The Foundation Pit by Andrey Platonov
In Andrey Platonov’s novel The Foundation Pit, a group of labourers are tasked with laying the groundwork for a massive structure that will serve as a luxurious dwelling for the ideal future that they believe is just around the corner. But as the gang digs deeper and harder, more things go wrong, and it becomes obvious that they are not digging a foundation but a massive grave instead. The Foundation Pit, written by Platonov in direct response to the horrifying atrocities of Stalin’s collectivization of Russian farmland, is his most obviously political work. It is a work of literature as well. Platonov manipulates words in pages that mirror both the jarring doublespeak of power and the austere simplicity of prayer in an effort to depict ineffable realities.
The Foundation Pit by Andrey Platonov
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The Foundation Pit is Platonov’s darkest piece. It’s incredibly humorous, yet the humour is very dark. The background is the industrialization drive of Stalin and the collectivization of agriculture because it was written in the late 1920s. The story revolves around a crew of workmen who are meant to be excavating the foundation pit for a massive structure that will serve as the perfect residence for the entire local proletariat. As a result of the ongoing problems, it is decided to enlarge the structure by two to four times its original size. As a result, workers continue excavating a larger hole and adopt a young orphan girl as their own.
In 1930, in response to the collectivization drive, this brief novel was written. After losing his work, the main character walks to a nearby village and joins a team that is preparing the foundation for a big structure where the proletariat would live. He quickly understands that the project will never be accomplished while being surrounded by a strange collection of unfortunate personalities. A young girl who shouts revolutionary anthems and provides information about counterrevolutionaries joins them.
He and a few other diggers travel to a village halfway through the novel where there are still peasants who own their own property and even peasants who have their own servants. They take part in the eviction of these landowners and the local farms’ collectivization. Once they’ve completed their mission, they return to the pit where the book ends.
Foundation Pit depicts a time period that was concealed from those outside the Soviet Union, from many people inside that nation, and is still concealed to the majority of people now. It exposes the dogmatic blindness and stupidity of Stalin’s actions, the violence of the implemented reforms, and the dehumanization that followed.
The surrealistic quality of the universe painted in this book is a result of the peculiar propaganda language that Platonov employs to tell the story. After all, is said and done, you realize that this is a frightening reality rather than surrealism. Platonov experienced most of what he writes about while working as an engineer in rural Russia and Ukraine. Even more terrible than we had anticipated.
