Alexander Bogdanov
RED STAR
PART ONE
That was when that great breakdown in our country was just beginning, which is still going on and, I think, is now approaching its inevitable and terrible end.
Its first bloody days shook the public consciousness so deeply that everyone expected a quick and bright outcome of the struggle: it seemed that the worst had already happened, that nothing worse could be. No one imagined to what extent the bony hands of a dead man were tenacious, who pressed and still continues to crush the living in his convulsive embrace.
Fighting excitement swiftly spread among the masses. The souls of people selflessly opened up towards the future; the present blurred in a pink fog, the past disappeared into the distance, disappearing from the eyes. All human relationships have become unstable and fragile as never before.
During those days something happened that turned my life upside down and pulled me out of the stream of the people's struggle.
I was, in spite of my twenty-seven years, one of the "old" Party workers. I had six years of work, with a break of only a year in prison. Earlier than many others, I sensed the approach of the storm and met it more calmly than they did. I had to work much more than before; But at the same time I did not give up my scientific studies - I was especially interested in the question of the structure of matter - or literary ones: I wrote in children's magazines, and this gave me the means of living. At the same time, I loved ... or it seemed to me that I loved.
Her party name was Anna Nikolaevna.
She belonged to a different, more moderate trend in our party. I explained this by the softness of her nature and the general confusion of political relations in our country; in spite of the fact that she was older than me, I considered her not yet fully determined person. In this I was wrong. […]
And yet I did not foresee and did not assume the inevitability of a rupture - when an extraneous influence penetrated our life, which hastened the denouement.
Around this time, a young man arrived in the capital, bearing an extraordinary conspiratorial name in our country, Manny. He brought some messages and instructions from the South, according to which it was possible to see that he enjoyed the complete confidence of his comrades. Having completed his work, he decided to stay in the capital for some time and began to come to us quite often, showing a clear inclination to get closer to me.
He was an original person in many ways, starting with his appearance. His eyes were so masked by very dark glasses that I did not even know their color; his head was somewhat disproportionately large; his features, beautiful but surprisingly motionless and lifeless, did not at all harmonize with his soft and expressive voice, as well as with his slender, youthfully flexible figure. His speech was free and fluid and always full of content. His scientific background was very one-sided; he was apparently an engineer by profession.
In conversation, Manny had a tendency to constantly reduce particular and practical issues to general ideological grounds. When he was with us, it always turned out somehow that the contradictions of natures and views with my wife very soon came to the fore, so clearly and vividly that we began to painfully feel their hopelessness. Manny's outlook seemed to be similar to mine; he always spoke very softly and carefully in form, but just as sharply and deeply in essence. He was able to connect our political disagreements with Anna Nikolaevna so skillfully with the basic difference in our worldviews that these disagreements seemed psychologically inevitable, almost logical conclusions from them, and all hope of influencing each other, smoothing out the contradictions and coming to something common disappeared. Anna Nikolaevna harbored a kind of hatred for Manny, combined with a keen interest. He inspired me with great respect and vague distrust: I felt that he was moving towards some goal, but could not understand what.
On one of the January days - this was already at the end of January - there was a discussion in the leading groups of both currents of the party of the project of a mass demonstration with a probable outcome in an armed conflict. Manny came to us the night before and raised the issue of participation in this demonstration, if it is resolved, of the party leaders themselves. An argument ensued, which quickly took on a burning character.
Anna Nikolaevna declared that everyone who votes for a demonstration is morally obliged to go in the front ranks. I found that it was not at all necessary at all, but that one should go who was needed there or who could be seriously useful, and I had in mind exactly myself, as a person with some experience in such matters. Manny went further and argued that, in view of the apparently inevitable clash with the troops, street agitators and combat organizers should be on the field of action, political leaders have no place there, and physically weak and nervous people can be even very harmful. Anna Nikolaevna was directly offended by these arguments, which seemed to her to be directed specifically against her. She broke off the conversation and went to her room. Manny left soon after.
