Bogdanov, Alexander Alexandrovich

He was born in the family of a national teacher A. A. Malinovsky from a native Vologda family, was the second of six children.

After graduating with a gold medal from the Tula classical gymnasium in 1892, he entered the natural department of the Physics and Mathematics Faculty of Moscow University . In December 1894, he was expelled from the university for participation in the People’s Union of the North, was arrested and expelled to Tula , where the gunsmith Ivan Savelyev was brought to work in the workers' circles. Bogdanov’s circle included a mechanic S. I. Stepanov, who became a delegate for Tula on the II congress of the RSDLP.

Under the pseudonym “A. Bogdanov ”published the Short Course in Economics (1897), which became the result of classes with workers, which V. I. Lenin called an anonymous review to be a remarkable phenomenon in our economic literature ^[5] . The book became the main guide in the social-democratic and working-class circles when it came to political economy. She had an orthodox, very simplistic pages, so later, when someone wanted to say that he thinks routinely in economics, they said about him: “He thinks according to Bogdanov” ^[6] .

In 1895-1899 he studied as an external student at the medical faculty of Kharkov University . In 1899 he received a diploma of doctor and wrote his first philosophical book "The Basic Elements of the Historical View of Nature." In the same year he was arrested, he spent six months in a Moscow prison, then he was expelled to Kaluga , where he met A.V. Lunacharsky and headed a group of political exiles. From Kaluga, together with Lunacharsky, he was exiled for 3 years to Vologda , where he worked as a doctor in a psychiatric hospital . One of the patients of Bogdanov was N. Berdyaev :

My relations with A. Bogdanov were curious <...> A. Bogdanov was a very good person, very sincere and selflessly devoted to the idea, but in his type completely alien to me. At that time, I was already considered an “idealist” imbued with metaphysical quest. For A. Bogdanov, this was a completely abnormal phenomenon. In his original specialty, he was a psychiatrist. He often came to me at first. I noticed that he systematically asks me incomprehensible questions, how I feel in the morning, what a dream, what is my reaction to this or that, and the like. It turned out that he considers the tendency toward idealism and metaphysics to be a sign of a beginning mental disorder, and he wanted to determine how far I had gone.

- N. A. Berdyaev . Self-knowledge (Experience of philosophical autobiography) (1940, ed. 1949)

In Vologda, he became acquainted with V. A. Rusanov , with whom, as a topographer, he traveled around the Komi-Zyryan Territory.

In 1902-1903 - the leader of political exiles Social Democrats in Vologda - the group promoting the newspaper " Iskra "

Vice Leader of the Bolsheviks

In the autumn of 1903 he joined the Bolsheviks and at the end of the exile, in early 1904 , Bogdanov left for Switzerland, where in February in Geneva he met Lenin, whom he became close on political issues, despite the fact that Lenin was critical of his philosophical ideas. Next to Lenin, who set the course for creating his own party, at that time there were no people with creative abilities other than V. V. Vorovskiy . Bogdanov also promised to attract money to the cashier of the Bolsheviks, to start intercourse with M. Gorky , to bring A. Lunacharsky , who was married to Bogdanov’s sister, to the side of Lenin, and V. A. Bazarov ^[6] .

In the autumn of 1904, we finally agreed with Bogdanov as the Bolsheviks and concluded that he silently eliminated philosophy, as a neutral region, a bloc that existed all the time of the revolution (1905-1906).

- Letter to Lenin Gorky (1908)

At a meeting of 22 Bolsheviks in Geneva in November 1904, which laid the foundation of the Bolshevik Party ^[6] , he was elected to the Bureau of Majority Committees - the first Bolshevik center. Returning to Russia from December 1904 he worked in St. Petersburg ^[7] . In the words of M. N. Pokrovsky , during this period Bogdanov was the vice-leader of the party:

A. A. Bogdanov — this was the grand vizier of this Bolshevik power. Since he ruled directly and permanently in Russia, whereas Ilyich was in exile before the 1905 revolution, Bogdanov influenced the party’s policy more and the angular line of the Central Committee, which was expressed in the fact that people were given an ultimatum at every step - or you are ours, or not ours, and not ours were close to those who do not know Avenarius and Mach, etc., - this line is not the line of Ilyich, it is too unlike him, is the line of Bogdanov, and it prevailed until October 1905

- ^[8]

In 1905-1908, the group of literary and political friends of Bogdanov composed the main cadres of the staff of Bolshevik legal publications ^[9] .

