In this past semester, my perspective on the genre of Science Fiction (hereinafter referred to as “SF”) has shifted dramatically. A genre which I once associated with pulp tales of outer space and aliens invading 1950s suburbia has morphed in my mind into one of the most radical statements in literary history, and one of the most damning accounts of life in one of humanity’s darkest hours: the Cold War. In my observation on the nature of the Cold War, I concluded that it was a period of both rapid change and harsh standstill between the towering empires standing on either side of the globe. SF was born in this bipolar crucible, seeking to both come to terms with the rapid change in all aspects of daily life (whether they be technological, cultural, or political), and to speculate on what might be birthed from this nuclear halt imposed on humanity. In order to organize my thoughts on SF’s precise relation to the Cold War, I’ve broken up my posts into three main topics of discussion: how SF dealt with the changes in everyday life brought upon the Cold War; SF’s political potential and its role in the Soviet Union; and SF’s role in envisioning a future for humanity. 

Before delving into the genre’s relevance to the Cold War period, it is important to present a definition of SF to work with. Early on, four works were assigned which offered various viewpoints on the definition of SF. One definition that truly stood out to me was that of Darko Suvin: “SF is, then a literary genre whose necessary and sufficient conditions are the presence and interaction of estrangement and cognition, and whose main formal device is an imaginative framework alternative to the author’s empirical environment” (Suvin 118). To put it in simpler terms, SF as a genre takes aspects of the world which seem to us normal and presents them to us in an estranged way, forcing us to reevaluate those aspects as foreign. This cognitive estrangement is necessary in order for SF to comment on the state of things around it. By taking the new parts of life arriving with the Cold War period and reflecting them back to readers as strange, it jolts people’s minds into critical thought about their current situation, and really forces them to reconsider that which they accept as normal. This technique can be radical in its use, and if done properly can break down someone’s entire worldview through such outside analyses. 

With this definition laid out, I would first like to examine the way in which SF of the Cold War responded to the rapid development of new technologies in the period. One common fear was the dehumanizing properties of this technological advancement. Two works which exhibit this fear are Ernst Jünger’s The Glass Bees and Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?. The former is written by a german veteran of the first World War in the 1950s, and details the feeling that those from his time have been left in the dust of history. The main character of the novel, Richard, recalls his final years in war through various flashbacks. He had been trained in the ancient skill of horseback combat, but then lived through the development of the machines of war which rendered such combat useless. Not only has his line of work disappeared, so too, he argues, has the dignity of warfare. In the author’s lifetime, war went from a thing of honor amongst those in the battlefield to cold, calculating nuclear proliferation which could be over in an instant. While this facet of the novel does not explicitly relate to the SF nature of the rest of the work, it definitely reflects a massive shift in the mood from before and after the Cold War. In the two blog posts below concerning The Glass Bees, there is discussion on both the author’s feeling of being out of place in history and the feeling of technological advance being forced upon those living during the Cold War. 

The other work mentioned which deals with SF’s response to the rapid shift in human experience is Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?. The central investigation found in the novel is how technology in the Cold War period can come to make humans themselves outdated. To return to the earlier definition of SF having an element of cognitive estrangement, the novel employs distinctions between androids and humans to reflect two different ideas back at readers. First, that technology is going at such a speed that one day even humans may be replaced by it. Second, that humans during the Cold War have somehow lost their human drives. The novel accomplishes these both through the plight of androids, fictional machines which act almost exactly like humans do. In my blog post on this work, I discuss the ways in which androids in the novel become “more human” than humans themselves. This way of speculation about the future of humanity really is a way to discuss the present world which Dick is writing in. The idea that humanity lost some part of itself due to reliance on new technology is a common one, and the Cold War period’s rapid development of these technologies would then rapidly strip humanity of essential human experiences if they were not careful. In a world dominated by machines, a piece of the human is lost.

Another major point on the connection between SF and the world of the Cold War is in its relevance to the political world of the time. In the Soviet Union, SF was at the center of a debate which was integral to the future of literature in the nation. SF literature served as a threat to the narrative of Socialist Realism imposed during the Stalin years. Under his rule, SF was tamed and corrupted into merely showing off the wonders of (already existing) Soviet technology. The government at the time did not appreciate the genre’s speculation far into the future, into utopias, as they saw the state doctrine of Marxist-Leninism as the only correct way of reaching a true utopia. For this reason, SF became myopic in scope, with works only ever going about 4 or 5 years into the future. This all changed following the death of Stalin. In the period known as the Thaw (an apt name for a Cold War happening), SF went from being policed heavily to having almost no limits, with SF authors such as the Strugatsky brothers even going as far as to criticize the government in their novels. SF being radical enough to be the center of a debate in the Soviet Union’s government as to how it might lead to dissidence is a far cry in my mind from my previous view of SF being an entirely kitsch form of literature. The story of SF’s shifting role in the Soviet Union also gave me an insight into the nation that I previously had not. For years, I had always pictured the USSR as an unmovable monolith of repression of dissidence, not a country which would ever actively entertain radical arts and literature, even for a brief period of time. 

