According to scholar Nicholas Luker, "thematically Moloch belongs firmly in the 1890s, and reflects many of the social and economic issues of that decade":The second half of the 1800s saw the rapid development of Russian capitalism, with its concomitant industrial expansion.
As her rail network was enlarged and her textile, metallurgical, and mining industries expanded, Russia's output rose steadily.
But with the industrial boom came growing unrest among the new working class, its ranks swelled by poor peasants driven off the land by such agrarian crises as the famine of 1891-1892.
Judging by the author's letter to Nikolai Mikhaylovsky, originally the last chapter looked much more radical than its final version.
"[1] Kuprin, apparently, planned to finish Moloch with the scene of the workers' revolt, with Bobrov blowing up the boilers.
"[3] Angel Bogdanovich, reviewing Kuprin's collection for Znaniye, wrote: Of the ten pieces included, only Moloch, the longest one, stands out...
Two sections of Moloch are unashamedly sensational: the fevered verbal exchanges between Bobrov and Mme Zinenko at the picnic, and the arrival of the hero, blood-stained and tattered, at the hospital to beg Goldberg for morphia.