Red Dusk and the Morrow · Theme
The Peasantry and Rural Life Under Bolshevism
How Red Dusk and the Morrow develops The Peasantry and Rural Life Under Bolshevism.
Through encounters like that with 'Uncle Egor,' the book explores the plight of the peasantry, who were exploited by grain requisitions, forced communes, and disenfranchisement, revealing deep rural resentment and a longing for a 'Master' to restore order.
Where it surfaces
- VIII: A Village “Bourgeois-Capitalist”
Uncle Egor's story illustrates the Bolsheviks' exploitation of peasants through Committees of the Poor and forced communes, disenfranchising hardworking individuals.
- X: The Sphinx
The chapter ends by focusing on the peasantry as the 'Russian Sphinx,' whose inscrutable nature will determine the future of the regime.
- XI: The Red Army
Peasants are described as tractable and leaderless, recruited deceptively into the Red Army, and subjected to propaganda. Their resistance to both Red and White forces is noted, along with the potential for a nationwide peasant uprising.
- XIV: Conclusion
The author discusses the peasant's love for the soil, the irony that Communism made peasants less communistic, and their potential for independent judgment and citizenship once freed from Bolshevik rule.