Leonid P. Rasskazov
The Role of the GULAG in Pre-war Five-year Plans,
in: Ekonomicheskaja istorija. Ezhegodnik (Economic Hystory. Yearbook). 2002, Moscow: ROSSPEN, 2003, p.269-319.

Summary
The article analyses the role of the GULAG in the radical social and economic changes carried out in the USSR during the first five-year plans. In the 1930s the GULAG grew into the largest industrial structure in the country. Its activity applied to 17 sectors of the national economy: heavy industry, ferrous metallurgy, metal-working, timber, fuel, fish and construction industries, agriculture, road- and airdrome building, transport etc. The GULAG budget came to billions of rubles. The exploitation of prisoners allowed the acquisition of a huge profit, dispensing with a relatively small state subsidy for covering the maintenance costs of the GULAG infrastructure. However, Soviet people paid dearly for the cheap labor of prisoners.

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