Part 1, Chapter 3 Summary and Analysis

As early as 1921, interrogations take place at night, shining car lights in prisoners' faces, changing cells from freezing to stifling, cooking people in airtight cells, and burning them with cigarettes. If charges must be brought, torture is inevitable and the more drastic the charge, the more ferocious the interrogation. There are at least 31 useful methods. Solzhenitsyn knows none of this in February 1945, when he and a fellow officer are arrested for stupidly joking about Stalin while corresponding at the front. Solzhenitsyn acts naïve, humble, and honest to keep the interrogator from examining his handwritten notebooks, which contain everything he has heard during the war—easily taken out of context to condemn friends. To prevent this, Solzhenitsyn repents abjectly.

Interrogators are themselves not trusted and often drag in a defendant as a cover for personal business. Prosecutors must...