The story, akin to Alexander Solzhenitsyn's ambitious 1962 masterpiece One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, steadily indicts the corruption of state power – a power ever-willing to kill and to align itself with an even more corrupt power, the Orthodox Church. Like communism, which once promised absolution for the worst crimes in exchange for loyalty, Russia's current state religion allows, even encourages, misdeeds – including murder – so long as one is loyal to God.