Red Star - The First Bolshevic Utopia - Essay Example

Bolshevik utopia The red star, the first Bolshevik utopia is a dystopia rather than a utopia because Martian people exploited all their planet’s resources and planned to eradicate and colonize on another planet. The red star aimed to encourage the defeated Russians proletariat by showing them how the future socialist’s society would look like. Red star did not support socialist humanity and inclination to capitalist cruelty and individualism, and as an anticipation of the future, it held out the hope that socialism would be established in Russia within the lives of people of present generation. In addition, the novel is radical in nature in that, it shows how readers of utopia may consider a success; yet do not understand what the author meant (Aldridge 23-24). The red star written in 1905, at that time, socialism had already existed for several years in Mars in that, the inhabitants of Mars had sent expeditions to earth with the hopes of creating contacts between the two civilizations. It is interesting to note that the Martians feared cementing their relationship with people from the earth, so they decided to find earthling with good advanced and flexible constitution to hijack and take them back to Mars in order to acquaint him with the Martian civilization and culture, and at the end, return him to earth as their emissary. Their emissary, Leonid is convinced of the significance of the mission for which the Martians have picked him and on his expedition, he learns the Martians culture and history. While touring the schools, factories, museums and research institutions of Mars, Leonid is convinced that the Martian people were superior to those people on earth. He is convinced of the superiority of socialism over the capitalism that still reigns on Earth (Bognadov 16-18). The tour of Mars is used to express the maturity of socialist society including advanced science, planned economy and collectivism. Further, Leonid realizes that in Mars, there is no distinction between sexes. During his stay in Mars, Leonid realized that the Martian people do not harbor good intentions towards his native planet in contrary to what he thought. The Martian people planned an invasion of the Earth and extermination of its people in order to exploit their natural resources. The red star is used to represent the Russian workers with visible model for their revolutionary strivings. On the other hand, in Mars, at first glance, it does not appear to be a socialist utopia in that, most of the objectives of the Europeans has been accomplished there. In that, all means of production are shared as common property, class conflict has vanished, money no longer used to run the society, the economy is scientifically and centrally placed, education is inspired by collective tenets, tasks are accomplished with the help of computer technology, political hierarchy and dictatorship have disappeared, war, violence, racism are absent, medical science has improved in that people in Mars live longer lives, workers of mars have escaped the stultifying effects of the division of labor by moving from one occupation to another whenever they want, they treat each other equally and honestly and that they become altruistic and fair-minded(Bukhurst 41-45). The Martian society depicted success of socialism as compared to the particularly instructive Earthling still struggling with the problems of exploitative capitalism. All these inspiring elements of utopia have been given to Mars, but, there exist another side in Mars that present the aspect of dystopia in socialism. It is depicted that people in Mars are not peaceful and happy because of the myriad of problems facing socialism in Mars. For instance, the Martian people think that the earth is the best place to live since in Mars, industries are dangerous that they must be kept underground, the population is growing rapidly that there is scare of food shortage and even famines have been predicted in the coming few years, natural resources have been depleted, the Martians have been forced to cut their forests and degrade their environment for them to continue utilizing their diminishing resources, advancement in medical field which has made prolongation of life in Mars a curse in that has some people to chose when to end their lives and suicide hospitals or clinics are provided for that purpose(Stites 32-36). However, socialism have created tragedy for people in mars in that the elimination of division of labor have created accidents in industries and factories as workers move from one work place to another and that nervous disorder are common illness in Mars. More so, it is apparent that the socialist Mars has established a colonial department in its society and preparing to create colonies on other planets such as Earth and Venus or both in order to extract resources enough to feed its Martian population that is undergoing many tribulations. The Bolshevik utopia in Russia believed that even after socialism have been successfully established; civilization would be faced by many problems known as post-industrious societies. For instance, the industrialized States would be plagued by many problems such as the dangers of atomic energy. The Bolshevik utopia is a dystopia because people on earth believed that the earth was an incredibly unfortunate place to live if one thought of establishing a new socialist civilization in which struggle or strife would disappear. Compared to Mars, Earth was divided, violent and fratricidal. The Russian revolutionaries’ best explains the miseries that face the earth in that, nature and science lay behind the social brutality and radicands of inhabitants of earth (Trahair 26-27). The physical force and high metabolism on earth compared to Mars, made its inhabitants violent and irascible. On the other hand, the struggle between socialism and capitalism in Mars was never violent when compared to Earth. The Martians and Earthling were different people in term of their basic constitutions. Furthermore, Earth is considered to be larger than Mars divided by great oceans, the people who occupied it were divided in separate languages and eventually nations. When socialism first alighted on earth, and tried to unite its inhabitants under common constitution, the efforts were fruitless due to nationalistic struggles that the earthling continued to endorse against each other. Contrary to Mars that was united by common language even in its early history and that Mars has never been faced by wars. All objects that exist can be differentiated in terms of the extent of their organization in that objects on higher levels of organization possess qualities which are greater than those on lower level. Machines and living beings are dynamically structured complexes whereby bio-regulators provide a balance for the maintenance of the order. In this regard, it was only possible that common language could unite individuals torn apart by their individually organized experience (Gordin 31-33). The Martians thought of invading the Earthling and exterminate its inhabitants in order to acquire their natural resources. It is rational to argue that the Martians thought that if they invaded the hopeless earthling, so irrevocably prejudiced by nationalistic ideals, the minority socialist on earth would not support them. If the Martians try to exploit the natural resources of the Earth for them to survive, the Earthling would revenge and stage a rebellion refusing to realize that the Martian civilization was much superior to theirs. The technological advancement of the Martina would mean that the Earthling would not win the battle but spirited fight by the Earthling would bring indefinite and costly war. Thefore, they propose to wipe out the entire earthling in advance with rays and use its resources to construct and establish a strong humane socialist society in Mars (Moylan 25-27). The two planets represented socialism and capitalism, where by the Bolsheviks viewed socialism as superior than capitalism. They were determined to wipe out capitalism but never succeed because of diversity that existed. The Martian people never exterminated the Earthling because they thought that life on Earth was different from life in Mars and that exterminating inhabitants of earth would bring an end to life that can never be replaced. The Bolshevik utopia turned to be dystopia when it is considered that the wrecker phenomenon of Russian revolution was uncanny prediction of later Soviet attitudes towards other people in society. Works Cited Aldridge, Alexander. The scientific world view in dystopia. New York: UMI Research Press, 1984. Print. Bogdanov, Alexander. Red Star: The First Bolshevik Utopia. Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1984. Print. Bukhurst, David. Consciousness and Revolution in Soviet Philosophy: From the Bolsheviks to Evald Ilyenkov. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991. Print. Stites, Richard. Revolutionary Dreams: Utopian Vision and Experimental Life in the Russian Revolution. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991. Print. Trahair, Richard. Utopias and Utopians: An Historical Dictionary. New York: Greenwood, 1999. Print. Gordin, Michael. Utopia/Dystopia: Conditions of Historical Possibility. New York: Princeton University Press, 2010. Print. Moylan, Thomas. Scraps of the Untainted Sky: Science Fiction, Utopia, Dystopia. New York: Westview Press, 2000. Print. Read More