However, prisoner mortality in Norilsk in most periods was actually lower than across the camp system as a whole.

Although the Soviet government deemed them all "forced labor" camps, this in fact highlighted that the work in the camps was deliberately pointless, since all Russian workers could be subject to forced labor. The area along the Indigirka river was known as the Gulag inside the Gulag.

[26] Thus, these figures reflect the number of convicted persons, and do not take into account the fact that a significant part of Gulag inmates had been convicted more than one time, so the actual number of convicted is somewhat overstated by these statistics.

Hundreds of thousands of persons were arrested and sentenced to long prison terms on the grounds of one of the multiple passages of the notorious Article 58 of the Criminal Codes of the Union republics, which defined punishment for various forms of "counterrevolutionary activities". (The Soviet Union went into total war footing in June 1941.) They were known as "free settlers" (вольнопоселенцы, volnoposelentsy; not to be confused with the term ссыльнопоселенцы, ssyl'noposelentsy, "exile settlers").
[52] In 1928 there were 30,000 individuals interned; the authorities were opposed to compelled labor. On top of featuring 150 players per match, a new feature called the Gulag gives you a chance to get back into the action after dying. Mortality in Gulag camps in 1934–40 was 4–6 times higher than average in the Soviet Union.

Concealment of a previous imprisonment was a triable offence.

Map of Gulag, made by the Memorial Foundation on: Vishnevsky, Alantoly. [119] However, only one historian, namely Zemskov, was admitted to these archives, and later the archives were again "closed", according to Leonid Lopatnikov. [citation needed] These included the exploitation of natural resources and the colonization of remote areas, as well as the realisation of enormous infrastructural facilities and industrial construction projects. She differentiated between "authentic" forced-labor camps, concentration camps, and "annihilation camps".

", Franciszek Proch, Poland's Way of the Cross, New York 1987 P.146, Mark Elliott. During this time, not only did food become scarce, but the NKVD limited rations in an attempt to motivate the prisoners to work harder for more food, a policy that lasted until 1948. [98], In her recent study, Golfo Alexopoulos attempted to challenge this consensus figure by encompassing those whose life was shortened due to GULAG conditions. Andrei Vyshinsky, procurator of the Soviet Union, wrote a memorandum to NKVD chief Nikolai Yezhov in 1938 which stated:[105].

Naftaly Frenkel is credited for the introduction of this policy. These writings harshly chastised the Soviet people for their tolerance and apathy regarding the Gulag, but at the same time provided a testament to the courage and resolve of those who were imprisoned.

Many songs by the authors-performers known as the bards, most notably Vladimir Vysotsky and Alexander Galich, neither of whom ever served time in the camps, describe life inside the Gulag and glorified the life of "Zeks".