What Compelled Me To Read The Novel?
Out of all the books I could've chosen for this project I decided to read Nikolai Ostrovsky's How The Steel Was Tempered because I was intially inspired by a youtuber I frequently watch "TheFinnishBolshevik" who made a video discussing the . Particularly using it in addressing a debate on the differences between Soviet and Nazi literature.
I also wanted to delve deeper into socialist realism which I think I have accidentally adopted in some form over these years. I never gave it a proper study so I wanted to use the opportunity of reading a socialist realist novel to expand my knowledge of the style. I think also it helped me develop my understanding of Marxism a bit better as well, as a result of reading a unique application and communication of its principles outside of polemical and theoretical works that I more often find myself reading.
Why I'm Interested In Socialism and The USSR Specifically
Another big component in driving my selection of this novel for this project was my interest in socialism broadly and the USSR particularly. As an African I find myself drawn to the lessons of various liberation movements, national and political. I myself hail from a formerly socialist country, Tanzania though it still tries to claim through some sort of mental gymnastics that it is socialist in some way, and so very early in my life took interest in the socialist cause and how it has played a role in my country's history.
I also take great inspiration from the socialist movements in my personal life given the immense difficulties they've faced in their struggles for emancipation of people and how they've been, or haven't been overcome. And so I attempt to learn from their experiences in whatever way I can. I also think that the struggle for the emancipation of all people called for by socialism should be carried forth in the present day. I have firsthand seen and experienced so much suffering and misery in the world I can't twist my mind to think something about the present order of things is logical or just. Especially as an African, our people have suffered for so long under the boot of various foreign powers and continues till today. Our continent is plundered of its material wealth, our people exploited, and our countries forced to remain under developed all for the benefit of those outside the continent. I don't think I, anyone really, should support such a state of affairs.
I see the USSR specifically, alongside revolutionary China and the other socialist national liberation movements on and off the African continent, as the greatest shining examples of an attempt to construct a truly just and equitable world where exploitation and misery are abolished once and for all. Though they certainly had their flaws and I have my own critiques, the Bolsheviks, and others which followed their path, reached far beyond any other ideological movement in the pursuit of emancipation, and for that reason I find them admirable. And these principles of striving for liberation and emancipation are what draws me, as an African, to socialism and to look toward the USSR at least as a lesson for what we can and should do to truly work toward the eradication of misery and oppression for all.
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