We

I hate to say it, but We is important more for its context than its content. Written by a disappointed revolutionary in the early days of the Soviet state, suppressed in Russia yet influential on 1984 and Brave New World, We is a prototypical anti-utopian and anti-totalitarian novel, but not a very enjoyable one.

In the deep future, the One State has conquered the world, and is on the doorstep of conquering the planets and the inner space of the soul. Yet, this triumph of the many over the individual is threatened by the First Designer of the pioneering rocketship Integral, and his encounter with the seductress and emotional revolutionary I-330. Our narrator journals his descent into the disease of having a soul, the revolutionary underground, and the battle with the Guardians of the One State.

The problems with this novel are twofold. The first is a very Dostoevskian orientation towards individuals, emotions, turmoil, and general psychology, which works at cross purposes with the critique of utilitarian/rational leadership. The second problem is a lack of schematic coherence. By that, compare 1984, which was about Terror and History, or Brave New World, which makes eloquent statements about the antithesis of Pleasure and Freedom. In We, there is the stultifying Order of the One State contrasted against a human desire for authenticity and imagination. It’s decent, but it lacks the penetrating insight of the other classic anti-utopian novels. Perhaps I do not have enough of a background in Soviet history, but I think that there is something more than can be said about the New Soviet Man, or the betrayal of ideals in the aftermath of the Revolution.