Bystander Author:Maxim Gorky What may surprise some readers who know of Gorky's revolutionary activities and who may expect him to have no interest outside of such matters, 'Bystander' seems to have been written as if there had never been a revolution in Russia. The action goes back to an earlier day. The characters are not of one class but of several classes. The em... more »otions and experiences represented are typical of life everywhere. Gorky has been content to choose for his hero a young man who belongs neither to the inner circle of the aristocracy nor to the fringes of the proletariat, a young man who might have been living in any country of Europe or America. He does, it is true, encounter various conditions which are, or were, peculiar to Russia, just as any young man encounters local conditions to which he must specifically adjust himself wherever he lives. But the chief concern of the story is with the things which young men generally have to learn before they know how to live.« less