Ayn Rand’s novel, Anthem and One Day in the Life by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn similarly take place in the Communist governed Soviet Union. This form of government would completely control every aspect of its citizens lives. The heart of the government would be a strong totalitarian dictator. Both novels take place during the rule of Joseph Stalin. Stalin ruled Russia from 1929 to 1953. During his reign, Stalin incorporated a five year which was meant to increase the economy and industrial output for the country. The five year plan contained guidelines that would obtain this goal. First, citizens must act together and not as an individual. As a result, Stalin implemented collectivization into the country. This process forced all goods to be given …show more content…
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich starts off in a Soviet controlled labor camp. People were there against their own will; usually as a form of imprisonment. Soldiers in the camp forced its inhabitants into free labor. “It was that last, short, painfully sweet moment when there was no escape but everybody still pretended that the parade would never come”(Solzhenitsyn 24). The parade marked the end of all short breaks and the beginning of new work duties. This free labor aided the rise of the Soviet’s underdeveloped economy. Exhausted prisoners in these labor camps were not working for themselves, they were working for Stalin. Consequently, this increase in industrial output by forced labor, led to a dramatic decrease in the quality of consumer goods and infrastructure. “If it’s for human beings make sure and do it properly. If it’s for the big man- just make it look good” ( Solzhenitsyn 14). People had lost nearly all encouragement in the work given to them. Therefore, making the work completed decrease in overall quality. This can be seen in the deterrerating appearance of the city. Apart from the industry and economy of Russia, communism had a greater deleterious effect on the individual. In which is the primary focus of
Tucker, Robert C. "Stalinism as Revolution from Above". Stalinism. Edited by Robert C. Tucker. New York: American Council of Learned Societies, 1999.
He goes with some other workers to a state run farm outside of Magnitogorsk to help repair tractors he remarks, “everything, in fact, had been thought of, he said, 'except good land and men to work it'.”7 This was the issue with Stalin's “revolution from above” be built these grand cities that were essentially just large plants like Magnitogorsk, but the people lived in horrible conditions, the collectivized farms that were meant to support the food supply for the workers of Magnitogorsk had bad land and nobody to work to the farms. In theory Stalin's plans could work, but the people, the land, the infrastructure could not feasibly attain the end result that was needed, it just wasn’t possible. For Stalin's plans to have worked he needed to be in the right place and the Soviet Union, and the unforgiving landscape just was not it. Things got so bad that Scott writes, “ the new Bolshevik government sent inspectors to every village to look for hoarded bread.”8 Scott writes, “ during the early thirties the main energies of the Soviet Union went into construction. New plants, mines, whole industries, sprang up all over the country” but he also recalls, “the new aggregates failed to work normally.
In both 1984 and Anthem we have two major plotlines that mirror each other: a man and a
Russia in the 1930s By 1928, Stalin had ousted Trotsky and the rest of the Left opposition. In four years, Stalin had single handedly taken major steps away from Lenin’s collective leadership and free inter-party debate and replaced them with his autocratic dictatorship. Stalin began to secure predominant power over the communist party and the state by destroying passive opposition from the peasantry and former Lenin supporters. He won growing support from the working class, who were impressed with the initial five-year plan. It promised increased industrialization, which would lead to socialism in one country within their lifetime.
Anthem is a story of man’s struggle to be free and to fight the masses of conformity. It tells of human nature and the want to gain all the knowledge that one could possibly attain. Man loses his safe haven and his security when he lets this lust for knowledge overpower him and lets it be seen by others. He becomes vulnerable Like Johann Faust, Prometheus sells his life for wisdom. Unlike Faust, however, Prometheus is expelled from his society but gains his freedom of individuality and his freedom of knowledge and the ability to understand. In Anthem, Prometheus and Gaea sin against society to become singular and understanding much like Adam and Eve’s sin against God when they ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge to gain wisdom; as a result, they can be compared to each other by there desire for learning and by their damnation.
During the post World War I era, many European countries were rebuilding, and the Soviet Union saw this as a chance to catch up. The Soviet Union, under Joseph Stalin’s rule, implemented the five-year plan as strategy for rapid industrialization (Hunt, 846). A great example of Stalin’s five-year plan was the construction of Magnitogorsk, a city based around a massive factory. This construction flawlessly captured Stalin’s goals for progression, efficiency, and conquering nature (back cover). The novel Time, Forward! took place in 1932 and described, in detail, the construction of Magnitogorsk. This novel hinted at the spirit of the times. In the novel, one of the engineers, Margulies, decided to push concrete pouring to its limits. His rival, assistant chief of construction, Nalbandov wanted the downfall of Margulies, and decided to write him up. Nalbandov thought of two charges. The first was that Margulies recklessly sacrificed the quality of the cement for more cement production; this recklessness went against the current scientific understanding of concrete, and the quality would not suffice. The second would show Margulies going against Soviet policies of increasing tempos, as he did not allow the next shift to pour an even larger amount of concrete (314). The second charge was less scientific, but it was more in the spirit of the times because those who hindered progress should be punished. One may wonder, what was the spirit of the times? When Joseph Stalin came into power, he instilled in the public sphere that the Soviet Union would no longer accept backwardness (Hunt, 846). The spirit of the times was all about progress, efficiency, and conquering nature; this spirit is what pushed the Soviet Union away form their backw...
