Friday, August 8, 2025

All It Takes for Evil to Triumph

How does the mistreatment of others become institutionalized? How does it begin and how is it allowed to continue?

By André van Heerden, Communications Director

There’s a well-known truism that what can happen on a small scale can happen on a much larger scale. Injustice that’s permitted on a small work site can become accepted and commonplace on a large one. That’s why it’s essential that people speak up early—and when they’re still able to—before injustice spreads.

I recently read a book that I had been meaning to for many years: The Gulag Archipelago by Alexander Solzhenitsyn. It’s a harrowing, first-hand, and well-researched account of Stalin’s gulag imprisonment system, which ran from 1929 to 1958.

One question kept going through my mind as I was reading it: how could this have happened? How could Russian society allow—and often aid—in the systematic incarceration, torture, and murder of an estimated 18 million (mostly innocent) people?

I think the book illustrates three core answers to this question. And these three answers are not only relevant to today, but essential to learn to avoid future atrocities. And I would argue, very important to remember on a much, much smaller scale, within labour relations.

First, the assumption that anyone who was being arrested deserved it. Solzhenitsyn writes, “Imprisoned, the Soviet person reasoned in the following way: I personally am innocent, but any methods are justified in dealing with those others, the enemies.”

Second, that despite what was happening, it was for the greater good. Solzhenitsyn notes that ideology is “the social theory which helps to make his acts seem good instead of bad in his own and others’ eyes, so that he won’t hear reproaches and curses but will receive praise and honors.”

Third, the hope of escaping punishment, and the promise of advancement justified for not speaking out. Chillingly, in the dystopian future of Ray Bradbury’s cautionary tale of Fahrenheit 451, a distraught character explains, “Mr. Montag, you are looking at a coward. I saw the way things were going, a long time back. I said nothing. I’m one of the innocents who could have spoken up and out when no one would listen to the ‘guilty,’ but I did not speak and thus became guilty myself. And when finally they set the structure to burn the books, using the firemen, I grunted a few times and subsided, for there were no others grunting or yelling with me, by then. Now, it’s too late.”

There’s a well-known saying that applies to all of the above: all it takes for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing.

Within a workplace context, you could have an employer who justifies their abuse of power over workers because it’s for the greater good that the company profit. You could have many of the workers not saying anything because those being impacted are believed to deserve it, and if you complain or say something, you might be the one in trouble.

I’m always impressed with those brave enough to begin a new organizing drive at their workplace. Many others are in the exact same position but decide it’s better to keep their head down.

However, a bold few decide that they need to fight and work for justice and respect. These people all share one common trait of needing to do the right thing and wanting to help others.

Solzhenitsyn writes, “We have forgotten another concept of valor—civil valor. And that’s all our society needs, just that, just that, just that!”

Injustice usually begins on a small scale. If it’s allowed to continue, more and more suffer. Thank you to all those brave workers who speak up and stand up for the protection and good of the workplace and society!

All It Takes for Evil to Triumph

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