The suppression of the construction pit has set Russian prose back fifty years, once judged Joseph Brodsky. Like no other author, Andrei Platonov captures the atmosphere of an era filled with utopias and prophecies of a future world. On the outskirts of a city, workers dig a pit to build a "common proletarian house." From the war invalid to the laborer and the engineer, a hierarchy forms among the voluntary slaves that reflects the social conditions of Stalin's Soviet Union. They put all their strength into bringing about the happy future of humanity through their labor – yet they are crushed by the weight of this task.