To further transform the Soviet Union, state officials encouraged citizens to help improve the literacy rate and recognize the many heroes of the socialist state. These heroes, including Joseph Stalin, “received huge amounts of fan mail and were lionized on appearances throughout the country” (72). They also encouraged the remaking of individuals, particularly through work. Before the transformation, many did not enjoy working, but “under socialism, it was the thing that filled life with meaning” (75). Numerous interviews an author had with “transformed” felons, illustrated that even criminals could be transformed into good citizens through work (76). However, Sheila Fitzpatrick argues that these interviews were “clearly a propaganda project.”
In the society of “The Anthem”, it is after the Unmentionable Times, and the word “we” is worshipped. The society is constructed that all men will rely on each other, become “brothers” of each other. However, Equality 7-2521 was a rebel. He knew that he and his brothers were just slaves of the city. He had broken many laws, and he was taller, smaller and generally healthier than his other brothers. Then, when he became fifteen, he wanted to become a Scholar, for he was very knowledgeable, but he was chosen to become a Street Sweeper. He swept the streets near the fields where the woman of Home of Peasants would work. Then, he spotted Liberty 5-3000 who was a young woman, he would always wave at her, and she would do the same. When Equality
Ironically, Communism has never existed anywhere. There has never been a system implemented in our entire history by which a society has been utterly classless. Communism would be a type of egalitarian society with no state, no privately owned means of production and no social class (Wikipedia). Today there is a selection of “Communist” states that exist in a variety of locations on our globe. Sadly, all of the claimed Communist states including the late Soviet Union were and are despicable and corrupted examples of the idea of Communism. By using Stalin as an example it is quite possible to portray to the reader a simple and effective example of the flip side of attempted Communism. Stalin took control of a weak government and crafted an illusionary Communist state. Ironically, Stalin had set himself up as the dictator of a completely totalitarian society. By using the people of Russia, he was able to harness the government and use it for his own needs. This is quite similar to 1984 with the concept of Big Brother. Although Big Brother is not a person, the inner society that controls “him” creates a Stalinist nation; this was quite purposefully included by Orwell.
Rule of Lenin vs the Tsar The beginning of the 20th century saw a great change in the political structure of the Russia. A country once led under an autocracy leadership. was suddenly changed into a communist state overnight. Dictatorship and communism are at separate ends of the political spectrum. This study so clearly shows both involve the oppression of society and a strict regime in which people are unable to voice their opinions.
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...
It has been noted, “This ‘reshaping’ had three main aspects: the elimination of all dissent; the liquidation of all forms of democracy and of working class organisation; the slashing of the living standards of the working class and the physical annihilation of millions of peasants” (Text 5). This quote explains how Stalin wanted to industrialize Russia, which includes the deaths of several peasants of Russia. The Russians did not just die from The Great Purge, but also from Stalin’s Five-Year Plan. The Five-Year Plan was an attempt to industrialize the Soviet Union. It was also a plan to increase the output of steel, coal, oil, and electricity.
As a dictator Stalin was very strict about his policies, especially working. For instance. Stalin had set quotas very high , as they were very unrealistic. The workers had very long days, and under the rule of Stalin most people worked many hours in overtime, and resulting in no pay. Stalin treated workers very, very harshly. Those who did not work were exiled to Siberia or killed. Some may say you got what you deserved in Stalin’s time. Those who worked very hard for Stalin sometimes got bonuses such as trips, or goods likes televisions and refrigerators. The workers had to conform to Stalin’s policies . Stalin’s harsh treatment of workers received a very unwelcoming response, but in fact the liberal amount of goods that the workers had made, had in fact
The Soviet economy was highly centralized with a “command economy” (p.1). fsmitha.com), which had been broken down due to its complexity and centrally controlled with corruption involved in it. A strong government needs a strong economy to maintain its power and influence, but in this case the economic planning of the Soviet Union was just not working, which had an influence in other communist nations in Eastern Europe as they declined to collapse. The economic stagnation led to the frustration of the workers because of low payments, bad working conditions, inefficiency, corruption and any lack of incentive to do good work. There were lots of frustrations among the workers in the working field who began to express their feelings and emotions towards the Soviet government.
... a change in this image to a realization that Stalin’s suppression of dissidents and opposition had real effects on soviet society and can not be justified by Marxist and Leninist Ideology instead they were just Stalin looking to maintain his autocracy.