Kusaimamekirai's Reviews > Virgin Soil

“And as for losing one's life; it is not all like honey to everybody. To some it is sweet, to others bitter. His life has not been over-sweet.”

“You say you want a revolution? Well you know. We all wanna change the world”. —The Beatles

I will say this about Turgenev and particularly this novel, there are few books that are more simultaneously bleak and hilarious as this one.
The communist uprising of 1918 is still a good 30-40 years away at the start of this story but there are clear signs of dissatisfaction. Not seemingly from the poor and oppressed mind you, they seem generally indifferent to politics as they simply try to survive, but rather among what amounts to well off Russians. Within this class, idealistic young people (as they are wont to do) take it upon themselves to renounce their wealth and status and “awaken” the masses.
The main representative of this school here is the university student, Nejdanov.
Nejdanov’s head is filled with revolution and not a little guilt at his own status. Through a series of connections with a motley crew of like minded scofflaws, outcasts and others, Nejdanov places his life at the mercy of vague notions of overturning the social order.
How it is to be achieved of course, nobody seems to really know. Through a series of bumbling and inept attempts to rouse the peasants, Nejdanov is heckled, beaten, inebriated against his will, and generally ignored as the peasants get on with their life. The following exchange is a nice summation of how things go for him on these trips to incite the people:

“He began shouting out the most absurd things to the peasants he met on the way. "Why are you asleep? Rouse yourself! The time has come! Down with the taxes! Down with the landlords!" Some of the peasants stared at him in amazement, others passed on without taking any notice of him, thinking that he was drunk; one even said when he got home that he had met a Frenchman on the way who was jabbering away at something he did not understand...Besides that, a dog bit my leg, a peasant woman threatened me with a poker from the door of her hut, shouting, 'Ugh! you pig! You Moscow rascals! There's no end to you!' and then a soldier shouted after me, 'Hi, there! We'll make mince-meat of you!' and he got drunk at my expense!”

Nejdanov and his friends want to be among the poor. Dress like them, talk like them, drink like them. But as he discovers, he is not like them at all. He was not born in their world, has never lived in their world, and hence can never really understand their world. We see an example of this later in the story when Nejdanov and his love interest abandon their posh home and hide out at the home of a Russian peasant. They decide to play dress up:

“I’ll tell you what I want to ask of you, Tatiana. I want to make or buy a dress, something like yours, only a little plainer. Then I want shoes and stockings and a kerchief, everything like you have. I've got some money.”

“Left alone, Nejdanov walked up and down the room once or twice with a peculiarly shuffling gait (he imagined that all shopkeepers walked like that), then he carefully sniffed at this sleeves, the inside of his cap, made a grimace, looked at himself in the little looking-glass hanging in between the windows, and shook his head; he certainly did not look very prepossessing. ‘So much the better,’ he thought. Then he took several pamphlets, thrust them into his side pocket, and began to practice speaking like a shopkeeper. ‘That sounds like it,’ he thought, ‘but after all there is no need of acting, my get-up is convincing enough.’ "

There is little left for Tatiana (the peasant) to do here but let loose with a bemused chuckle in the presence of these well meaning but hopelessly in over their head kids. Which she does.
The realization that dressing and talking like a peasant doesn’t make you a peasant eventually dawns on Nejdanov as he grows to hate the poor for his inability to understand them, as well as their indifference to him and his ideas (why can’t you see what I can see?!). There is a healthy dose of self loathing as well.
A string of failures and disappointments in bringing about the change he envisioned eventually causes Nejdanov to reflect one night that:

“It is now a fortnight since I have been going among "the people," and really it would be impossible to imagine anything more stupid than they are.

While who is truly guilty of stupidity here remains an open ended question for the reader, Nejdanov clearly has made up his mind, and its not him.
A group decidedly unenthusiastic about the poor for different reasons however, are the aristocrats. With their luxurious palaces, fancy cars, and affected French phrases that dot their speech, the wealthy (as they are wont to do) loathe and fear the masses as uncultured and dirty threats to their power and status. The peasants are for them, barely human and hardly worth spending undue thought and effort on. (Turgenev in a brilliant turn of phrase describes their overall attitude toward the poor as a “truly ministerial sensation of haughty compassion and fastidious condescension”)
Perhaps the only group the wealthy here despise more than the peasants are the middle class “agitators” who seek to stir them up. It is for them, unthinkable that someone of means would give up the trappings of wealth and status: Anyone who does so is worthy of their contempt.
The most, shall we say “flamboyant”, of these is a young aristocrat named Kollomietzev, a man with a very Russian name who seems to hold all things Russian in contempt.
Kollomietzev is for lack of a better word, a pretentious dick.
He pontificates endlessly on his moral virtues, fashion, the necessity of keeping the poor in their place (their very presence agitates him to no end), and his ever annoying habit of inserting random French into every sentence. He is a caricature of what Turgenev no doubt considered the morally bankrupt, foppish, and hopelessly out of touch aristocrat of his day.
As the ideological war between the aristocracy and the young people trying to overthrow it rages however, the poor just keep living, barely acknowledging these two sides warring over them or its relevance to their lives.
It is among these people alone that Turgenev seems to have any sympathy for. If the rich aren’t busy oppressing or enslaving them, then they are out in the countryside shouting and handing out pamphlets that will do little to materially better their lives.
In this sense, Turgenev reflected not only the absurdity of the class system and empty idealism of his day, but also foresaw what was to come in the future with well meaning but ultimately ineffective activists the world over trying to rouse groups that have little interest in being roused. In some cases, perhaps doing more harm than good.
It is perhaps bleak to conclude that all such efforts will always be doomed to failure but it’s difficult to escape the fact that this was Turgenev’s conclusion. The rich will always have their foot on your throat. Those that don’t will tell you you are free but not provide any meaningful or tangible proof of what that means. The only solace Turgenev provides us with is that at least there may be some laughs along the way.