The Bitch Wars or Suka Wars (Russian: Сучьи войны, translit. Suchyi voyny or in singular: Russian: Сучья война, translit. Suchya voyna) occurred within the Soviet labor-camp system between 1945 and around the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953. The Russian word suka ("сука", literally "bitch") has a different negative connotation than its English equivalent. In Russian criminal argot, it specifically refers to a person from the criminal world who had cooperated with law enforcement or with the government, or one who had "made one's self a bitch" (Russian: ссучился, translit. ssuchilsya).