Marxism In Leo Tolstoy's The Death Of Ivan Ilyich

Karl Marx once stated, “The workers have nothing to lose but their chains.” Leo Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilyich focuses on the middle class struggles in Russia during the 1800s and how materialism has negative impacts on people in society. Tolstoy uses the novella to demonstrate how Russian society was imperfect in the 1800s and Tolstoy portrayed ideals similar to Marxism in the book. Marxism is the ideology that everyone should be equal in regards to class, education, economics and politics. Marxism was created by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels during the 1840s. Their ideology was to establish a classless society where property and resources are owned by the community and not the individuals themselves. Tolstoy used the novella to contrast his ideals of a classless society and anti-materialism to show how negative the caste system and the materialistic lifestyle of the Russian middle class was.

The caste

Ivan Ilyich has an extremely different viewpoint, which often causes conflicts with his wife, Praskovya Fedorovna. “Ivan Ilyich insisted on getting everything from an expensive confectioner and ordered too many cakes, and the confectioner’s bill came to forty-five rubles” (Tolstoy). Ivan need to order expensive cakes is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to his materialistic “needs” and “wants.” In the present day, the exchange rate for rubles is that one ruble equals .015 U.S dollars, making forty-five rubles equal approximately .67 U.S dollars. This makes Ivan Ilyich’s materialism look insignificant; however in recent years the value of the ruble has gone down, meaning that the ruble would have had higher value and Ivan Ilyich’s materialism would have made a larger impact on his family’s finances. Ivan Ilyich’s materialistic ideals negatively impacted his life and his family; and eventually led to his fateful