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Solzhenitsyn discusses this attitude extensively in The Gulag Archipelago, both from the perspective of standing up to government thugs that come in the middle
by euroclydon 17y ago
Solzhenitsyn discusses this attitude extensively in The Gulag Archipelago, both from the perspective of standing up to government thugs that come in the middle of the night to arrest dissidents and when he notes the irony of how military officers recently pulled from the front lines were cowed by common criminals in jail.
- dgordon 17y agoI'm reading The Gulag Archipelago now -- I'm around 530 pages in, so I just read the part about the common criminals beating up and robbing the political prisoners. It undoubtedly helped the thieves a lot that the political prisoners wouldn't stand up for each other, but if for some reason one did stand up to a criminal, his friends would take revenge later. The criminals were effectively united; the political prisoners could not have been more divided. It's a heavy book, both in weight (1800 pages) and ideas, but everyone should read it.