The Gulag and the Penitentiary Reappraised: Postwar Penal Convergence in the United States and Soviet Union, 1950–65

The Soviet Union and the United States, the two superpowers of the twentieth century, have often been studied in a comparative framework. The penal systems of these politically and ideologically opposed regimes, however, have eluded such analysis. This is striking because both regimes for decades--the 1930s-1950s for the Soviet Union and the 1980s-1990s for the United States--served as the world's leading jailers. My paper will investigate the similarities and interrelationships between the penal philosophies and practices of the U.S. and U.S.S.R., their organization of correctional institutions, and the actual experience of prisoners. It will focus on 1950-1965, a fascinating and often overlooked period of penal transformation that served as the apex of correctionalism in both countries. One interesting feature of this period is the prevalence of prison riots in both countries in the 1952-1955 period, which allows for meaningful comparisons of how the two regimes dealt with extraordinary situations. Another useful point of comparison are the subsequent, and often quite similar, strategies to control and re-educate convicts. Indeed, a convergence of penal thought and practice in this era is evident, as the Soviet Union attempted to dismantle the Stalinist Gulag and both states experimented increasingly with minimum-security institutions and non-custodial forms of punishment, thus bringing convicts in closer proximity with society. This convergence is made the more interesting because of the conditions of competition inherent in the Cold War, with the resulting friction evident in disparaging comparative statements made by penal officials on both sides. Finally, at a few select points—American legal officials visiting Soviet show prisons and interaction between Soviet and American representatives at United Nations conferences devoted to improving prison conditions worldwide—the history of the American and Soviet penal systems in the postwar period become not just comparative but entangled.