First Map of the Soviet Gulags

This important map of the ‘Gulag’, the Soviet system of forced labour camps, is seemingly the earliest published example of what was to become one of “the most widely-circulated pieces of anti-Communist literature.”

It was published in a work titled, with heavy irony, Sprawiedliwosc Sowiecka (Soviet Justice), which was also published as La Justice Sovietique and Giustizia Sovietica. There was no English edition, but English may have been chosen as a common language for the map. 

The authors were both Polish army officers in II Corps, a Polish unit serving with the British Eighth Army in Italy. The work was published pseudonymously to protect their families – still living in Soviet occupied Poland – from reprisals. 

Many Polish prisoners had been held in the camps between 1939 and 1941, while the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact (the Nazi-Soviet non aggression pact) lasted. After the German invasion of Russia, Poles were released to fight alongside the Allies, bringing with them first-hand knowledge of the Gulag camps. 

Condition & Materials
Lithographed map, printed area measures 49.5 x 69.5 cm. Printed in black and red, old folds, blank verso.

References
Timothy Barney, Mapping the Cold War, 2015, p. 120
Persuasive Maps: The PJ Mode Collection, 1330..01
David Rumsey Map Collection (variant), 10518.000
7 examples located on Worldcat
OCLC: 30774307; 1129044311; 556399217; 494888464