Cannibal Island: Death in a Siberian Gulag

by Nicolas Werth, Jan T. Gross (Foreword), Steven Rendall (Translator)

A searing historical account of a tragic episode of the Stalinist terror

During the spring of 1933, Stalin’s police rounded up nearly one hundred thousand people as part of the Soviet regime’s “cleansing” of Moscow and Leningrad and deported them to Siberia. Many of the victims were sent to labor camps, but ten thousand of them were dumped in a remote wasteland and left to fend for themselves. Cannibal Island reveals the shocking, grisly truth about their fate.

These people were abandoned on the island of Nazino without food or shelter. Left there to starve and to die, they eventually began to eat each other. Nicolas Werth, a French historian of the Soviet era, reconstructs their gruesome final days using rare archival material from deep inside the Stalinist vaults. Werth skillfully weaves this episode into a broader story about the Soviet frenzy in the 1930s to purge society of all those deemed to be unfit. For Stalin, these undesirables included criminals, opponents of forced collectivization, vagabonds, gypsies, even entire groups in Soviet society such as the “kulaks” and their families. Werth sets his story within the broader social and political context of the period, giving us for the first time a full picture of how Stalin’s system of “special villages” worked, how hundreds of thousands of Soviet citizens were moved about the country in wholesale mass transportations, and how this savage bureaucratic machinery functioned on the local, regional, and state levels.

Cannibal Island challenges us to confront unpleasant facts not only about Stalin’s punitive social controls and his failed Soviet utopia but about every generation’s capacity for brutality—including our own.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Russia, Russian History, Politics, Horror, Memoir

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

Nicolas Werth (born 1950) is a French historian, and an internationally known expert on communist studies, particularly the history of the Soviet Union. He is the son of Alexander Werth, a Russian-born British journalist and writer.

He wrote the chapters dedicated to the USSR in The Black Book of Communism. Werth is a research director at the Institut d'histoire du temps présent, affiliate to CNRS. Since the 2000s, all his books are financed by the Hoover Institution. In 2007, he was the historic consultant for the French television documentary film, Staline: le tyran rouge, broadcast on M6.

Source: wikipedia.com

Reviews

[Rodrigo · Rating 3 out of 5]

An impressive book. A real story of death, suffering and violence. What impresses me the most is how an ideology that was built on the foundations of solidarity, equality and justice gave rise to probably the most monstrous regime ever built in the history of mankind. This book allows the reader to see its mechanisms, it's intricacies. The repressive machine, built up with bureaucratic precision, with quotas, objectives and teams desperate to reach their targets rounding up people to be sent to death camps with no particular reason. Authorities desperate with the influx of prisoners that could not be accommodated or supported trying to get rid of them as soon as possible. And the prisoners themselves trying to make sense of what was going on and using all their powers to survive. A complete political nightmare that is precisely described with clinical objectivity. Very sad.

[Ericaaaa · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The "Cannibal Island" episode...sheds light on the bloody implementation of a utopia -- a vast enterprise of social engineering, of bureaucratic and police planning, that sought to "cleanse" and "purify" certain Soviet spaces--notably urban spaces-- of their "declase and socially harmful elements" by deporting them to Siberia's "garbage-can" areas."

Cringe worthy documentation of one of the many times that socialism has failed and the reasons for it.

[Jerry · Rating 5 out of 5]

A more vivid depiction on the pure evil of totalitarian government is hard to find. More than a million innocent men, women and children were dumped by the Soviets in remote places without the means to build shelters, clothe themselves, feed themselves, care for their sick. The Soviet purpose was two-fold: rid themselves of 'parasites' and to settle vast remote areas of the Soviet empire so that as these areas were developed, the Soviets would reap benefits. Sick and depraved where those who implemented this inhumane policy.

[Aeryn · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5. Detailed information on the circumstances leading up to deserting so many on Nazino island. Well worth the read.

[Zella Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very matter-of-fact, compact scholarly account of a horrifying incident in Soviet history--thousands of kulaks, convicts, and hapless urbanites deported to a Siberian island with few supplies in the early 1930s. Murder, cannibalism, and Lord of the Flies ensue.

Very polished translation from the French (with none of the awkward styling that plagued Farewell.) It would have been easy to sensationalize this, but the historian author is pretty measured and is most interested in the systematic failures that led to what happened, as well its chilling ramifications. Werth argues quite persuasively that this laid the groundwork for the horrors of the Great Purge a few years later.

It's a very dense book, despite its short length, that I feel like I'll have to reread to unpack everything in it. Still, a pretty gruesome read that introduced me to to the concept of "cannibal by habit," which will haunt my nightmares for a good long while.

