That's really the worst of it, isn't it? There are worse things than dying, and that's the surrender of once's conscience to the institutionalized lie. Robert Conquest, in his magnificent Reflections on a Ravaged Century, called it 'mindslaughter'. For everyone's benefit, let's recall what Solzhenitsyn had to say about the surrender of the inner self to totalist monsters:
Nothing like a postcard from hell to serve as a wake up call. Solzhenitsyn knew all too well what was at stake.“The state system which exists in our country is terrible not because it is undemocratic, authoritarian, based only on physical constraint - a man can live in such conditions without harm to his spiritual essence.”
“Our present system is unique in world history, because above and above its physical and economic constraints, it demands of us total surrender of our souls, continuous and active participation in the general, conscious lie. To this putrefaction of the soul, this spiritual enslavement, human beings who wish to be human cannot consent. When Caesar, having exacted what is Caesar's, demands still more insistently that we render unto him what is God's - that is a sacrifice we dare not make!”
The most important part of our freedom, inner freedom, is always subject to our will. If we surrender it to corruption, we do not deserve to be called human.”
Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, From Under the Rubble, from the essay "As Breathing and Consciousness Return" - October, 1973