Bolshevik Science Fiction

“Red Star” by Alexander Bogdanov, 1908 

This is the first Bolshevik utopian novel, written in the afterglow of the 1905 Revolution in Russia that tried to overthrow the Czar, the landlords and the capitalists.  Bogdanov was an early Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (RSDLP) member, working with Lenin in the Russian underground for many years.  Differences emerged while Bogdanov was in exile in Capri, Italy with many other Bolsheviks.  Bogdanov had a more optimistic take on the defeat of the 1905 revolution than Lenin.  Bogdanov also took an idealist position about knowledge of the material world, saying it didn’t exist except in the eyes of an observer.  Lenin opposed this Machian theory in Materialism and Empiriocriticism, Lenin’s philosophic attack on non-religious idealism. 

While this dispute ‘might’ be germane to this novel, the novel really pictures a socialist utopia on Mars.  As such the book functioned as sort of a template for a future socialist society.  The book was popular, especially among proletarians.  The book’s publication made Bogdanov the founder of Soviet science fiction, as other Soviet writers following him creating utopias of different kinds.  This is unlike much capitalist science fiction, which dwells on fabricated fantasy, technological futurism combined with medieval social relations and now fittingly, many versions of a coming dystopia.

The basic story is of a Marxist revolutionary in Russia, Leonid, who is found by members of a sophisticated socialist society in outer space, the Martians.  They want him to be their link and ambassador to the human race in future meetings with earthlings.  He agrees to come back with them to Mars and study their culture.  He goes on their spherical spaceship powered by a radioactive form of anti-matter, taking 2 months to return to Mars.  After arrival “Lenni” as they call him (many Martian names end in ‘i’ like everyone is from Finland…) visits collective Martian children’s’ centers, hospitals, factories, farms, science labs, museums and libraries.  He takes notes on everything and eventually gets a job in a synthetic clothing factory to better understand working conditions, learning to run a complicated computerized machine. 

What are the socialist Martians like?  They look somewhat like humans, with bigger eyes.  They wear unisexual, loose clothing, as gender roles are non-existent.  Free sexuality is the norm.  Their language has no gendered words. They live in a world where even the foliage is red.  They seem very rational, not emotional.  ‘Leaders’ are those with the most experience and the most trusted, not those with titles.  They have short, to the point meetings, and work well together to get things done.  There is no money, as everyone works from their ability and receives everything according to their needs.  Work days are short (6 earth hours), voluntary and unpaid.  Workers rotate jobs when they want.  Monuments in their settlements are to events, not individuals, so the socialist Martians downplay heroes, leaders and individualism.   

Bogdanov was a scientist, so he predicts some now un-fanciful things like 3D movies, blood transfusions, synthetic materials, robots, nuclear power, anti-matter, ‘peak’ energy/ minerals and a death ray.  In Red Star Bogdanov also politically predicts the deformations of ‘barbarian socialism’ under capitalist encirclement and Stalin.  He declares that the capitalists will use any advanced technology to crush and control workers – sort of a preview of the present surveillance society.   Bogdanov even intimates the growth of war-fevered ‘social patriotism’ among workers, foreshadowing the 1914 betrayals of the ordinary Social Democrats over their support of World War I.  He also emphasizes the severe ‘battle with nature’ that the Martian socialists engage in, which seems to forecast, without knowing it, forced industrialization and environmental destruction under the future Soviet bureaucracy.

Both Lunacharsky and Bukharin gave Red Star positive reviews, but after the bureaucratic introduction of ‘socialist realism’ as the only artistic style, Bogdanov’s novels fell out of favor in the USSR, going unmentioned and unpublished from 1928 to 1979.

Soviet Science

The crucial and probably darkest part of the novel is a speech by Sterni, the most ‘logical’ of the Martian socialists.  Due to the future exhaustion of natural resources and energy sources leading to a food crisis on Mars, Sterni says the Martians must soon settle on another planet.  Sterni rejects birth control for the growing Martian population as a partial solution, which seems somewhat odd and illogical. The two settlement alternatives are Venus and Earth.   Venus is uninhabited, but has a hostile and toxic atmosphere, even though there are valuable minerals to be mined useful for Martian food, minerals and energy.  On the other hand Earth is inhabited by humans, most of whom are controlled by capitalists who would resist any cooperation with Martians.  Sterni breaks down the ‘nationalism’ of the earthlings and says there will be no way to negotiate with all of them, even if some are socialists.  A Martian colony on earth would be under constant attack by earthlings.  As a result, all humans would have to be wiped-out for the Martians to survive.  This could be easily done due to their advanced power resources.

The Martians reject this solution after a speech by one of the female Martians, Netti, and decide on a dangerous, years-long mining expedition to Venus instead.  At this point Leonid has fallen in love with Netti, but ultimately has an emotional breakdown and kills one of the key scientists on Mars.  The Martians immediately send him back to earth, as they realize that perhaps earthlings are psychologically weaker than they thought – even the socialists.  At the end of the novel, Netti rejoins Lenni on Earth as he is recuperating from revolutionary combat wounds in a hospital.  They return to Mars together in love and comradeship.

Altogether an engaging book, especially for socialists, anarchists and those interested in something other than a coming future dystopia.

Other prior blog reviews on this topic, use blog search box upper left:  “Hunger Games,” “Children of Men,” “Four Futures,” “American War,” “Adios Utopia.”

And I bought it at May Day Books’ fiction section!

The Kulture Kommissar

July 24, 2020