Short Fiction · Chapter
The Little Red Christmas Tree explained
In 1935, Stepan Nilitch Rybkin, the last remaining bourgeois in Soviet Russia, is visited by two commissars who try to persuade him to remain in his class for the sake of the revolution.
What happens
In 1935, Stepan Nilitch Rybkin, the last remaining bourgeois in Soviet Russia, is visited by two commissars who try to persuade him to remain in his class for the sake of the revolution. Despite his comfortable material conditions, Rybkin feels isolated and nostalgic for the old traditions, particularly Christmas. After the commissars leave, he returns home to find a Christmas tree decorated with revolutionary symbols, which moves him to tears.
Themes in this chapter
Social Class and Hierarchy
The chapter satirizes the Soviet regime's absurd preservation of a single bourgeois as a symbolic class enemy, highlighting the artificial maintenance of class distinctions.
Identity and Self-Loss
Rybkin's nostalgia for Christmas and his desire to escape his designated role reflect a loss of personal identity and longing for a past self.
Cruelty and Suffering
The psychological torment of Rybkin, forced to live as a 'decoy rabbit' under constant surveillance and harassment, underscores the cruelty of the regime.
Characters to notice
- Stepan Nilitch Rybkin
The last bourgeois in Soviet Russia, a widower living in Malaya Zagvozdka, who feels trapped and nostalgic for pre-revolutionary traditions.
Key passages
“The Russian middle class was nearing complete extinction, assisted on toward this goal by hunger and executions, and also as a result of mass stampedes of the bourgeois to the Soviet pastures.”
The Russian middle class was almost wiped out due to starvation, executions, and many bourgeois fleeing to join the Soviet system.
Sets the historical context of the bourgeoisie's elimination.
“I’m like a decoy rabbit, I might say. There was lots of hunting near us here, around Gatchino, in the old days. Gentlemen from Petersburg used to come down, and in the course of time killed off all the game. Finally there was just one rabbit left.”
Rybkin compares himself to a lone rabbit that hunters keep alive for target practice, symbolizing his role as the last bourgeois.
Illustrates Rybkin's feeling of being a preserved but useless relic.
“In the middle of the room stood a little Christmas tree, all sparkling with bright lights. Gold and silver ornaments glistened merrily on it. Swaying gently from the branches hung miniature guillotines, exquisite tiny models of gallows, axes and blocks, scythes and hammers, and other toys and emblems of the revolution.”
A Christmas tree decorated with revolutionary symbols like guillotines and hammers stands in the room, blending holiday cheer with political terror.
Highlights the ironic juxtaposition of Christmas nostalgia and revolutionary violence.