The Cherry Orchard and the Rise of Bolshevism Essay example -- Anton C

The Cherry orchard and the Rise of Bolshevism Anton Chekhov uses The Cherry Orchard, to openly present the decline of an dingy Russian family as a microcosm of the rapid decline of the old Russia at the end of the nineteenth speed of light--but also provides an ominous foreshadowing of the 1917 Bolshevik novelty in the disparate ideals of his characters, Trofimov and Lopakhin, however unintentionally. The Gayev family and their plight is intended as a symbolic microcosm of the fall of the aristocracy in society at large. though the merchant Lopakhin is presented as the character who holds values of the new, post-aristocratic age, the student Trofimov espouses the political sentiments that pull up stakes ultimately replace both the aristocratic class and the new mercantile class. Chekhovs presenting Lopakhin as a pioneer of the new social order is undermined by the lines and role he gives to Trofimov, and the author discounts the importance of the then-emerging changearies. Yet the play reveals a major reason why Communism ultimately received precise little support from the gradual-minded middle class, which lead to a all-fired revolution and totalitarian regimes for a good part of a century. It is this insight which provides coeval critiques of socialist movements with a lesson about human nature -- a lesson that serves to understand that Communism and other forms of ideological socialism have never been workers movements, notwithstanding if the movements temporally address workers political demands. Chekhov relies on several devices to proclaim to his earreach that the changes taking place are not merely personal for the exuberant Gayev family, but are part of an inevitable social evolution. Through these devices, Chekh... ... modern revolutionaries who eventually seized Russia. Though the playwright dismisses the importance of these ideas, he offers a argument of them with those of the bourgeoisie that explains why Russian Communism arri ved through a bloody revolution and without middle-class support, and why for over seventy years of this century the world had to live with the results of the revolution. Works Cited Chekhov, Anton. The Cherry Orchard. 1903. Jacobus 792-815. ----. Letter to K.S. Stanislavsky. Jacobus 816. Jacobus, Lee, ed. The Bedford Introduction To Drama. tertiary ed. Boston Bedford Books, 1997. Levite, Allan. Guilt, Blame, and Politics. San Francisco Stanyan Press, 1998. Pritchett, V.S. Chekhov A Spirit Set Free. New York Random House, 1988. Simmons, Ernest J. Chekhov A Biography. Chicago University of Chicago Press, 1962.