Background
Bogdanov, Aleksandr was born on August 22, 1873 in Sokolka, Grodno Gouvernement.
economist medical scientist philosopher Revolutionary
Bogdanov, Aleksandr was born on August 22, 1873 in Sokolka, Grodno Gouvernement.
Studied at Moscow University. 1899 graduate Med Faculty, Khar’kov University.
Involved in revolutionary activity, at first as a populist (narodnik), later as a Marxist. Social democrat, 1896, Bolshevik after the split of the SDs, 1903. Member of the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party, 1905-1907.
Head of a Bolshevik terrorist group (with Krasin), although Marxists, in contrast to SRs, were in principle against individual terrorism (considering it useless), while approving of the concept of class war and mass terror. Organizer of the Capri party school (financed by the bestseller royalties of M. Gorkii) and similar courses at Bologna. Lenin (considering Bogdanov a rival in his philosophical works) clashed violently with him and engineered his expulsion from the party for ideological deviation, 1909.
After the October Revolution
1917, member of the Communist Academy, lecturer in economics at Moscow University. Ideologist of Proletkult (proletarian culture, destined to replace bourgeois culture, i.e. all previous human culture), 1918. Continued his medical scientific work, especially in gerontology and haematology.
Organized the first institute for blood transfusion in the world in Moscow, 1926, and died after conducting a risky blood transfusion experiment on himself. His colourful personality and universal interests were obscured in the USSR, first due to his quarrels with Lenin, and later by the anti-modernist atmosphere of the Stalin years. Present day researchers find in his writings some surprisingly modern concepts (e.g. cybernetics principles of backfeed and simulation), and are rediscovering his important influence, especially on the modernist approach of the 1920s.
Religions convince people that the source of their misery lies in the inherent and unchangeable "sinfulness" of humanity rather than in the forms of social organization and institutions.
One day the Soviet Union will build a communist system with equal access of everybody to national wealth.