# What exactly are Reeducation Camps? Are they concentration camps or just summer camps? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 26, 2020, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-are-reeducation-camps-are-they-concentration-camps-or-just-summer-camps/923957 "2020-10-26T17:56:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Asuka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@Asuka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asuka)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2020, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-are-reeducation-camps-are-they-concentration-camps-or-just-summer-camps/923957/1 "2020-10-26T17:56:20Z")
Specifically, the Communist style “Reeducation Camps” that popped up in places such as Vietnam after the 1975 Victory, Cuba after the Cuban Revolution, and the various Soviet Reeducation Camps throughout its existence. I’ve noticed a weird trend where some people REALLY don’t seem to think they were all that bad, a “Stuff You Should Know” podcast in an episode about Refugees from the Vietnam War referred to a Reeducation Camp as basically being like a Refugee Camp which seems incredibly wrong. I’ve seen seen a few posters on this very SMDB gleefully want to return to Reeducation Camps to “throw all the redhats in when Biden wins”. So what’s up with Reeducation Camps? Were they concentration camps? Were many people killed in them? Or was it just a fun learning experience for a year? ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2020, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-are-reeducation-camps-are-they-concentration-camps-or-just-summer-camps/923957/2 "2020-10-26T18:23:50Z")
You don’t volunteer to go to a re-education camp to spend a fun summer holiday. You are imprisoned there indefinitely without trial and subject to political indoctrination, strict discipline, and hard labor under the pretence of turning you into a productive member of society. And, no, not everyone made it out alive. Not sure if there was/is any essential difference between Communist and Anti-Communist reeducation camps. ---
**Author:** ![Keeve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f07891/32.png) [@Keeve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Keeve)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2020, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-are-reeducation-camps-are-they-concentration-camps-or-just-summer-camps/923957/3 "2020-10-26T18:39:33Z")
I have been under the impression that in this context, “reeducation” is a euphemism for “brainwashing”. ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2020, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-are-reeducation-camps-are-they-concentration-camps-or-just-summer-camps/923957/4 "2020-10-26T19:31:22Z")
> [@Asuka](#): > > So what’s up with Reeducation Camps? Were they concentration camps? Were many people killed in them? Or was it just a fun learning experience for a year? Wikipedia has several different pages covering the various iterations of “re-education camps” in different regimes: - [Re-education through labor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Re-education_through_labor) ( _laojiao_ ), a system of administrative detentions in the People’s Republic of China - [Xinjiang re-education camps](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinjiang_re-education_camps), internment camps for Uyghurs in Xinjiang, China - [Re-education camp (North Korea)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Re-education_camp_(North_Korea)) - [Samchung re-education camp](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samchung_re-education_camp), a military detention camp in South Korea during the 1980s. - [Re-education camp (Vietnam)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Re-education_camp_(Vietnam)), prison camps operated by the government of Vietnam following the end of the Vietnam War TL,DR: re-education camps are bad. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2020, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-are-reeducation-camps-are-they-concentration-camps-or-just-summer-camps/923957/5 "2020-10-26T19:34:34Z")
Read the Jack Chalker novel **Dancers in the Afterglow** for a science fiction based description of a re-education camp. I assume the description comes from things he’d heard or read about (in his everyday life, Chalker had been a history teacher. Sometimes it showed) Not pleasant. And he didn’t even add any SF-like touches to most of it. Break people up into small groups, make them uncomfortable, limit their food, force them into activities, then have them forced into class sessions where you force them to think the way you want. Drugs sometimes help. ---
**Author:** ![Asuka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@Asuka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asuka)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2020, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-are-reeducation-camps-are-they-concentration-camps-or-just-summer-camps/923957/6 "2020-10-26T19:38:45Z")
I remember reading a book written by a Cuban refugee who was thrown into a Communist Cuban Reeducation Camp because his father had a low level government job at some point, and he claimed that every night he would hear the sounds of people getting tied to posts in the back and getting shot. However I’ve also heard that was a lie and there wasn’t a death toll at these Cuban Reeducation Camps so I’m very confused. ---
**Author:** ![Lamoral](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lamoral/32/16078_2.png) [@Lamoral](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamoral)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2020, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-are-reeducation-camps-are-they-concentration-camps-or-just-summer-camps/923957/7 "2020-10-26T19:42:45Z")
> [@Asuka](#): > > he claimed that every night he would hear the sounds of people getting tied to posts in the back and getting shot. This is an old trick - mock executions and pretending to kill prisoners - presumably they wanted to intimidate the subjects but they also needed their manpower so they couldn’t just kill all of them. Some people probably DID get killed, but they probably wouldn’t just execute people every night, or else they’d have no one to “re-educate.” ---
