The Origins Of Transhumanism
Socialism's Past
Before today’s and yesterday's prominent figures of the modern Transhumanist movement such as Zoltan Istvan, Max More, and FM-2030 started doing work towards a Transhumanist future123. Transhumanism existed as a Proto-Transhumanist movement mainly called Russian Cosmism, Biocosmism, etc, courtesy of a Monarchist, countless Communists, Anarchists, and Socialists mainly in the USSR and Eastern Europe45.
Nikolai Fyodorov & Konstantin Tsiolkovsk
The founder of Russian Cosmism, Nikolai Fyodorov, despite being a Monarchist, set a precedent that would line the ranks of Russian Cosmism with Anti-Capitalists such as the aforementioned Communists, Anarchists, and Socialists. He did this in his book titled “Common Task” where he called for a struggle against death which would require most human efforts to go towards. Something that is impossible to achieve via market mechanisms due to, as Albert Einstien called it, the “economic anarchy of capitalist society”67. Besides this Common Task, after Nikolai Fyodorov came the Father of Space Travel, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, who was inspired by Fyodorov by studying under him at the Moscow Libary due to substitute for not being allowed into school mainly because a loss of hearing via scarlet fever earlier in his life. In those 3 years of contact, Fyodorov would install a love and dream of space travel, bringing back the dead, among other pillars of beliefs Tsiolkovsky held after his studies with Fyodorov. He would later go on to produce works that inspired leading Soviet rocket engineers Sergei Korolev and Valentin Glushko, who contributed to the success of the Soviet space program8. Furthermore, Tsiolkovsky would eventually give a speech in the Red Square to celebrate the Soviet Republics alongside Joseph Stalin stating "Now comrades, I am finally convinced that a dream of mine—space travel—for which I have given the theoretical foundations, will be realized. I believe that many of you will be witnesses of the first journey beyond the atmosphere. In the Soviet Union we have many young pilots...(and) I place my most daring hopes in them. They will help to actualize my discoveries and will prepare the gifted builders of the first space vehicle. Heroes and men of courage will inaugurate the first airways: Earth to Moon orbit, Earth to Mars orbit, and still farther; Moscow to the Moon, Kaluga to Mars!"9. Additionally being awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labour10.
Alexander Bogdanov
Then we have Alexander Bogdanov who among many things co-founded the Bolshevik Party11. Used early blood transfusion treatments to treat varying ailments such as anemia, burns, and infectious diseases such as tuberculosis These treatments would allow Bogdanov to reach a stature among the various Soviet leaders including Stalin himself who heavily funded Bogdanov’s experiments and attempts12. He also wrote early Sci-fi books such as “Red Star” and books relating to the origins of art, its class characteristics, and how it might be created within a revolutionary socialist context like “Art and the Working Class”1314. Likewise, Bogdanov co-founded Proletkult, an organization whose goal was to provide political and artistic education to workers of the USSR15.
Alexander Svyatogor
On the other side, there was the Anarcho-Futurist, Universalist, and founder of the Biocosmist-Immortalist movement, Alexander Svyatogor. Who, in his work titled “The Doctrine of the Fathers and Anarchism-Biocosmism” contains some 23 points of summary and various explanations stated among the various points Svyatogor states “The supreme good is immortal life in the cosmos. The supreme evil is death [.....] The supreme good should be realized by the maximum in creativity. We place particular emphasis on the creative moment in Biocosmism. Personal immortality is not a given, but must be won, realized, created. It is not the restoration of what is lost, as in the Bible, but the creation of what is yet to be. It is not a matter of renewal, but of creativity. The same is true for conquering the cosmos. Immortalism and interplanetarism are the maximal—but not the ultimate—aim. They represent stages and means to an immeasurably great creativity. But this goal lies before us and is, for this reason, the greatest of all”. Showing clearly their intent to both achieve physical immortality and a space-bearing civilization as was a central idea in Russian Cosmism and is central in the offshoot of Biocosmism.
Additionally, Svyatogor wrote many contributions in “Vekhi” or “Milestones”, wrote for the Bolshevik press, worked for the People’s Commissariat, edited the bimonthly journal “Biocosmist” in Moscow, and publish antireligious articles and tracts for the magazine “Antireligioznik” while in the Central Council of the League of Godless Militants. He also founded the Verticalists group in 1914. In Ukraine, Svyatogor promulgated his tenets of “Volcanism,” an antecedent to Biocosmism that proclaimed the abolition of death and domination over the universe, under such slogans as “Revaluation of all values!” and “Down with Kant”. In a more hands-on regard, after the February Revolution, Svyatogor moved to Moscow, where he befriended the Anarchist actor Mamont Victorovich Dal’skii. He spent his time expropriating bourgeois apartments until the Bolsheviks appointed him commander of the Black Guards, who were to take part in the events of October 1917 in both Petrograd and Moscow. He joined the group of Anarchist-Futurists who published the Moscow newspaper “Anarchy” in the spring of 1918, before briefly returning to Ukraine where he fought against the Austrian and German occupiers. With the group/ideology of Biocosmism afterward spread to many places including Kharkov, Pskov, Kiev, Omsk, and Irkutsk. Eventually organizing 45 poetry readings and debates in Petrograd alone16.
Overall without these various individuals, their work, efforts, as well as the border Socialist/Communist context they came about in and aided. Transhumanism would likely have not come to full fruition as is seen today famously stated by Anton Vidokle in "God-Building as a Work of Art: Cosmist Aesthetics": “Sometimes I think that cosmism would not be so interesting if it had not happened against the background of the [socialist] revolution. The nineteenth century was notorious for numerous utopian movements. Some were based on religion or the occult, and others on socialist utopias. There were many such groups and ideologies in almost every country in the world at the time. Had it not been for the revolution in Russia and the total radicalization of society, cosmism would likely remain a kind of peculiar but insignificant development. But the mixture of cosmism and communism, and the acceleration that occurred in Russia just before and after the revolution, were like pouring fuel on a fire”17.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoltan_Istvan
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/alexander-svyatogor-the-doctrine-of-the-fathers-and-anarchism-biocosmism
Very interesting and informative post! Here’s to Cosmism!