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A sharashka (шара́шка, ʂɐˈraʂkə; sometimes sharaga, sharazhka), formally called особое конструкторское бюро, ОКБ and similar terms, were secret research and development laboratories operating from 1930 to the 1950s within the Soviet Gulag labor camp system, as well as in other facilies under the supervision of the Soviet secret service. Etymologically, the word sharashka derives from a Russian slang expression sharashkina kontora, ("Sharashka's office"), which in its turn comes from the criminal argot term sharaga (шарага) for a band of thieves, hoodlums, etc.) an ironic, derogatory term to denote a poorly-organized, impromptu, or bluffing organization. The scientists and engineers at a sharashka were prisoners picked by the Soviet government from various camps and prisons and assigned to work on scientific and technological problems for the state. Living conditions were usually much better than in an average taiga camp, mostly because of the absence of hard labor. The results of the research in sharashkas were usually published under the names of prominent Soviet scientists without credit given to the real researchers, whose names frequently have been forgotten. Some of the scientists and engineers imprisoned in sharashkas were released during and after World War II (1939-1945) to continue independent careers; some became world-renowned. On May 15, 1930, the Supreme Soviet of the National Economy and OGPU issues a secret circulaire "Об использовании на производстве специалистов, осужденных за вредительство" ("On the use in production of specialists convicted of wrecking"). It ordered the use of "engineers-wreckers" to "eliminate the consequences of wrecking" and to provide them with the necessary literature, materials and devices for this. It also said that "the use of the wreckers must be organized in such a way that their work was carried out on the premises of the organs of OGPU." In 1930 Leonid Ramzin and other engineers sentenced in the Industrial Party Trial were formed into a special design bureau under the Joint State Political Directorate (OGPU), which was then the Soviet secret police.

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Related concepts (3)

Sharashka

Gulag

The Gulag was the government agency in charge of the Soviet network of forced labour camps which were set up by order of Vladimir Lenin, reaching its peak during Joseph Stalin's rule from the 1930s to the early 1950s. English-language speakers also use the word gulag in reference to each of the forced-labor camps that existed in the Soviet Union, including the camps that existed in the post-Lenin era. The full official name of the agency changed several times. The Gulag is recognized as a major instrument of political repression in the Soviet Union.

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national republics; in practice, both its government and its economy were highly centralized until its final years. It was a one-party state governed by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, with the city of Moscow serving as its capital as well as that of its largest and most populous republic: the Russian SFSR.