Soviet penal labor force is 4 million, CIA says

A new CIA study estimates that some 4 million people in the Soviet Union are employed as forced laborers, and that about 10,000 of them are political prisoners.

In response to reports from Europe alleging that such labor is being used on the natural gas pipeline from Siberia, the CIA said work crews were employed in preliminary work such as clearing land and building roads, but added that ''large-scale use of forced laborers on the export pipeline is unlikely because many of the jobs require special skills.''