In the

law of the Soviet Union The Law of the Soviet Union was the law as it developed in the Soviet Union (USSR) following the October Revolution of 1917. Modified versions of the Soviet legal system operated in many Communist states following the World War II, Second World Wa ...

, katorga labor was a severe category of penal labor. ("

Katorga Katorga ( rus, ка́торга, p=ˈkatərɡə; from medieval and modern Greek: ''katergon, κάτεργον'', "galley") was a system of penal labor in the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union (see Katorga labor in the Soviet Union). Prisoner ...

" was a system of penal labor in the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...

, hence the term.) It was introduced during

World War II 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 ...

by the April 22, 1943 decree of the

Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union The Presidium of the Supreme Soviet (russian: Президиум Верховного Совета, Prezidium Verkhovnogo Soveta) was a body of state power in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).Vorkutlag The Vorkuta Corrective Labor Camp (), commonly known as the Vorkuta Gulag or Vorkutlag (Воркутлаг), was a major GULAG labor camp of the Soviet Union located in Vorkuta from 1932 to 1962. The Vorkuta Gulag was one of the largest camps in ...

and

Sevvostlag Sevvostlag (russian: Северо-восточные исправительно-трудовые лагеря, Севвостлаг, СВИТЛ, North-Eastern Corrective Labor Camps) was a system of forced labor camps set up to satisfy the work ...

. Katorga labor was characterized by the longer workday and hard workplace conditions, such as underground coal mining, gold and tin mining. The abbreviation for the corresponding convicts was "з/к КТР" ( z/k KTR). Katorga labor was initially intended for Nazi collaborators, but other categories of political prisoners (for example, members of deported peoples who fled from exile) were also sentenced to "katorga labor". Later in 1943 the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet issued the decree "О мерах наказания для немецко-фашистских злодеев, виновных в истязаниях советского гражданского населения и пленных красноармейцев, для шпионов, изменников родины из числа советских граждан и для их пособников", in which section 2 provided punishment with katorga works for 15 to 25 years. By data for July 1944, there were 5,200 of ''katorzhniks''. In September 1947 they numbered over 60,000.Viktor Zemskov,
(историко-социологический аспект)
("GULAG (Historical-Sociological Aspect)"), ''Социологические исследования'' (''Sociological Research'') 1991, nos. 6, 7

References

{{reflist Gulag Penal labour Settlement schemes in the Soviet Union