A collection of short stories by the popular and influential Russian author, a founder of the socialist realism literary method and arguably the greatest Russian literary figure of the 20th century. He wrote stories, plays, memoirs and novels which touched the imagination of the Russian people, and was the first Russian author to write sympathetically of such characters as tramps and thieves.

The mother is a novel by Maxim Gorki, one of the great exponents of socialist realism, published in 1907.que is a woman struggling against the Tsarist regime. The novel begins with the death of the worker Mikhail Vlasov, a man who physically and psychically martyred his wife Pelagia during the years of their marriage. In the course of the story, the reader can appreciate the change of attitude of the mother towards political activity. At first, their reaction is rejection, a rejection that stems from the fear that has been dragging along his life.

Every day the factory whistle bellowed forth its shrill, roaring, trembling noises into the smoke-begrimed and greasy atmosphere of the workingmen's suburb; and obedient to the summons of the power of steam, people poured out of little gray houses into the street. With somber faces they hastened forward like frightened roaches, their muscles stiff from insufficient sleep. In the chill morning twilight they walked through the narrow, unpaved street to the tall stone cage that waited for them with cold assurance, illumining their muddy road with scores of greasy, yellow, square eyes. The mud...