Norilsk 1953 —when prisoners took on the Stalinist state

The profile of a French prisoner imprisoned inside a camp in Norilsk (picture: Ninara on Flickr)

An uprising of political prisoners in Norilsk, in what was then the USSR, demonstrated that there were those prepared to fight back against a brutal state capitalist regime.

At the beginning of the 1950s, the Soviet state had imprisoned up to 35,000 inmates in slave labour camps known as gulags.

Filling the gulags was a way for Joseph Stalin and his followers to terrify the population into compliance following their crushing of the genuinely socialist revolution of 1917.

All those deemed “anti‑Soviet” were thrown into gulags, from those who had fought in the Red Army following the revolution to partisans and former Nazi concentration inmates.

Many of those imprisoned in the camps in Norilsk were Ukrainian and have since been slurred by defenders of Stalin as all being Nazi collaborators.

In the months following November 1952, some 1,200 inmates from Kazakhstan gulags were transferred to the Arctic conditions of the Norilsk camps as a punishment for disobedience.

But the state couldn’t have predicted they would inject a spirit of resistance into the camps. And it certainly couldn’t stop the event that would further lift prisoners’ spirits—the death of Stalin in March 1953.

After his death, the state announced a prisoner amnesty, but not for most political prisoners in Norilsk, which led tensions inside the gulag to rise.

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On 26 May 1953—70 years ago this week—a Soviet guard shot five and killed two inmates. It sparked the uprising. Workers downed tools and used flag communication systems to spread the news to other camps. In total workers struck for 69 days in Norilsk.

At one camp, inmate Yevgeny Griciak couldn’t convince others to join the strike with just his words but triggered one with his actions. He wrote, “The rhythm of the work was set by the sound of the air hammers.

“As long as the hammers kept going, the inmates would work, so I shut the compressors off. The hammers stopped and everyone quit working.”

Some 5,000 prisoners at Griciak’s camp refused to go back to work. It’s been estimated that over 16,000 inmates in total joined the revolt in Norilsk.

The inmates knew that opposition to the regime extended beyond the camps. The strikers hung a giant sign reading, “We are being killed and starved”, visible to the local population—it forced the guards to provide food and water again.

The strike’s strength rested on forming strike committees.

They agreed on a set of demands that included an end to executions, an eight‑hour work day, the right to communicate with their families, the transfer of disabled and women prisoners.

Although conditions were harsh, inmates built libraries, theatres, sporting events and concerts. The strike committees also organised laundry, food and health care.

The strikers decided not to negotiate with the guards and demanded to meet a delegation from the central government.

They stole ink and made printing blocks to produce propaganda. Then, to publicise their demand to meet with the government, they attached leaflets to kites that dropped in the nearby town.

It worked, and a delegation arrived on 6 June. Guards told inmates some of their demands would be met. Others would be reviewed, so they returned to work. The strike restarted ten days later, as it was clear the regime had lied.

In July the women’s camp inmates had been on hunger strike for a week and had refused to work for a month. Soviet guards reacted by positioning machine guns on watch towers, so 3,000 women left their barracks and dug their own graves in defiance. The guards threw boiling water, bricks and beat them.

The Norilsk uprising ended on 4 August 1953 when guards surrounded the camps and opened fire. But despite the bloodshed, the prisoners declared victory as they won an eight-hour day and family correspondence.

Terrified of losing control of the inmates, the Soviet regime released 90 percent of camp prisoners in the next two years. Historian Leonard Latkovskis describes these events as “the beginning of the end of the gulag”.