MOTIVES FOR BLOOD TRANSFUSION AND THE PROBLEM OF "SOCIAL VAMPIRISM" IN THE NOVELS OF A.A. BOGDANOV "RED STAR" AND "ENGINEER MANNY"

Abstract

The article examines the motives of blood transfusion and "social vampirism" in Alexander Bogdanov's novels "Red Star" and "Engineer Manny" as key elements of the author's utopian model. The action of both novels takes place in a Martian society that has embarked on the path of communist development. Blood transfusion in the novel "Red Star" acts as a symbol of physical and moral unity, allowing one to achieve social harmony based on physiological interdependence and organic involvement. This process reflects A. Bogdanov's attempt to construct an image of a future communist society in which there is no alienation between the individual and the collective. In the novel "Engineer Manny", a more complex and ambivalent picture emerges: despite the achieved transformations, rudiments of old, parasitic mechanisms remain in society - elements of "social vampirism", expressed in attempts by individuals to use others as a resource. Thus, A. Bogdanov demonstrates not only an idealized but also a critical view of the possibility of completely overcoming exploitative models in the future society. The analysis emphasizes the importance of physiological metaphors in the construction of a social utopia and reveals the internal tension between the ideal and the remnants of the past. A. Bogdanov's ideas were transformed by the Soviet elite into the form of an esoterically colored political doctrine. This doctrine assumed that the foundation of the future society would be not only ideological unity, but also physiological interpenetration, expressed in the form of a symbolic "blood brotherhood."