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Forced Labour and the Need for Motivation: Wages and Bonuses in the Stalinist Camp System

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  • Leonid Borodkin

    (Department of History, Center for Economic History, 1st Building for Humanities and Social Sciences, Moscow Lomonosov State University, Vorobyevy Hills, Moscow 199899, Russia)

  • Simon Ertz

    (Center for Russian, East European & Eurasian Studies, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305-2006, USA)

Abstract

Our findings in this paper challenge some stereotypes of the exploitation of forced labour in the Soviet Union during Stalinism, just as Abram Bergson's 1944 study on the structure of Soviet wages challenged the stereotypes of that time. We find that even in the Stalinist camp system, where force could be most conveniently applied, camp administrators combined overt coercion with motivation through material incentives, and, as time passed, they placed more weight on the latter. By the time the camp system was abandoned as a major instrument of Soviet industrial policy, one major distinction between forced and free labour had been blurred: prisoners were being paid wages according to a system that mirrored that of the civilian economy described by Bergson. Comparative Economic Studies (2005) 47, 418–436. doi:10.1057/palgrave.ces.8100102

Suggested Citation

  • Leonid Borodkin & Simon Ertz, 2005. "Forced Labour and the Need for Motivation: Wages and Bonuses in the Stalinist Camp System," Comparative Economic Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Association for Comparative Economic Studies, vol. 47(2), pages 418-436, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:pal:compes:v:47:y:2005:i:2:p:418-436
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    Cited by:

    1. Miller, Marcus & Smith, Jennifer C., 2015. "In the shadow of the Gulag: Worker discipline under Stalin," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(3), pages 531-548.
    2. repec:cge:wacage:2018 is not listed on IDEAS

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