The next day I had to get up early in the morning and leave without seeing Anna Nikolaevna, but return in the evening. The demonstration was rejected both in our committee and, as I found out, in the leadership team of a different trend. I was pleased with this, because I knew how insufficient preparation for an armed conflict was, and considered such a performance a fruitless waste of forces. It seemed to me that this decision would somewhat weaken the acuteness of Anna Nikolaevna's irritation over yesterday's conversation. On my desk I found a note from Anna Nikolaevna:
"I'm leaving. The more I understand myself and you, the more it becomes clear to me that we are going our separate ways and that we were both wrong. We'd better not meet again. Sorry".
I wandered the streets for a long time, tired, with a feeling of emptiness in my head and cold in my heart. When I returned home, I found an unexpected guest there: Manny was sitting at my table and writing a note.
2. INVITATION
I have to talk to you about a very serious and somewhat strange matter, ”Manny said.
I did not care; I sat down and prepared to listen.
I read your pamphlet on electrons and matter, ”he began. - I myself have studied this issue for several years and I believe that your brochure contains many correct thoughts.
(1873-1928) in one article is completely impossible. Therefore, we will not consider his political and scientific activities for now, but take a look at his literary heritage.
Novel "Red Star" was first published in the St. Petersburg publishing house "Association of Print Artists" in 1908 (remember this date!). Then it was reprinted in 1918 and in 1929. Because Bogdanov was one of the ideologues of the Proletkult, then his work is thoroughly saturated with proletarian ideas and aesthetics. As a matter of fact, Bogdanov set the task of conveying his ideas to the broad masses, and describing them in an interesting literary form was a completely reasonable decision.
In form, the novel "Krasnaya Zvezda" is a Jules Verne sample of classic fiction of the late 19th century. I did not notice any special "Russianness" or appeals to Russia in the work. The novel is everywhere positioned as a utopia. But utopia (as well as dystopia) by definition is still a description of the society of the future, which is not in the novel. Simply Bogdanov describes the society to which, apparently, he strove. A certain absolute, a mathematical model ...
In general, the work really hooked me not so much with the storyline as with its message, atmosphere, the fact that the novel is essentially an artistic description of the idea that Bogdanov wanted to realize in real life.
The Russian revolutionary Leonid was visited by a strange guest who turned out to be a Martian and offered to fly to Mars in order to help the Martians understand earthlings and in the future be something like an ambassador of goodwill. Well, here I immediately drew attention to the description of the appearance of the Martians-aliens:
His eyes were monstrously huge, as human eyes never are. Their pupils were dilated even in comparison with this unnatural size of the eyes themselves, which made their expression almost scary. The upper part of the face and head was as wide as necessary to accommodate such eyes; on the contrary, the lower part of the face, without any signs of a beard or mustache, was comparatively small. All together gave the impression of extreme originality, perhaps ugliness, but not caricature.
Doesn't it look like anything? Of course, this is the classic alien from Hollywood movies. So my question arose. Where did this image come from? Who invented it first?
The aliens naturally arrived on the "plate". But Bogdanov has this vehicle has its own name - eteronef... A beautiful word, by the way. Here's a description:
I managed to notice the external shape of the eteronef even the day before: it was almost a ball with a smoothed segment at the bottom, in the manner of a set Columbian egg - a shape designed, of course, to obtain the largest volume with the smallest surface, that is, the least material consumption and the smallest area cooling. As for the material, it seems that aluminum and glass prevailed.
Aetheroonef and many of the Martian spacecraft were powered by so-called "negative matter". This substance has anti-gravity properties.
We arrange all aircraft according to this method: they are made of ordinary materials, but they contain a reservoir filled with a sufficient amount of "negative matter". Then it remains to give this whole weightless system the proper speed of movement.
And the flight at Eteronef is described as follows:
In the first second we had to go only one centimeter, in the second three, in the third five, in the fourth seven centimeters; and the speed had to change all the time, continuously increasing according to the law of arithmetic progression. In a minute we had to reach the speed of a walking person, in 15 minutes - a courier train, etc.
