One Step Forward, One Step Back
Kruglov did not sign. On 20 January, MVD financial department chief Karmanov and chief accountant Zaitsev raised objections to the Dobrynin-Filatkin solution.[210] They pointed out that, under a Gosbank instruction of 2 April 1945, troop units could hold only deposit accounts, not settlement accounts with overdraft facilities. The camps currently held 10.6 billion rubles of Gosbank credits that they would have to give up. Replacing this sum would be beyond the budget of the MVD (more evidence, if more is required, that access to money did matter in the Soviet economy). For the proposal to work, Gosbank and Prombank, the state industrial investment bank, would have to agree to alter the instructions so that the “troop units” of the Gulag could raise overdrafts.
Almost immediately, this interpretation was confirmed by Gosbank. On 4 February 1950, financial service state counsellor Borychev wrote to deputy interior minister Mamulov to make a simple point: Renaming labor camps as troop units would not preserve secrecy.[211] “Everyone knows,” he explained patiently (or was that sarcasm?) that military troop units were not funded by Gosbank. The labor camps had large funding needs. The discrepancy, he pointed out, would attract attention and this would lead directly to what was to have been avoided: disclosure of the location of camps. It would be better, Borychev argued, to stick to mailbox numbers on a system like that used by the defense industry.
These arguments appear powerful and are not contested in the documentation. Instead, they were ignored. A short background paper from Gulag second administration chief Matevosov, dated May 1950, for example, noted that the “troop unit” proposal had been current since September the previous year when Gulag first proposed it to deputy interior minister Chernyshov.[212] FIG u re 4.1. Should we give labor camps the cover of “troop unit”? Mock letterhead for a troop unit of the MVD
| In Russian: | In English: |
| МВД СССР | MVD of the USSR |
| ВОЙСКОВАЯ ЧАСТЬ | TROOP UNIT |
| № | No. |
| 19 Г. | 19 (year). |
| № | No. |
| гор. | town |
Source: Hoover/GARF, R-9414/ldop/145, 41 (“Appendix no. 2 to USSR MVD Decree No.___of____December 1949”). This document was (naturally) classified “Top secret.”
It envisaged that, while camps would be renumbered as troop units for business purposes, the system of identifying camps by a letter designation, which originated with NKVD decree no. 001542-1945 (see above), would be maintained for nonsecret correspondence such as release certificates and correspondence with private persons.
The MVD leadership met on 9 May 1950. The minutes recorded approval “in principle” of Filatkin’s draft decree, but also asked the MVD secretariat, second special department, and legal unit “attentively to review” the issue together one more time.[213] There is no draft decree, but ninety-five Gulag establishments were listed by name from “A” to “Ya,” each labeled “Troop unit no. [space].”[214] The list is dated December 1949, so it is most likely part of the package originally sent to Kruglov at the end of that month (see above). A sheet attached with a mock letterhead and three seals for correspondence, financial authorizations, and packages respectively, looks as if it has the same origin. The letterhead followed the template shown in Figure 4.1.
The proposal to reclassify labor camps as “troop units” was still current in June 1950, when a draft letter from interior minister Kruglov to war minister Vasilevskii enquired whether the Soviet Army would object to the renaming of camps as troop units.[215] It is not clear whether the letter was ever sent: no reply is filed. Handwritten across the copy on file are the words: “Comrades Yatsenko and Filatkin. Examine the draft decree one more time for report to the minister for signature. 8 June (signature illegible).”
Indecision
At the back of the file are further draft decrees of the interior minister, one dated “1950” and the other “August 1950.” The idea of renaming camps as “troop units” had gone. Instead, both decrees were based on Bulanov’s other option of September 1949: camps were to be renamed “MVD facility” (ob”ekt MVD) with a four-digit number. The first draft decree is a single page followed by lengthy “Instructions” and a model letter for each camp to send to its local Gosbank branch office.[216]
The instructions are more detailed than in previous draft decrees. A key clause affirms: “The location (of camps) is a document of special importance” (in Russian, osoboi vazhnosti, the highest level of Soviet secrecy); “Reproduction and duplication are prohibited.” Previous conventional designations, including letter codes and telegraphic addresses, were to be abolished, but mailbox numbers would be retained. Secret correspondence within the MVD would use full designations; secret correspondence with other ministries (including MGB, the security ministry) and nonsecret correspondence would use only facility numbers. The instructions cover many other contingencies, including how to deal with camps that are dissolved, newly established, relocated, and so on.
The last draft decree in the file, dated August 1950, again enacts the “MVD facility” solution. Model letters to local railway stationmasters and bank officials are included.[217] The tone is more practical and bureaucratic than the preceding draft. Much of the content is similar; two additions stand out. Paragraph 6(e) deals with prisoners and their relatives:
Mailboxes of MVD corrective labor and special camps are used only for letters, transfers, and packages addressed to prisoners. Answers to relatives of convicts requesting the location of prisoners... are to be given out only verbally through the information bureau of the first special department ... indicating the mail address of the prisoner’s place of confinement (e.g., Skvortsov Ivan Petrovich, year of birth 1903, serving punishment—town of Kotlas, mailbox no. 420).
And paragraph 3(c) directly addresses the anxieties of Volzhlag chief Kopaev (voiced in March 1950 and mentioned above):
To prohibit the simultaneous use in a single administrative correspondence of differently named forms, stamps, and seals of the camp (e.g., application of a seal with the camp’s conventional name and use of its actual name on signature, etc.).
Neither the “troop unit” nor the “facility” solution was enacted. On July 29, 1950, MVD war supplies administration chief Gornostaev complained—again—to deputy interior Serov.[218] The interior minister, he said, had issued more decrees: in addition to no. 0035-1949, there was now decree no. 00108-1950. These decrees (not in the file, unfortunately) gave every camp a mailbox number. The problem, Gornostaev continued, was that nothing had been implemented. MVD camps and building sites had not revised their bank account details, so that the MVD war supplies administration remained unable to debit camps for shipments because the debits were not accepted by Gosbank. In fact, Gosbank was imposing a 100-ruble penalty for each incorrect debit. Meanwhile, the war supplies administration had to continue to use full details of camp names and addresses, since these were what Gosbank required. Until the matter was resolved, Gornostaev asked permission to maintain this practice, using the MVD secret courier service.
216
Hoover/GARF, R-94i4/idop/i45, 43-50. The model letter is not without interest. It is written as if from the Mikhailovskii camp chief to the Sverdslovsk branch office of Gosbank. Headed “Top secret” and “In person only,” it reads: “I inform (you) that the Mikhailovskii corrective labor camp of MVD has been given the conventional designation ‘MVD facility no. 5401’. In connection with this I request (you), from 1 September 1950, to change the designation of settlement account no. 258 of the Mikhailovskii camp and rename it: ‘Settlement account no. 258 of MVD facility no. 5401 in the town of Sverdlovsk’.” In the top lefthand corner is a place marker for “Stamp with full designation of the camp.” The words “with the aim of preventing disclosure of the location of MVD corrective labor camps” are crossed out from the text of the letter. Too much information, perhaps.
217
Hoover/GARF, R-94i4/idop/i45,51-56 (the decree), 57 (model letter to railway officers), 58 (the same to bank officers).