FORCED LABOR ALONG SOVIET EXPORT PIPELINE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP84B00049R000902240011-8
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 31, 2006
• Sequence Number: 11
• Content Type: REPORT

As the attached map indicates, there are forced labor camps at a number
of points along the Siberian gas export pipeline route. Because of the general
shortage of labor in the USSR, and the past practice of using forced labor on
large Soviet projects, it is reasonable to assume that at least some forced
labor will be used on the pipeline. Nevertheless, we have no intelligence
information nor have we yet been able to confirm any of the emigre allegations
that the Soviet Union' is using forced labor specifically in the construction
of the pipeline, even though it has been under construction for nearly six
FORCED LABOR ALONG SOVIET EXPORT PIPELINE
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Use of Forced Labor
The two principal categories of forced labor are: (1) those confined in
guarded facilities like forced labor colonies; and (2) those who are not
confined, primarily probationers and parolees. Those who are confined in
forced labor colonies in proximity to the pipeline could be tapped for work
(see accompanying map of labor camps). If forced laborers were to be used
for pipeline construction, however, it is more likely that they would come
from those who are not confined. We know that the population of forced
laborers consists of both people convicted of serious crimes and those
arrested for petty crimes such as drunkenness and hooliganism.
Slightly more than 4-million Soviet citizens--about 1.5 percent of the
population--are now serving sentences at forced labor.
-- About 2 million of these are confined, 85 percent in forced
labor camps, and the remainder in prisons.
-- Approximately 1.5 million, convicted of crimes for which they
could have received sentences of confinement, have been
sentenced instead to probation with "compulsory involvement
in labor." Most of them are working at. construction jobs far
from their homes.
-- About 500,000 have been paroled from confinement but remain
obligated to perform forced labor for the remainder of tfiei-r' terms. Many of these also are working at construction sites.-
-- Perhaps 100,000 or so are sentenced at any one time to
"correctional tasks" without confinement; they are working
at their own jobs for reduced pay or in more menial jobs for
low pay while continuing to live at home.
According to the First Deputy Minister for the Construction of Oil and
Gas Industry Enterprises, at peak construction periods 120,000-130,000 people
would be employed on the export pipeline. Most of this work force would be
skilled workers, thereby minimizing the requirement for unskilled forced
laborers. Nonetheless, an undetermined amount of forced labor may be used
on the pipeline because o the
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In the past, forced laborers without confinement, numbering in the
thousands, have been used at such major construction projects as the huge
Kama River truck plant (the world's largest) and the Baykal-Amur Magistral
(BAM) railroad. Parolees and probationers are also employed in industrial
production and other economic activities. There seems little doubt that
they are employed wherever labor shortages exist, i.e-., where the location
is remote, amenities lacking, the environment hostile, or the work hazardous
or unhealthy.
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