Breaking Stalin's Nose Power Quotes

The Soviet Union had a truly impressive (and by that we mean "widespread," "wretched" and "terrifying") system of prisons. As Yelchin points out in his Author's Note, more than twenty million people were detained under this system, exiled, or put to death. This system included your garden-variety labor camps (gulags) and prisons like Lubyanka. Kolyma's is one of the former. And since it was so far away from civilization, it's fitting that the students call the seating area in the back of the classroom (where the bad kids sit) Kolyma. It emphasizes the separation between the good little Communist kids and the bad ones.

Much of the power that the totalitarian system exercises comes from the ability to completely control people's emotions through various irrational fears. Here, it's the utter irrationality of being considered guilty just because your dad has been arrested. This fear of guilt-by-association runs rampant in the book. The kids at school are more eager to throw each other under the bus than are the hapless chefs on "Hell's Kitchen" during a team challenge. And they should be: they have more at stake than getting called a "donkey" by an irate, British chef.

To maintain power, Stalin has to appear all-knowing and all-seeing. Yep, Big Brother is definitely watching Sasha.