They were abhorrent. You’re really playing semantics here, conditions were essentially slave-like just as, say, Cuba under Batista.
Yes it was bad, still not as bad as chattel slavery, but pretty bad, that’s why it was completely deserved when they had a revolution. Not sure why you keep bringing up the colonization of siberia like it’s relevant to what’s going on now though. Comparing the amount of human life lost in that to the conquest of Americas though is just silly- there’s no comparison and the same American government is still around since then!