The Future Seen from the Edge of Society: Contemporary Russophone Communist Sci-Fi

Abstract

Analysing contemporary Russophone communist science fiction, this article
aims to find out how this literary stream envisions the transition to the communist
socio-economic formation. Communist sci-fi assumes that scientific
and technological progress will inevitably be accompanied by progress in
social relations and morals. The author’s position is that its closest analogy
is not Soviet science fiction, but the literature of socialist realism. Contrary
to the classical Marxist position that the progressive development of the human
personality results from the progressive development of productive forces
communist sci-fi envisions making a new person more like a miraculous
transfiguration under the impact of the forces beyond human imagination
and control. The author concludes that this literature implicitly states that the
new people precede communist society. The research methodology consists of
the critical analysis of texts produced by communist sci-fi writers that are seen
in the broader context of Soviet literature of the 20th century.