A first reading of Platonov’s The Cow might lead one to believe that it simply depicts a sad situation for peasants that witness the slow decline and death of their only female cow on the collective farm. Upon closer examination, and considering the time and context in which this story takes place (likely 1938 or 1939), the text reveals the contemporary peasant condition through the cow’s behavior in a rapidly changing world. In other words, the descriptions of the cow better communicate what the peasants are experiencing during this time than the peasants themselves do.

At the beginning of the story, the cow is described as living alone in a shed in the countryside and having a bull calf of her own (247). Her world is quickly disturbed, as her calf is taken away by her owner peasant to receive treatment by a vet after falling ill (247). This act of taking her calf away, along with her described as giving all her strength for the purpose of producing milk and work, causes the cow to embody the attributes of an exploited peasant under the collective farm system present during this time in history (248). While the peasant boy, Vasya, appears to care for the cow, it is clear that the peasants value the cow just for the milk and work she produces. This especially comes to the fore when Vasya’s father returns without the bull calf, claiming that despite the calf having recovered, it was best to sell “him to the slaughterhouse” as a bull is of little value (254).  The cow, longing for the return of her calf, falls into a depressed mood, while the narrator describes her as “not understand[ing] that it is possible to forget one happiness, to find another and then live again, not suffering any longer” (255). One can extrapolate the description of the cow to the peasants of this time, as it reinforces the idea of the backwards peasant who cannot cope with the loss of their lives as they knew them before collectivization. While the authorities who imposed collectivization may have had the attitude that the peasant could simply forget what they loved in the past and embrace new forms of happiness, Platonov’s work makes it clear that this was not the case.

The cow’s death in the final section of the story highlights the tragedy of the peasant under collectivization. The image of the cow, unable to escape in time, struck by the train running down the line is powerful and evokes the sense that nothing can stop the peasant from in a sense being annihilated by political and industrial forces of the time (257). While the analysis of this ending scene could greatly be expanded, the engine driver sums up the condition of the peasants perfectly with this foreboding statement: “she was running away from the engine, but she was slow and she didn’t have the sense to get off the line… I thought she would” (257).