Master And Margarit The Genre Of Russian Socialist Realism

Kerman discusses first, the historical necessity of Soviet paranoia towards the U.S. As Soviet philosophy began with the origins of Communist and marxist ideology, something he interprets as a constantly evolving form of social theory, with no defined edge or parameter. Kerman assumes a government built on such a philosophy would be equally disorganised. Kerman further describes such a philosophy on the workers part as a way to rationalise selfish desires, and criticises the original doctrine as being ill thought out for future circumstance thus valuing the larger scale communist government as poorly managed, with no organisation of industry and ill fit definitions on how to fit the truly lower class, peasants, which would not fit under the liberated 'proletariat.' class, into society. Kerman feels it necessary to point out that the average Russian have no understanding of their nations economy. Kerman discusses how the original rise of Communism as a minority seizing a nation and then forcing their ideals onto a

If these were the discourse narratives, then how did they affect worker roles, and worker positionally in the Soviet landscape discussed in Bol’shevik? If the individual, indeed did have an active part to play, what was that part and how was he supposed to achieve it? Even more importantly, what if the state failed to create the tools necessary to assume that role? This ideological narrative mimics similar threads of discourse discussed previously. It is important to realize the conflicting messages the journal sent to the reader. The resulting analysis finds that the rhetoric reflected a dichotomy of state control and worker agency. While the worker was presented as the one solely able to complete the national narrative, the party created

At this point, Solzhenitsyn begins his critique of the Western world; his first major point being the West’s “decline in courage” (2). “The Western world has lost its civil courage, both as a whole and separately, in each country, each government, each political party and of course in the United Nations. Such a decline in courage is particularly noticeable among the ruling groups and the intellectual elite, causing an impression of loss of courage by the entire society” (2-3). Solzhenitsyn suggests—years ahead of his time—that the West is growing weary in their opposition of threats to their society, such as the Marxism-Leninism of the Soviet Union. This is what

Next, Gessen spoke of a story from her new book, “The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia.” She mentions Aleksandr Zinovyev (or so I believe) a Russian sociologist. However, the intrigue of Zinovyev is that his field of study, Sociology, was banned since the 1920s. Surprisingly, Zinovyev was approved by the Soviet Union for one single study. In his unpublished study, he hypothesized the theorem of “Homo Sovieticus,” otherwise known as the “Soviet man.” The “Soviet Man” was a result of the revolution and the accompanying terrors. The study’s theory gave that the “Soviet Man”

Richard Edward Pipes is a Polish raised American citizen with a long history of Russian publications from a western liberal-conservative lens.[footnoteRef:1] An extreme loyalist to the anti-communist movement, he has three publications relevant to this week?s discussion. He began with the historically significant publications of The Russian Revolution and A Concise History of the Russian Revolution that were followed during the revisionist period with Three "Whys" of the Russian Revolution. He openly acknowledges the influence on his objectivity by living in post Russian revolution Poland in several of his publications. [1: . Http://facebook.com/alphahistory, "Historian: Richard Pipes," Russian Revolution, 2015, accessed November 08, 2016,

The early half of the twentieth century was fraught with disputes, revolutions, and wars in many parts of the world, as the oppression of old-world feudal systems and imperialistic regimes began to deteriorate, Eric Blair, a satirist known by the pseudonym George Orwell, saw the aftermath of the Russian Revolution of 1917 as an ill-omened, cautionary tale of the future. As a Socialist, which Orwell considered himself to be, he supported the theoretical ideals of Karl Marx’s vision of a successful Communistic state; however, the aftermath of the revolution in Russia in 1917 only served to illuminate the intrinsic flaws of humankind and the innate difficulties of Communism, which led to its inevitable downfall, forcing Orwell to condemn Communism.

“After the cessation of Ukrainization, came a wave of repression, hundreds of thousands of people were sent to labour camps in Siberia. “In 1932, the communist party began requiring writers to follow the theory Socialist Realism. Many Ukrainian writers who did not adhere to the official style were imprisoned or executed, particularly during Stalin’s purges of the 1930s.”

Solzhenitsyn explains how Russia democracy lasted for eight months, from February to October 1917 and did not exist before neither after that moment. Nevertheless, before this period, he noticed, people of Russia were suffering to a much lesser extent than after the introduction of the ideologically constructed people’s government. Solzhenitsyn thought that the Soviet society was denying fair and legal treatment of its people and, he blamed the West for being unreasonably realistic. Solzhenitsyn was considered a hero for raising awareness for the Gulags and the forced labor systems that Russia was built upon. Solzhenitsyn, I think wanted to maintain Soviet structures because of the lack to democratic position and experience.

