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

by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

The Presiding Judge: “Referring to the fact that the decree was published while you were in the midst of talks with Pomgol, you used the expression, behind your back?” The Patriarch: “Yes.” Presiding Judge: “You therefore consider that the Soviet government acted incorrectly?” A crushing argument! It will be repeated a million times more in the nighttime offices of interrogators! And we will never answer as simply and straightforwardly as: The Patriarch: “Yes.” The Presiding Judge: “Do you consider the state’s laws obligatory or not?” The Patriarch: “Yes, I recognize them, to the extent that they do not contradict the rules of piety” (Oh, if only everyone had answered just that way! Our whole history would have been different.)