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

by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

At the beginning of 1918, Trotsky ordered that Aleksei Shchastny, a newly appointed admiral, be brought to trial because he had refused to scuttle the Baltic Fleet. Karklin, the Chairman of the Verkhtrib, quickly sentenced him in broken Russian: “To be shot within twenty-four hours.” There was a stir in the hall: But it has been abolished! Prosecutor Krylenko explained: “What are you worrying about? Executions have been abolished. But Shchastny is not being executed; he is being shot.” And they did shoot him.)