Vadim’s reactions to Maria’s determination to remain a soldier and fight for the Bolshevik ideals and his desires to go back to the way things were before the war and the Revolution denote him as a reflection of Kierkegaard’s aesthetic. The aesthetic ignores the needs and the desires of the other, just as Vadim is doing to Maria. The film and the production company, Mosfilm, are trying to make a point that Vadim’s point of view is erroneous. This point is seen in the climax, where Vadim is running back to his White Army comrades, causing Maria to abandon her love to commit to her duty to the ethical. The screenplay was edited numerous times, as Mosfilm found the idea of a White Army officer and a Red Army officer falling in love to be a poor …show more content…
The fact that Vadim’s death was the factor that allowed for the filming to commence demonstrates that the character was meant to represent something that goes against the Bolshevik narrative, and by extension, Soviet Communism. Thus, the Vadim is the enemy of the ethical, that is, the aesthetic. The aesthetic of Kierkegaard does not choose, as it is driven by selfish desire, and as such remains cloaked as an individual. Vadim wants to remain an individual and not join the collective, as seen with his desire to go back to the way things were, where he could read books all day, and his desire to no longer be a soldier. This in contrast to Maria, who chooses to go back to being a soldier. She still loves Vadim, but she knows that she must go back and she wants to go back to fight for Bolshevism and the perpetual revolution. Maria wants to work for others and fight for a cause, whereas Vadim wants to stop fighting and wants to care about himself and his own desires. Vadim as a reflection of the aesthetic works because he himself disregards the ideas that there could be anything above his own desires, and because of this and his affiliations he is killed at the end of the film by