Alexander Bogdanov (1873 - 1928)

Fri Aug 22, 1873

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Alexander Bogdanov, born on this day in 1873, was a Russian scientist, philosopher, science fiction author, and socialist revolutionary who co-founded the Bolshevik faction of the Social Democratic Labor Party when it split with the Mensheviks in 1903.

Bogdanov was born as Aleksandr Malinovsky in Sokółka, modern day Poland, to a rural teacher’s family. Expelled from Moscow State University, Bogdanov eventually graduated from the University of Kharkiv as a qualified medical doctor.

Around the same time, Bogdanov became a political prisoner and was arrested by the Tsar’s police, spent six months in prison, and then exiled to Vologda. In 1903, Bogdanov played a key role in the formation and organization of the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Party.

In the following years, Bogdanov became a political rival of Vladimir Lenin. In 1909, Lenin published a scathing book of criticism of Bognadov’s ideas (Materialism and Empiriocriticism), accusing him of philosophical idealism. Later that year, Bognadov was defeated in a Paris party conference and expelled from the Bolsheviks.

After the October Revolution, Bogdanov refused invitations to rejoin the party. In 1923, he was arrested by the GPU (Soviet secret police) for suspicion of involvement in the socialist opposition group “Workers’ Truth”, although he was released without charge.

Bognadov contributed to a wide variety of fields, including philosophy, creative writing, political economy, and a precursor to systems theory he called “tektology”.

In 1928, Bogdanov died suddenly after taking an experimental blood transfusion from a student suffering from malaria and tuberculosis.