Hacking the system to avoid the gulag

In 1937 the Great Purge and mass arrests started in Russia. One guy in St Petersburg belonged to hereditary nobility & he knew he'd be arrested. He knew they'll be extorting confession & torture him to death. That's suboptimal.

He acted smarter. During the night he went to a store, broke a window. Got inside, filled his bag with valuable stuff and waited for police to come. They came, arrested him. He got 5 years of jail for robbing a store *as a regular criminal*.

Regular criminal track was so much better than a track of a spy/counterrevolutionary. That's how he survived the Great Purge.