Living at these harsh conditions made me think much about crime and deception. How much would I bend my conscience to save myself and my family?
I will give a couple examples from the lives of great soviet artists. Bulat Okudzhava was drafted in 1941 to fight in World War II. He was very naive and patriotic, and as other drafted soldiers were excited by the opportunity to fight for the Soviet empire. His parents were arrested at the time as dissidents. While he was in the initial drafting camp, his aunt came over, bribed an officer and Okudzhava was sent to a brief military education course, while his other buddies were sent to the front. He didn't realize at the moment that this was a result of the bribe. In any case, all his buddies were killed right away and he survived, later becoming a popular grassroots songwriter and singer.
Another soviet artist Innokentiy Smoktunovsky survived in an even harder way. He was also young when drafted, sent to the front and captured by the enemy. He was smart to realize that as a Jew he had no chance of surviving if taken to a concentration camp. So he managed to kill his guard and to escape. He nearly died from hunger, but was saved by peasants and joined a partisan squad. After the war was over he was smart enough to realize that returning to big cities is futile since he was a Jew and had been in enemy's captivity - this was a crime at the time. So he voluntarily hid in extreme north locations serving as a theater actor. Since great actors were deported to the same place, he ended up in a good company, and as the political climate softened, he became one of the best soviet actors and succeeded in transforming soviet theater by humanizing the way of acting.
Both Okudzhava and Smoktunovsky survived by utilizing deceit and crime. By the norms of the times, it was well justified.
A classic example of deceivers is spies. They live double and sometimes multiple lives and they do that by splitting their mind into multiple personalities. They have to be good actors and they constantly are hiding a part of their personality from others. Spies are sometimes well rewarded for their work. Being a spy offers a rewarding feeling of superiority. Spies often feel being a chosen cast, special superhumans, on a mission, above law and morals.
Some spies are loyal to their country, some to their comrades and some are completely disillusioned and disconnected from all. Due to the fragmentation of the mind, they still can behave normally, and part of them may be quite positive.