gulag

Meanings

Noun

• Also GULAG: the system of all Soviet labour camps and prisons in use, especially during the Stalinist period (1930s–1950s).

Verb

• To compel (someone) into a forced labour camp or a similar place of confinement or exile.

Origin

• Borrowed from Russian ГУЛА́Г, the acronym of главный, the government agency in charge of the Soviet Union’s network of forced labour camps, which was established in 1918 and formally abolished in 1960: see [[GULAG.