Bogdanov was a key figure in the early history of the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party, being one of its cofounders and a rival to Vladimir Lenin until being expelled in 1909. In the first decade of the Soviet Union, he was an influential opponent of the government from a Marxist perspective. The polymath Bogdanov received training in medicine and psychiatry. His scientific interests ranged from the universal systems theory. He invented an original philosophy called “tectology,†now regarded as a forerunner of systems theory. He was also an economist, culture theorist, science fiction writer, and political activist. His most famous work was the science fiction novel about a Martian Society, The Red Star (1908).