In 1905, he was a delegate to the Bolshevik Third Congress of the RSDLP and was elected a member of the Central Committee. Already in 1905, on a number of issues, in particular, on the attitude of the Bolsheviks towards the Soviets, his position was uncompromising than that of Lenin, he was a supporter of presenting an ultimatum to the Soviets to adopt the RSDLP program, while Lenin believed that such straightforward tactics only hurt the cause ^{[ 10]} . Bogdanov was the representative of the Central Committee in the St. Petersburg Soviet of Workers' Deputies , where he was arrested on December 2, 1905. In May 1906, he was released on bail and sent abroad. He was elected from the Bolsheviks a member of the Central Committee at the IV Congress of the RSDLP , which united the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks . In 1906 he entered the Bolshevik Center . Together with Lenin and L. B. Krasin , who drew on the side of the Bolsheviks, he constituted the leading three of the Bolshevik faction of the RSDLP ^[9] . He returned illegally and lived in Kuokkale together with Lenin, working in the editorial office of the Bolshevik organs and in the Duma factions I, II and III of the Dumas ^[7] .

Since the end of 1907 in exile.

In the summer of 1906, Lenin, after reading the III book "Empirio-Monism" just written by Bogdanov, "by his own admission," got angry and went mad extraordinarily "and sent him a" declaration of love with a letter in philosophy in the amount of three notebooks "(letter to Gorky, 1908). The letter contained many offensive words for Bogdanov, and he returned it to Lenin indicating that in order to maintain personal relations with him, the letter should be considered “unwritten, unsent, unread”. In 1907, Bogdanov took the position of non-participation of the Bolsheviks in the III State Duma ( ultimatism ), which differs from Lenin's. The disagreements with Lenin on the issue of control over the Bolshevik box office became sharper ^[9] . In 1908, a complete break came: in the book Materialism and Empirio-Criticism , Lenin subjected Bogdanov to harsh criticism ^[6] . In June 1909, Bogdanov was expelled from the Bolshevik Center to a meeting of the enlarged editorial office of the newspaper Proletary ^[10] . In January 1910 at the Paris Plenum, he was removed from the Central Committee ^[11] .

Bogdanov and his associates ( G. A. Aleksinsky , A. V. Lunacharsky, V. A. Bazarov, M. N. Pokrovsky, and others) formed the group “Forward” in December 1909, which called on members of the RSDLP to prepare for a new revolutionary upsurge , not to make a cult of legal social-democratic work, advocated freedom of ideological disputes in the party, for the elaboration of a socialist proletarian culture, science and art. "Vperedovtsy" actively engaged in publishing activities, carried out propaganda work, organized schools for workers, first on Fr. Capri (1909), then in Bologna (1910–1911).

In the spring of 1911 he left the group "Forward" and withdrew from politics, although he wrote propaganda articles in Pravda and other working bodies before the revolution ^[10] .

After returning to Russia

He returned in 1913 under an amnesty on the occasion of the 300th anniversary of the house of the Romanovs in Russia. During World War I, he was mobilized by a doctor to the army in the field; “The front confirmed his hard-won conviction that the proletarian revolution and the subsequent civil war in the twentieth century, which had unprecedented means of destroying everything alive, would cause tremendous sacrifices, Bogdanov came to the conclusion that the proletariat should first of all strive not for political domination , and to the cultural maturation, ”“ wrote Lev Kolodny ^[12] .

In 1918-1920 - the ideologist of Proletkult .

1918 - 1921 - Professor of Political Economy of the first Moscow University.

1918 - 1922 - Member of the Presidium of the Communist Academy .

On September 8, 1923, the GPU was arrested on suspicion of belonging to the Working Pravda group ^[13] , the investigation of which was carried out at that time. On October 13, after interrogations, explanatory notes and an hour-long conversation with Dzerzhinsky, he was released ^{[12] [11]} .

1926 - 1928 - Director of the State Scientific Institute of Blood Transfusion .

Death

Bogdanov promoted his own theory of rejuvenation through blood transfusion .

... there is every reason to believe that young blood, with its materials taken from young tissues, can help an aging organism in its struggle along the lines along which it already suffers defeat, that is, along which it is "aging" .

- A. A. Bogdanov Essays on Organizational Science

The exchange transfusion according to Bogdanov was widely used to promote class and communist ideas with the involvement of high officials from the party hierarchy, in particular, the younger sister of Lenin, Maria Ulyanova, and Commissioner Krasin . The theory of Bogdanov received support at the highest level: by order of Stalin, the world's first Blood Institute was created, which was located in the house of merchant Igumnov in Yakimanka, and Bogdanov himself became its director.

