An extensive bureaucracy is one of the identifying characteristics of the modern nation-state. Distributed government administration enables the factors that determine the proper functioning of the state; without this, the application of legal codes and economic policies would be impossible. During Stalin's reign, the rapid growth of the USSR necessitated the rapid deployment of a bureaucratic system to control the strict regulations that accompanied collectivization, the growth of transportation systems, and massive prison and labor camp programs. . This expansion has placed bureaucrats in positions of great power, with little oversight. Soviet literature is saturated with dissident literature, created by authors frustrated by both the structural abuses of the working and peasant classes and the inhumane treatment of the underground Gulag system. In systems where those in positions of power are given such autonomy, the question of how superiors act when they hate their inferiors often arises. “Berries” and “Story of a Sickness” are two stories that demonstrate the moral limits of civil servants who hate their inferiors, while “The Bees and the People” serves as a warning against crossing these limits. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay “Berries,” by Varlam Shalamov, published in 1970, is a (probably autobiographical) story of exploitation within the confines of bureaucracy within the Gulag system. In the story, the narrator and his comrade deviate from their task of gathering and carrying wood to harvest berries. The story opens with the narrator accused by a guard of being a fascist, for “having stuck a spoke in the wheel” of the Fatherland. The narrator responds to the insult, provoking great anger from the guards who threaten to shoot him the next day. The next day, the normal limit is moved two meters closer, preventing the protagonist and his comrade from picking up the ripe berries and encouraging them to cross. The narrator's friend violates this limit and is immediately shot twice in the back. The most interesting facet of the story is how the guards punish a prisoner they don't like. Although they have no apparent supervision, they never deviate from what would be considered reasonable treatment of a prisoner. In other words, their moral codes are the only obstacles to simply shooting the narrator and saying he tried to escape. As Leona Toker describes it, “Seroshapka's shooting of the man who 'crossed the line' not only illustrates the guards' attitude toward the value of prisoners' lives; this also suggests that there is still a residual (also arbitrary) moral "line" that Seroshapka himself does not cross: according to the rules of his game, he still cannot shoot the prisoner who has not exceeded the limits…”[1] This story reveals a common understanding between guards and prisoners: the rules are the rules. Violation of the rules will be dealt with at the discretion of the guards (probably with as much force as possible), but punishment will not occur without a violation, even if the prisoner is tempted to commit that violation. Zoshchenko's "Story of an Illness" reveals a very similar relationship, with the guard-inmate relationship replaced by that of a patient and several workers. In the story, the protagonist shows up at a hospital suffering from typhoid fever, only to be quickly dismayed by the lack 238