Editing Concentration camp (section)

===Russian camps===
[[File:Vorkuta.jpg|thumb|Punishment cell block in one of the subcamps of [[Vorkutlag]], a major Russian [[gulag]], 1945]]
The [[Russian Empire]] used forced [[exile]] and [[forced labour]] as forms of judicial punishment. [[Katorga]], a category of punishment which was reserved for those who were convicted of the most serious crimes, had many of the features which were associated with labor-camp imprisonment. According to historian [[Anne Applebaum]], katorga was not a common sentence; approximately 6,000 [[katorga]] convicts were serving sentences in 1906 and 28,600 in 1916.<ref>Applebaum, Anne. ''Gulag: A History.'' Anchor, 2004, pp. xxxi</ref> These camps served as a model for political imprisonment during the [[Soviet Union|Soviet]] period. In the midst of the [[Russian Civil War]], [[Lenin]] and the Bolsheviks established "special" prison camps, separate from its traditional prison system and under the control of the [[Cheka]].<ref>Applebaum, Anne. "Gulag: A History". Anchor, 2003, pp. 12</ref><ref>The Lost Literature of Socialism, [[George Watson (scholar)|George Watson]]</ref> These camps, as Lenin envisioned them, had a distinctly political purpose.<ref>Applebaum, Anne. "Gulag: A History". Anchor, 2003, pp. 5</ref> These concentration camps were not identical to the Stalinist, but were introduced to isolate war prisoners given the extreme historical situation following [[World War 1]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Krausz |first1=Tamás |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=z23IBgAAQBAJ&dq=lenin+concentration+camps+stalinist+obviously&pg=PA512 |title=Reconstructing Lenin: An Intellectual Biography |date=27 February 2015 |publisher=NYU Press |isbn=978-1-58367-449-9 |page=512 |language=en}}</ref> In 1929, the distinction between criminal and political prisoners was eliminated,<ref>Applebaum, Anne. ''Gulag: A History.'' Anchor, 2003, pp. 50.</ref> administration of the camps was turned over to the [[Joint State Political Directorate]], and the camps were greatly expanded to the point that they comprised a significant portion of the Soviet economy.<ref name="Ellman">{{cite journal |last=Ellman |first=Michael |year=2002 |title=Soviet Repression Statistics: Some Comments |url=http://sovietinfo.tripod.com/ELM-Repression_Statistics.pdf |journal=Europe-Asia Studies |volume=54 |issue=2 |pages=1151–1172 |doi=10.1080/0966813022000017177 |s2cid=43510161 |access-date=August 14, 2011}}</ref> This Gulag system consisted of several hundred<ref>{{Cite web |date=2024-06-21 |title=Gulag {{!}} Definition, History, Prison, & Facts |website=Britannica |url=https://www.britannica.com/place/Gulag |access-date=2024-07-15 |language=en}}</ref> camps for most of its existence and detained some 18 million from 1929 until 1953.<ref name="Applebaum">{{Cite web |date=2004 |title=Gulag: A History, by Anne Applebaum (Doubleday) |url=https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/anne-applebaum |access-date=2019-11-13 |publisher=The Pulitzer Prizes}}</ref> As part of a series of reforms during the [[Khrushchev Thaw]], the Gulag shrank to a quarter of its former size and receded in its significance in Soviet society.<ref>Marc Elie. Khrushchev's Gulag: the Soviet Penitentiary System after Stalin's death, 1953-1964. Denis Kozlov et Eleonory Gilburd. ''[https://hal.science/hal-00859338/ The Thaw: Soviet Society and Culture during the 1950s and 1960s]'', Toronto University Press, pp.109-142, 2013, 978-1442644601. ⟨hal-00859338⟩</ref>