Banished until recently by Soviet ideology to the negative margins of political history, Aleksandr Bogdanov is now recognized in Russia and elsewhere as one of the most original Marxist thinkers of the early twentieth century. He wrote widely on philosophy, political economy, and the nature and role of culture in socialist society. His only two novels, Krasnaia zvezda (Red Star, 1908) and Inzhener Menni (Engineer Menni, 1912), are acknowledged as forerunners of Soviet science fiction.

Bogdanov was born Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Malinovsky on 10 August 1873 in Sokolka, Grodno Province, and grew up in Tula, where his father had become a school inspector. In 1891 he enrolled at the University of Moscow as a student of natural sciences and almost immediately became politically active in the student association of the populist movement. His first arrest and exile came in December 1894; he was sent back to Tula and for three years was barred from residing...