1917 REVOLUTION!
A new type of criminal, "class enemy", is created by the Bolsheviks.

The Bolshevik, secret police or Cheka, is established by Felix Dzerzhinsky
NOVEMBER 1917 ENEMIES OF THE STATE
Revolutionary tribunals begin convicting 'enemies' of the revolution. Punishment includes forced labor

The Bolshevik, secret police or Cheka, is established by Felix Dzerzhinsky
JUNE 16, 1918 KONTSLAGERS
In a memorandum, Trotsky calls for the creation of new outdoor prisons called kontslagers or concentration camps in remote regions, to be populated the city and village bourgeois engaged in forced menial labour.
AUGUST, 1918 BIRTH OF THE GULAG
Lenin orders mass terror against wealthy kulak peasants, White Guards and members of the clergy who would be sent to remote concentration camps.

First World War prisoner of war camps (now under the control of Dzerzhinsky's Cheka,) are converted into the first concentration camps. These are the first camps of the GULAG.
SEPTEMBER 1918-1921 RED TERROR
Dzerzhinsky is ordered to carry out The Red Terror. A merciless wave of arrests and murder. The concentration camps, now referred to as Special Camps play a critical role in the terrors.
1920-23 SOLOVETSKY
The notorious Gulag camp at the converted Solovetsky Monestary is established in the far north west of Russia's arctic. The first such prison created specifically by the Cheka/OGPU for their vision of concentration camps - now called SLON ('northern camps of special significance').
1925 THE SUFFERING BEGINS
Of the 6000 prisoners at Solovetsky, 1/4 die of illness caused by poor conditions and overwork.
1928 NORMS
A food-for-work system is implemented in the camps.
1929 ARTICLE 58
Soviet criminal code is rewritten to include an expanded Article 58 which includes 'counter-revolutionary' crimes which would be applied to terrifying, arbitrary effect thought the coming decades.
1930 The Gulag system has 300,000 inmates.

The term 'concentration camp' is no longer used by Soviet authorities due to pressure by western powers, but not about the treatment of prisoners but the economic threat posed by the mass use of slave labour in the Soviet Union.
1931-32 WHITE SEA CANAL
Prisoners are used to construct a massive project to connect The Baltic Sea with the White Sea via a canal.
Prisoners awaiting commands
1932-33 HOLODOMOR
Millions die during the Soviet manufactured famine. Ukranians from all walks of life are arrested and deported to the Gulag. During the 1930's, up to 1/4 of the Gulag population is Ukranian.
1934 EXPANSION
The geographic expansion of the camps to the far east, in Kolyma; to the far north in Komi and south in Kazakhstan is in full swing.
The Gulag becomes a primary economic engine for the Soviet Union under the control of the now renamed, NKVD.
1936-38 THE GREAT TERROR
Mass arrests and executions take place across the Soviet Union as Stalin works to consolidate his totalitarian grip on the Soviet Union. The Gulag population explodes.
Stalin 1936
1934-38 AMERICANS IN THE GULAG
Thousands of Americans who emigrated to The Soviet Union to work in the automotive industry are arrested and sent to the camps.
1937 ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE
The term 'enemy of the people' becomes an officially used term referring to anyone who 'commits sabotage' or anyone who 'doubts the rightness of the Party line.' The number of prisoners continues to explode.
1938 1.8 MILLION PRISONERS IN THE GULAG
1939-41 PRISONERS FROM OCCUPIED TERRITORIES
Thousands of new prisoners arrive from the Soviet occupied territories in Poland, Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia, where widespread arrests and deportations of members of the political, academic and business communities.
1941 POLISH AMNESTY
Polish inmates are granted a tenuous amnesty.
1941-45 WORLD WAR II
Production in the camps is shifted to support the Soviet war effort. Conditions in the camps worsen as starvation becomes rampant.
1945-50 NEW REPRESSION
New repressive laws are implemented in the Soviet Union to combat the threat of democracy. Campaigns against ethnic minorities intensify, including Soviet Jews.
1953 STALIN DIES
1953-54 UPRISING
Prisoners strike in many camps. Guards execute many of those who participate.
JULY 1954 After strikes and revolts in some camps, the camp regime was relaxed.
1956 SECRET SPEECH
Khruschev delivers his secret speech condemning Stalin. An increasing number of prisoners are released.
1962 IVAN DENISOVICH
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's 'One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich' becomes the first published memoir of life in the camps.
1970 NUMBER OF POLITICAL PRISONERS DECLINES TO 10,000
1970-80 NEW METHODS OF REPRESSION
Instead of arresting political dissidents, many are sent to psychiatric hospitals for 'rehabilitation.' However, most are simply subjected to a wide range of forced treatments and experiments.
1990 LIMITED JUSTICE
The Communist Party is put on trial, where former Gulag inmate, Vladimir Bukhovsky, testifies about Soviet repressions.
2007-Present HISTORY REVISED
New school textbooks are issued in Russia. None mention the Gulag or Stalin's repressions. The book cites Stalin is a hero. A survey of Russians places Stalin as the greatest Russian in history.
News Links: Helsinki Sanomat on Stalin Textbooks Daily Mail on Stalin Textbooks
2009 HISTORY DENIED?
Memorial, an organization established to investigate past Soviet repressions, is targeted by current Russian authorities for investigation. Most of their archival hard drives are confiscated.
News Links: Letter by Orlando Figes