Correctional labor system of the USSR in 1941-1945 in the Southern Urals.

This article provides a comprehensive analysis of the development of the correctional labor system in the Southern Urals from 1941 to 1945. Particular attention is paid to the organization and functioning of cluster associations of correctional labor institutions in the context of the Chelyabinsk region. The study is aimed at identifying the key characteristics and features of the functioning of the correctional labor system in wartime conditions. Entire "clusters" of institutions arose in the region, where the legal status of people and the objects themselves were determined by orders of the NKVD. The basis of the "clusters" was a prison or a former central forced labor camp, at which or near which a penal colony or camp arose, and camp points and missions arose directly on industrial sites, which were administratively assigned to the relevant GULAG administration. Sometimes, several correctional colonies, camp points, and missions were organized in one administrative territory, but from different departments subordinate to different people's commissariats, which introduced a certain amount of confusion in the management of these points and colonies in one territory between the corresponding departments, divisions of the OMZ and TP UNKVD of a specific region, which is clearly visible on the basis of archival materials of the OMZ and TP UNKVD for the Chelyabinsk region.