The Bitch Wars, or Suka Wars (russian: Сучьи войны , translit= ''Suchyi voyny '' or in singular: russian: Сучья война , translit= ''Suchya voyna''), occurred in the
Soviet
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
Gulag labor-camp system between 1945 and 1953, around the time of
Joseph Stalin's death.
Background
The Russian word ''suka'' (russian: сука, literally "
bitch
Bitch may refer to:
* A female dog or other canine
* Bitch (slang), a vulgar slur for a human female
Bitch or bitches may also refer to:
Arts and media Film and television
* ''The Bitch'' (film), a 1979 film starring Joan Collins
* ''Bitc ...
") has a different negative connotation than its
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
equivalent. In Russian criminal
argot
A cant is the jargon or language of a group, often employed to exclude or mislead people outside the group.McArthur, T. (ed.) ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (1992) Oxford University Press It may also be called a cryptolect, argot ...
, it specifically refers to a person from the criminal world who has "made oneself a bitch" ( ru , ссучился , translit= ssuchilsya) by cooperating in any way with
law enforcement
Law enforcement is the activity of some members of government who act in an organized manner to enforce the law by discovering, deterring, rehabilitating, or punishing people who violate the rules and norms governing that society. The term en ...
or with the
government
A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state.
In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government is a ...
. Within the Soviet prison system, a social structure had existed since the Russian
Tsar
Tsar ( or ), also spelled ''czar'', ''tzar'', or ''csar'', is a title used by East Slavs, East and South Slavs, South Slavic monarchs. The term is derived from the Latin word ''Caesar (title), caesar'', which was intended to mean "emperor" i ...
ist era; one of its most important tenets decreed that members not serve or collaborate with the Tsarist (and later, Soviet) government. This rule encompassed all types of collaboration, not just "
snitching" or "ratting out".
Second World War
As the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
progressed,
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secreta ...
offered many prisoners a
pardon
A pardon is a government decision to allow a person to be relieved of some or all of the legal consequences resulting from a criminal conviction. A pardon may be granted before or after conviction for the crime, depending on the laws of the ju ...
or sentence reduction at war's end in exchange for
military service
Military service is service by an individual or group in an army or other militia, air forces, and naval forces, whether as a chosen job (volunteer) or as a result of an involuntary draft (conscription).
Some nations (e.g., Mexico) require a ...
. After the war ended, many of those who had taken up the offer returned to prisons and
labor camp
A labor camp (or labour camp, see spelling differences) or work camp is a detention facility where inmates are forced to engage in penal labor as a form of punishment. Labor camps have many common aspects with slavery and with prisons (especi ...
s, but were declared ''suki'' and placed at the lower end of the unofficial prisoner hierarchy. As a result, they sought to survive by collaborating with prison officials, in return getting some of the better jobs in the prison.
This led to an internal prison war between the so-called ''suki'' and the Russian criminal underground, called "
Thieves in Law
A “thief in law” (Russian: вор в зако́не, Georgian: კანონიერი ქურდი), in the Soviet Union, the post-Soviet states, and respective diasporas abroad is a specifically granted formal and special status of ...
". Many prisoners died in the Bitch War, but prison authorities turned a blind eye since prisoner deaths reduced the overall prison population.
See also
*
Gulag
The Gulag, an acronym for , , "chief administration of the camps". The original name given to the system of camps controlled by the GPU was the Main Administration of Corrective Labor Camps (, )., name=, group= was the government agency in ...
*
Prison gang
A prison gang is an inmate organization that operates within a prison system. It has a corporate entity and exists into perpetuity. Its membership is restrictive, mutually exclusive, and often requires a lifetime commitment. Prison officials and ot ...
*
Russian mafia
Russian organized crime or Russian mafia (, ), otherwise known as Bratva (), is a collective of various organized crime elements originating in the former Soviet Union. The initialism OPG is Organized Criminal (''prestupnaya'' in Russian) Gr ...
*
Soviet Union in World War II
The United Kingdom, France, and Italy signed the Munich Agreement with Nazi Germany on 30 September 1938, an agreement which provided "cession to Germany of the Sudeten German territory" of Czechoslovakia. Almost a year later the Soviet Unio ...
References
Further reading
*Александр Сидоров (2005) "Воры против сук. Подлинная история воровского братства, 1941-1991",
External links
*
Anton Antonov-Ovseenko
Anton Vladimirovich Antonov-Ovseenko (russian: Анто́н Влади́мирович Анто́нов-Овсе́енко; 23 February 1920, Moscow, RSFSR – 9 July 2013, Moscow, Russia) was a Russian historian and writer. (Antonov-Ovseyen ...
, ''Enemy of the people'', Moscow. Intellekt, 1996
"Bitch War"Section, text online at the
Sakharov Center
The Sakharov Center (russian: Са́харовский центр) is a museum and cultural center in Moscow devoted to protection of human rights in Russia and preserving the legacy of the prominent physicist and Nobel Prize winning human rights a ...
website
{{Russian Conflicts
1940s in the Soviet Union
1950s in the Soviet Union
Crime in the Soviet Union
Soviet phraseology
Russian Mafia events
Organized crime conflicts
Gulag