The ancient, esoteric piece of wisdom he gleaned from his prison years was this: unrestrained power over people makes you cruel! Those placed in a position of power over another person (the informer over the informed upon, the interrogator over the interrogated, the high-ranking trusty over the general laborer), in which they have no cause to fear any negative consequences from doing him violence, unavoidably act on their evil desires—when it is to their advantage (or when the mood strikes them)—unless they restrain themselves morally. And “the cruelty they manifest,” writes Solzhenitsyn, “is proportionate to the defenselessness of the person in their power.” By means of repeated cruel actions over time, cruelty becomes second-nature to them, a stable and durable trait of their personalities.
— Roman Gelperin, On Rotting Prison Straw