Aleksandr Bogdanov: Proletkult and Conservation

The most important figure among Russia's radical Marxists was A.A. Bogdanov (the pseudonym of Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Malinovskii). Not only was he the prime exponent of a proletarian cultural revolution; it was Bogdanov's ideas which provided justification for concern for the environment. And his ideas are not only important to environmentalists because they were associated with this conservation movement; more significantly they are of continuing relevance because they confront the root causes of environmental destruction in the present, and offer what is perhaps the only way to overcome these causes.