While reading the excerpts from Fyodor Gladkov’s Cement, I was constantly confused as to how to read it; I could not rightly discern the stance it was taking in regards to the Bolshevik Revolution and the ensuing Soviet regime, until at last the very end. I believe that my confusion exemplifies the different views as stated in the history textbook about the drastic and arduous changes occurring in Russia. The text is following the return of Gleb from the front lines as a Red soldier to his home in a factory town. The text sets up the stage that everything has changed by providing the reader with the smokescreen that everything appears to look the same to Gleb. Slowly, however, we begin to realize to what extent things have actually changed beneath the surface: his wife is not the same woman he left three years ago and the factory is devoid of workers. In short, everything this Bolshevik soldier thought he was fighting for is left unrealized or has abandoned him. This first led me to believe that Soviet Revolution, as depicted in the text, failed to deliver what it was seeking to accomplish; this is clearly the thought process of the ex-factory workers. The text however resolves that problem by the end with the simple fact that they needed someone from the party, Gleb, to organize them. It is an interesting move to make, to have the local Soviet soldier be the one to revitalize the community and its workers, when there is a clear disconnect between him and his fellow ex-factory workers and their experiences for the last three years, as well as the entire ideology of the Soviet Party. It is clear from his relationship with his wife that he in himself and on the domestic front is not entirely the embodiment of all the new Soviet ideals. Gleb is very much a character that is ruled by his almost primitive passions, his love for the factory and labor is described as one would describe something innate, primitive, and instinctual. His love for Dasha can be qualified in the same way, it is a love that manifests itself in the dominance of man and the subservience of woman. He does not love Dasha for Dasha, but loves her as a “traditional woman.” This view on woman is an obsolete view in this new Soviet order, but he is not able to come to terms with it, although by the end he knows everything has changed, and that women no longer like they did before the revolution, and are not to be treated in the same manner.

Considering the time this text was written, the positive effects of the Revolution had yet to fully make themselves known. The transition to a new regime after a revolution is without fail always turbulent, and this is what the text manages to portray. Although it is a propaganda text in favor of the Soviet Party, it is still grounded in fact and makes no delusion with itself on the realities and consequences of war. Everything has changed but the work is still not done or complete, not even the Soviet soldier is the perfect example of the ideals of this new world order, but there is still hope and potential, and the firm belief that Soviet Party will lead Russia to better days.