In February 1945, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was arrested for writing derogatory comments in private letters to a friend about the conduct of the war by Joseph Stalin.
He was accused of anti-Soviet propaganda and “founding a hostile organization” under Article 58 paragraph 10 and 11 of the Soviet criminal code.
Solzhenitsyn was taken to the Lubyanka prison in Moscow, where he was interrogated.
On 7 July 1945, he was sentenced in his absence by Special Council of the NKVD to an eight-year term in a labor camp.