In The Motherland of Electricity by Andrey Platonov, the absence of God and the emphasis of labor in the creation of a new world creates a sense of alienation for the characters, a loneliness of setting out into uncharted territory without a supernatural force looking out for you. These characters are the participants in a revolutionary movement attempting to do what has never been done before, to progress past capitalism, religion, and other traditions and create a state of utopia. And this conflict between the revolutionary zeal of the revolution and generations of religious faith in Russia has thrust the characters minds into doubt and confusion, and their lives into a dreary existence of menial work and poverty.
Throughout the text, Platonov implies that the life of the worker is miserable. He compares the weary eyes of the worker to to the beauty of a statue of the Virgin Mary, a relic of Russia’s Christian past: “…the dark beauty of her face, her fine nose or large eyes—which did not seem like those of a worker, since such eyes tire too quickly.” The worker Platonov is describing is specifically a worker living in a world where atheist thought prevails. A world where work has no heavenly purpose, it is solely being done for the real, physical world. This lack of meaning in the most basic, daily part of their lives causes the characters to question their existence and purpose in this new communist world.
Feelings of loneliness are emphasized in this Soviet world; while the decision that the people’s will is law, and that everyone is in complete charge of their future, is of course empowering, it is also intensely depressing to walk throughout the world and make decisions without the confidence that is guaranteed by the idea of a higher power. At the end of the story the narrator is sitting at night, thinking, and is struck by that feeling of intense loneliness: “I sat in thought by the river, which was quietly flowing into the distance, and I looked up at the concentration of stars in the sky, that future field of humanity’s activity, that deathless sucking emptiness filled with anxious and diminutive matter beating away in the rhythm of its unknown fate…” The cosmos are empty, and thus he realizes that the consequences of his actions are entirely his, and the consequences of humanity entirely ours, a profoundly heavy burden to bear.
There is, of course, meaning to be found in this communist world, not necessarily in the menial nature of the work, but rather in the grand spirit of socialist idealism. This is expertly shown in the character of Secretary Zharyonov, the party leader who creates poetry out of his life of bureaucracy. This is especially apparent in the image of him sleeping with his two hungry children: “Only their father lay there with a happy face that was as welcoming as ever; he was in command of his body and of all the tormenting forces of nature, the magic tension of genius continually bringing joy to a heart that had faith in the mighty future of proletarian humanity.” He is able to compartmentalize his suffering for what he believes is the common good. And not only is he able to do that, but it is also that very faith in the system and a brighter future that keeps him going each and every day.