Shigalyov:
Shigalyov attempts to create a totally free utopian society but cannot even make it work on paper, his construction concluding with "unlimited despotism". Dostoevsky's fictional failed political order predicts the later fall of the Russian communist movement into an oppressive totalitarian regime. It also suggests that such an outcome is implicit in the architecture of unlimited freedom, and cannot be avoided. How is it that one can aim for complete individual freedom, end up with a system embodying the exact opposite, and still declare that "there can be no other"? Long-eared Shigalyov wrote a book that was obviously quite interesting but (without going too far into another theme of the novel) showed the distortion his thoughts had undergone thanks to the presence of "demons" in his mind. Nevertheless, the crux of his argument was laid out fairly well by himself and the lame schoolteacher: Shigalyov "got entangled in [his] own data" while figuring out ways for a society to reach the pinnacle of communism and found that, in the end, classes still must exist. In fact, nine-tenths of the people formed a subordinate class whose will was to be removed; entire generations were to be reeducated and made into a "herd". This "herd"
The class was alternately labeled the 'intelligentsia' and even Mao Zedong said of it: ". This does not mean the author was an advocate of creating classes like Shigalyov proposes, or like what came from Leninism. One officer asks of his plan: "If you yourself weren't able to hold your system together, and arrived at despair, what are we supposed to do?" The officer points out the corruption of Shigalyov's thinking, having admitted his doctrine is flawed but still insisting that everyone follow it. The next big step in this direction was War Communism, when all businesses were nationalized and workers lost control of production. The ranks of the bureaucracy only increased when Stalin took power, to the point that it became a ruling class which oppressed and exploited workers, exactly as Shigalyov's model had done. Another major factor in Lenin/ Stalin's failure to achieve communism was the large role the government played (one that Shigalyov didn't mention but must certainly have been part of his plan). Lenin-led Russia ignored one of the basic tenets of Marxism when it afforded the vanguard special privileges over other citizens. The occupants of its ranks also had to work to support the rulers. Marxism would have had the state moving away from centralized power as it was redistributed to the proletariat, and eventually everything would have been controlled by the people. He replaced Bolshevik party members with ones who would do whatever he wanted, and ended up running the whole of Russia through the guise of a system of checks. Right from the start, though, Lenin advocated democratic centralism as being necessary to suppress opposition that might sabotage the new political order before it even got off the ground. Shigalyov's argument is explored much further in The Brothers Karamazov, where the Grand Inquisitor sees inner freedom as a "horrible burden" and most men as not being strong enough to handle it. Shigalyov's class society went against its expressed goals of equality and freedom, just like V. Social classes by any other name are still social classes, and Lenin fostered the existence of such elitism and allowed it to thrive even as it was against what he had ostensibly set out to do.
Common topics in this essay:
Leninism Dostoevsky,
Long-eared Shigalyov,
Shigalyov Communism,
Lenin-led Russia,
,
War Communism,
Lenin/ Stalin's,
Party Social,
Russia Bolshevik,
Indeed Shigalyov,
ruling class,
russian communist,
social classes,
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Acceptance Essays