The next transfusion ended tragically: during the eleventh exchange transfusion with a student there was rejection and death ^[14] . The student survived.

NI Bukharin spoke at the funeral from the party ^[15] . The body of Bogdanov, according to the tradition of the time, was cremated, and his brain was transferred to the brain institute for research ^[16] , which also became located in the Igumnov mansion. The urn with ashes was buried in the columbarium of the Novodevichy cemetery .

Family

• The first wife was Natalya Bogdanovna Malinovskaya (nee Korsak; 1865-1945). She served as a midwife at the clinic of Dr. Rudnev - the father of Bogdanov’s closest friend - V. A. Bazarov (Rudnev) . On the instructions of Rudnev, she traveled to Yasnaya Polyana and took birth in S. A. Tolstoy. She did not have her children.
• The second wife - A. I. Smirnov (1874-1915). Married son was born Alexander .

Brothers and Sisters ^[17] :

• Nikolai Aleksandrovich (1868—?) - studied at the medical faculty in Saratov.
• Sergey Alexandrovich (1876—?).
• Maria Alexandrovna Zander (1882—?) - doctor; lived in Kharkov; For many years she worked at the Burdenko Hospital. She held leadership positions in it. Died in Moscow.
• Anna Alexandrovna Lunacharskaya (1884–1959) - a writer ^[18] and translator; the first wife of A. V. Lunacharsky .
• Olga Alexandrovna (1885-1943) was a sister of mercy in the Russo-Japanese War, she lived and taught for some time in Orenburg. For many years she taught Russian language and literature. She worked in the People's Commissariat for NK Krupskaya. She died in Moscow in 1943.

In an autobiography written at the request of the Encyclopedia Granat , Bogdanov called his works in five areas: political economy, historical materialism, philosophy, "organizational science" and "proletarian culture". In 1908 Bogdanov published a utopia about Mars " Red Star ", in 1912 - " Engineer Manny ." They note their influence on Soviet fiction, in particular, on A. Tolstoy's Aelita and the Andromeda Nebula of I. A. Efremov.

In the article “The Philosophy of the Modern Naturalist” ( 1909 ), A. A. Bogdanov coined the term “ technical intelligentsia ”.

The editor of the new Russian translation of “ Capital ” by K. Marx , made by V. A. Bazarov and I. I. Skvortsov-Stepanov . Together with Skvortsov-Stepanov wrote the "Course of political economy" (1st volume - M., 1910; 2nd volume - 4 issues - M., 1919-1920).

Bogdanov is known for his ideas of tectology and proletcult . Both ideas grew out of his combination of positivism and Marxism . The first taught to fight fetishes and evolution, and the second sent to a bright classless society. To achieve this goal, empirio - monism was needed - the unity of experience . Not only a political struggle, but the formation of an advanced proletarian culture should have served as a staunch help. Bogdanov believed that under communism people would speak English / English , as it is spoken by “the greatest number of industrial proletariat” ^[19]

Bogdanov regarded science and knowledge as an adaptation to the environment, and creativity as the “highest, most difficult kind of labor ” ^[20] , subordinate to the same goal. In art, he highlighted both class character and ideological or organizing nature. Truth itself was a form of organization of experience. Defending collectivism , Bogdanov contrasted him with depersonalizing herding.

Subsequently, the ideas of Bogdanov indirectly influenced the concept of the counterculture .

Tectology

In the three-volume work "Tectology", published in 1910-1920-ies, Bogdanov explains the processes of development of nature and society based on the principle of equilibrium, borrowed from natural science. According to Bogdanov, all developing objects of nature and society are holistic entities, or systems consisting of many elements.

The equilibrium state of the system Bogdanov considers not just once and for all given, but as a “dynamic” or “moving” equilibrium ^[21] .

A characteristic feature of Bogdanov's theory of equilibrium is the assertion that opposites must balance and balance each other, and only in this way is a stable state of the system achieved. In developing systems, two opposing trends simultaneously operate: an increase in stability due to integration processes, a striving for equilibrium, and a decrease in stability caused by the appearance of "systemic contradictions". These contradictions, at a certain level of their development, can lead to crises. Cases of this kind are innumerable in experience, Bogdanov writes: “Sooner or later, systemic contradictions intensify to the point that they outweigh the organizational connection (systems); then there must come a crisis leading either to its transformation, or to disintegration, ruin. ”

Organizational task arises from systemic contradictions, the more urgent, the stronger their development, the task of resolving or eliminating them. Life decides it either in a negative way - the system itself is destroyed, for example, the organism dies, or in a positive way - by the transformation of the system, which frees it from contradictions.

