresh influx of thieves arrived. These 650 new prisoners were meant to spread terror and chaos among the 5200 politicals in the camp, to counter the recent strikes. The problems with strikes was relatively new to the Soviets, as the politicals and the thieves had earlier served time together. In the early 1950s, the groups began to be put in separate camps, and the strikes began. Without internal opression within the prisoner group, the politicals began to organize. They were, after all, often intellectuals with a great deal of know-how about organization and willingness to do it. Often, the prisoners united along common ethnic and religious lines. In Kengir, these groups united and began a quest of handling kittens severe violence to whichever prisoner who was spying on them and reporting to the administration. The ones found were beaten to death, and the ones not found were discouraged from continuing to be puppets of the administration. They either stopped and remained silent, or fled to the administration for protection from the other prisoners. Either way, the remaining informants realized that nobody likes a snitch. It's totally not cool.
Among the politicals, a large portion of them were members of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, a movement that, well, organized (duh...) nationalists (duh...) in Ukraine. (duh...) Estimates are that up to half of the total camp population were members. Soviet authorities viewed armed nationalistic resistance with a very limited enthusiasm, so they wound up in camps like Kengir. Not least because of their numbers, these Ukrainians became the leading faction within the resistance in Kengir. Meanwhile, in the months preceding the uprising, some of the more popular prisoners had been killed by the guards, creating additional tension. Strikes were an everyday occurance, and the prisoners prepared by organizing into chains of command and communication. It was into this situation that the 650 thieves arrived. Realizing that they wouldn't stand much of a chance against a well-organized force eight times their size, the thieves quickly made common cause with the politicals. The Ukrainians made the thieves part of the organisation, and the thieves taught the politicals how to produce makeshift weaponry such as small knives.
And then, the uprising. It was afternoon, May 16th 1954. The Kengir camp was built like a big rectangle, divided into four segments. Two of these were for the male prisoners, one for the female prisoners, and the last one for the camp authorities. It was in this last part, separating the male and female prisoners, that food was stored and that some of the work was done. The men and women couldn't see each other from their respective parts of the camp, and they never even met due to working with different things and/or at different times. The thieves planned to break into the camp authorities' part of the camp, and from there break into the women's part of the camp. They went about with their plan and seemed to be succeeding, but were chased back by guards. They then regrouped in their own part of the camp an awaited the night. After the sunset, they took care to destroy the lamps in the camp with makeshift slings. After that, they broke through the gate to the authorities' part of the camp with an improvised battering ram(!). The guards then opened fire on the prisoners, killing 13 and wounding 43.
The prisoners retreated and a feeling of tense calm could be felt throughout the camp. In the night, the prisoners began pooling their resources so that those without weapons got one. The administration positioned a machine gun at the hole in the wall that the thieves' battering ram had made. After a tense but relatively brief standoff, the authorities surprised the prisoners by ordering all guards to stand back and retreat from the camp. (The guards themselves did not live in or at the actual camp, but in the vicinity.) The following day, the prisoners got the news that the administration were willing to accept the demands of the prisoners. Satisfied, they then accepted to go out to work, which was done outside of the camp under the supervision of guards. While the prisoners were out, the administration hurried to repair the wall in the camp, which would prove a big mistage. Their actions eradicated what little trust the prisoners had in the administration. Furthermore, the prisoners had gotten a first taste of freedom, albeit within the camp. They could mingle freely with other prisoners, men and women could socialize (as in be social, not expropriating property), and the prisoners could eat their fill of the well-stocked supplies. When the administration's bluff was discovered, the prisoners hurried to chase the guards away again.
Now, with the camps in their own hands, an in-camp society came into being within the walls. The prisoners began to enjoy the everyday life denied to them. Some men and women had written secret letter to each other for several years without ever seeing the face of the other person. The letter had been delivered when groups one group of workers ended a shift of work and another began. For the first time, they could now see each other freely. Some of the prisoners were orthodox priests, and they helped several couples get married among the prisoners. One Russian also opened a café where served ersatz coffe. Soon, leisure activities were also available. Since many of the political were highly educated and had a great deal of expertise on certain subjects, lectures were organized so that the knowledge could be shares. Even little songs and plays were written and performed.
