"Actually, we didn't get lost," the tall one says. "We
ran away."
"Not running away so much as just
stumbling onto this spot and deciding to stay put," the brawny one
adds. "That's different from getting lost."
"Not
just anybody can find this place," the tall soldier says. "But we did,
and now you have too. It was a stroke of luck--for us, at least."
"If we hadn't found this spot, they would've shipped us
overseas," the brawny one ex-plains. "Over there it was kill or be
killed. That wasn't for us. I'm a farmer, originally, and my buddy
here just graduated from college. Neither one of us wants to kill
anybody. And being killed's even worse. Kind of obvious, I'd
say."
"How 'bout you?" the tall one asks me. "Would
you like to kill anybody, or be killed?"
(Kafka on the Shore, tr.
by Philip Gabriel)
Why does the first phrase have bare infinitive?
(If the first be an it-cleft, CGEL says the type is normally inadmissible (p.1422), and Bas Aarts also says in his book to infinitives are allowable not in it-cleft but only in pseudo-cleft.)
Answer
The first phrase is not an it-cleft, which is clear from the complete lack of a subordinating clause. An it-cleft is it + be + X[usually NP] + subordinate clause
it + was + the fall from the cliff + that killed him
Note that an it-cleft does not have a to-infinitive.
kill or be killed is an idiomatic phrase, a single lexical unit sometimes called a Siamese Twin, that describes a situation. The first phrase is actually a simple declarative sentence "It was X" describing a situation or state.
It was crowded
It was dangerous
It was noisy
It was do or die
It was kill or be killed
The second phrase is part of a question, asking "Would you like to X?" As it is asking about a like, it has a to-infinitive.
Would you like to eat?
Would you like to sleep?
Would you like to kill?
To-infinitives are commonly used when talking about thoughts or feelings:
He chose/wanted/decided/liked/hated/expected/hoped/etc to shoot his enemy
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