The Gulag Archipelago

by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Therefore, if you see someone crawling through a window, or slitting a pocket, or your neighbor’s suitcase being ripped open—shut your eyes! Walk by! You didn’t see anything! That’s how the thieves have trained us—the thieves and our laws! There is one more important feature of our public life which helps thieves and bandits prosper—fear of publicity. Our newspapers are filled with reports on production victories which are a big bore to everyone, but you will find no reports of trials or crime in them. (After all, according to the Progressive Doctrine, criminal activity arises only from the presence of classes; we have no classes in our country, therefore there is no crime and therefore you cannot write about it in the press! We simply cannot afford to give the American newspapers evidence that we have not fallen behind the United States in criminal activity!)