Aleksandr Bogdanov

In an unspecified year (though let us assume it is 1908), a Martian presents himself to the revolutionary and scientist Aleksandr Bogdanov, inviting him to come to Mars to study its society and disseminate superior Martian values on Earth. The Red Planet possesses a flawless organization that makes it possible, for instance, to assign to each individual the work most useful to the community while simultaneously most congenial to the person, realizing Marx's utopian dictum: "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs." It is the ideal communist society—one that will not be easy for the revolutionary Bogdanov to accept, vexed as he is by the Martians' attentiveness toward him, which he presumes to be a form of surveillance, whereas instead > the solicitude they showed toward me was the very same—perhaps less frequent—that they displayed when helping one another. (...) I, who came from an individualistic world, involuntarily set myself apart from others and morbidly perceived their kindness and friendly assistance, which I, child of a materialistic world, could not afford to repay. And so, > one had to make haste, one had to summon all one's strength and energy, for the responsibility was colossal! What an immense benefit for our old and suffering humanity, what titanic progress and prosperity would the energetic, vigorous influence of that superior, powerful, and harmonious culture bring! But are we truly certain that Martians and Earthlings are so different? Are we convinced that socialist society dissolves individualistic impulses into a higher sphere where only rationality and solidarity prevail? And what if love were to burst into this exquisitely harmonious society? Netti, a slender and gentle Martian woman, falls in love with the fragile, bewildered Earthling. > I love you not merely as a wife; I love you as a mother accompanying her child into a new, alien existence, fraught with hardships and perils. This love is stronger and deeper than any other capable of binding two beings together. Thus Netti writes to Bogdanov when the latter discovers that she is also married to Stenni—a cold, heartless scientist capable of dissecting everything, yet incapable of understanding people's thoughts and feelings. And there is unquestionably jealousy and antipathy, sentiments so un-socialist, at the root of Bogdanov's murder of Stenni. And there is also homesickness for Earth: > a swarm of familiar faces and past events flickered in my mind (...) earthly landscapes, theatrical scenes, images from children's fairy tales were silently reflected in my soul; as in a mirror, they dissolved and interchanged without any sense of turmoil, but only with a mild curiosity accompanied by a faint sensation of pleasure. In an agitated and confused state, where jealousy and earthly allegiance overlap, Bogdanov cannot help but kill Stenni upon reading the minutes of a secret meeting in which the "cold scientist" urges the invasion of Earth, the extermination of its population, and the plundering of its resources, which Mars desperately needs. Is this a premonition of what was to come, when genocides of entire peoples would be perpetrated behind the veneer of class and racial utopias? What will become of Bogdanov and his beloved Netti? The author envisions Bogdanov being sent back to Earth: using him as a potential "bridge" between the two worlds has proved a failure. Netti journeys to Earth to join him, and then? All that remains > on the parlor table, before a huge, wide-open window, (...) a note. A few words were inscribed there in a trembling hand: "greetings to the comrades, Farewell". Wu Ming imagined a continuation of Bogdanov and Netti's story (see the review of *Proletkult* on this site); yet, as in their preface to *Red Star*, the Bologna-based collective offers a historical-ideological reading, informed naturally by hindsight. What is lost is that crucible of sentiments and relationships that forms the pivot of the plot and keeps the novel so captivating. Why read it? Though at times tedious, the story of Bogdanov and Netti is beautiful.