We moved according to the law of falling bodies, but fell upward and 500 times slower than ordinary heavy bodies falling near the surface of the earth.
The social society of the Martians (read - the ideal society according to Bogdanov) is built on the postulate that labor is a natural need for a developed socialist person, and all kinds of disguised or explicit coercion to work are completely unnecessary. And the whole life of a socialist Martian - work, leisure, creativity, personal relationships - everything is built around this.
I read on the Internet that the production of artificial fibers began to develop actively only by 1940. And Bogdanov already describes in detail the technical process in 1908! Apparently, then it was high-tech, something like our nanotechnology.
Several times a month, "material" for yarn in the form of a semi-liquid transparent substance in large tanks was delivered by rail from the nearest chemical plants. From these cisterns, the material, with the help of special devices, eliminating the access of air, was poured into a huge, high suspended metal tank, the flat bottom of which had hundreds of thousands of the finest microscopic holes. Through the holes, a viscous liquid was pressed under high pressure in thin streams, which, under the action of air, hardened already a few centimeters and turned into transparent cobweb fibers. Tens of thousands of mechanical spindles picked up these fibers, twisted dozens of them into threads of various thicknesses and densities, and pulled them further, transferring the finished "yarn" to the next weaving department. There, on looms, threads were intertwined into various fabrics, from the most delicate, like muslin and cambric, to the densest, like cloth and felt, which stretched even further into the cutting workshop in endless wide ribbons. Here they were picked up by new machines, carefully folded in many layers and cut out of them in thousands of previously outlined and measured according to drawings, various patterns of individual parts of the suit.
And here is the work of the protagonist at the Martian weaving factory. By the way, some sources indicate that the novel was helped to write by none other than! But I did not find any reliable confirmation. But from the next excerpt it just smacks of "Gastavism"!
To work "no worse" than others - I strove for this with all my might and, in general, not without success. But I could not help but notice that it costs me much more effort than the rest of the workers. After the usual 4-6 (earthly) hours of labor, I was very tired, and I needed immediate rest, while others went to museums, libraries, laboratories or other factories to observe production, and sometimes even work there ...
I hoped that a habit would come to new types of work and would equal me with all workers. But that was not the case. I became more and more convinced that I lacked the _ culture of attention_. Very few physical movements were required, and in their speed and dexterity I was not inferior, even surpassed many. But it required such continuous and intense attention when observing machines and material, which was very difficult for my brain: obviously, only in a number of several generations could this ability have developed to the extent that it was ordinary and average here.
When - usually towards the end of my day's work - fatigue began to show in her and my attention began to change, I made a mistake or slowed down for a second the execution of some act of work, then inevitably and unmistakably the hand of one of the neighbors corrected the matter.
Here I still want to copy more, because it is in these excerpts about art that the aesthetics of Proletkult is embodied.
About art in general:
“I never imagined that you had special art museums,” I said to Enno on the way to the museum. - I thought that sculptural and art galleries are a feature of capitalism with its ostentatious luxury and desire to roughly heap wealth. In a socialist society, I assumed, art is scattered everywhere alongside the life that it adorns.
“You were not mistaken about that,” answered Enno. - Most of our works of art are always intended for public buildings - those in which we discuss our common affairs, those in which we study and research, in which we rest ... We decorate our factories and factories much less: the aesthetics of powerful machines and their harmonious movement is pleasing to us in its pure form, and there are very few works of art that would be in complete harmony with it, without in the least dissipating or weakening its impressions. The least we decorate is our homes, in which we live very little. And our art museums are scientific and aesthetic institutions, they are schools for studying how art develops, or rather, how humanity develops in its artistic activity.
About painting:
The later works of art, as well as the ancients, are characterized by extreme simplicity and unity of motive. Very complex human beings with a rich and harmonious life content are depicted, and at the same time such moments of their life are chosen when all of it is concentrated in some one feeling, an aspiration ... Favorite themes of the latest artists are the ecstasy of creative thought, the ecstasy of love, the ecstasy of pleasure nature, the tranquility of voluntary death - plots that deeply outline the essence of a great tribe that knows how to live with fullness and intensity, die consciously and with dignity.
