Doctor Zhivago Society and Class Quotes

Yuri Zhivago is from a very rich background, but he'd never know it based on the way his poor mother has raised him. His dad, you see, is the worst kind of rich dude—the irresponsible kind. And in all honesty, the guy doesn't really deserve to be in the upper class if he's just going to run around doing what he wants and blowing all his money. Then again, being in the upper class has pretty much nothing to do with merit in Russia during this time—it was pretty much hereditary.

Even though he's critical of the Bolshevik Revolution, Pasternak is quick to point out that there's still a ton of stuff that's horrible about the division between rich and poor in old Russia. Rich people barely think of workers as human—if they think of them at all.

When he's faced with the injustice of a world where lazy rich people keep getting richer and richer by sponging off workers, Comrade Tiverzin can't help but feel hateful and violent. He can only let the situation at his factory get so bad before he steps up and does something about it—like organizing a strike.

When we first hear rumblings about Russia going Communist, it sounds kind of wacky. But as the book goes on, it stops sounding that wacky. It turns out that it's totally possible to live in a country where all the land belongs to everyone. That doesn't mean that everything's suddenly going to be fair, though.

When he's criticizing Russian society, Pasternak isn't ready to let the middle class off the hook. For him, people who are lawyers, doctors, and professors tend to be gloomy and proud, almost as if they're trying to appear like part of the upper class.

In a strange twist of fate, the rich factory owner Kologrivov becomes a hard left-winger and supports the workers in any way he can, even though he's their boss. He even helps to organize strikes at his own factories. That sort of thing would be beyond unthinkable in today's world… or would it?

No one really paid attention to the earliest rumblings of a Communist revolution in Russia. But as time passed and conditions got worse for the lower classes, full-blown revolt became a very real possibility. So real that it actually happened.

If there's one major problem Yuri Zhivago has with the Russian Revolution, it's the way that the movement put an end to independent thinking, especially when it comes to the men and women Zhivago used to deeply respect. In order to run a successful revolution, people need to come together as a herd. But in becoming a herd, they also lose their ability to think as individuals.

One of the first signs of a truly new Russia comes when we see poor people and rich people traveling in the same packed train cars. No more divisions between first class and coach, no matter how rich you are. In this new world, everyone is treated the same… unless they're friends with someone important.

When he's interrogating Zhivago, the first thing Strelnikov wants to know is whether Zhivago comes from a rich background. Rich folks, you see, were far less trustworthy than poor people during the Russian Revolution, since people who'd been rich their whole lives had everything to lose, and poor people everything to gain.