[Dan Wilkins · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cant say it was the most enjoyable or entertainign read. However, if history is your thing, and you want attention to detail, specific numbers, dates and such, its great. It was truly quite eye opening, the sheer numbers of people being deported and arrested for crimes such as having once been anything more than a peasant before the revolution, or just unfortunate enough to have been picked up in order to help fill a quota.

[Alex Kenjeev · Rating 4 out of 5]

So it turns out that if you leave a bunch of people on an island with no food whatsoever, they’ll basically start eating each-other.

[Frey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Même si Nazino ne constitue qu'1% des "disparus" de 1933 en URSS, le déroulé de son histoire est marquant dans son exemplarité. La culture du chiffre, l'appétence soviétique pour la planification de masse, le manque de moyens accordés à des projets grandioses, le dédain pour la vie d'autrui, les injustices constantes et la fatalité avec laquelle tout est accepté dans une bureaucratie tellement grande qu'elle se cannibalise, tout cela Werth l'explique très bien (et le vulgarise suffisamment pour qu'une personne sans réelle connaissance du sujet soit capable de saisir les données, sans réellement être capable d'assimiler les chiffres).

[Dave]

The first half of the book was a little dry but interesting. For a book called Cannibal Island, they really skimped on the cannibalism. I enjoyed that statistics, but I wanted something a little more... piquant. Don't judge me!

[Scott Brillon · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting chapter in the history of the Soviets and prequel for what would eventually become known as "The Great Terror". What started as a grand design to rid themselves of undesirables (criminals, non-party members, or 'people of the past' -an expression so incredible I hope that one day that is how I am referred to) soon becomes an epic cluster-f@*&! In an effort to fill quotas, officers in cities picked up anyone without a passport. In one example a young girl of twelve left at the station by her mother is picked up and shipped off. In another a woman who had went to her ex-husband's house to pick up some of her things is picked up along with him and sent away. In other places the old, infirm, the mentally unstable are put onto trains and shipped off. In another a man who had missed his stop asked if he could get a ride back and when he was treated rudely by the guard he unwisely raised his voice and he too was shipped off. This writing is rife with examples of people who were loyal party members and even when they had proof, it was ignored. As declasse elements are shipped into the wilderness to start making themselves useful by building shelter and raising crops (a skill none of them as lifelong city dwellers had not prepared them for) they get sick and die. (The numbers are staggering.) Criminal elements, also among those expelled from the cities, take advantage. Eventually, the turn to cannibalism is more out of desperation than anything else. The stories are horrifying. The only thing that could be more so is maybe the idea that this could also happen here.

[Jenna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Only a few chapters in and the facts are overwhelming. I'm waiting for a breather but not sure it's coming.

[Ciara Nicholson · Rating 1 out of 5]

Poorly written and has little flow. My 12 year old cousin could have written a better historical novel.

[Wojciech · Rating 5 out of 5]

Straszna książka. Niestety na faktach

[Kevin Doyle · Rating 4 out of 5]

In a few weeks it will be the hundredth anniversary of the Kronstadt Uprising (1921), the last major attempt by revolutionary forces to halt the degeneration of the Russian Revolution, before it collapsed into the dictatorship and terror. Kronstadt was a brave stand by sailors and activists who, while opposed Bolshevism, supported the revolution in Russia. Kronstadt ended in defeat and slaughter and a consequence of this was the emergence of Stalinism.

Cannibal Island: Death in a Siberian Gulag by Nicolas Werth is an account of one abominable episode in the catastrophe that was Stalinism. Today Stalinism is synonymous with terror. Under Stalin's reign, in the twenties and thirties, in order to root out any opposition, tens of thousands of people were arrested on spurious charges and executed. The killing machine was unstoppable and Soviet society traumatized. But before that happened, we had events like that detailed in this book. In 1933 some 10,000 were deported and literally deposited on an uninhabitable island in western Siberia, provided with minimal provisions and told to manage for themselves. The numbers involved here were huge - 10,000. Many were city dwellers, elderly or just in poor health from the long journeys they had had to endure. They were arrested and adjudicated to be guilty of all sorts of crimes - being vagrants, being 'undesirable', being 'kulaks'. Some were simple people who found themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time, who were swept up in police raids by officers keen to meet arrest quotas. It was mad system and it end in disaster like what happened at Nazino Island - which later on became known as Cannibal Island because of what happened there. This books is well written and well documented. What happened at Nazino island is placed in context. A few striking things emerge from his work. We know that Stalinism was a brutal system but what also is clear here is how rigid and stupid it was too. Because people invariable had to follow order or end up in trouble themselves, Stalinism was incapable of learning from many its mistakes. Party activists tried to stop the transportation of 10,000 souls to Nazino Island - where there no means of survival. Local party members pointed that disaster was inevitable, but they made no headway against their overseers hellbent on obeying orders no matter what those were. The results were a disaster and a crime against humanity. The rumours about what happened at Nazino Island were so disturbing that Stalin himself requested an investigation. This uncovered the truth and pointed out what had gone wrong but that of course changed nothing. It led to the end of transportations for a time but it didn't stop the killing machine of Stalinism that was only just getting going. A salutary lesson from history. Long live the Kronstadt Rebellion!