About architecture:
By architecture, the Martians understand not only the aesthetics of buildings and large engineering structures, but also the aesthetics of furniture, tools, machines, in general the aesthetics of everything materially useful. What a huge role this art plays in their lives can be judged by the particular completeness and thoroughness of this collection. From primitive cave dwellings with their crudely decorated utensils, to luxurious public houses made of glass and aluminum with their interior furnishings performed by the best artists, to giant factories with their menacingly beautiful machines, to the greatest canals with their granite embankments and air bridges, there were all typical forms are presented in the form of pictures, drawings, models and especially stereograms in large stereoscopes, where everything was reproduced with a complete illusion of identity. A special place was occupied by the aesthetics of gardens, fields and parks; and no matter how unusual the nature of the planet was for me, even I often understood the beauty of those combinations of colors and shapes that were created from this nature by the collective genius of the tribe with big eyes.
In the works of previous eras, very often, like ours, elegance was achieved at the expense of convenience, decorations harmed strength, art committed violence against the direct useful purpose of objects. My eye has never caught anything like that in the works of the modern era - not in its furniture, not in its tools, or in its structures. I asked Enno if their modern architecture allowed them to deviate from the practical perfection of objects for the sake of their beauty.
- Never, - answered Enno, - it would be false beauty, artificiality, and not art.
Sculpture:
In pre-socialist times, Martians erected monuments to their great men; now they erect monuments only to great events; such as the first attempt to reach Earth, which ended in the death of researchers, such as the destruction of a deadly epidemic disease, such as the discovery of the decomposition and synthesis of all chemical elements. A number of monuments were presented in stereograms of the same department where tombs and temples were located (the Martians also had religions earlier). One of the last monuments to great people was that of the engineer Manny told me about. The artist was able to clearly imagine the strength of the human soul, who victoriously led the army of labor in the struggle against nature and proudly rejected the cowardly judgment of morality over his actions.
As for poetry ... Here we see a confrontation of opinions. This time, Leonidas already argues from the point of view of the contemporary poetic avant-garde, and the Martian Enno - from the point of view of classical poetry:
“Whose poems are these,” I asked.
“Mine,” said Enno, “I wrote them for Manny.
I could not fully judge the inner beauty of poetry in a language that was still alien to me; but there is no doubt that their thought was clear, the rhythm is very harmonious, the rhyme is sonorous and rich. This gave a new direction to my thoughts.
- So, in your poetry, strict rhythm and rhyme still flourish?
“Of course,” Enno said with a touch of surprise. - Does this seem ugly to you?
- No, not at all, - I explained, - but we have a widespread opinion that this form was generated by the tastes of the ruling classes of our society, as an expression of their lust and addiction to conventions that fetter the freedom of artistic speech. From this they conclude that the poetry of the future, the poetry of the era of socialism, must reject and forget these shy laws.
“This is totally unfair,” Enno objected fervently. - Correctly rhythmic seems to us beautiful not at all because of an addiction to the conventional, but because it deeply harmonizes with the rhythmic correctness of the processes of our life and consciousness. And the rhyme, which completes a series of varieties in the same final chords, is not it in the same deep kinship with that life connection of people, which increases their inner diversity with the unity of pleasure in art? Without rhythm, there is no art form at all. Where there is no rhythm of sounds, there must be, and, moreover, the stricter rhythm of ideas ... And if the rhyme is really of feudal origin, then this can be said about many other good and beautiful things.
- But does rhyme really hinder and complicate the expression of a poetic idea?
- So what of this? After all, this constraint stems from the goal that the artist freely sets for himself. It not only complicates, but also improves the expression of the poetic idea, and only for this does it exist. The more difficult the goal, the more difficult the path to it, and, therefore, the more constraints along the way. If you want to build a beautiful building, how many rules of technique and harmony will determine and, therefore, "restrain" your work! You are free to choose your goals - this is the only human freedom. But since you desire the goal, you also desire the means by which it is achieved.
