Enemies of the People

Enemies of the people were the millions of artists, engineers, professors, and affluentpeasants that were thought a threat to the Soviet regime for being the educated elite,and were forcedly resettled to the Gulag, i.e. the system of forced labor camps acrossthe Soviet Union. In this paper we look at the long-run consequences of this darkre-location episode. We show that areas around camps with a larger share of enemiesamong camp prisoners are more prosperous today, as captured by firms’ wages andprofits, as well as night lights per capita. We also show that the descendants of enemiesare more likely to be tertiary educated today. Our results point in the direction ofa long-run persistence of education and a resulting positive effect on local economicoutcomes. A 28 percentage point increase in the share of enemies increases night lightsper capita by 58%, profits per employee by 65%, and average wages by 22%.