The Disconnection Inside Socialism in Omon Ra by Victor Pelevin

The Disconnection inside Socialism

The obvious benefits of communism are shadowed by the dark truth that the ruling party and their agenda will effectively alienate the common people in order to protect the state. As history has shown, socialism on a large scale has evolved from theory to tyrannical regimes that embody the same principals of sustaining a dictatorship. “Omon Ra” by Victor Pelevin, published in 1992 by the Tekst Publishing House in Moscow, gives great insight into the structure of a Leninist hierarchy in a post WWII Russian setting. Throughout the novel the main character Omon is constantly and slowly separated from his family, friends, and peers until his mind has adopted a reality of complete isolation from the rest of his “comrades”.

The book is written in first person and Omon opens with a narrative about his family and the origin of his name. OMON is a Russian abbreviation for a Special Forces detachment that his father has worked for his entire life. His older brother passed away in the fourth grade from meningitis. His lone memory of his mother involves a drunken tirade from his father. She passed away when he was very young. Omen was raised by his aunt and visited his alcoholic father on the weekends. His aunt was “indifferent” towards him and arranged it so that he spent most of his time at various camps and “extended day care groups”.

As a child Omen was obsessed with flight and he imagined himself soaring far above conventional flying machines into the “bottomless black pit of space”. In the exploration of his interests, in the Cosmos Pavilion at the Industry Achievements Expo, Omen met his best friend Mityok. When they met, Mityok “was wearing a leather helmet with shiny black Bakelite earphone...

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... to defeat the individualists and alienate the innocent. Omen was forced to grow up and face mortality soon after high school in a country that was not at war. After learning of the murder of his friend Mityok, Omen had nobody left that he could relate to. The deception of the mission and necessity for the “academy” to be under the control of the first office of the KGB, represents the disconnection inside socialism. The first office in any state institution is usually in charge of monitoring political conformity and the handling of state secrets. Therefore, “what would the first department of the KGB itself do?” Although Omen survives he is lead into a rail car where his depiction of his experience is virtually that of the mission. He was safe on a train and still felt that he was alone on the moon making his way to the point where he would eventually die.