Bacchus 1

Rachel Bacchus

Dr. Ronald Bobroff

HIS 102

16 April 2019

The Beast of Rising Communism

Following the end of World War I, Russia is left with an uncertain society. After

rebuilding from the weak state it was in during the start of the twentieth century, the country

began to embrace new and relatively Marxist principles. These ideologies, along with the

introduction of Vladimir Lenin’s New Economic Policy, allow for the growth of a communist

system budding in Russian society. It is in 1925, during this tense and unclear transition, that

Mikhail Bulgakov writes his novel: Heart of a Dog. With his book, Bulgakov satirizes the

communist system through irony and extended metaphors involving Sharik, a stray and mangy

street dog, and Philip Philippovich Preobrazhensky, a gentleman and doctor, in order to reveal

the truth about Communism’s manipulating control and refusal to meet needs.

As the novel begins in the point of view of Sharik, Bulgakov writes Sharik to represent

the lower and working classes when the New Economic Policy is initiated. Sharik begins by

observing the daily life occurrences among the proletarian class. He looks at the cooks, the

janitors, and the typists and compares each of their miseries to each other and to then to his own.

Finally, his opening thoughts conclude: “I am sorry for [the typist], so sorry! But I’m even

sorrier for myself. I’m not saying this out of selfishness, but because our conditions really don’t

compare” (Bulgakov 4). Sharik’s judgments are meant to imitate the feelings of Russia’s

proletarian classes and the injustice they are experiencing. In a society striving for “peace, land,

[and] bread”, the lower classes (and Sharik) struggle to obtain any amounts of peace, land, or
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bread. The homeless, starving, dying dog is analogous to the Russian peasantry and their

frustration over these precise problems.

It is not until Philip Philippovich Preobrazhensky inserts himself into Sharik’s situation

that the problems of the dog seem to go away; however, like the analogy between Sharik and the

lower class, Bulgakov ironically casts Preobrazhensky to portray the communist government.

Just as Lenin instigates the New Economic Policy to motivate Russian people to work and

economy to grow, Preobrazhensky aspires to fix Sharik and transform him back into a healthy

and fit creature. Once bribed with sausage, a necessity for his survival, Sharik finds himself

utterly devoted to Preobrazhensky, a stranger. With the possibility of additional food thrown his

way, Sharik fixates exclusively on listening to the strange gentleman and thinks to himself,

“don’t worry, I won’t run off. I’ll follow you anywhere you say…wherever you go, I’ll follow.

Just show the way, I won’t fall back, despite my miserable side” (Bulgakov 8-9). Simply by

providing Sharik with a taste of what he needs to survive, Preobrazhensky dangerously begins to

earn his trust and loyalty. Comparatively, Bulgakov’s extended metaphor reveals how the

communist government wielded the New Economics Policy as a tool to gain the lower and

working class’s reliance and allegiance. Preobrazhensky continues to provide for Sharik without

asking for anything in return for several more weeks, effectively creating an individual that

wholly depends on his aid and provision.

Unfortunately, Heart of a Dog does not end after Preobrazhensky revives and nourishes

Sharik without trouble or tension; yet, even before Preobrazhensky preforms the shocking

operation on Sharik, he begins to manipulate and alter the way Sharik thinks and perceives his

environments. As a lone street dog, Sharik has the freedom to think about his surroundings in

whatever ways that please him. He can believe janitors to be “the worst trash. Human dregs—the
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lowest category” (Bulgakov 2), or he can choose to read signs backwards or by color; he has a

choice. Once Preobrazhensky takes Sharik under his care however, Sharik loses many of his

freedoms. He soon learns how he cannot behave in ways that would please him or run around

whenever and wherever he wishes. After killing the professor’s owl, Sharik is confined to a

collar and chain. Appropriately, he takes an immediate disliking towards it, claiming to have

“walked like a convict, burning up with shame” (Bulgakov 42), but Preobrazhensky’s forced

lifestyle on Sharik affects him. By the end of his walk with Zina, he finds that the collar, though

restricting, presents him in a revered manner, and he associates value with the metal leash and

choker. From there, he connects value and respect with all the luxuries Preobrazhensky gives to

him including meals as often as he pleases.

While this appears to be a success story for Preobrazhensky in his revival of a sickly

mutt, the reality presents Preobrazhensky, the symbolic of communist government, controlling

Sharik, the embodiment of the helpless working class, as he turns him into a disturbing amalgam

of man and dog. Preobrazhensky longs to earn an esteemed reputation. He wants to revolutionize

the scientific world by crafting a functioning human from the body of a dog, and the special

treatment given to Sharik is all for the purpose of Preobrazhensky’s scientific plans. He inserts

parts of a deceased human brain belonging to Klim Chugunkin, a drunkard and a thief, but the

heart is intended to remain Sharik’s. Bulgakov indirectly makes the comparison to Russian

society as the Bolsheviks aim to set off world revolution through their communist systems. Their

aims are no different than Preobrazhensky’s as they aspire to create a reputation for themselves

as the power that transformed the working class into pawns for their scheme. Unfortunately, like

Preobrazhensky, the Bolsheviks generated a new society full of people with troubled pasts and

conflicting morals.
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The weaknesses of Communism become more evident through the tension that builds

between Sharik and Preobrazhensky. Despite Preobrazhensky’s claims to be an anti-communist

gentleman, he grows increasingly frustrated over losing control over Sharik’s decisions.

Preobrazhensky demands that Sharik speak without swearing and dress in suit and tie. He

continues to direct Sharik as if he were still bound to a chain and collar, but Sharik is trying to

manage new desires as a human and grows progressively aggressive towards Preobrazhensky.

He demands documentation and a new name: Polygraph Polygraphovich Sharikov. Tensions

between the two grow and culminate until they finally burst like the pipe and create a massive

and destructive flood. In this way, Bulgakov is predicting the problems the communist party will

have due to its inability to listen to the desires of the working class.

Finally, when Preobrazhensky retreats from his pride, he is able to see the mutilation and

impairment in his creation. He comes to realize that man now known to him as Sharikov has no

hope for redemption. What he believed to be remaining characteristics of Sharikov’s canine past

were instead foul characteristics that were solely human. Preobrazhensky exclaims to his

assistant: “Today Sharikov manifests only remnants of a dog’s nature…the whole horror, you

see, is that his heart is no longer a dog’s heart, but a human one. And the vilest you could find!”

(Bulgakov 105). Sharikov is no longer trainable, for his heart contains only residue of a dog’s

nature. Preobrazhensky loses hope in making peace with Sharikov.

Altogether, Bulgakov writes a timely novel that condemns the communist party for its

domineering and restricting leash placed on society and its failure to listen to the people’s true

needs. Such as how Preobrazhensky creates a mutated and revolting man, diverging drastically

from what he envisioned, the communist party creates a society much more dangerous and

harmful to themselves than they ever imagined. Bulgakov believes that Communism’s focus on
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world power and reputation can only lead to ruin. Regrettably, Communism cannot be reversed

naturally such as Preobrazhensky claims with Sharik—not even in his own fictional novel could

Bulgakov allow such an unlikely solution. Alternatively, Sharik’s reversal back into a dog

requires another meticulous operation once Preobrazhensky takes a step back and sees the

damage his actions have done.

I pledge that I have acted honorably.

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Works Cited

Bulgakov, Mikhail. Heart of a Dog. Translated by Mirra Ginsburg, Grove Press, 1987.