With this material, we open a series of articles devoted to scientific, technical and social foresight of various well-known and little-known authors of science fiction works. We all strive to find out, "and what is there in the future ..." We constantly want to know what was and what will be, errors and opportunities, risks and prospects. Or perhaps the answer to the age-old question "Why?" Science fiction writers help us with this, who have all the possibilities for this. Someone uses them better, someone worse. So, today we will get acquainted with the novel "Red Star", which is rather little known in our country. Surprisingly, published in 1908, it has not lost its relevance to this day ...
Cover of the novel "Red Star". Krasnaya Gazeta, 1929.
Let's start with the author's biography. And there was Alexander Alexandrovich Bogdanov (real name - Malinovsky, pseudonyms - Werner, Maksimov, Ryadovoy). He was born in 1873 in the Grodno province and eventually became a doctor, economist, philosopher and politician. In 1896-1909. was a member of the Bolshevik Party, from 1905 a member of the Central Committee. Head of the internal party group "Forward". It was he who created the famous party schools of the RSDLP in Bologna and on the island of Capri. Polemized with V.I. Lenin, but then in 1911 he decided to abandon politics altogether and devote himself to science. Since 1918, he was the ideologist of Proletkult and advocated the creation of a new proletarian culture. In 1912 he wrote the work “General organizational science. Tectology ”, in which they were offered a new science about the existence of universal types and the natural possibilities of structural transformations in any, including social, systems. It is obvious that synergetics and some provisions of cybernetics were contained here. In 1926, Bogdanov organized the world's first Institute of Blood Transfusion, became its director and died in the course of an experiment on blood transfusion, which he set on himself.
The novel was written in 1908, but still has not lost its relevance. Many of the more serious works of his contemporaries have lost her, but his novel, with all its naivety, has not. But why, we'll figure it out now.
The content of the novel is as follows. Its main character Leonid meets aliens from another planet - the Martians - on earth, and they take him with them to Mars. He makes a flight in outer space on an eteronef ship, driven by the decay of "radiating matter", that is, in fact, it is an atomoleet. And this is just one of his predictions - a space nuclear engine, because there are a lot of technical predictions in the novel. Bogdanov predicted 3D cinema, electronic computers and voice recorders, artificial protein and synthetic fibers. Bogdanov's production on Mars is also run by machines that accurately track the need for a particular labor and keep track of the output and the labor time spent on it. By the way, it is believed that video chat was first predicted by Hugo Gernsbeck in the novel Ralph 124C 41+, but it was first published in 1911, that is, three years after the appearance of Bogdanov's novel. And in the same way, even before Einstein's discovery, it discusses the prospects for the use of nuclear energy. He also foresaw the appearance of the atomic one, about the use of which he wrote the following: "with such a weapon, the one who for a few minutes warns the enemy with his attack, he inevitably destroys him." Very perspicacious, isn't it?
However, the main thing in the novel "Red Star" is not technology, but the social structure of the Martian society. In general, he meets there real communism in the form that the Russian revolutionaries imagined at that time - a highly organized society of highly conscientious and responsible citizens.
Labor on Mars is a need for all Martians. He brings them joy, and the working day is about two hours, so they devote most of their time to leisure and self-improvement. And they change jobs all the time in order to experience all its diversity. Where and how to whom to work only recommendations are given, but they are not binding, since any violence in the Martian society is excluded. The only place where it is allowed is ... the upbringing of children, in those cases when they show atavistic negative instincts (that is, they can be spanked!), And also in relation to the mentally ill. At the same time, the younger generation, as in the novels of the Strugatsky brothers about the future "world of Midday", is brought up not in families, but in "children's homes", where they are taught and brought up.
