Periodically, a relationship between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat can be a clouded perception, only due to the fact the proletariat will not be given the chance to speak from their point of view. This such thing is not true when it comes to the short story, “A Disgraceful Affair.” The story is based around the Russian interpretation of Marxism, shown in the forethought to the opening paragraph, in which it speaks “Our beloved motherland was experiencing a renaissance; her brave sons, fired with impulses at once touching and naïve, were seeking with an uncontrollable yearning for new destinies and hopes.” The thing that determines what they do is their social class and economic position, which in turn, affects what happens to them. The two men used to elaborate the idea are the bourgeoisie Mr. Ivan Ilyitch Pralinski, and proletariat Mr. Porfiry Petrov Pseldonymov.
“Your Excellency,” Ivan Ilyitch had only been known as such for a few short weeks, but with his statue of mind and manner, it seemed like years. He was, in his own mind, always right and if someone did not understand what he was doing or saying, they were idiotic. “And how could he fail to understand? It was more difficult not to understand than understand,” is not even a statement against a drone, but rather against another even more credible bourgeoisie than himself. To his due, he is a very brilliant man, but he lacks common respect and tries to use his position in authority to gain popularity amongst the proletariat culture. Due to his economic stature, and his social class, he believed he could do anything he pleased; which he showed by walking in on a fellow colleague’s wedding party. Under no circumstance did he know or relate to Mr. Pseldonymov, but only ...
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...e with humour, and with shortcomings, the idea of Marxism. Not only did he show two separate and very different views, but he also showed how the Marxist idea is too readily evident in everyday life. Ivan Ilyitch is not a typical bourgeoisie, but none the less he is one, so he fails to comprehend the proletariats correctly. He tries, and wants to because of his idealism, but his view of the events at the wedding party are completely opposite to those of Pseldonymov. What Ilyitch thought was not at all what Pseldymov went through, because he has never experienced it. Through the authentic proletariat voice, we can conclude that what happens to a bourgeoisie differs greatly in comparison to what happens to a proletariat. Even as much as one wants to understand the other, or be the other, society holds the barrier and even the smart well-hearted can not break through.
This was, of course, only a humorous exaggeration, a case of political satire. Yet beneath the humor, there lies a very profound testament to the belief that Russia's political culture has been inherited from its czarist days and manifested throughout its subsequent development. The traditions from the pre-Revolution and pre-1921 Russia, it seems, had left its brand on the 70-years of Communist rule. The Soviet communism system was at once a foreign import from Germany and a Russian creation: "on the one hand it is international and a world phenomenon; on the other hand it is national and Russian…it was Russian history which determined its limits and shaped its character." (Berdyaev, "Origin")
During one of the therapy and wit sessions between Rivers and Prior at Craiglockhart, we discover that class struggle is an issue plaguing Prior. Pat Barker introduces the reference to Bolsheviks on page 135 in order to have her readers strictly denounce the caste system of British society, both for the soldiers returning home, and also the women who continued to be victims of the same system in Britain during World War One.
Late eighteenth century and early nineteenth century were the years of achievement, the years of one huge reform, the years that shaped the present day in so many ways. The present day industrial workers owe their stable life, pleasant working conditions, and a variety of insurances to nothing else but these fifty four years. The struggling lives of industrial proletariat (thesis), their desire for improvement (antithesis), and the emergence of the welfare state, political democracy, trading unions, and social equality (synthesis) skillfully describe the picture of the events happening in those days.
Tsarism during the period after the 1905 revolution and the March revolution of 1917 faced a ‘wave of social discontent’ (Hobsbawm, 1995, p. 57). This was no surprise, as there was many who during that period had thought that there was a ‘straight road [to] a socialist future’ (Hobsbawm, 1995, p. 57). However many saw that there was not the means to happen in Russia at the time. Hobsbawm plants the idea of a Bourgeoisies revolution and the class struggles, combined with Karl Marx’s ideas about the impending revolutions. Centralised in Europe was the ideas of socialism and revolution. Hobsbawm reflects the ideas of the time, that they were ‘helpless’ by 1914 and by 1916 the majority followed. This was just the popular opinion of the time of the Russian public. Although he jumps between times, starting with the October revolution then jumping to the ‘overthrow(ing) of Tsarism’ (Hobsbawm, 1995, p. 57) then back to the post October revolution. This does not affect the readability of the section. It gives a well-rounded description of the period to form a good base for Part II.