[Jake · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nicolas Werth's Cannibal Island details the horrific story of the Nazino Island gulag. As a microcosm of Stalin's Soviet experiment, the "Nazino affair" of 1933 - as it came to be known - is also representative of the tensions and ironies inherent to Stalinism itself.

Through its purges, de-kulakization, and ideology of purification, Stalinism became a snake swallowing its own tail. As Werth puts it: "In Nazino, a modernizing utopia of purifying and civilizing social engineering under complete control paradoxically caused a whole nest of archaisms to rise to the surface. In this sense, this episode mirrored the Stalinist vision - and its reality - as a whole." Indeed, the deportees abandoned on Nazino Island cannibalized themselves in a way that symbolically matched the Stalinist cannibalization of Russia's collectivity.

In effect, Stalin's purifying efforts also reduced Siberia to a place of violent contradictions in the 1930s. As "both a frontier region and a garbage can", Siberia was marked by its sublime natural beauty and its abject man-made barbarism. Werth's keen observations dovetail quite nicely with those of Adorno and Horkheimer, in that they reveal authoritarian tendencies which contain the seeds of their own undoing.

Although the text gets bogged-down by overlong block quotes, including some that run-on for several pages at a time, Cannibal Island sheds light on an under-appreciated chapter in Russian history. Werth is a competent story teller, and he seems comfortable guiding readers through the darkness, if they are willing to follow him. As Ian Curtis chants on the haunting Joy Division song, “Atrocity Exhibition”: “This is the way, step inside.”

[LyudmilsReadings · Rating 5 out of 5]

Географията на Архипелаг ГУЛАГ е неизбродна, но отделни негови острови са като умален модел на съветската репресивна система. Такова е описанието на (истинския) остров Назино в книгата "Островът на канибалите", която намерих в един кош с преоценени книги. Към страховитото заглавие ме привлече името на автора - Никола Верт, френски историк, посветил се на съветската история.

Назино е само малък епизод от една голямата история на масовите изселвания в началото на 30-те години, които предприемат съветските власти, на "социални паразити, разкулачени, декласирани елементи" от градовете. Идеята е била тези нежелани от властта хора да бъдат изселени в Сибир, за да бъдат използвани за икономическото му усвояване. На службите за сигурност по места са спускани норми за изселване, които те изпълняват като натоварват на влаковете буквално който им падне, включително случайно грабнати от улиците хора.

Планът претърпява огромен провал - изселваните са стоварвани на пусти места, с много малко провизии и инструменти, което ги поставя в невъзможност да оцелеят, камо ли да "разорават целините". Хората масово измират - от глад, епидемии, насилие. На места като остров Назино се стига и до канибализъм (откъдето идва и заглавието на изследването). Постепенно утопичният план е изоставен - в полза на изграждането на трудови лагери, превърнали се също в инкубатори на насилие и смърт.

Горчива и страшна история ...

[John Limanto · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was chilling to read. For sure, it's a hard book to read. But, the event detailed is plain sinister. Consider just this one paragraph from the book:

"On the island, there was a guard named Kostia Venikov, a young fellow. He was courting a pretty girl who had been sent there. He protected her. One day he had to be away for awhile, and he told one of his comrades, 'Take care of her,' but with all the people there the comrade couldn't do much... People caught the girl, tied her to a poplar tree, cut off her breasts, her muscles, everything they could eat, everything, everything ... They were hungry, they had to eat. When Kostia came back, she was still alive. He tried to save her, but she had lost too much blood- she died. The boy was out of luck. That was the kind of thing that happened. When you went along the island, you saw flesh wrapped in rags. Human flesh that had been cut and hung in trees."

[Eric · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book sheds some light on an important and under-reported aspect of the Soviet gulag system, which is the special settlements. In this case, the settlement goes horribly wrong and folks are dumped on an island with nothing but a lot of flour and, well, you can tell from the title what happens next.

