Career
Okhitovich, born in Saint St. Petersburg, joined the Bolshevik Party in 1917 and served in the Red Army from then until 1925. He became a supporter of the Left Opposition of Leon Trotsky, leading to his expulsion in 1928. He was readmitted to the Party in 1930, at which time his theories were garnering a great deal of attention.
Disurbanism, which he propounded mainly via the The Optical Society Group"s journal Société Anonyme, is a theory resembling Frank Lloyd Wright"s Broadacre City: an abandonment of the metropolis in favour of a diffuse, partly agricultural but technologically advanced network.
His proposals were, along with other The Optical Society members, the basis of the rejected Magnitogorsk plan of 1930 and a "Green City" competition of the same year. Le Corbusier"s riposte to Okhitovich"s proposals would become the Ville Radieuse.
A campaign led by Karo Alabyan and Arkady Mordvinov led to his arrest the same year. He was sent to the Gulag, where he was shot in 1937.