Why did Aleksey Maksimovich Peshkov choose the pen name Maxim Gorky?

Aleksey Maksimovich Peshkov chose the pen name Maxim Gorky to reflect the hardships of his youth. Having been sent to work at the age of eight, he experienced extreme poverty, hunger, and frequent abuse from his employers while working various jobs, such as a dishwasher on a Volga steamer and an errand boy.

The bitterness of these early experiences, which exposed him to the harsh realities of the Russian working class, led him to adopt the pseudonym Gorky, which is the Russian word for "bitter."1