Abstract
This article aims to develop a better understanding of Andrei Platonov’s mature view of Soviet socialism by considering his unfinished novel, Happy Moscow (1931–36), in the context of Mikhail Lifshits’ and Georg Lukács’ philosophical movement of the 1930s, known as the Current. In light of the Current’s conceptualization of Stalinism as a peculiar form of Thermidor that did not spell an unequivocal end to the Russian Revolution, I argue that Platonov’s Happy Moscow articulates an enduring commitment to Soviet socialism and its utopian possibilities. To do so, Happy Moscow deploys the notion of a tragic confrontation between humankind and nature as a cornerstone for elaborating a model of a radically socialist “difficult happiness,” a view onto which had been made possible for the author as a result of the transformations of the 1930s.
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