the system of forced-labor camps in the Soviet Union.
a Soviet forced-labor camp.
any prison or detention camp, especially for political prisoners.
(formerly) the central administrative department of the Soviet security service, established in 1930, responsible for maintaining prisons and forced labour camps
(not capital) any system used to silence dissents
1970–75; < Russian Gulág, acronym from Glávnoe upravlénie ispravítelʾno-trudovýkh lageréĭ Main Directorate of Corrective Labor Camps
How does gulag compare to similar and commonly confused words? Explore the most common comparisons:
In the 20th century, the gulag was a system of Russian camps where political prisoners were sent to do forced labor. Officially, the last gulag closed in the 1950s. During the regimes of Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin, the Soviet Union used gulags across the country to imprison political enemies. The entire system was known as the Gulag, an acronym from Russian that roughly translates to "Chief Administration of Corrective Labor Camps." Each individual prison camp was also referred to as a gulag. Some historians estimate that 14 million people were forced to labor in gulags, some for crimes as petty as joking about the Soviet government.
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Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Memorial was founded in the late 1980s to document victims of Soviet-era political repression during which millions of people perished in the Gulag penal system.
From Barron's • Apr. 9, 2026
Guantanamo is a high-profile location that Amnesty International once termed “the Gulag of our time.”
From Los Angeles Times • Feb. 14, 2025
Asked whether his criticism was unpatriotic, Orlov, citing Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's "Gulag Archipelago", pointed out that military defeats have played a significant role in driving reform and development Russian history.
From Reuters • Jul. 12, 2023
Alekhina served her time in two regular prisons and says traditions set back in the days of Joseph Stalin's Gulag system are well alive.
From BBC • Nov. 17, 2022
President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia said in 2010 that “The Gulag Archipelago,” Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s indictment of the Soviet penal system, should be essential reading for Russian students.
From New York Times • Aug. 4, 2022
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
