The unmaking of man

‘Don’t people decrease in their sense of life when buildings increase?’ Voshchev hesitated to believe. ‘Man will make a building and unmake himself. Who will live in it then?’ Andrei Platonov. The Foundation Pit.

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To be avenged

By the lamp sat the activist at his mental labor: he was drawing graphs for the record in which he wished to enter all the data concerning the welfare of the poor and middle peasantry, so there would be a permanent, formal picture and experience, as a basis. ‘Write down my goods, too!’ said Voshchev, [...]

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On the way

It was clearly stated on the posters that the whole proletariat must stand firmly on the way to industrial development. This enlightened Makar at once: first he must find the proletariat, underneath the proletariat would be the way… Makar in Andrei Platonov’s Makar the Doubful

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The good of the nation

‘…I am going to steal this book from here because this is an institution, and tomorrow you and I will go to any office and say that we are workers and peasants. You and I will sit down in some administrative office and start thinking for the good of the nation.’ … ‘We are [...]

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Hunger and want

…in those days there were universities and academies in all the districts because the people wanted to advance their knowledge as quickly as they could; like hunger and want, the senselessness of life had tormented the human heart too long, and it was high time to find out what the existence of men was all [...]

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Ah, the refreshing optimism of a socialist

‘The revolution is here for good, now it’s all right to have children,’ Nikita said. ‘There’ll never be unhappy children again.’The Potudan River – Andrei Platonov

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