The Gulag Archipelago [Volume 1]: An Experiment in Literary Investigation

by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

And here are the slogans with which the whole transit prison welcomes us even though they don’t actually hang them on the walls: “Don’t look for justice here!” “You’re going to have to hand over everything you’ve got to us.” “You’ll have to give it all up.” This is repeated to you by the jailers, the convoy, and the thieves. You are overwhelmed by your unbearable prison term, and you are trying to figure out how to catch your breath, while everyone around you is figuring out how to plunder you.