Isolation In Boris Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago

The first section of Fitzpatrick’s essay discusses how Marxism was such an important part to creating classes during the Bolsheviks rule in the beginning of the 20th Century. She notes that this western belief system was popular with Russian intellectuals, especially on revolutionary left. (173) However, around the 1890’s industrialization was starting to catch up with the Marxist dreams, and the first soviets were founded in Moscow and Petersburg in 1905 helped bring down the tsarist regime in February 1917 (Suny 173).

Russia, as a country, has had a long and proud history. However, for a small time starting in 1917, things started to take a turn for the worse. There was widespread famine, disease, and killing by the instituted government. There was also no Russia. Instead, there was the glorious United Soviet Socialist Republics, or the USSR. This new country did not come around peacefully, but instead under the 1917 Russian Revolution and the revolting communist Bolsheviks. The Russian people were not in a better condition after the Russian revolution due to Stalin’s leadership of his country; the reason being the GULAGs that Stalin was sending his people to, the communes that the peasants were sent to, and the disastrous effects of his five year plans.

This essay shall address the issue of how the far the brutality of Bolshevik Regime ensured the maintaining of it’s power between the years of 1917-24. This essay shall explore topics concerning the ‘Dictatorship Of The Proletariat’, The Cheka, War Communism, The Red Terror and other potential reasons for the Bolsheviks remaining in power. This essay shall also explore the various views put forth by various Historians such as Robert Conquest and Richard Pipes.

The concoction of communist regime caused paranoia within the people which lead to riots. The history of the Soviet Union greatly contributed to this unjustified fear. During the nineteenth century, Karl Marx, a revolutionary socialist, wrote the “Communist Manifesto” which presented the idea of Communism. In this political ideal, property is publicly owned and workers are paid to extent of their abilities and needs. Nowhere does the theory state dictatorship or any type of totalitarian government. This revolutionary speculation remains as Russia’s greatest achievements in history and unforgotten. However when Vladimir Lenin took control of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in 1917,

We received no food. We lived on snow; it took the place of bread. The days resembled nights, and the nights left in our souls the dregs of their darkness. The train rolled slowly, often halted for a few hours, and continued. It never stopped snowing. We remained lying on the floor for days and nights, one on top of the other, never uttering a word. We were nothing but frozen bodies. Our eyes closed, we merely waited for the next stop, to unload our dead. (100)

It can be argued that Leon Trotsky’s naïve personality is what failed him in the attempt to achieve power, but through his intelligence and sturdy leadership, he shaped the Russian and International history to the way it is today. Through his main roles as ‘Commissar for Foreign Affairs’, ‘Commissar for War’ and the political position in the Politburo, Trotsky impacted society by his efforts in control and fight for power, and his aim to spread his communist ideals of ‘comintern’ (Communist

The soviets lives their lives in a way that was purely beneficially to the state, they did not question the government, stray from their spouses, created a good family environment, and were selfless. However, when it came to divorce cases, “…decisions were based on an assumption of the uncontrollability of love and the fragility of marriage.” (Suny 390) This, along with plaintiffs and defendants revealing “a determined pursuit of personal, rather than social, goals.” (Suny 390), effected Khrushchev’s goals for societal change, were people care primarily for the state, and are “untroubled by family problems, conflicting emotions, and illicit desires.” (Suny 390) Philosophers thought that they could change people and control their personal lives, but with most judges ignoring the morality, and others doing the same- there was not the structure that Khrushchev needed to reach his

Doctor Zhivago, a 1965 film based on a Russian novel of the same name, tells the story of Yuri Zhivago and how his life was constantly changed throughout the Russian revolution. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich describes the daily routine that Ivan Denisovich Shukhov, an inmate in a labor camp, goes through for eight years to fulfill his sentence.

From Stalin’s Cult of Personality to Khrushchev’s period of De-Stalinization, the nation of the Soviet Union was in endless disarray of what to regard as true in the sense of a socialist direction. The short story, This is Moscow Speaking, written by Yuli Daniel (Nikolai Arzhak) represents the ideology that the citizens of the USSR were constantly living in fear of the alternations of their nation’s political policies. Even more, the novella gives an explanation for the people’s desire to conform to the principles around them.