To paint a picture of an alien world and alien culture is a very difficult task, both Tommaso Campanella tried to do this in his "City of the Sun" and the Polish science fiction writer Jerzy Zulawski in his trilogy novel Winner, published, by the way, in the same 1908. Bogdanov, apparently, therefore decided to somewhat simplify his task. On his Mars there is no division of people by skin color, there are no nations, the culture is one and common for all, like one language. Therefore, the Martian society, he says through the lips of his Martian heroes, is "more direct" than the history of earthlings, who have a lot of not only social, but also cultural and ethnic contradictions that very, very much surprise the Martians who have visited Earth.
But then the most interesting begins and here the social aspects of Bogdanov's foresight rise to new heights. For all the problem-free nature of the Martian society, the Martians still have one problem, and they have the same problem that we face today - uncontrolled reproduction. High moral principles do not allow Martians to limit fertility. But they also do not want to limit the level of consumption, while the stocks of "radiating matter" on Mars are small and sooner or later will have to run out. True, they could be imported from Earth, but the scientist Martian Sterny believes that earthlings will not share them just like that, that Martians on Earth are threatened with attacks and destruction. Venus remains, where the minerals the Martians need are abundant, but there they are very dangerous and difficult to get.
Therefore, Sterny, with no hesitation, proposes to choose the least of the two evils: to destroy the population of the Earth, as having not reached a high level of development, in favor of the already existing and mature Martian communism. Leonid's friends - engineer Manny and the Martian woman who fell in love with the revolutionary earthling Natty - oppose this plan, and others do not support it, since, they say, every form of life, let alone a thinking one, is sacred. However, one cannot fail to notice that the decision with the colonization of Venus is also not a very good solution, because it will lead to huge casualties among the Martians, and whether the revolution on Earth will succeed and what its outcome will be is unknown.
And then Bogdanov owns an amazingly powerful vision and foresight, which should probably be placed in a prominent place in front of the eyes of many politicians of a “communist orientation”: “not one, but many social revolutions are foreseen, in different countries, at different times, and even in many ways, probably of a different nature, and most importantly - with a dubious and unstable outcome. The ruling classes, relying on the army and high military equipment, in some cases can inflict a destructive defeat on the insurgent proletariat that in entire vast states will throw back the struggle for socialism for decades; and examples of this kind have already happened in the annals of the Earth. Then individual advanced countries, in which socialism will triumph, will be like islands in the hostile capitalist, and partly even pre-capitalist world. Fighting for their own domination, the upper classes of non-socialist countries will direct all their efforts to destroy these islands, will constantly organize military attacks on them, and will find among the socialist nations sufficient allies ready for any government, from among the former owners, large and small. The outcome of these collisions is difficult to predict. But even where socialism holds on and emerges victorious, its character will be deeply and permanently distorted by many years of a state of siege, the necessary terror and military clique, with the inevitable consequence - barbaric patriotism. "
It can even be argued, although it is of course not indisputable, that it was for this passage that the entire novel was written. Well - examples of this approach are known, for example, the entire novel by A.N. Tolstoy's "Aelita" was written for the sake of the chapter "The Second Story of Aelita", in which he spoke about his own views on the history of mankind.
Leonidas is horrified by what he heard, and in a state of mental disorder kills Stairne, after which the Martians return him back to Earth. However, he does not stay there either, since it turns out that the Martian Natty takes him, wounded in revolutionary battles, back to Mars, while the proletarian revolution is winning on Earth.
It is interesting that V.I. Lenin read this novel. And, apparently, the first part - "Red Star" and its continuation - "Engineer Manny", written by him in 1913. And in one of his letters to Gorky in 1913 he wrote the following about him: “I read his 'Engineer Manny'. The same Machism - idealism, hidden in such a way that neither the workers nor ... the editors in Pravda understood. " Nevertheless, "Engineer Manny", although inferior to "Krasnaya Zvezda" both ideologically and artistically, is of considerable interest as an original attempt to portray a transitional era to socialism. And in comparison with such works as Bellamy's novel, which was widespread in our country during the first revolution, or Wells's utopian novellas, the novels of Bogdanov, a man of great culture and mind and heart, a fiery idealist, in the best sense of the word, throughout his life - are excellent reading material. "
However, V.I. Lenin wrote all this without knowing either about the events of 1917, or about 1937 and 1945, and even more so he could not have foreseen the year 1991! Meanwhile, everything turned out in the end exactly "according to Bogdanov", including the xenophobia that has spread in our society and many other negative consequences of attempts to radically reorganize society, not to mention the problem of lack of resources facing the earthly civilization. It is worth replacing the words "radiating matter" with the word "oil", and we seem to be in our time, isn't it?
