Overview
“We” (Мы) is a novel written by the Russian author Yevgeny Zamyatin in 1920–1921. It is set in the “One State” (Единое Государство), which governs every sphere of human life through mathematical reason and thoroughgoing control, and takes the form of a diary written by D-503, a spaceship construction engineer in that state. It is widely regarded as a classic of dystopian (or anti-utopian) fiction.
The work has been read as a civilizational critique. It depicts a future society in which the collective, planned social vision pursued by early Soviet Bolshevism is fused to the extreme with the management and rationalization of human beings by Western science and technology. The fact that it does not confine its satire to the political system of any single country also supports this reading (for details, see the sections “The Reference to the Taylor System” and “Reception”). Its style is characterized by fragmentary short sentences, psychological description through the vocabulary of mathematics and geometry, and excessive repetition of colors and images, and it also has a strong character as expressionist fantasy literature.
However, the period in which the work was written (1920–1921) precedes the establishment of totalitarian rule under the Stalin regime. Reading the work as a “prophecy of totalitarianism” is a retrospective assessment informed by subsequent historical developments, a point that must be borne in mind. Even so, in that it sharply depicts, through the vocabulary of mathematics and the form of personal notes, how a managed society that has pushed rationality to its limit transforms the inner life of human beings, it stands as one of the important achievements of twentieth-century literature.
Author Biography
Yevgeny Ivanovich Zamyatin (Евгений Иванович Замятин, 1884–1937) was born in Lebedyan (Лебедянь), Tambov Governorate, Russian Empire. He studied shipbuilding at the St. Petersburg Polytechnic Institute, and as a student joined the Bolsheviks and took part in the revolutionary movement of 1905, experiencing arrest and exile. He later became a shipbuilding engineer, and from 1916 to 1917 he stayed in England to supervise the construction of icebreakers. His experiences during this stay became material for the satirical novel “The Islanders” (Островитяне).
After returning to Russia following the 1917 Revolution, he devoted himself to literary activity while also teaching shipbuilding. He is also known as someone who served as an advisor to the young writers’ group known as the Serapion Brothers. In the 1920s, in essays such as “On Literature, Revolution, Entropy, and Other Matters” (1923), he expressed a critique of dogmatic control of art and a view of literature that affirms heresy and change.
Partly because the publication of “We” within the Soviet Union was not permitted, criticism of the author intensified in the late 1920s. In 1931, Zamyatin petitioned for permission to leave the country in a letter addressed to Stalin, obtained it, and moved to Paris. He died in Paris on 10 March 1937.
Publication History and Background
“We” was written in 1920–1921. Its publication within the Soviet Union was not permitted owing to censorship, and the work first appeared in print in an English translation published outside Russia (translated by Gregory Zilboorg; E. P. Dutton, New York, 1924). Translations into various languages followed one after another, beginning with the Czech (1927) and French (1929) translations. In Russian, fragments were published in 1927, without the author’s consent, in “Volya Rossii,” a Russian émigré magazine in Prague. This was an incomplete retranslation from the Czech version, and Zamyatin demanded that the publication be stopped. The complete Russian edition was published in 1952 by the Chekhov Publishing House in New York. The first publication within the Soviet Union was in issues 4 and 5 of the magazine “Znamya” (Знамя) in 1988 (for details, see the section “Bibliographic Information”).
Behind the work lie the control of labor and daily life under “War Communism” during the Civil War, expectations for social design based on technology and engineering, and Zamyatin’s own experience as a shipbuilding engineer. Although a technical specialist himself, the author depicted, using the vocabulary of mathematics and engineering, the possibility that rationalization and standardization might crush the inner life of human beings.
The Reference to the Taylor System
The One State in the work stipulates, by means of the “Table of Hours” (Часовая Скрижаль), the time of its citizens from waking to sleeping minute by minute, and quantitatively manages labor, meals, walks, and even sexual life. This setting explicitly refers to the scientific management of factory production proposed by the American engineer Frederick W. Taylor, the so-called Taylor System. In the work, Taylor is praised as a great ancient forerunner, and his name also appears in the writings of the narrator, D-503.
This reference is not unrelated to the Russian situation of the time. In his 1918 article “The Immediate Tasks of the Soviet Government,” Lenin positioned the Taylor System as combining the refined cruelty of capitalist exploitation with scientific achievements, and argued that its rational elements should be studied and introduced for the organization of labor and the improvement of productivity after the Russian Revolution. In the post-revolutionary Soviet state, a movement advocating the scientific organization of labor developed, and institutions such as the Central Institute of Labor (led by Aleksei Gastev) were also established.
