Page "Involuntary commitment" Paragraph 98

In the former Soviet Union, psychiatric hospitals were used as prisons in order to isolate political prisoners from the rest of society.

The official explanation was that no sane person would declaim the Soviet government and Communism.

British playwright Tom Stoppard wrote Every Good Boy Deserves Favour about the relationship between a patient and his doctor in one of these hospitals.

Stoppard was inspired by a meeting with a Russian exile.