Unknown Gulag

The Unknown Gulag: The Lost World of Stalin's Special Settlements by Lynne Viola, Oxford University Press, 2007. 

Deporting Kulaks

This book nicely complements Robert Conquest's book, Harvest of Sorrow. Conquest's book describes what happened in the Ukraine when the kulaks were removed. The kulaks were the more prosperous peasants. Most of them were poor, but not quite as poor as the other peasants. Viola's book describes what happened to the kulaks in their places of exile. The special settlements that were created with these exiles were located in underpopulated parts of Russia. The exiled peasants were used as forced labor, mainly in forestry, but also mining and agriculture. The special settlements were forerunners of the Gulag.