My very first post on revleft! I have a few questions/observations about Transhumanism and the Bolsheviks. Lenin had a major faction fight with Bogdanov and the "otzovist"group. Lenin won and Bogdanov eventually dropped out of politics. Later on he died in a bizarre blood transfusion/immortality project in 1928. He seems to have been an interesting guy, he pioneered an early form of "world systems theory". Connected to Bogdanov's group Gorky and others had a school for Bolshevik union activists in Capri,Italy.They developed a philosophy of "god building", as I understand, a belief that though socialism humanity will become godlike. This seems to be a form of Transhumanism. I'm not sure if "god building" was supposed to be more cultural or technological. Lenin thought these people were crazy and wrote "Materialism and Empiro-Criticism" to refute them. The movement was surpressed but a "biocosmic" philosophy was very influential among the early Soviet avant gard.The avant gard had a lot of creativity and experimentation but their overall philosophy was "mechanistic", literally, it saw people as machines. As I understand Lenin liked Taylorism, and not just as a temporary emergency measure. Questions-Could the "god builders" be regarded as Transhumanists? Are there any books or work on this movement? It sounds intriguing to me. What do people think about "biocomism"? This approach sounds scary to me. I view socialism as the philosophy of human liberation, not making people into machines.This could have been people's view of socialism at that time though. People were more enthusiastic about technology than today.
Yes I think that "god building" can be seen as early Transhumanism. Transhumanism is both cultural/social and technological in the way that through technological advancement, culture and society changes. As for "biocosmism" or whatever, I haven't read about it, but what is wrong about viewing people as machines? What makes people any different from machines? Turing demonstrated this with his Imitation Game. Human hubris is what is making people consider themselves "better" than machines.
Interesting; I had forgotten about the Otzovists until now, and your description certainly paints them in a Transhumanist light. Of course, further study is needed. Hopefully there's a book on the subject; if anyone knows of any, post the details.
