It illustrates the need for maintaining equality in a society.
Kovalf was a committee-man. He had been one for two years and he couldn't take that out of his own head. This only shows how much the Russian society used to value their titles back then and this might actually be true today.
Kovalf could never forget that he was once a committee-man, therefore to boost his own importance, even to himself, he started calling himself "Major".
