Maxim Gorky:
The man who believed in social justice
Dr Ruwan M JAYATUNGE
‘When work is a pleasure, life is a joy! When
work is a duty, life is slavery’ -Maxim Gorky
Maxim Gorky was a self-learned author, who had undying curiosity to
explore the society and discover its hidden realities. His writings
remarkably showed Gorky’s interest in social reform. He had an
outstanding ability on literature despite the interrupted education that
he received. Gorky learnt from the society. It was his University the
institution of higher education where he gathered an immense knowledge.
Orphaned at the age of 11, Gorky experienced the hardships of life.
He did a number of odd jobs and while working he developed his reading
skills. His grandmother Akulina was the most influential person in his
life. Gorky later described her as the most loving and caring human
being that he had met in his lifetime.
Maxim Gorky |
Gorky widely travelled in Russia. He became acquainted with the
lowest members of society. He elegantly wrote about people describing
their appearance, character and behaviour. His literary characters were
based mostly on outcasts Gorky had met during his travels. Among these
characters Smuri - a kind sailor, Matriona - a wicked old woman, Natalia
Kazlova - a Prostitute, Nikiparich - a Police spy, Gogaleve – an
Alcoholic, Guri Plethnikove - a young Revolutionary were incomparable
and they made a profound impact on his Autobiography.
He analyzed all these characters without judging or criticizing them.
Gorky was a Great Russian writer who emerged from the common people. He
wrote complex moral perspective on Pre Revolutionary Russia. He regarded
literature as an essential food for the human spirit. The aim of
literature as Gorky argued is to help man to understand himself, to
strengthen the trust in himself, and to develop in him the striving
toward truth; it is to fight meanness in people, to learn how to find
the good in them, to awake in their souls shame, anger, courage; to do
all in order that man should become nobly strong.
Gorky supported the Revolutionary movement in Russia, but he
relinquished the moral right for revolutionaries to use violence. Even
though the life has been built on cruelty and force in Tsar’s Russia he
never believed a revolution or a social change, which needed human blood
as fuel. Once he stated “I am capable of leading the masses, and not a
weapon in the hands of shameless adventurers of fanatics gone mad.”
In 1906 Gorky wrote his most influential novel Mother narrating the
life of a young revolutionary Pavel Vlasov and his mother Pelagea
Nilovna. After writing this novel, he was hailed as a Revolutionary
writer. Maxim Gorky was called the founder of the doctrine of socialist
realism. Gorky supported for the overthrow of the Russian Autocracy. He
openly protested against the persecution of the Jewish community in
Russia.
He openly supported the Bolshevik movement and became a close friend
of Lenin. He strongly opposed the World War 1 and had to face the heavy
criticism by the Nationalists for being unpatriotic. But Gorky believed
in human freedom and human will to thrive and stood by his principles.
When Maxim Gorky realized that the terror would follow after the
October Revolution he was disappointed. When Stalin wrote “The
Revolution neither pities nor buries its dead.” Gorky said that the
Bolshevik leaders have been poisoned by the rotten venom of power.
All his life Maxim Gorky stood for the freedom of speech and of
person and banished the Totalitarian ideology. Stalin once wanted Gorky
to write a biography of him. But the great writer declined that offer
even endangering his life. Stalin’s growing suspicion was projecting
towards Gorky as well. He was kept under close surveillance by Stalin’s
Secret Police. Gorky donated most of his income to the revolutionary
movement and he had high anticipations. He believed and widely wrote
about the social movement in Russia. But when the social movement which
he believed became another instrument of terror he was utterly
disappointed.
Struck by personal as well as social tragedies Gorky’s health
deteriorated rapidly and he died on the 18th June 1936. Some believe
that Maxim Gorky was poisoned to death on orders by Stalin.
Gorky’s work had an eternal passion for justice. It stimulated the
revolutionary feelings in Russia. His protagonists were not Kings or
Queens. They were ordinary people who experienced difficulties in
day-to-day lives. He had a great sympathy for mankind. He described the
human feelings in a wonderful romantic text. In the same time, he wrote
about hunger, social prejudices and inequality that were strongly
connected with the Human Society. |