A great deal of killing has to be done in the USSR, not because the average Russian is a cruel man, though some of their races are among the cruellest peoples in the world, but as an instrument of policy. People who act against the State are enemies of the State, and the State has no room for enemies. There is too much to do for precious time to be allocated to them, and, if they are a persistent nuisance, they get killed. In a country with a population of 200,000,000, you can kill many thousands a year without missing them. ... The problem is the shortage of executioners.
I. Fleming, From Russia, with love (1957), 23
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