ABSTRACT
An outstanding place in modern Russian history belongs to Maksim Gorky. Actually, he was the most charismatic of the Russian revolutionaries and a founding father of Soviet society. Neither Marxist nor materialist, Gorky exercised an extraordinary impact on Soviet society. Gorky’s Promethean Theomachy was his response to the problem of world evil which he saw as life’s main existential challenge. Gorky’s outlook was developing on two levels: philosophical-scientific and religious. Gorky’s world outlook was strongly influenced by nineteenth century German philosophy, by its view of the world and nature. Gorky’s view of nature was widely shared at that time by many Bolsheviks. Gorky discovered energetism not from Ostwald, but from his friend, the outstanding Bolshevik left-wing philosopher Aleksandr Bogdanov, a rival of Lenin. For Gorky, it is first of all a theurgical action, the theurgical creation of the new Nature and the annihilation of the old, and therefore God-Building coincides fully with the Kingdom of the Spirit.
