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The author sorrowfully concludes that Soviet society was not prepared for the short-lived libertarian movement. The worst enemies of escaping prisoners were people — their "fellow countrymen"— who shot at them or joined the pack of police pursuers. (The penalty for helping an escapee was 25 years; the reward for catching one was a barrel of herring.) When the women prisoners who had survived the Kengir uprising were marched out of the camp at machine-gun point, jeering female inhabitants of the nearby settlement shouted "Dirty whores!" at them.
Beyond ignorance, fear and greed, such actions are emblematic of the moral degradation visited upon the Soviet people by the regime, Solzhenitsyn believes. It is scarcely surprising, then, that he experienced a stab of regret when he was re leased from the camp in 1953: "Only on the threshold of the guardhouse do you begin to feel that what you are leaving be hind you is both your prison and your homeland. This was your spiritual birthplace, and a secret part of your soul will remain here forever — while your feet trudge on into the dumb and unwelcoming expanse of freedom. "