A more slender or “harmonious” combination of elements of the system contains less “contradictions”. This means higher organization ^[22] .

In the tectology of Bogdanov, “for the first time, the main provisions of the systems approach and the theory of self-organization of systems were formulated. It has not only not lost its relevance, speaking in fact as a forerunner and theoretical basis of the current Sustainable Development Concept , but also serves as an important information source for its further deepening and improvement. ” ^[21]

One of the hobbies of Alexander Bogdanov throughout his life was chess. A series of amateur photographs taken on the Italian island of Capri in 1908 (between 10 (23) and April 17 (30)) was preserved, when Vladimir Lenin was visiting AM Gorky . The photographs were taken from various angles and captured Lenin playing with Gorky and Bogdanov ^[23] . The author of all (or at least two of these photos) was made by Yuri Zhelyabuzhsky (in the future - a major Soviet cameraman, director and screenwriter), the son of actress Moscow Art Theater Maria Andreeva and stepchild Gorky. At that time, he was a twenty-year-old boy ^[24] .

In 1999, the International Institute of A. Bogdanov (IIB) was created in Yekaterinburg “to unite, coordinate and develop basic and applied research of Russian and foreign scientists who creatively apply the ideas embodied in the scientific heritage of the great Russian thinker Alexander Alexandrovich Bogdanov” ^[25] .

• Bogdanov A. A. The main elements of the historical view of nature. - SPb., 1898.
• Bogdanov A. A. Knowledge from a historical point of view. - SPb., 1901.
• Private Liberal Programs = Liberale Programs . - Geneva: Social Democratic Party publishing house lit. V. Bonch-Bruyevich and N. Lenin, 1904. - 23 p.
• Bogdanov A. A. From the psychology of society. (Articles 1901-1904) - 1st ed., St. Petersburg, 1904, publishing house “S. Dorovatovsky and A. Charushnikov ".
• Bogdanov A. A. New World. (Articles 1904-1905). 1st ed. M., 1905, publishing house "S. Dorovatovsky and A. Charushnikov ".
• Bogdanov A. A. Empirio-monism . Articles on philosophy. Prince I, 1st, ed. M., 1904, Vol. I, 2nd ed. M., 1905, Vol. I, 3rd ed., M., 1908, Vol. II, 1st ed. M., 1905, Vol. II, 2nd ed., St. Petersburg, 1907, Vol. III, 1st ed. St. Petersburg, 1906, publishing house "S. Dorovatovsky and A. Charushnikov ".
• Bogdanov A. А. Short course of economics. 2nd ed., St. Petersburg, 1899, 3rd ed., M., 1902, 4th ed., St. Petersburg, 1904, 5th ed., M, 1905, 6th ed., M., 1905, 7th ed., M., 1906., 8th ed., M., 1906, 9th ed., M., 1906, ed. "S. Dorovatovsky and A. Charushnikov ”(the latest publications were revised in collaboration with Sh. M. Dvolaitsky ^[7] ).
• Bogdanov A. A., Stepanov I. The course of political economy. T. 1-2. - M., 1910-1919.
• Bogdanov A. A. The Fall of the Great Fetishism. (The current crisis of ideology). Faith and science. (On the book V. Il'in "Materialism and Empirio-Criticism" - 1st ed., M., 1910, publishing house "S. Dorovatovsky and A. Charushnikov."
• Bogdanov A. A. Cultural tasks of our time. - 1st ed. M., 1911, publishing house "S. Dorovatovsky and A. Charushnikov ".
• Bogdanov A. A. Philosophy of living experience. Popular essays. Materialism, empirio-criticism, dialectical materialism, empirio-monism, science of the future. - SPb., 1912
• Bogdanov A. A. Introduction to political economy, 1914.
• Bogdanov A. A. Art and the working class, 1918.
• Bogdanov, A. A. Tectology - General Organizational Science . - Berlin - St. Petersburg, 1922. (Reprint: In 2 books. - M .: "Economics", 1989.)
• Bogdanov A. A. About proletarian culture. 1904-1924 . - M.-L., 1924. - 344 p.
• Bogdanov A. A. Questions of Socialism: Works of Different Years . 2nd ed. - M .: "Politizdat", 1990.
• Bogdanov A. A. Sketches of organizational science
• “A decade of excommunication from Marxism. Юбилейный сборник (1904—1914 гг.)» (неопубликованная рукопись)

