Mother by Maxim Gorky

Madonna of the Revolution

Following the Russian Revolution and the formation of the Soviet Union, socialist realism became the prevailing, government-approved mode of artistic expression in the USSR. In the literary realm, Maxim Gorky is the epitome of this school of writing. None other than Joseph Stalin called Gorky “the founder of socialist realism.” Gorky didn’t merely write in this style in order to toe the party line; he helped draw the party line. In the early years of the 20th century, Gorky, a colleague of Vladimir Lenin, was active in the formation of the Bolshevik Party and an outspoken voice for Revolution. His novel Mother, published in 1906, is Gorky’s best-known work from this early period in his career. After the defeat of the First Russian Revolution of 1905, Gorky wrote Mother to inspire and motivate socialist revolutionaries in the struggle against the Tsar. Because the Tsarist regime banned the novel, it was first published in English in the pages of Appleton’s Magazine.

Pelageya Nilovna Vlasova, a Russian wife and mother, lives in an unnamed factory town with her husband and son. The husband, an alcoholic who repeatedly beats her, dies unexpectedly, leaving Vlasova to raise her young son Pavel by herself. When Pavel grows into manhood and becomes a factory laborer himself, he gets involved with the underground proletarian movement to incite a socialist revolution against the oppressive monarchical government of Tsar Nicholas II. Soon, Pavel is inviting groups of bohemian types to his home to read from forbidden literature and engage in discussions on political topics. At first the mother is frightened of this movement, but, like a good parent who loves her son, she accepts his guests with politeness. As she gets to know these young people, her fears diminish and she develops a genuine affection for them. As Vlasova listens to the socialist rhetoric of her son and his friends, she gradually becomes a believer in the movement. Eventually, she actively participates in the group’s activities, carrying out missions for this cell of revolutionaries.

Although Gorky may be the posterchild for Soviet socialist realism, his work does have merit above and beyond its propaganda value. In fact, American writers like Jack London and Upton Sinclair published some novels that are just as blatantly propagandistic than this one. London’s The Iron Heel and Sinclair’s The Jungle, however, are also clearly better written than Mother. For starters, Mother is unnecessarily long. Russian authors seem to have a propensity for monumentality in their works, but while authors like Tolstoy, Pasternak, and Sholokhov manage to maintain the reader’s interest over the course of their long works, Gorky’s Mother is too monotonous and repetitive. There are too many scenes of the mother sitting around someone’s kitchen with a few revolutionaries talking about how to distribute political pamphlets. The distribution of socialist literature is really the only revolutionary activity that the reader gets to see this underground network perform, which seems unrealistically kind and gentle for a cadre of insurrectionists. Also hard to believe, the goal of Pavel and his friends seems to be to get themselves arrested and exiled to Siberia. It is a source of pride with them, but hardly seems fruitful to their cause. Beyond a few main players, it is difficult to distinguish the supporting characters, who are mostly nondescript mouthpieces for Gorky’s socialist rhetoric.

Even Gorky admitted that this novel has its faults. That doesn’t detract, however, from the fact that the book does contain a few very powerful scenes of oppression and resistance. The possibility that Mother may be one of the most influential novels of the 20th century is due more to its political content than to its literary merits. Nevertheless, the book would not have had such an impact if Gorky hadn’t the ability to inspire pathos and passion in his readers, as he occasionally does here in Mother.
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