The final point of SF’s important place in the history of the Cold War is in its radical speculation of the future, particularly on the question of Utopia. Authors attempting to create utopian societies had to push the boundaries of human experience in order to realize such societies. One way authors thought to do this was in the exploration of language’s relationship to utopia. In her work The Dispossessed, Ursula K. Le Guin presents a utopian society based on anarchism which has its own language fashioned to strip away notions of ownership and enforce ideas of collectivism. Entirely altering language to achieve this goal shows just how far SF authors went in imagining futures for humanity. However, SF critic Joanna Russ brought up an important idea in her essay “The Image of Women in SF” that SF literature can sometimes not go far enough to truly speculate on the future. Russ makes an argument that has stuck with me since reading this essay, that to truly exist solely in the realm of speculation, SF must be entirely unfamiliar, not just with our current present, but with the “futures” of our present. Le Guin’s The Dispossessed might not go far enough for Russ, as its society is modelled off of an ideal which existed at the time of writing (anarchism), meaning that its “speculation” is more of an application of an already existing political ideal to the future. Russ’ ideas on SF best reflects the idea that SF authors during the Cold War were met with a monumental task; imagining a future so different from our own in order to break free of the world-spanning conflict which defined the era. 

With this all said, I’d like to reiterate before going into the following blog posts my main three points on SF which will be explored in order below. First, SF served as a way for authors to deal with the environment of the Cold War and to explore its nature through literary means. Second, SF had a lasting impression on not just literature and culture but also the world of politics. Third, SF allowed for authors to picture worlds radically different from our own as to imagine a way out of the tensions of the Cold War.

From reading the texts, I concluded that the Cold War could be characterized by two opposite concepts, much like the conflict itself. On the one hand, it was a time of great change in the world. Across the world, new technologies rapidly changed the life experience of the average person. Similarly, in developing countries, decolonization following the second World War led to massive changes in the so-called Third World, with postcolonial nations having to find their way in this rapidly changing world. On the other hand, the world was at a tense standstill between the United States and the Soviet Union. The looming threat of total nuclear annihilation and the constant unprofitable and unwinnable wars fought by both sides in various countries established a pessimistic mood in the world, that nothing would change, and even if it did it could all be over in a second. The world seemed as if, despite the rapid changing of the day-to-day, things could stay in this polarized global dynamic for the rest of human history.

Though it seems as if we are beginning to “thaw” from the Cold War, the conflict still haunts the modern world. In their article, Goodbye Cold-War, Aziz Rana argues that, in America, we are returning to the political landscape before the beginning of the Cold War era. Two major candidates in the 2016 presidential election are used as examples, Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. To Rana, these candidates reflect older political views popular before the conflict, Socialism and Populism respectively. This goes to show how integral the relations of the Cold War were to everything in society, as America did not begin to return to a situation similar to that of before the conflict until a quarter of a century after the fall of the Soviet Union.

The importance of the Cold War in the era naturally means that the mood of the time would make its way into the arts. The Science Fiction movement during the Cold War best captures the attitudes many had towards the era. Some works reflected the optimism about change in the world able to bring about utopia, while others focused on the feeling of stagnation and impending doom during the seemingly eternal conflict between the West and East. The Cold War’s conditions of technological advancement coupled with fears of the unknown led to the perfect breeding ground for major SF works in the period, and knowing its history is vital to understanding the genre as a whole during this time period.

In chapter 5 of The Glass Bees, the narrator’s place in history as a relic of the past is shown in the description of his time in the war. He recalls his position in training new soldiers in both the ways of horsemanship and tanks. This reflects his position at the crossroads between the past and the future, and just how fast technological developments have been in his lifetime. In the span of a few years, warfare changed from men on horseback to the most advanced instruments of death known to humans at that point.

At first, the narrator accepts the new changes, and is even excited by the thought of new technology. However, as the machines of war continue to become more and more advanced, the narrator finds himself becoming increasingly disgusted by them. He laments the shift in warfare from honorable battles involving skilled professionals such as himself to a dehumanizing event of mass death made easy with the advent of new technology. On page 68, he says: “The old Centaurs were overpowered by the new Titan.” Technology as a whole had become this monstrous thing, greater than the humans that use it. The old ways were no match for this new beast, as seen in the narrator’s recounting of a story from the war. While he was still in the cavalry, he was shot off his horse by a young soldier with a machine gun. In this story, the narrator’s professional skill was no match for a scared enemy firing near-blindly with a machine gun. This encounter signifies the death of the old world; now violence, alongside all other aspects of the human, has become “mass-produced” and simplified by technology. Instead of putting in years of training in combat, now any kid off the street could pick up a gun and do work only done by the most feared warriors only a few centuries before the events of the story. This reflects the broader change in society depicted in the novel, with the automatons becoming essential to everyday life, and ingrained completely in society’s Zeitgeist. Humans are becoming completely reliant on machines, to the point of becoming machine-like themselves. This speculation in the novel was scarily prescient, with modern humans being almost entirely enveloped in technology in their day to day lives. Gone are the days that the narrator so fondly remembers, which existed in our world too. Now is the time of an impersonal world of technological overload, just as in the world of The Glass Bees.

