A closer look
Hell is other people, especially when the state forces you to share a single toilet with four families you absolutely despise. Following the Russian Revolution, the Bolsheviks seized large aristocratic homes and partitioned them into tiny communal apartments. The complete lack of privacy bred extreme paranoia. Because secret police informants were everywhere, turning off a neighbor's boiling soup or leaving a light on in the hallway could literally result in someone being deported to the Gulag.