Soon after taking over the camp, the prisoners gathered to elect a leader. The choice fell upon a Russian man named Kapiton Kuznetsov. He was elected so that the revolt would not be perceived as anti-Russian. Also, the leadership was made as multi-ethnic as possible, partly to make sure all groups of prisoners were represented, and partly to ensure that the authorities would have a harder time explioting the differences between certain groups of prisoners.
Originally, the government of Kuznetsov was meant to negotiate with the camp authorities on behalf of the prisoners. But the longer the camp was held, the more the need for internal order and structure grew. Several ministries were formed:
Agitation and Propaganda
Service and Maintenance
Supplies
Security
Defense
Technical
In short, Service and Maintenance took care of repairing stuff. Supplies rationed the food, of which there was enough to stand several months of negotiations. Security took care of putting counter-revolters in custody. Defense was tasked with preparations for defending the camp in case of an attack. Technical made sure machines worked.
And then there was the ministry of Agitation and Propaganda, which was of course tasked with taking control of the narrative of the revolt. Kuznetsov and his deputy, Yuriy Knopmus, were very thorough with, above all, to make sure that the revolt would not be perceived as anti-Soviet in nature. They knew that that very accusation was likely to used by the administration, and that the line of anti-Soviet tendencies couldn't ever be crossed if they were to win. Thus, they tried their best to make the administration seem like henchmen of Beria, and to make the revolt seem like patriotic uprising against the enemies of the people. At first, the propaganda was purely defensive in the meaning that the prisoners mainly just responded to accusation hurled at them by the administration. The administration tried to get the prisoners mind set to think of the many precious days of work that were wasted by the revolters, and how detrimental that was for the Soviet economy. Eventually, the prisoners began to broadcast radio of their own to the guards. According to one of the guards, who knew stenography, one of the broadcasts went like this
“Comrade Soldiers! We are not afraid of you, and we ask you not to come into our zone. Don't shoot at us, don't buckle under the will of the Beria-ites! We are not afraid of them just as we are not afraid of death. We would rather die of hunger in this camp than give up to the Beria-ite band! Don't soil your hands with the same dirty blood which your officers have on their hands!”
The Radio wasn't very powerful though, and the prisoners wanted to make contact with the nearby towns and tell their story to the civilians there. They tried making hot-air balloons with written messages on them, but they were shot down by the guards. The prisoners then made kites instead, to use for releasing flyers to the town. For some unknown reason, the Chechens proved to be experts at building DIY kites. The guards responded by making kites of their own and then get them tangled up with the prisoners' ones in the air to take them down. The prisoners then resorted to getting messages away with carrier pigeons. The fate of those messages is unknown, but the pigeons allegedly got away.
The Ministry of Defense made weapons. Thanks to the smithing skills of certain prisoners and the tools at hand, they made long pikes (from the prison bars), sabers, staves, and clubs. They also made sure to have buckets of ground glass at certain points in the camp. In case of an attack, the point was to grab a fistful of glass dust and throw it in the eyes of the attackers. Ouch.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Technical stuff were taking care of, well, all things technical in nature. When the administration shut off the electricity for the camp, technics arranged for power to be drawn from other wires farther from the camp. After a few days, the administration realized this and shut down this source of electricity too. The prisoners then built a makeshift hydroelectric power station(!), able to provide HQ and the makeshift hospital with power when needed.
Negotiations were resumed, but with the recent betrayal in mind, the prisoners were no longer as naive. They demanded that all agreements were to be written down and signed by representatives on both sides. They also made the following demands
Those soldiers responsible for beating and/or murdering prisoners were to be punished
Prisoners sent to other camps as punishment were to be returned
Prisoners would no longer wear numbers instead of names
Prisoners would no longer be subjected to curfew at night
No restrictions on sending or receiving letters
Some especially hated guards were to be fired from Kengir
Their sentences would be reconsidered by courts
None of their demands were actually contrary to their rights as written in the constitution of the Soviet Union, but we can safely assume that Gulag prisoners did not hold any interpretative prerogative with regards to the constitution. Representatives from the local authorities agreed to all demands that the prisoners put forward, but they could not agree to written agreements. After a while, the negotiations began to fizzle out to nothing or to threatening each other. The prisoners then demanded to speak to a member of the Central Committee (one of the highest organs in the Soviet Union), but the administration refused to grant them that.
