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The camps were not designed for execution, but rather forced labor in a society not driven by the profit motive. The death rate was very high from exposure to the cold, over-work, disease and very poor food, government rations, clothing and medical care. Nearly 75 million prisoners passed through the gulags in their more than 60 years of operation. Some people were imprisoned for violating Soviet law,<ref>Unemployment is illegal under "social parasite" laws in the [[collectivist]] system.</ref> others simply to fill quotas for the demand for workers. The population of the Gulag peaked around 1939 (at the climax of the Stalinist purges) at 6 million, and again in the early 1950s at 7.5 million. Around 35 million Gulag prisoners died of over-work, ill-treatment, disease or starvation between 1931 and 1953.<ref>In 1992, a Russian group memorializing the targets of the Soviet terror by use of demographic studies announced a determination that there were 63 million 'excess deaths' in the Soviet Union in its duration — 1917-1987.</ref>

The camps were not designed for execution, but rather forced labor in a society not driven by the profit motive. The death rate was very high from exposure to the cold, over-work, disease and very poor food, government rations, clothing and medical care. Nearly 75 million prisoners passed through the gulags in their more than 60 years of operation. Some people were imprisoned for violating Soviet law,<ref>Unemployment is illegal under "social parasite" laws in the [[collectivist]] system.</ref> others simply to fill quotas for the demand for workers. The population of the Gulag peaked around 1939 (at the climax of the Stalinist purges) at 6 million, and again in the early 1950s at 7.5 million. Around 35 million Gulag prisoners died of over-work, ill-treatment, disease or starvation between 1931 and 1953.<ref>In 1992, a Russian group memorializing the targets of the Soviet terror by use of demographic studies announced a determination that there were 63 million 'excess deaths' in the Soviet Union in its duration — 1917-1987.</ref>

Some estimates of Gulag population statistics, such as Anne Applebaum's, are absurdly low due to their reliance on statistical reporting from the estimated 90% of the returnees who had collaborated in atrocities with Gulag slavemasters, and who had consequently later reported lower populations, seeking to diminish reprisals should their complicity become known.

Some estimates of Gulag population statistics are absurdly low due to their reliance on statistical reporting from the estimated 90% of the returnees who had collaborated in atrocities with Gulag slavemasters, and who had consequently later reported lower populations, seeking to diminish reprisals should their complicity become known.

==Imprisonment and banishment==

==Imprisonment and banishment==