In this movement to connect the Taylor System, a product of capitalism, to socialist labor management after the revolution, Zamyatin can be interpreted as having perceived a shared danger: the standardization of human beings. Here lies one aspect of the structure by which the satire of “We” encompasses both Bolshevism and Western scientific and technological civilization.
Bibliographic Information (Original Russian Edition)
- Original title: Мы
- Composition: 1920–1921
- First publication (form of publication): English translation (translated by Gregory Zilboorg; E. P. Dutton, New York, 1924)
- First publication of the complete Russian edition: Chekhov Publishing House (New York, 1952)
- Publication within the Soviet Union: 1988, magazine “Znamya” (Знамя), issues 4 and 5
- Structure: Form of personal notes consisting of 40 “records” (запись)
Translations
Besides the Zilboorg translation mentioned above (1924), English translations include those by Mirra Ginsburg (1972), Clarence Brown (1993), and Natasha Randall (2006), among others.
Among European languages, the Czech (1927) and French (1929) translations appeared at an early date. George Orwell consulted this French translation and discussed the work in a 1946 review.
Japanese translations include those by Kaori Kawabata (1970), Toyoki Ogasawara (1977), and Takashi Matsushita (2019).
Reception
Within the Soviet Union, “We” was criticized as a counterrevolutionary satire, and attacks on Zamyatin intensified in the late 1920s. In 1931 the author sent a letter to Stalin requesting permission to pursue his creative work abroad.
Abroad, in 1946 Orwell took up the work in a review (published in the newspaper “Tribune”), providing an occasion for placing it in the lineage of later dystopian literature. Since then, “We” has been valued as a pioneer of the dystopian novel. Meanwhile, regarding the target of the work’s satire, readings that see it as a critique of Bolshevism, readings that see it as a critique of Western technological rationalism, and further readings that see it as a critique of the standardization of human beings that runs through both coexist.
Literarily, it is valued for converting the vocabulary of mathematics (imaginary numbers, irrational numbers, coordinates, and so on) to the description of human inner life, and for having reflected the transformation of the narrator’s self in the very structure of the work through the form of personal notes. The process by which the narrator awakens to emotion and imagination, and the ending in which these are surgically removed, support the work’s theme from the side of form.
Influence
The best-known influence is the relation to George Orwell’s “Nineteen Eighty-Four” (1949). In his 1946 review, Orwell stated that Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World” (1932) must have been partly derived from “We.” Huxley himself, however, denied this, saying he had not read “We.” As for “Nineteen Eighty-Four,” similarities in conception to “We” (surveillance through glass dwellings, management of the individual’s inner life, rebellion and its defeat, and so on) are often discussed.
Its lineage is also pointed out in SF and dystopian literature on the theme of managed societies, such as Kurt Vonnegut’s “Player Piano” (1952) and the works of Ursula K. Le Guin.
Search Link
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Plot Summary (Contains Spoilers)
The setting is the One State, founded after the Two Hundred Years’ War and headed by the “Benefactor” (Благодетель). Citizens are called by numbers instead of names, live in glass-walled dwellings, and act in accordance with the Table of Hours. Even sexual life is managed through pink coupons (tickets) issued for registered partners. The city is separated from external nature by the Green Wall.
D-503, the engineer who builds the spaceship “Integral,” begins keeping notes in order to convey the perfection of this state to other celestial bodies. At first he is a model citizen loyal to the regime, content with his harmonious relationships with O-90, the woman who is his registered partner, the poet R-13, and others. However, through his encounter with I-330, a woman opposed to the regime, D-503 is seized by irrepressible emotions and begins to become aware of an inner existence that might be called a “soul.”
I-330 is a member of the secret society “Mephi,” which has contact with the world outside the wall, and is planning to seize the Integral. Drawn to her, D-503 is pulled into the plan and torn between the regime and its opponents. Meanwhile, O-90, who wishes for a pregnancy that is not permitted because she does not meet the prescribed standard, conceives D-503’s child. With I-330’s help, O-90 escapes beyond the wall.
Eventually, in the annual election on the “Day of Unanimity,” votes against the Benefactor appear for the first time. As a last resort against the rebellion, the regime proclaims that all citizens must undergo the “Great Operation,” which surgically removes the part of the brain governing imagination. D-503 is also made to undergo the operation and is freed from his inner turmoil.
After the operation, D-503 remains unmoved even when I-330 is arrested and tortured under the “Gas Bell,” and, when asked her name, indifferently denounces her. Beyond the wall, the rebellion spreads and part of the wall is destroyed, but D-503 remains convinced that “reason must prevail.” The notes close with this passage.