Modern Germany can get very cold in the winter, being in cold climates can make it difficult to survive. Underground, the escapers did not have heat to warm them from the chillThe author provided a reference to the snow in te story because ot showed the aducince how determined the men were to pursue thier escape plans. No matter what got in the way, the prisoners contunued to strive and complete their goal of survival. The Snow makes a lot of things difficult in the plan. However, the men were brave enough to contuie using tatics and hardwork to surive. Often times in stories authors intentioally put in obstacles or elemnts that make a reference to how strong the characters are. By putting the snow, it showed how the men would handle the escape

The Russian Revolution is a widely studied and seemingly well understood time in modern, European history, boasting a vast wealth of texts and information from those of the likes of Robert Service, Simon Sebag Montefiore, Allan Bullock, Robert Conquest and Jonathan Reed, to name a few, but none is so widely sourced and so heavily relied upon than that of the account of Leon Trotsky, his book “History of the Russian Revolution” a somewhat firsthand account of the events leading up to the formation of the Soviet Union. There is no doubt that Trotsky’s book, among others, has played a pivotal role in shaping our understanding of the events of The Revolution; but have his personal predilections altered how he portrayed such paramount

Lenin believed that until he obtained European support and the ensuing transition to a communist society was complete, laws were necessary “to suppress the resistance of classes hostile to the proletariat.” This acting law became a “dictatorship of the proletariat; [Lenin] instructed his followers to ‘use both corruption and the threat of general extermination’” to ensure the authority of the temporary dictatorship. Still under Lenin, Stalin proposed a policy later known as Stalinism, a theory that sanctioned an unlimited and no longer temporary Soviet dictatorship with the radical intent of employing Socialism in a single country. Stalin appealed to that “Great Russian chauvinism” and to the Bolsheviks and many citizens who retained a fervent Communist idealism . The Socialist cause was the authority that justified both Lenin and Stalin’s ruthless regimes. “Marxism gave [the dictators] a monopoly upon the truth, and possession of the truth meant for Bolsheviks ‘everything was permitted’. The Party would never forget that it had taken power as an enlightened minority acting on behalf of a majority ignorant of its best interests. It was ideology, not a mandate, that legitimized the party.”

Zhivago may also be considered the way the Russian Revolution failed in terms of their free love experiments. Due to the war, Dr. Zhivago found comfort mainly in three women: Tonya, Lara, and Marina. He loved each of the them differently, and each women served a purpose in Dr. Zhivago’s life. Tonya provided him with stability in his home life, Lara gave Dr. Zhivago an escapist world full of naive notions of romance. Marina also gave him stability and companionship, dealing with his “grumbling, sharpness, and irritability” (568). Dr. Zhivago discusses the struggles he has faced with Mischa,“It’s impossible, without affecting your health… to lay yourself out for what you'd don’t love, to rejoice over what brings you misfortune”. Despite loving each of these women in their own way, it made Zhivago unhappy, confused, and torn between all three of them. His mind was always wandering to Tonya and Lara while he was with Marina. The Communist Party claimed that love is not meant to be something between two people. The idea of free love was that capitalism has corrupted human relationships making it so that when you have monogamy, they start to view each other as possessions. The only way to liberate yourself is to have have everyone loving everyone else, so no one owns anyone. In practice however, people don’t like to live this way. Yuri’s emotional struggle and constant bouts of depression could be a metaphor for how social experiments, such as free love, did not work in favor of either the government nor the people. People like to have private relationships, most people like to raise their children separately and own objects

The article opens with a small description of the setting of the interview and the blunt fact that there was never any marriage between Yuri and her husband. But she follows this with the fact that they survived. Yuri dives into the facts of never receiving neither affirmation from her husband nor affection. She offers a sad comparison of how relationships between a male and a female animal seem better than her own marriage. This example of a marriage is given to show how important family is in Japan regardless of the level of happiness.

Although there are brief moments of happiness and love, these moments are surrounded by periods of darkness. During the revolution all of Yuri’s morals and convictions are broken as his ability to see the beauty in the simple things, which was shown early on by his ability to write poetry about a candle. This destruction of this ability is shown by his unfished work and struggle to write at the end of his life. Continuously through his life Yuri is unable to maintain a relationship with any of the women and people he loves. Even after his death Yuri’s children, born to three different women, are set to repeat the struggle he had with life. Whether his children’s futures are in exile, poverty, or uncertainty their fates were created due to the revolutions destruction of