Dr Zhivago, by Boris Pasternak, is the outstanding novel about the Russian Revolution. The hero is a young doctor (who is also a poet) from an upper-class background, who marries the daughter of a chemistry professor in Moscow. Immediately he is drafted to go to the front to supply medical services to the Russian army. When the revolution erupts in 1917 he participates in it enthusiastically, because he believes it will lead to the moral and political advancement of Russia, and contribute to his own vitality and authenticity. He genuinely believes that the goal of a just society, in which people contribute according to their abilities, and receive according to their needs, is possible, and desirable.

He is not expecting, however, the chaos which comes with the civil war, between the Bolsheviks, and the reactionaries (who want to restore the monarchy). He and his family face starvation in Moscow, and so (with great difficulty) they leave the city and retire to the country, hundreds of kilometres away. But the war between the Reds and the Whites engulfs them, and Zhivago is once again forced to serve, this time in the Bolshevik army. He realizes that both sides in this conflict are corrupt, and that he cannot be free as a citizen, or authentic as an artist.