The Gulag Archipelago works as a cautionary tale against the inchmeal drift into authoritarianism. For instance, we have seen how ‘hate speech’ laws and police guidance often disregard the significance of intention in favour of a perception-led assessment. Solzhenitsyn warns against precisely this development. Chapter 10 of Part 3 of The Gulag Archipelago relates a number of examples of Soviet citizens who were incarcerated for many years simply because their intentions were deemed inconsequential to the perceived transgression. A villager who used his belt to carry a heavy bust of Stalin was
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