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THE WORKER AS RADICAL In the autobiography of I

In the autobiography of Ivanovich Kanatchikov, A Radical Worker in Tsarist Russia, Kanatchikov is radicalized by his work experience. He lives at a time of major change as many of the peasant class who worked the farms were being transferred by circumstances and economic change to urban factories where the work was very different. The radicalization of this worker takes place as he moves from the rural to the urban region, from farm work to factory work, from a state of political apathy to a state of political concern, and from worker to radical.

Kanatchikov's early life is in the rural regions, and there is no indication that this was some sort of ideal life later changed by the harshness of the factories. The life of the peasant was no better and perhaps worse than that of the factory worker, and Kanatchikov indicates this in the beginning when he says there is nothing outstanding about his childhood except that he survived:

I wasn't devoured by a pig, I wasn't butted by a cow, I didn't drown in a pool, and I didn't die of some infectious disease the way thousands of peasant children perished in those days, abandoned without any care during the summer harvest season (3).

The move to the city made by the young man was a manifestation of the usual desire of youth to get away from home an make it on their own, but in addition, Kanatchikov wanted toe scape from the monotony of village life and from the despotism and religious teaching of his father. The boy was sixteen at the time and was sent as an apprentice to the "Gustav List" engineering works, where he went to work in the painting shop.

Kanatchikov is at first taken with the nature of the city, with the sights and sound and with the people he encounters. He describes Moscow as a "stunning" place, and he sees this as a luxurious world compared to the one he left behind. Even so, there is a certain sense of alienation that comes over the boy just from expos...

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THE WORKER AS RADICAL In the autobiography of I. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 11:58, March 28, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1707880.html