The basic problem with the book is the source material. It's all Soviet archival reports, typed up in boring bureaucratic-speak. The author tries his best to make it interesting, but there's only so much that you can do. It's too bad there aren't any first-hand accounts from survivors or close witnesses that weren't Soviet officials trying to cover their rear ends.

Speaking of that, what I found most entertaining was that the dumb SOBs closest to the project got the worst punishment, while the higher-ups who dreamed up the stupid project in the first place got a slap on the wrist or faced no consequences at all. I thought communism was supposed to be different!

[Martina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Shocking, but written in a scientific way losing the reader in many details of the chaotic time of Stalin's rule.
The Nazino tragedy was the mass murder and mass deportation of around 6,700 prisoners to Nazino Island, located on the Ob River in West Siberian Krai, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Soviet Union (now Tomsk Oblast, Russia), in May 1933. Sent to construct a "special settlement" and to cultivate the island, the deportees were abandoned with only scant supplies of flour for food, little to no tools, and virtually none of the clothing or shelter necessary to survive the harsh Siberian climate. Conditions on Nazino Island deteriorated quickly and resulted in widespread disease, violence, and cannibalism. Within 13 weeks, over 4,000 of the deportees had died or disappeared, and the majority of the survivors were in ill health. Those who attempted to leave were killed by armed guards.

[Satyajeet Akhilesh · Rating 3 out of 5]

A tragedy about “socially harmful, dèclassè elements”, the apparent “refuse of society”, being herded about like sheep and left to tend for themselves in despicable conditions, leading to “decivilisation”.

Blind idealism and conscious ignorance, “a total absence of coordination among the countless bureaucracies involved in policing and managing the deportees, contradictory instructions, constant setbacks, and all of this aggravated by the remoteness of the areas concerned and the lamentable state of communications.”

[Brian · Rating 3 out of 5]

The title of this book is a bit misleading as only a small section of one chapter goes into any details on what happened on Nazino. Most of the book was a description of the various administrative and logistical measures taken getting the various undesirables to the camp (which was pretty horrifying in itself with people getting scooped off the street and packed into trains). It was still an interesting read.

[Sebastian Utbult · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has a dry, academic tone, slightly emotionally distant tone as it describes one of the most horrifying tragedies I've read about. The absolute banality and incompetence involved in creating so much pointless suffering and death that was the "Nazino affair" is absolutely shocking, and I constantly remarked to myself that if this was fiction everyone would just think it's too over the top and not believable.

A book that has stayed in my thoughts ever since.

[Nic Brown · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fascinating but horrific story, but this book struck me as very academic - which certainly serves a purpose, but isn't really suited to a more casual reader who's just curious about what happened. Some sections were compelling, most of it was a slog. Tough to settle on an appropriate rating. I appreciate that it exists but definitely wouldnt recommend it unless you were doing research on the topic.

[Sarah Perry · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book started on a high note and trickled off from there, delving into thousands of figures and statistics and back-and-forth telegrams. Some parts were interesting, and the book was overall eye-opening and informational, but I feel like the same information could have been synthesized in an article or a chapter instead of a 200-page book.

[Al Balderas · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book to be a solid read, exposing the raw power that governments can hold over their people. I can't help but wonder what a lot of these people had to endure, being swept away from their normal lives (for the sake of statistics in many cases) and being placed in situations that led to slow and painful deaths.

[Adam King · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting history lesson and insight to the bureaucratic mess the USSR was. I was recommended this book by someone who told me about the heinous acts on Nazino Island, and they're there, but if you were looking for solely an account of that then try YouTube. Werth is a USSR historian and he really flexes his talent here, which while not being a bad read, wasn't what I signed up for.

[Houston Martinez · Rating 4 out of 5]

A tragic episode involving involuntary cannibalism during the 1930s that has been largely forgotten by the outside world. Nicolas Werth describes in great detail the complicity of those involved. To my surprise, I finished the book not having Stalin near the top of my list of those most responsible for the Nazino incident. Great read!

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un ouvrage brillant et glaçant. Les choses que l'on apprend sur le régime soviétique sont absolument terrifiantes. On constate la désorganisation la plus totale et le résultat qui en découle : l'homme laissé à lui même dans un environnement plus qu'hostile. Ce n'est pas beau à voir...

[Martina_H · Rating 4 out of 5]

V podstatě těžko uvěřitelná souhra dvou běžných sovětských akcí - deportace nepohodlných někam a totální neplánová, nepřipravenost, neplnění úkolů, způsobila tragické utrpení a smrt tisíců lidí.

[Andrei Barbu · Rating 1 out of 5]

An interesting story turned into a dry book about bureaucracy.