This thumbscrew theory is opposed by the fact that Finland's present Government, including President Svinhufvud himself, has been notably anti-Prohibitionist from the start.
To Nabokov, the ultimate displaced person, the contemporary world increasingly came to appear more barbarous than the thumbscrew age of Cervantes.
Rome is still Rome, however, ready to enforce the new dogmas with some of the same thumbscrew pressure that it once used to enforce the old.