In August, 1918, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin wrote in a telegram to Yevgeniya Bosh and to the Penza Provincial Executive Committee (they were unable to cope with a peasant revolt): “Lock up all the doubtful ones [not “guilty,” mind you, but doubtful—A.S.] in a concentration camp outside the city.” (And in addition “carry out merciless mass terror”—this was before the decree.)