This group was named after Mikhail Petrashevsky, who collected banned books, mainly with socialist content, and used them to encourage criticism of the social order in Russia, notably against serfdom (Bird 378). Dostoevsky’s brief involvement with these radicals represent a time in his life where he was realizing his own values. Reforming the social order intertwined with Dostoevsky's opposition to nationalism as well as the clear social distinctions between the rich and poor that surrounded him in Russia (Kantor 332); however, as he aged, Dostoevsky lessened his socialist views in favor of more Tsarist tendencies, which favored the aristocracy (Auweele 280). In the journals written at the end of his life, Dostoevsky wrote, “We are all nihilists,” epitomizing his development from complete faith in socialism to the belief that life is meaningless (Bird 8). Dostoevsky's changing ideologies ultimately influenced his style of writing and the major themes and subject areas of his

Summary on the excerpt from Herrala’s book relating to Shostakovich highlights the restrictions and influences on Russian journalistic publications in relation to composers under Soviet Russia. It claims that there was a notable shift in social policy after the formations of the “artistic affairs committee”. The excerpt of the source largely analysis’s journalistic publications of the era, of which the credibility can be questioned due to political influence. Regardless of the credibility it does provide evidence that publications of the time severely damaged Shostakovich’s career and influenced stricter controls placed on music. This source will support the social realism aspect of the essay.

According to Karl Marx, capitalism is a necessary condition for the occurrence of a communist revolution since it is a system that is highly exploitative and unjust in nature. A capitalist state was seen by Marx as a tool that was used to legitimise the benefits a minority, known as the bourgeois, gained at the expense of the majority. Since under the system of capitalism, the private ownership of the means of production is not only allowed but also protected by the state, resources are thus monopolised by a minority, which forces the majority of population to have to work for this small group of individuals to earn a living. In doing so, the capitalists, by paying the workers less than their labour’s worth, seek not only to exploit them, but also actively condemn them to a life of poverty. Since state institutions are established only to cater to the needs of the capitalists and to ensure the continued oppression of the workers, they were regarded by Marx as both oppressive and dehumanising. Workers were in effect forced to work to survive,

History of the Russian Revolution by Leon Trotsky examines the Russian Revolution throughout the three volumes of his novel, starting with his stance as to how revolutions emerge and he progresses to the 1917 revolution that led to the establishment of the Soviet Union. Throughout this book, Trotsky describes the events as an objective matter instead of a personal memoir, despite having lived through the event, which made the book more effective and educational despite being heavily biased.

Russian Constructivism was a movement in Russia that supported the goals of the socialist/communist revolution. It borrowed ideas from Cubism, Suprematism, and Futurism. It employed the idea of constructing objects differently and entirely new, because it wanted to abolish the old and everything that was concerned with tradition. The purpose of this was to model for the public how constructing a new society, a communist society, would be. Russian Constructivism employs Marxism as a theory, because they both center around politics and objects. There was a clear political motivation, specifically a Marxist one, for the Constructivists. Trotsky’s “Literature and Revolution” argues how art

First I spent five years in an unsuitable profession (The Indian Imperial Police, in Burma), and then I underwent poverty and the sense of failure. This increased my natural hatred of authority and made me for the first time fully aware of the existence of the working classes, and the job in Burma had given me some understanding of the nature of imperialism: but these experiences were not enough to give me an accurate political orientation. Then came Hitler, the Spanish Civil War, etc. By the end of 1935 I had still failed to reach a firm decision. The Spanish war and other events in 1936-37 turned the scale and thereafter I knew where I stood. Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism, as I understand it. It seems to me nonsense, in a period like our own, to think that one can avoid writing of such subjects. Everyone writes of them in one guise or another. It is simply a question of which side one takes and what approach one follows. And the more one is conscious of one 's political bias, the more chance one has of acting politically without sacrificing one 's aesthetic and intellectual integrity."

Orwell first implies similarities between the two governments through yearly agendas, referred to as the “9th 3 year plan” in 1984 and the “Five Year Plan” in Soviet Russia (Rathbone 1). The death of Vladimir Lenin left Josef Stalin and Leon Trotsky in a deep power struggle. Stalin gained power in 1928, which began the Soviet Union’s first biggest step: spreading the economic belief of communism. The plan’s fundamental purpose was to “convert the USSR from an agrarian and weak country, dependent upon the caprices of the capitalist countries” (5) into a economically self-sustained country. Since the October Revolution in 1917, main economic practices such as agriculture and primary industry practices “had been sluggish” (1). World War I did not help this economic production crisis. In 1984, it is learned that main economic