**Author:** ![Marvin\_the\_Martian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/marvin_the_martian/32/2898_2.png) [@Marvin\_the\_Martian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marvin_the_Martian)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2020, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-are-reeducation-camps-are-they-concentration-camps-or-just-summer-camps/923957/8 "2020-10-26T19:47:11Z")
A relatively rosy picture of a Chinese re-education facility and experience is the depiction of the Fushun War Criminals Management Centre in the film _The Last Emperor_. I had an uncle who was sentenced to Re-Education Through Labor during the Cultural Revolution (he fell for the ruse of the Hundred Flowers Campaign and was critical of Mao during a faculty meeting). He was a sickly academic (engineering professor) and was sent to work as a laborer on a pig farm. Completely destroyed his health; he died in the mid 1970s a few months before my father was finally able to return to China for his first visit since 1949. So yeah, doubleplus ungood (at least anecdotally). ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2020, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-are-reeducation-camps-are-they-concentration-camps-or-just-summer-camps/923957/9 "2020-10-26T19:56:44Z")
> [@DPRK](#): > > You don’t volunteer to go to a re-education camp to spend a fun summer holiday. You are imprisoned there indefinitely without trial and subject to political indoctrination, strict discipline, and hard labor under the pretence of turning you into a productive member of society. And, no, not everyone made it out alive. Perfect username/post combo… Anyway, in reply to the OP, think about the camps in Xinjiang for the Uighur Muslims in China now for being “insufficiently patriotic.” That’s pretty much what a reeducation camp is. ---
**Author:** ![Mighty\_Mouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mighty_mouse/32/7776_2.png) [@Mighty\_Mouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mighty_Mouse)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2020, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-are-reeducation-camps-are-they-concentration-camps-or-just-summer-camps/923957/10 "2020-10-26T20:37:34Z")
A number of my wife’s friends/classmates disappeared after Tiananmen 1989 for 6-18 months and then re-emerged “redder than red”. They will not talk about what happened. Even the two people who have now lived in the US for almost 30 years. One of them supposedly reported my wife to the Overseas Chinese Bureau (or something) for being too friendly with members of the Taiwanese Students Organization on campus. My in-laws in China got a visit from some scary people. He had a lifestyle that was inconsistent with the income of a post-doc. So perhaps his conversion involved less pain and more bribery. Or perhaps both. ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2020, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-are-reeducation-camps-are-they-concentration-camps-or-just-summer-camps/923957/11 "2020-10-26T22:29:05Z")
> [@Keeve](#): > > I have been under the impression that in this context, “reeducation” is a euphemism for “brainwashing”. Bit of a sidetrack, but should point out “brainwashing” is not a thing. Its a completely invented phenomenon. It originated during the Korean war where some British and American POWs (very small number 1-2 individuals IIRC) defected to the Communist side, and it was blamed on “brainwashing” in the west. The fact is there never was any such thing, POWs were treated incredibly badly by the Communists, both physically and mentally, but at no point did anything like “brainwashing” successfully take place (though that didn’t stop the CIA and others trying to replicate this non existent phenomenon) ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2020, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-are-reeducation-camps-are-they-concentration-camps-or-just-summer-camps/923957/12 "2020-10-26T22:38:26Z")
> **[Brainwashing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainwashing)** > > Pages for logged out editors learn more > > > Brainwashing (also known as mind control, menticide, coercive persuasion, thought control, thought reform, and forced re-education) is the concept that the human mind can be altered or controlled by certain psychological techniques. Brainwashing is said to reduce its subjects' ability to think critically or independently, to allow the introduction of new, unwanted thoughts and ideas into their minds, as well as to change their attitudes, values... _ **Brainwashing** (also known as **mind control** , **menticide** , **coercive persuasion** , **thought control** , **thought reform** , and **re-education** ) is the concept that the [human mind](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_mind) can be altered or controlled by certain [psychological](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological) techniques. Brainwashing is said to reduce its subjects’ ability to [think](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think) critically or independently,[[1]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainwashing#cite_note-1) to allow the introduction of new, unwanted thoughts and ideas into their minds,[[2]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainwashing#cite_note-2) as well as to change their attitudes, values and beliefs.[[3]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainwashing#cite_note-3)[[4]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainwashing#cite_note-4)_ _The term “brainwashing” was first used in English by [Edward Hunter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Hunter_(U.S._journalist)) in 1950 to describe how the [Chinese government](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_government) appeared to make people cooperate with them. Research into the concept also looked at [Nazi Germany](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_Germany), at some criminal cases in the United States, and at the actions of [human traffickers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_trafficking)._ > **[The True Story of Brainwashing and How It Shaped America](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/true-story-brainwashing-and-how-it-shaped-america-180963400/)** > > Fears of Communism during the Cold War spurred psychological research, pop culture hits, and unethical experiments in the CIA So “brainwashing” is real, altho not quite as imagined. ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2020, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-are-reeducation-camps-are-they-concentration-camps-or-just-summer-camps/923957/13 "2020-10-26T22:39:56Z")
