Wherever there is revolution, there are artists and intellectuals working behind the scenes to rouse the people into action. In colonial America, it was “Common Sense” by Thomas Paine and “Concord Hymn” by Emerson. In revolutionary Russia, Dmitry Furmanov was responsible for creating the call to action in his novel “Chapaev.” Typical of the World War I era, it glorifies battle and celebrates the power of youth. Furmanov depicts “courageous” young men “indissolubly linked together,” motivating Russia’s youth to respond to a higher calling ((Dmitry Furmanov, Chapev, (1923)). Chapaev is unique in Russia’s class-based society as it calls to everyone; the misfits, the poor, the hungry, the handsome, and the well-to-do are all welcome under Chapeau’s watchful eye. Furmanov creates a romanticized story where even the peasants can find food and happiness – appealing to the many who had nothing under the current regime and inspiring even more to rise up and fight.
Similarly, the poem “We Grow Out of Iron,” by Aleksei Gastev, also uses powerful language and wording to create images of the weak becoming powerful and overthrowing their oppressors. Gastev, himself a factory worker, manipulates the vision of the poem by choosing a relatively low level of syntax, while still planting the idea of revolution in a manner that relates to the audience. His word choice, particularly in the fourteenth line, when he says “I too am growing shoulders of steel and arms immeasurably strong,” empowers the people ((Aleksel Gastev, We Grow Out or Iron, (1914)). “I too” has a twofold meaning – not only is he participating in the revolution, just like the commoners, the sailors, and the peasants, but he is struggling, yet overcoming, setting the expectation that others will too. Authors like Furmanov and Gastev were the driving force behind the revolution – not the revolution of the intellectuals, who tended to plan without action, but the revolution of the people, who stirred at the calling of freedom and the end of tyranny.
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The Russian Working Class
Both “We Grow out of Iron” by Gastev and “Chapaev” by Furmanov dealt with the feelings of the working class during the Soviet takeover of Russia.
“We Grow out of Iron” is a propaganda poem glorifying hard work, an idea that was spread throughout the Soviet Union. While this poem could be dismissed as a piece of propaganda, it is more than that. Gastev was from the poor, working class. Without the breaking down of the class system, he would most likely have never been able to write his poetry. It makes sense that Gastev would love and support the Soviet Union because communism gave him a chance to be more than just a worker. Unfortunately, during Stalin’s perversion of communist ideology, Gastev was killed. But under idealistic communism, Gastev flourished.
In “Chapaev,” the main character, Fyodor, is a member of the working class, just like the author, Furmanov. As an urban worker, Fyodor is skeptical of Chapaev because he is a peasant. While Fyodor admires Chapaev, he is unsure of the peasants’ commitment to the Soviet cause. He believes peasants are more likely to switch sides spontaneously than the urban workers. Furmanov highlights the distinctions between the rural peasants and urban workers even more when it is revealed that the middle-aged Chapaev only recently learned to read. The story deals with many stereotypes held by the urban workers about the peasants, such as peasants are backwards and uncontrollable.
Both Gastev and Furmanov write about the experience of urban workers at the beginning of the Soviet Union. Both these authors show urban workers at the heart of the political upheaval in Russia as one ideology replaced another.
Gastev and Chapaev
Aleksel Gastev, Vladimir Kirillov, and Mikhail Geraismov all wrote their poetry about the machine’s growing importance and the growth of industry in Russia. All three were proletarians and believed that the revolution and change Russia needed was to be found on factory floors. Gastev’s “We Grow Out of Iron” compares the newly built iron factory to his own new importance and strength. The strength of iron is reflected in the boldness of the revolutionaries and Gastev considers himself one of them. In Kirillov’s “The Iron Messiah”, he describes the changes to Russian society such as mass production as a messiah destroying the prisons of the past and helping Russia progress into modern labor. Gerasimov’s “We” exalts the varied creations of the collective revolutionaries, from artwork to architecture.
Dmitry Furmanov wrote Chapaev in 1923 to recount his own experiences as the political commissioner of the Chapaev division in the Urals during the Civil War and described the political tension, power struggles, and discipline issues within the troop of mostly peasant soldiers and their charismatic leader. Furmanov ruminates on why it is that most of the heroes in war are peasants, concluding that their rage at their poor quality of life is what leads them to succeed at protests and wars. At the end of the excerpt, Furmanov insists that not only boldness but also knowledge are needed to win a war.