The internment system grew rapidly, reaching a population of 100,000 in the 1920s. The Solovki prison camp, the first corrective labor camp constructed after the revolution, was established in 1918 and legalized by a decree, "On the creation of the forced-labor camps", on April 15, 1919. In 1918–22, the agency was administered by Cheka, followed by the GPU (1922–23), OGPU (1923–34), later by the NKVD (1934–46), and in the final years by the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD). The camps housed a wide range of convicts, from petty criminals to political prisoners, large numbers of whom were convicted by simplified procedures, such as by NKVD troikas or by other instruments of extrajudicial punishment. The Gulag is recognized as a major instrument of political repression in the Soviet Union. English-language speakers also use the word gulag to refer to all forced-labor camps that existed in the Soviet Union, including camps that existed in the post-Lenin era. The Gulag, GULAG, or GULag ( Russian: ГУЛАГ, ГУЛаг, an acronym for Гла́вное управле́ние лагере́й, Glávnoje upravlénije lageréj, "chief administration of the camps") was the government agency in charge of the Soviet network of forced labor camps set up by order of Vladimir Lenin, reaching its peak during Joseph Stalin's rule from the 1930s to the early 1950s.
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