ABSTRACT
In a memoir of his childhood written in 1925 Bogdanov wrote that he first conceived of “the great Utopia of rational human relationships” when experiencing the pressure of conflict within his family. He and his brother at an early age had become used to defending “the general interests of children” against the Old Testament methods of upbringing employed by their parents. Both he and his brother had become avid readers, desperately attempting to satisfy a craving for knowledge of things they did not understand. It was this “critique of familial authority and a bookish initiation to life” which turned the young Malinovsky into a rationalist. To him it seemed obvious that “once people had examined their mutual relationships they would automatically wish to organize them in a harmonious way”. After one bitter scene between his parents, he advised his father and mother, with all the dignity of his eight years, not to torment each other by squabbling over trivialities but to talk things over, discussing each problem “calmly, one after the other”.
