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

by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

We brushed aside those wise individuals among us who explained that millions of us were imprisoned precisely because the war had ended. We were no longer needed at the front. We were dangerous in the rear. And, were it not for us, not one brick would ever get laid at the remote construction projects. We were too self-absorbed even to grasp Stalin’s simple economic calculations—let alone his malice.