out 1 percent of the population was imprisoned at hard labor in such
camps at any given time.

In the early 1970s the Construction Troops organization that had evolved
from the Labor Army was military in form and character. Its men were
provided from the annual draft and were subject to military regulations
and discipline. Its officers, who had regular military ranks, were
provided from the armed forces or had been prepared for that specific
assignment in the Construction Troops own school. The headquarters of
the organization, however, was a main administration responsible
directly to the Council of Ministers; it was not within either the
Ministry of National Defense or the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
Furthermore, the work of the organization was heavy construction and, at
least in peacetime, the greatest portion of it was unrelated to any
requirement of the armed forces. The Construction Troops worked on
various construction projects on a five-day-week basis but assumed a
military routine on Saturdays, which were devoted to platoon and company
drill and to political education classes.

Until the mid-1960s the troops were used mainly in roadbuilding and land
reclamation. By the early 1970s more than one-half of their work was in
factory, housing, water supply, and other such construction. Its 1972
projects included building a tire manufacturing plant and a resort hotel
complex and harnessing a river for hydroelectric power, recreation, and
supplies of irrigation water and city water. One of the organization's
spokesmen claimed that there was not a large-scale project underway
anywhere in the country where its troops were not at work.

The men acquired in the annual draft serve two years, which satisfies
their military service obligation. Almost all of the conscripts in the
Construction Troops work as unskilled laborers. During or at the end of
their two-year tours, those who enjoy or show a special aptitude for
construction work may volunteer for extended duty tours and serve as
noncommissioned officers. Some of those who are accepted are sent to
technical schools for further education.

Career officers who are educated in the Construction Troops service
academy are expected to serve for ten years after graduation. This
school, the full title of which is the General Blagony Ivanov People's
Military School for Officers in the Construction Troops, offers a
so-called semihigher course of instruction. Applicants to it