Solzhenitsyn does express the evils of his own nation clearly, which becomes eerie when looking through the same lens upon which we see our own nation slipping into. He makes remarks about the soviet government controlling everything. Elections are folly; the...
The famine in Russia alone led the peasants to become angry and fed up with the Russian government, suggesting a future revolution. Because of the peasants’ unrest, they began to break the law by as stealing food for their families and shouting in the streets. Russia had attempted revolution before, and a fear of an uprising was feared again. Their everyday routi...
With this in mind, some perspective on the society of that time is vital. During this time the industrial revolution is taking place, a massive movement away from small farms, businesses operated out of homes, small shops on the corner, and so on. Instead, machines are mass-producing products in giant factories, with underpaid workers. No longer do people need to have individual skills. Now, it is only necessary that they can keep the machines going, and do small, repetitive work. The lower working class can no longer live a normal life following their own pursuits, but are lowered to working inhumane hours in these factories. This widens the gap between the upper and lower class-called bourgeois and proletariat-until they are essentially two different worlds. The bourgeois, a tiny portion of the population, has the majority of the wealth while the proletariat, t...
The creation of communist manifesto was in the midst of an era where capitalism and the bourgeoisie (capitalist class) had the prevalence of power, while social inequality between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat was obvious and hiking. The first chapter ("Bourgeois and Proletarians" discusses in general the relationship between bourgeoisie and proletariat. The chapter sheds light on the evolution of these two social classes (Rostow).
The working class--the proletariat--must work to survive. Conversely, the bourgeois own the means of production and exploit the proletariat for their labor as well as the goods produced as a result (Ollman). The characters of Fuenteovejuna fit easily within this dichotomy. The townspeople exemplify Marx’s proletariat class, working tirelessly only to have the fruits of their labor--the crops they have harvested--taken by the Commander and the other nobles. Then, the Commander and his fellow nobles exemplify the bourgeois
In the first section of Communist Manifesto, Marx explains the class struggles of the modern society, most notably found between the bourgeoisie and the proletariats. He also points out that in today’s modern society, all of the exploitive relationships that were covered by ideology (i.e. religion) have all been uncovered and revealed to be only in self-interest. Finally, he explains that the bourgeoisie need to continually change their way of leadership if they want to stay in power. The proletariats, in Marx’s opinion, go to great lengths as to how the modern laborers seem to be seen as part of the machinery and are only good for what labor they produce. Marx reveals that the proletariats are a unique class, and that they are connected by the miserable existence they share in common. He believes that they have nothing to lose, and that by being proletariats they have no powers or privileges to defend; rather, to help themselves they must destroy the entire class system. Because of this, when they have the revolution they destroy everything.
During Stalin’s regime, the individual Russian was the center of his grand plan for better or worse. Stalin wanted all of his people to be treated the same. In the factory the top producer and the worst producer made the same pay. He wanted everyone to be treated as equals. His goal to bring the Soviet Union into the industrial age put tremendous pressure on his people. Through violence and oppression Stalin tried to maintain an absurd vision that he saw for the Soviet Union. Even as individuals were looked at as being equals, they also were viewed as equals in other ways. There was no one who could be exempt when the system wanted someone imprisoned, killed, or vanished. From the poorest of the poor, to the riches of the rich, everyone was at the mercy of the regime. Millions of individuals had fake trumped up charges brought upon them, either by the government or by others who had called them o...
Marx states that the bourgeoisie not only took advantage of the proletariat through a horrible ratio of wages to labor, but also through other atrocities; he claims that it was common pract...
Modern industry has replaced the privately owned workshop with the corporate factory. Laborers file into factories like soldiers. Throughout the day they are under the strict supervision of a hierarchy of seemingly militant command. Not only are their actions controlled by the government, they are controlled by the machines they are operating or working with, the bourgeois supervisors, and the bourgeois manufacturer. The more open the bourgeois are in professing gain as their ultimate goal, the more it condemns the proletariat.
"Plekhanov and the Origins of Russian Marxism." Readings in Russian History. Ed. Sidney Harcave. Vol. 2. New York: Crowell, 1962. 80-90. Print.
These aristocrats, despite their high education and power, will do nothing to help win the war. They live like parasites on the body of Russia’s society. This is how Tolstoy describes this class in general, but he also depicts two representatives of this upper class, Andrew Bolkonsky and Pierre Bisuhov, who were the more intellectual ones, and whose lives and views of war and life changed as the result of the war. Andrew was interested in a military career, and wasn’t completely satisfied with the czar, while Pierre wasted his life on alcohol – his everyday activity.