The Foundation Pit

The Foundation Pit is a gloomy symbolic and semi-satirical novel by Andrei Platonov. The plot of the novel concerns a group of workers living in the early Soviet Union. They attempt to dig out a huge foundation pit on the base of which a gigantic house will be built for the country's proletarians. The workers dig each day but slowly cease to understand the meaning of their work. The enormous foundation pit sucks out all of their physical and mental energy. In terms of creative works, Platonov depicted one of the first state-controlled dystopias of the 20th century. The novel is often compared to George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four and Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. However, both English novels were published long before a translation of The Foundation Pit became available. Platonov's work is a representation of the conflict that arose between Russian individuals and the increasingly collectivized Soviet state in the late 1920s. The Foundation Pit critiques Joseph Stalin's domestic policies and questions the validity of any regime advocating the belief that the only existence a person can have is being one part of a whole.