The Captain's quixotic protest nets him ten days of solitary confinement, a punishment that he has little chance of surviving. Ivan is better prepared to survive the brutal rigors of the camp. He realizes that vocal or physical protest is self-defeating, and thus, he lets more powerful people, like Tyurin and Pavlo, look out for his rights.
Ivan also realizes that there are moral limits to the struggle for survival. He believes that when one acts in a demeaning way in order to receive favors (whether it's for a cigarette butt or a place on the sicklist, or a reprieve from punishment), it leads to a loss of self-respect and, eventually, to losing the will to live. Ivan's healthy sense of self-preservation, which is not necessarily always based on being considerate and mild-mannered, refuses to adopt demeaning behavior, and, as a result, Ivan has gained a measure of respect from his fellow prisoners. By adhering to his own "code" of behavior, Ivan has kept himself alive for eight years.
