SUMMARY:

This essay is a contribution to the book forum “Soviet Departmentalism” discussing the edited volume put together by the Tyumen historian Igor Stas’ that introduces departmentalism, or vedomstvennost’, as a vital framework for understanding Soviet history. The volume argues that vedomstvennost’ fundamentally organized the daily lives, urban spaces, and social hierarchies of citizens. Alan Barenberg applies this “departmental approach” to his own research on the Gulag, suggesting that it bridges the gap between penal colonies and “normal” industrial cities. By viewing locations like Vorkuta as industrial-departmental enclaves, historians can better analyze how the shifting authority of different government agencies dictated the development of cities, the management of labor, and the lived reality of Soviet citizens.