A very good movie about escaping a prison camp in Siberia, by the way (somewhat inspired by real events, but you better take it all with a grain of salt): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Way_Back

EDIT: spoiler alert, thank you Wikipedia

Good way to compare pre and post revolution Russia is to take number of officers in police and other repressive forces. Tsar had police apparatus comparable to France. Soviets had almost 15% of population in repressive forces.

Tsarist russia did not hesitate sending prisoners (including revolutionaries) to Siberia or other prisons, but in the 100 years they probably killed less than early USSR managed in one year, and USSR had multiple of such years.

Where tsarism will bother to send you out communists will just shoot you, problem solved.

UK also was shipping prisoners to Australia where most of them died en route. Oops. Took them several decades to figure shipping out.

Early on, the UK also shipped their detritus to the US

Interestingly the state I am from, Georgia, was originally envisioned as a debtors colony. It didnt work out as it was planned but I believe some debtors were sent here initially. Debtors were probably treated above prisoners but it was still an arduous journey.

Britain also transported the convicts to Australia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convicts_in_Australia

Quoting from the same link the support for my claim that Britain also transported the convicts to Australia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convicts_in_Australia

"Between 1788 and 1868, approximately 162,000 convicts were transported to the various Australian penal colonies by the government.[1]

The British government began transporting criminals to overseas colonies in the 16th century. When transportation to the American colonies declined with the move towards American independence in the 1770s, an alternative site was needed to avoid further overcrowding of British prisons and hulks. "

The trip is shorter so I expect deaths were much lower.

That sounds unpleasant.