Alexander Bogdanov
RED STAR
PART ONE
That was when that great breakdown in our country was just beginning, which is still going on and, I think, is now approaching its inevitable and terrible end.
Its first bloody days shook the public consciousness so deeply that everyone expected a quick and bright outcome of the struggle: it seemed that the worst had already happened, that nothing worse could be. No one imagined to what extent the bony hands of a dead man were tenacious, who pressed and still continues to crush the living in his convulsive embrace.
Fighting excitement swiftly spread among the masses. The souls of people selflessly opened up towards the future; the present blurred in a pink fog, the past disappeared into the distance, disappearing from the eyes. All human relationships have become unstable and fragile as never before.
During those days something happened that turned my life upside down and pulled me out of the stream of the people's struggle.
I was, in spite of my twenty-seven years, one of the "old" Party workers. I had six years of work, with a break of only a year in prison. Earlier than many others, I sensed the approach of the storm and met it more calmly than they did. I had to work much more than before; But at the same time I did not give up my scientific studies - I was especially interested in the question of the structure of matter - or literary ones: I wrote in children's magazines, and this gave me the means of living. At the same time, I loved ... or it seemed to me that I loved.
Her party name was Anna Nikolaevna.
She belonged to a different, more moderate trend in our party. I explained this by the softness of her nature and the general confusion of political relations in our country; in spite of the fact that she was older than me, I considered her not yet fully determined person. In this I was wrong. […]
And yet I did not foresee and did not assume the inevitability of a rupture - when an extraneous influence penetrated our life, which hastened the denouement.
Around this time, a young man arrived in the capital, bearing an extraordinary conspiratorial name in our country, Manny. He brought some messages and instructions from the South, according to which it was possible to see that he enjoyed the complete confidence of his comrades. Having completed his work, he decided to stay in the capital for some time and began to come to us quite often, showing a clear inclination to get closer to me.
He was an original person in many ways, starting with his appearance. His eyes were so masked by very dark glasses that I did not even know their color; his head was somewhat disproportionately large; his features, beautiful but surprisingly motionless and lifeless, did not at all harmonize with his soft and expressive voice, as well as with his slender, youthfully flexible figure. His speech was free and fluid and always full of content. His scientific background was very one-sided; he was apparently an engineer by profession.
In conversation, Manny had a tendency to constantly reduce particular and practical issues to general ideological grounds. When he was with us, it always turned out somehow that the contradictions of natures and views with my wife very soon came to the fore, so clearly and vividly that we began to painfully feel their hopelessness. Manny's outlook seemed to be similar to mine; he always spoke very softly and carefully in form, but just as sharply and deeply in essence. He was able to connect our political disagreements with Anna Nikolaevna so skillfully with the basic difference in our worldviews that these disagreements seemed psychologically inevitable, almost logical conclusions from them, and all hope of influencing each other, smoothing out the contradictions and coming to something common disappeared. Anna Nikolaevna harbored a kind of hatred for Manny, combined with a keen interest. He inspired me with great respect and vague distrust: I felt that he was moving towards some goal, but could not understand what.
On one of the January days - this was already at the end of January - there was a discussion in the leading groups of both currents of the party of the project of a mass demonstration with a probable outcome in an armed conflict. Manny came to us the night before and raised the issue of participation in this demonstration, if it is resolved, of the party leaders themselves. An argument ensued, which quickly took on a burning character.