It was my understanding brainwashing was successfully and routinely practiced by the Hare Krishnas (formally the International Society For Krishna Consciousness), the Moonies (The Unification Church of Reverend Sun Yung Moon) and other cults. ---
**Author:** ![gdave](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gdave/32/3683_2.png) [@gdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gdave)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2020, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-are-reeducation-camps-are-they-concentration-camps-or-just-summer-camps/923957/14 "2020-10-26T22:55:50Z")
“Brainwashing” by cults is a different animal. Cults “brainwash” people who have _voluntarily_ joined them. They seduce vulnerable people, give them comfort and and a sense of belonging while simultaneously grinding down their ego and cutting off outside influences. For successful cults, the process is often insidiously subtle, and a vital element is that it doesn’t seem like “brainwashing” to the participants. Prolonged physical imprisonment of even the most recalcitrant cult members is actually pretty rare, even for the most abusive cults. The successful ones make it clear that you’re free to leave at any time while also ensuring that you feel like you have no where else to go, and are too psychologically dependent to make leaving a realistic choice. That’s a far cry from the type of “brainwashing” that supposedly happened to POWs, or to what goes on in a “re-education” camp. ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2020, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-are-reeducation-camps-are-they-concentration-camps-or-just-summer-camps/923957/15 "2020-10-26T22:57:10Z")
I think the TL;DR is they were very bad places, in which people were horribly mistreated, tortured and killed. In some cases (e.g. Soviet Union and North Korea) they were actual death camps (in that most of the people sent there ultimately die) Even those cases like Vietnam and Cuba where most of the people sent there survived that doesn’t make them holiday camps. They were terrible places even compared to prisons in the US (and unlike those the people sent to them had committed no crime). People were worked close (or to) death, executed, starved, and tortured. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2020, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-are-reeducation-camps-are-they-concentration-camps-or-just-summer-camps/923957/16 "2020-10-27T00:10:43Z")
Depends on what you mean by “concentration camp.” Some were temporary prisons for political prisoners. People were not indoctrinated nor were they tortured or shot. Conditions were bad, but about the same as any prison. Nazi concentration camps like Dachau were similar, only worse. Still, once your term was up, you could be released (with the warning that if you told anyone what it was like, you’d be back again). What people call Nazi Concentration Camps were called “Extermination Camps” like Auschwitz. They did not let anyone out alive. None of them were interested in indoctrination. ---
**Author:** ![E-DUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/e-dub/32/403_2.png) [@E-DUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-DUB)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2020, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-are-reeducation-camps-are-they-concentration-camps-or-just-summer-camps/923957/17 "2020-10-27T00:19:41Z")
Can you “re-educate” people who aren’t educated to begin with? ---
**Author:** ![Dickerman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/8baadc/32.png) [@Dickerman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dickerman)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2020, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-are-reeducation-camps-are-they-concentration-camps-or-just-summer-camps/923957/18 "2020-10-27T01:15:10Z")
Consider reading _The Gulag Archipelago_. ---
**Author:** ![md-2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9d8465/32.png) [@md-2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md-2000)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2020, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-are-reeducation-camps-are-they-concentration-camps-or-just-summer-camps/923957/19 "2020-10-27T13:46:34Z")
I’m thinking that, based on the mentality of the people who designed and ran these assorted camps for various regimes, there was no deep psychological design involved. They were designed by sadistic thugs aided by terrified collaborators. They rely on repetition and fear to indoctrinate a viewpoint and suppress countervailing viewpoints. Intimidation and requiring people to betray others, respond with the “correct” answers, etc. are typical methods. I assume the stronger victims recognize this and conform, the weaker break down and conform, but rarely does it create die-hard fanatics; simply it creates people who have learned how to act like that if they want to avoid pain, and built that conditioning so strong it becomes hard to overcome. ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2020, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-are-reeducation-camps-are-they-concentration-camps-or-just-summer-camps/923957/20 "2020-10-27T14:11:40Z")
> [@Dickerman](#): > > Consider reading _The Gulag Archipelago_ . While those were clearly death camps, and Soviet propaganda described then as “reeducation” camps. That was just propaganda, no one was spending any time trying to re-educate anyone. They were described that way as there was a communist principle that forcing lazy bourgeois enemies of the state to do hard proletarian labor will “reeducate” them. Even in that sense its hard to describe them as reeducation camps, as most of the lazy bourgeois enemies of the state (aka millions of random Soviet citizens of all classes who were caught up in the purges) were worked to death. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-are-reeducation-camps-are-they-concentration-camps-or-just-summer-camps/923957.md?page=2)