Художественные произведения

• Богданов А. А. Красная звезда . — 1-е изд., СПб., 1908, в каталогах изд-ва «С.Дороватовского и А. Чарушникова»; СПб., 1919.; М., 1922.
• Богданов А. А. Инженер Мэнни. — 1-е изд., М., 1912. ^{[12] [26]} изд-во «С. Дороватовского и А. Чарушникова». М., 1922.

• Имя носит НИИ переливания крови Национального медицинского исследовательского центра гематологии Минздрава России .

• В фильме « Сквозь ледяную мглу » (1965) роль А. Богданова (товарища Константина) исполнил Г. Стриженов .

• А. А. Богданов // Политическая история России в партиях и лицах / сост. В. В. Шелохаев. — М. : Терра , 1994. — С. 130—144. - 304 s. - 1500 copies — ISBN 5-85255-622-X .
• Александров Н. Н. Звезда Богданова. М., «Академия Тринитаризма», 2013.
• Базаров В. А. А. А. Богданов (Малиновский) как мыслитель .
• Богданов / И. Ю. Алексеева, Т. В. Кулакова // Новая философская энциклопедия : в 4 т. / пред. scientific - ed. Council V.S. Stepin . - 2nd ed., Corr. and add. - M .: Thought , 2010. - 2816 p.
• Валентинов Н. Встречи с Лениным. — Нью-Йорк , 1953.
• Гловели Г. Д. Социализм науки: Мебиусова лента А. А. Богданова. М.: 1991.
• Гловели Г. Д. Политэкономия в широком смысле: элементы институционализма и утопизма // Вопросы экономики. 2010. № 10.
• Жукоцкий В. Д. «Эмпириомонистический» марксизм А. А. Богданова: проблема идеологии // Вестник Московского университета . Серия 7. Философия. — 2004. — № 1. — С. 38—53.
• Казаринов М. Ю. Судьба идей: тектология А. А. Богданова в контексте философии, науки и культуры // Человек в контексте культуры: Сб. scientific tr. СПб., 1998.
• Ленин В. И. Материализм и эмпириокритицизм .
• Николаевский Б. И. К истории «Большевистского центра» // Тайные страницы истории. — М. : Издательство гуманитарной литературы, 1995. — 512 с. - 2000 copies — ISBN 5-87121-007-4 .
• Уайт Д. От философии к всеобщей организационной науке: источники и предшественники тектологии А. Богданова // Вопросы философии. 1995. № 8.
• Шарапов Ю. П. Ленин и Богданов: от сотрудничества к противостоянию // Отечественная история . — 1997. — № 5 . — С. 55—67 .
• Biggart John; Gloveli, Georgii; Yassour, Avraham (eds.). Bogdanov and His Work: a guide to the published and unpublished works of Alexander A. Bogdanov (Malinovsky) 1873—1928. Aldershot: Ashgate. 1998.
• Biggart, John; Dudley, Peter; King, Francis (eds.). Alexander Bogdanov and the Origins of Systems Thinking in Russia. Aldershot: Ashgate. 1998.
• Dudley P. Bogdanov's Tektology (1st Engl. transl.). — Centre for Systems Studies, Univ. of Hull UK, 1996.
• Dudley P., Pustylnik SN Reading the Tektology, 1995.
• Pustylnik SN Biological Ideas of Bogdanov's Tektology, in: Alexander Bogdanov and the Origins of Systems Thinking in Russia. Aldershot: Ashgate. 1998.
• ME Soboleva . A. Bogdanov und der philosophische Diskurs in Russland zu Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts. Zur Geschichte des russischen Positivismus. — Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag, 2007. — 278 S.

• Теория равновесия А. Богданова .
• Hamlet from the Red Star .
• The last days of A. A. Bogdanov. Chronicle of the tragic events .
• Curriculum Vitae
• "The Heretic" Bogdanov
• Alexander Bogdanov in the gallery of the International Society of Philosophers (English)
• Works by Bogdanov
• Works by Bogdanov on the website of the Tver Diocese
• Bogdanov Alexander Alexandrovich (Malinovsky) (неопр.) . Chronicle of Moscow University . The appeal date is December 17, 2017.