Eduard Berzin
Encyclopedia
Dalstroy
Dalstroy , also known as Far North Construction Trust, was an organization set up in 1931 by the Soviet NKVD in order to manage road construction and the mining of gold in the Chukotka region of the Russian Far East, now known as Kolyma. Initially it was established as State Trust for Road and...
, which instituted a system of forced-labour camps in Kolyma
Kolyma
The Kolyma region is located in the far north-eastern area of Russia in what is commonly known as Siberia but is actually part of the Russian Far East. It is bounded by the East Siberian Sea and the Arctic Ocean in the north and the Sea of Okhotsk to the south...
, North-Eastern Siberia
Siberia
Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...
, where hundreds of thousands of prisoners died. It was considered to be the most brutal of all the Gulag
Gulag
The Gulag was the government agency that administered the main Soviet forced labor camp systems. While the camps housed a wide range of convicts, from petty criminals to political prisoners, large numbers were convicted by simplified procedures, such as NKVD troikas and other instruments of...
regions.
Gaining experience
Before World War I Berzin studied painting at Berlin's Academy of Fine Arts where he met his wife, Elza Mittenberg, also an artist, from RigaRiga
Riga is the capital and largest city of Latvia. With 702,891 inhabitants Riga is the largest city of the Baltic states, one of the largest cities in Northern Europe and home to more than one third of Latvia's population. The city is an important seaport and a major industrial, commercial,...
. In 1915 he joined the Russian army and fought in the First World War, where he was awarded the Cross of St. George
Cross of St. George
thumb|Original Cross of St. George.Ist and 2nd class were in gold.The Cross of St. George ', or simply the George's Cross, was, until 1913, officially known as the Sign of Distinction of the Military Order of St. George....
and became an officer. After the outbreak of the Russian Revolution of 1917
Russian Revolution of 1917
The Russian Revolution is the collective term for a series of revolutions in Russia in 1917, which destroyed the Tsarist autocracy and led to the creation of the Soviet Union. The Tsar was deposed and replaced by a provisional government in the first revolution of February 1917...
he joined the communists. In 1918 Berzin became a commander of the First Artillery Division of the Red Latvian Riflemen with special responsibilities for Lenin's protection. Gaining the trust of Feliks Dzerzhinsky, he soon became a member of the Cheka
Cheka
Cheka was the first of a succession of Soviet state security organizations. It was created by a decree issued on December 20, 1917, by Vladimir Lenin and subsequently led by aristocrat-turned-communist Felix Dzerzhinsky...
or secret police.
In 1926, Stalin gave Berzin the task of setting up the Vishera complex of labour camps in the Urals known as Vishlag where cellulose and paper were to be produced. This he did with great enthusiasm and success. The 70,000 prisoners there were in most cases treated surprisingly well, even receiving wages and benefitting from cinemas, libraries, discussion clubs and dining halls.
The Kolyma period
It was apparently on the basis of this success that in 1931 Stalin appointed him head of DalstroyDalstroy
Dalstroy , also known as Far North Construction Trust, was an organization set up in 1931 by the Soviet NKVD in order to manage road construction and the mining of gold in the Chukotka region of the Russian Far East, now known as Kolyma. Initially it was established as State Trust for Road and...
, the authority which was to develop Kolyma making use essentially of forced labour consisting of some convicted criminals but mainly political prisoners. He arrived in Nagaevo Bay by steamship on 2 February 1932 together with a small number of prisoners (mainly mining engineers) and some security guards.
It is reported that Berzin's primary aim was to exploit the region to the full, in line with the objectives of Stalin's First Five Year Plan. The prisoners were simply his workforce. The focus of his attention was gold mining as gold was needed to pay for industrial development across Russia. This required construction of the harbour town of Magadan
Magadan
Magadan is a port town on the Sea of Okhotsk and gateway to the Kolyma region. It is the administrative center of Magadan Oblast , in the Russian Far East. Founded in 1929 on the site of an earlier settlement from the 1920s, it was granted the status of town in 1939...
, substantial road building, some lumbering and building a large number of labour camps.
From the very start, however, lack of proper preparations combined with an exceptionally hard winter in 1932/33 led to tremendous hardship, particularly for the prisoners sent up into the River Kolyma
Kolyma River
The Kolyma River is a river in northeastern Siberia, whose basin covers parts of the Sakha Republic, Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, and Magadan Oblast of Russia. Itrises in the mountains north of Okhotsk and Magadan, in the area of and...
valley to build roads and mine gold, very many of whom perished in the cold.
