Forced settlements in the Soviet Union were the result of the population transfers in the Soviet Union performed in a series of operations organized according to social and national criteria of the deported. Resettling of entire populations by ethnicity was a method of political repression in the Soviet Union, although separate from the Gulag system of penal labor. Involuntary settlement played a role in the colonization of remote areas of the Soviet Union. This role was specifically mentioned in the first Soviet decrees about involuntary labor camps.