Interview · moment 3 of 23
Lenin, Stalin, and the Gulag Origins of the Vory
from Russia's Super Mafia · #98
Audio-only archive episode — no video to seek.
3 minGuest
Discussion of how the Bolsheviks and later Stalin co-opted criminals, using gangster-prisoners as slave labor foremen in the Gulag system, which cemented a durable alliance between criminals and the state.
- 3:58Lenin hiring criminals for the revolution would have been better if he'd arrested them instead.
- 4:21Tim explains how Bolsheviks promised wonderful dreams in 1917 but resorted to compromises like hiring gangsters and secret policemen.
- 4:52Stalin's terror campaign starting in the late 1920s sent millions to Gulags, often for trivial reasons like laughing at the wrong joke.
- 5:24Specific arrest designations like 55ers or 49ers meant that once a law passed, a million people would be arrested for that infraction.
- 5:44Stalin realized using gangsters already in prisons as foremen and guards was cheaper than paying hardship bonuses to recruit guards for Arctic camps.
- 6:10From the 1930s onward, the Bolshevik state formed an alliance with gangsters, using them as tools to control other prisoners.
- 6:26The Vori criminal culture realized they could continue their crimes while gaining state protection and better living conditions in exchange for cooperation.
StalinGulagsSoviet UnionVoriVladimir LeninBolsheviks