It is said that Berzin tried to treat his prisoners comparatively well in order to enable them to carry out their work as efficiently as possible. In reality, this is only a half-truth: while Berzin allowed hard working prisoners shortened sentences—and even paid them salaries—he also sent less valuable prisoners to smaller camps, known as lagpunkts, where many were tortured and killed. After the hard winter of 1932 and difficult conditions the following summer, the situation started to evolve more positively . Although hardships continued, the overall efficiency of the operations and the conditions for the prisoners improved under Berzin's leadership. The same can be said for overall gold production, as "Kolyma’s gold output increased eight times in the first two years of Dalstroi’s operation." The years 1934 to 1937 were remembered as a comparatively good period, particularly in the light of what was to follow under later leaders.
On returning to Kolyma, no doubt as a result of instructions he had received, he issued even harsher orders. Prisoners were required to work in the opencast mines at temperatures as low as -55 C. As a result, annual gold output rose to 33 tons.
Despite the dreadful conditions and the high death toll, over the years Berzin succeeded in having a road built to Seimchan high up in the Kolyma valley which was to lead to even higher gold outputs in subsequent years.
Family life in Kolyma
In her memoires, his wife Elza describes their family life in Magadan in some detail. Berzin, clad in a bearskin coat, would spend the days travelling around the camps in the Rolls RoyceRolls-Royce (car)
This a list of Rolls-Royce motor cars and includes vehicles produced by:*Rolls-Royce Limited *Rolls-Royce Motors , which was owned by Vickers between 1980 and 1998, and after that by Volkswagen...
that used to be Lenin's car to personally oversee the work in progress. He only saw his children - Petia aged 12 and Mirza aged 15 - at breakfast and dinner. He enjoyed music, listened to gramophone records of Tchaikovsky, Schubert and Grieg (which he had bought on an official visit to Philadelphia in 1930), and encouraged the children to perform in the school theatre under the guidance of artistic prisoners.
Shortly after a holiday with his family in Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
with visits to Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
, Venice
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
and Sorrento
Sorrento
Sorrento is the name of many cities and towns:*Sorrento, Italy*Sorrento, Florida, United States*Sorrento, Louisiana, United States*Sorrento, Maine, United States*Sorrento, Victoria, a township on the Mornington Peninsula, Victoria, Australia...
, Berzin was arrested in December 1937, accused of spying for Britain
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
and Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
and planning to put Magadan under the control of the Japanese. On 1 August 1938, at the end of the Great Purge
Great Purge
The Great Purge was a series of campaigns of political repression and persecution in the Soviet Union orchestrated by Joseph Stalin from 1936 to 1938...
, Berzin was tried and immediately shot at Lubyanka
Lubyanka (KGB)
The Lubyanka is the popular name for the headquarters of the KGB and affiliated prison on Lubyanka Square in Moscow. It is a large building with a facade of yellow brick, designed by Alexander V...
prison.
Assessment
While Berzin used increasingly brutal methods in the Kolyma camps, his tactics were not as dreadful as those used by his successors. Nevertheless, under pressure from Stalin, he drove his workforce to impossible levels of hardship which inevitably resulted in illness, starvation and death in even higher proportions.Sources
- Applebaum, AnneAnne ApplebaumAnne Elizabeth Applebaum is a journalist and Pulitzer Prize-winning author who has written extensively about communism and the development of civil society in Central and Eastern Europe. She has been an editor at The Economist, and a member of the editorial board of The Washington Post...
, Gulag: A HistoryGulag: A HistoryGulag: A History, also published as Gulag: A History of the Soviet Camps, is a non-fiction book covering the history of the Soviet Gulag system. It was written by American author Anne Applebaum and published in 2003 by Doubleday. Gulag won the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction and the...
, Broadway Books, 2003, hardcover, 720 pp., ISBN 0-7679-0056-1 - Bollinger, Martin J., Stalin’s slave ships : Kolyma, the Gulag fleet, and the role of the West, Praeger, 2003, 217 p., ISBN 0275981002
- Conquest, RobertRobert ConquestGeorge Robert Ackworth Conquest CMG is a British historian who became a well-known writer and researcher on the Soviet Union with the publication in 1968 of The Great Terror, an account of Stalin's purges of the 1930s...
: Kolyma: The Arctic Death Camps, Viking Press, 1978, 254 p. ISBN 0670414999 - Kizny, Tomasz, Gulag, Firefly Books, 2004, 495 p. ISBN 1552979644
- Shalamov, VarlamVarlam ShalamovVarlam Tikhonovich Shalamov , baptized as Varlaam, was a Russian writer, journalist, poet and Gulag survivor.-Early life:Varlam Shalamov was born in Vologda, Vologda Governorate, a Russian city with a rich culture famous for its wooden architecture, to a family of a hereditary Russian Orthodox...
, Kolyma Tales, Penguin Books, 1995, 528 pp., ISBN 0-14-018695-6 - Toker, Leona, "Return from the Archipelago: narratives of Gulag survivors", Indiana University Press, c2000, 333 p., ISBN 0253337879