Anna Nikolaevna declared that everyone who votes for a demonstration is morally obliged to go in the front ranks. I found that it was not at all necessary at all, but that one should go who was needed there or who could be seriously useful, and I had in mind exactly myself, as a person with some experience in such matters. Manny went further and argued that, in view of the apparently inevitable clash with the troops, street agitators and combat organizers should be on the field of action, political leaders have no place there, and physically weak and nervous people can be even very harmful. Anna Nikolaevna was directly offended by these arguments, which seemed to her to be directed specifically against her. She broke off the conversation and went to her room. Manny left soon after.
The next day I had to get up early in the morning and leave without seeing Anna Nikolaevna, but return in the evening. The demonstration was rejected both in our committee and, as I found out, in the leadership team of a different trend. I was pleased with this, because I knew how insufficient preparation for an armed conflict was, and considered such a performance a fruitless waste of forces. It seemed to me that this decision would somewhat weaken the acuteness of Anna Nikolaevna's irritation over yesterday's conversation. On my desk I found a note from Anna Nikolaevna:
"I'm leaving. The more I understand myself and you, the more it becomes clear to me that we are going our separate ways and that we were both wrong. We'd better not meet again. Sorry".
I wandered the streets for a long time, tired, with a feeling of emptiness in my head and cold in my heart. When I returned home, I found an unexpected guest there: Manny was sitting at my table and writing a note.
2. INVITATION
I have to talk to you about a very serious and somewhat strange matter, ”Manny said.
I did not care; I sat down and prepared to listen.
I read your pamphlet on electrons and matter, ”he began. - I myself have studied this issue for several years and I believe that your brochure contains many correct thoughts.
I bowed silently. He continued:
In this work, you have one remark of particular interest to me. You suggested there that the electrical theory of matter, necessarily representing the force of gravity in the form of some derivative of the electrical forces of attraction and repulsion, should lead to the discovery of gravitation with a different sign, that is, to obtain a type of matter that is repelled, not attracted The Earth, the Sun and other familiar bodies; you pointed out, for comparison, the diamagnetic repulsion of bodies and the repulsion of parallel currents of different directions. All this is said in passing, but I think that you yourself attached more importance to this than you wanted to discover.
You are right, - I replied, - and I think that it is on this path that humanity will solve both the problem of completely free air movement, and then the problem of communication between the planets. But whether this idea is true in itself or not, it is completely sterile as long as there is no exact theory of matter and gravitation. If another type of matter exists, then it is obviously impossible to simply find it: by the force of repulsion it has long been removed from the entire solar system, or, more precisely, it did not enter into its composition when it began to organize itself in the form of a nebula. This means that this type of matter must still be theoretically designed and then practically reproduced. Now there is no data for this, and, in essence, one can only anticipate the task itself.
And yet this problem has already been solved, - said Manny.
I looked at him in amazement. His face was still motionless, but there was something in his tone that did not allow him to be considered a charlatan.
“Maybe a mental patient,” flashed through my head.
There is no need for me to deceive you, and I know very well what I am saying, ”he answered my thought. “Listen to me patiently, and then, if necessary, I will present evidence. - And he said the following: - The great discovery in question was not made by the forces of an individual. It belongs to a whole scientific society that has existed for a long time and has been working in this direction for a long time. This society has been secret until now, and I am not authorized to acquaint you closer with its origin and history, until we manage to agree on the main point.
Alexander Alexandrovich Bogdanov (1873-1928) - Russian writer, economist, philosopher, natural scientist. In 1908 he completed and published his best science fiction work - the novel "Red Star", which can be considered the forerunner of Soviet science fiction. At the same time, he conducted active revolutionary work in close contact with V. I. Lenin. created a two-volume essay "General organizational science", in which he put forward a number of ideas that were later developed in cybernetics: the principles of feedback, modeling, systems analysis of the studied subject, etc. After the October Revolution, A. Bogdanov devotes himself to work in biology and medicine. In 1926 he headed the world's first Institute of Blood Transfusion and died after an unsuccessful experiment on himself in 1928. Bogdanov's utopia novel "Red Star" was first published in the St. Petersburg publishing house "Society of Print Artists" in 1908. Then it was reprinted in 1918 and in 1929.
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