Customer Reviews

Cement (European Classics)

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The 1920s was a great decade for Soviet literature: the works published during this era are thematically- and ideologically-diverse. Yes, there are better-written novels that came out during this period. Nevertheless, Gladkov's Cement is under-rated. I find it fun to read and re-read (which is critical, since I end up teaching it a lot) and it's definitively one of the best vehicles for getting at the tensions that plagued the Bolsheviks in the early years. Pairing this with Abram Room's film, Bed and Sofa, is a great way to address questions of gender in the early Soviet Union.

In Cement, a classic of socialist realism and an exemplar of the production novel, Fyodor Gladkov portrays the sociological effects of Communism on the inhabitants of a mountain town after the Russian Revolution as they attempt to rebuild their lives under the new economic policies of the Soviet Union. Written to a master plot that controls the most critical elements of the story, the novel illustrates major tenets of Soviet ideology. Task fulfillment is combined with the maturation of the positive hero as he transcends his selfish interests and finds self-fulfillment in the collective cause of Communism. Gleb Chumalov, having distinguished himself in Civil War battles, returns home to discover things have changed dramatically. The cement factory is idle, petit bourgeois values remain, and the local officials are not committed to a reopening of the factory. Moreover, his wife, Dasha, is now the leader of the local Women's Section of the Communist Party, and has no interest in continuing their marriage. Chumalov perceives that the battle for communist survival must now be fought on the economic front and he redirects his energies to accomplish this task. Overcoming worker apathy, red tape, and sabotage, Chumalov mobilizes the proletariat, challenges the bureaucrats, and succeeds in achieving the reopening of the factory on the fourth anniversary of the October Revolution. In a speech marking the completion of the task, Chumalov envisions a wonderful life for future generations under communism. In further development of the motif that sacrifice will lead to a common good, Serge contemplates life after his purge from the Communist Party because of his Menshevik ties: " he, Serge Ivagin, as a personality did not exist. There was only the Party and he was an insignificant item in this great organism."[1]

Katerina Clark suggests that although Cement, in many ways, exemplifies the prototypical Soviet production novel, largely due to the fact that its plot and positive heroes were imitated more than any other in Soviet fiction, especially in the 1940s when Gladkov was director of the Literary Institute, it is better viewed as an embryonic form of such novels. She concedes that Cement, written in 1925 before Stalin's rise to power, did indeed include much Pravda rhetoric, especially the theme that the fight for communist survival must be redirected to the economic front. She argues, however, that unlike the conventional socialist realist novel, Gladkov uses language and imagery of several nonpartisan highbrow literary schools of thought. Gladkov's opulent prose was repeatedly criticized, and he rewrote the novel several times in response to his critics. Notwithstanding the alterations, the hero image he projected in Gleb Chumalov remained in tact, and became a convention for later Soviet realist novels. In Clark's view, Cement demonstrates that Stalinist culture was influenced by a variety of preexisting elements and was not something that was handed down solely by the dictator himself.[2]

My research project will be on some aspect of Russian Modernism and the Russian Revolution. Socialist Realism played an important role in this period.

[1] Fyodor Vasilievich Gladkov. Cement. Evanston: Northwestern UP, 1994, 296.

[2] Katerina Clark. The Soviet Novel: History as Ritual. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 2000.

"Cement" is a reminder of time when radical socialism seemed possible. We now know that Stalinism was to come down upon the Russian Revolution. But the Bolsheviks did not know what was coming until the true nature of the future bureaucratic state rolled over them in the late 1920's. "Cement" is not a great work of literature, but it is a valuable artifact from the the years before the Five Year Plans and the GULAG crushed naive idealism in Russia.

It is my sincere hope that people interested in Russian literature are no longer forced to read this awful book. When I was in school, during the Cold War period, I could see some usefulness. Socialist Realism was the approved creative style in Russia and one could not come away from reading 20th century literature and think that everything was as well-writen as Bulgakov's Master and Margarita and Zamyatin's We. Yes, in order to understand the Soviet mind one had to read awful books like "Virgin Soil Upturned (proving that any hack can win a Nobel Prize) by Sholokhov, How Steel Was Tempered and yes, Cement.

When we were reading this book, and I have read it twice, there was an attempt to show in the example of the book's communist party heroine, that working women cannot have it all. Well quite frankly, the reason this heroine is unable to find love and happiness is because she is supporting the creation of a joyless utopia where no one will ever be allowed to be really happy.