The novel picks up on the brink of the Russian Revolution, depicting characters from all walks of life — from soldiers and peasants to Tsar Nicholas II, Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna, and Lenin.
Instead, the book portrays everyday lives and politics as they were in the period between Imperial Russia's peak and the February Revolution.
In November 1916, the literary form of the novel is used as a device to link together what are best described as a series of essays and polemics.
Solzhenitsyn uses long and detailed dialogues between characters to present political and philosophical arguments.
Several of the fictional characters, especially those engaged in the dialogues, are very thinly disguised historical personages.