Authorities now began planning to storm and retake the camp by force. They tried to make high-ranking prisoners provoke internal strife in the camp, which would facilitate a recapture both in practice and in rhetoric. The prisoners in question were offered amnesty in exchange. These attemps to divide and conquer were largely unsuccessful, but they managed to get some communists to pull out of the revolt due to loyalty to the communist party of the Soviet Union. In the days preceding the storming of the camp, a number of communists escaped.
In the days before the recapture of the camp, the authorities also made some symbolic attacks on the camp to test its readiness. It turned out to be very good. Some tries were also made for the sake of getting it on camera, so that the news could later be used for propaganda as to why revolting is totally not cool, if you ask the Soviet authorities. The filmed material would later be used as evidence against prisoners who were unlucky enough to happen to be caught on camera.
The morale of the camp was getting lower. According to Solzhenitsyn, the revolt Kuznetsov spoke thusly to the prisoners
"Comrades, we have defensive firepower, and the enemy will suffer fifty percent of our own losses!" […] "Even our destruction will not be in vain."
Perhaps not the most inspiring speech of all time, but what else was there to say, to be honest?
The prisoners' morale was lowered further when the prisoners were informed by the authorities, over a loudspeaker, that their wish to speak with a member of the Central Committee was to be granted. This lowered the will to fight among the prisoners. The news was a lie from start to end though, cunningly used by the camp administration.
For the past days, the prisoners had heard a humming noise from far away, but assumed that they were hearing tractors doing agricultural work. It would turn out that they were right about the tractors, but also that the tractor noise was used to conceal the noise of a five tanks getting inte battle position.
Half past three in the morning of June 26th 1954, the attack on the camp began. Lights in the sky lit up the dawn, and snipers quickly picked off the sentries before the alarm could be sounded. Five tanks, 90 dogs and 1700 soldiers in full battle gear then stormed the camp. Panic and chaos quickly followed. In some parts of the camp, the attackers were repulsed with great effort. DIY sulfur bombs were hurled at the attackers. Some prisoners hid or took their own lives. The tanks were used as rams to break the walls of houses where prisoners might hide, while at the same time also serving intimidation purposes by firing blank rounds. (I'm no warfare mastermind, but firing live tank rounds in close quarter combat is generally held as a bad idea. Especially in a camp that you want to keep operational.)
Certain groups of soldiers were tasked with arresting the leaders of the revolt, and they succeeded in capturing many of the leaders alive. Most of the leaders were shot shortly after the storming, after summary trials. The storming took one and a half hours, and ended with the complete victory of the authority forces. The prisoners still hiding when all hope was lost were promised that the wouldn't be shot if they stopped hiding, an offer to which many of the ones still hiding agreed.
According to survivors among the prisoners, between 500 and 700 people were killed in the storming of the camp. Official Soviet figures, however, claim only 37 dead and 146 injuried (both prisoners and guards). Kuznetsov himself was taken alive. He was questioned by the local authorities, and quickly broke down. He was sentence to 25 years of additional labor in the Gulag. It is not unlikely that his life was spared in exchange for information about the other leaders of the revolt. Kuznetsov was released after five years, but his fate from there on is unknown.
The day after the revolt had been crushed, photographers were brought in to document the victory against the rebellious traitors. Also, a thousand of the prisoners were sent to different camps. The first tasked handed to the remaining prisoners was, tragipoetically, to lay brick on brick to repair the first wall brought down in the revolt, thus sealing themselves inside its walls again.
To the Soviet authorities, the Kengir uprising was a warning signal that they had to move away from the policies set by Stalin. Eventually, many Gulag prisoners were granted amnesty for their crimes as the system was changed from nightmarish to bad. At a 2004 reunion, 50 years after the uprising, one of the remaining survivors described the revolt.
"I had not before then, and have not since, felt such a sense of freedom as I did then"
Personally, when reading up on this an finally reading that last very quote, I just had to stop what I was doing and let that sink in. Hopefully, you were moved too.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn later dedicated a screenplay to the events at Kengir, named "Tanks Know the Truth" (Знают истину танки). Polish director Andrzej Wajda wanted to make a movie of it in the late 80s, but due to the fact that such a movie would have made it harder for him to gain reentry to his native Poland (the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union was still a thing), he never did. In an interview a dozen years later, Wajda expressed his regret about never having made the movie.
I, for one, hope that this story will some time be picked up by the right people and told to the world. True stories such as the events of the Kengir uprising deserve to be told.