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

by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

And especially new and important was the fact that we did not draw the distinction between methods and means the old Tsarist Code had drawn. Such distinctions had no influence either on the classification of the charges or on the penalties imposed! For us, intent and action were identical! A resolution had been passed—we would try them for that. And whether it “was carried out or not had no essential significance.”30 Whether a man whispered to his wife in bed that it would be a good thing to overthrow the Soviet government or whether he engaged in propaganda during elections or threw a bomb, it was all one and the same! And the punishment was identical!!!