I chose this post due to it’s discussion on how Richard feels “forced” into the new world of technology. It captures the feeling that the world is going “too fast,” which is a key point in my view of SF’s relation to changes of everyday life during the Cold War.

 

(Passage:  pp. 73–74, from “Everyone had to become resigned to this” to “past in the parade of phantoms”)

 

This passage tells us that Richard is not content with the current trend of changing and evolving livelihoods. Right before this passage he laments this fact; “How can one explain this trend toward a more colorless and shallow life? Well, the work was easier, if less healthy, and it brought in more money, more leisure, and perhaps more entertainment. A day in the country is long and hard. And yet the fruits of their present life were worthless to a single coin of their former life: a rest in the evening and a rural festivity” (P. 72-3). This shows that Richard resents this change to a more sedentary and leisurely lifestyle. He appears to be a man who enjoys the toils and fruits of his labor, a man who rejoices in hardship and hard work. It seems as though he feels like hard work makes leisure time even more enjoyable. He writes that everyone else had become resigned to this new way of life. He feels as though this new way of life was forced upon him, that he had no choice in the matter. “The old way of life had disappeared. Now the slogan was: Do or die. Wittgrewe had realized this before I did. I am, therefore, far from criticizing him and the others; I myself was forced to take the same turn” (73).

 

The language of this passage reinforces the theme that this technological and lifestyle change was done against Richard’s will. There are many cases when Richard laments that he was “forced” or “had” to change or give up something about himself in order to adapt to these new times. These word choices reflect the thinking of a man who refuses to believe that he has any control over his current situation. Instead, he believes that the only way to survive in this new world is to allow it to control him. The mood of this passage is dim. While Richard does not necessarily seem angry with the changing of the times, he does not seem content with it either. He resigns himself to the fact that his old life is behind him. However, he does nothing to change his current place in life. He instead blames the changing times without even trying to challenge them. He seems to be a man down on his luck, a man with little to no hope left.

 

This passage depicts technological change in the fact that tanks replaced the cavalry and horses. Furthermore, newer models of tanks were already outcompeting the old ones and new weaponry was able to take human life at a devastating pace. Richard finds this process both upsetting and fascinating. He writes that, “When new models were displayed to the masses at the great parades in the Red Square in Moscow or elsewhere, the crowds stood in reverent silence and then broke into jubilant shouts of triumph” (74). This part of the passage reflects a society that is changing both technologically and socially to accept violence and weaponry as an everyday facet of daily life. This passage could be considered part of a work of science fiction in the fact that it depicts technological change in a society not all that dissimilar to our own.

 

The only reference I had to look up in order to understand is Richard’s reference to Tubalcain, the man the Bible attributes to being the first blacksmith (74). It is interesting that Richard references both Cain and Tubalcain in this passage. I believe that both these Biblical figures can serve as a metaphor for the human desire to go to war against other humans. Technology, especially in Richard’s timeline, is invented by one group of humans purely to make war against other humans. Overall, I see connections between this passage and other sections in the novel where Richard references being displaced by tanks and being shot at at long range. Both these instances highlight the fact that his way of life, battling on open fields in a ‘noble’ fashion, are outdated and in the past.

“Most androids I’ve known have more vitality and desire to live than my wife.” (Dick 88)

In this sentence, Decker compares the condition of the androids he hunts to the condition his wife is in at home. This comparison highlights one of the main ideas of the novel, that the human experience has degraded at the hands of technological advancement. Within this sentence exists the dichotomy between the human and the android. The term “android” comes from the Greek andros, meaning “man,” and the suffix -oid, which denotes that what is being described is only an image, a lesser copy, of something else. In this case, an “android” is a lesser image of man. This then ties into just how degraded human life has become in the novel’s 2021, as machines designated to be lesser forms of man end up living in a more human way than the actual humans do. The androids are said to have more “vitality” and “desire to live” than Decker’s wife, who spends her days indoors dialing in artificial emotions just to feel something. While humans in the novel have had their lives made simpler by technology in many ways, many aspects of “natural” life have been ceded to the androids. Humans live in mostly artificial environments, with electronic animals and emotions, while androids seem to live in a way more in tune with classic ideas on nature, running on pure self preservation and survival instincts. The androids struggle to maintain vitality in a dangerous world, which gives them a greater idea of worth in their lives. The android Polokov fights honorably to the death to preserve its life, showing greater value of existence than the various humans shown throughout the novel. In this world, technology itself experiences life more passionately than the humans who have created it. The world of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is one where the world and life itself is becoming fit solely for man’s machines rather than man.

In the midst of the Cold War, Science Fiction became the most popular genre of literature among Soviet readers (Major 73). There are many reasons as to why this was the case, but one reason in particular was the anti-establishment sentiment found within the genre: “Science fiction, just as in the west, had a subversive potential” (Major 74). During the Stalin years, Science Fiction was under attack by the Soviet Government. Under Stalin’s regime, literature had been heavily censored and regulated. In a speech to the Soviet Writers’ Congress of 1934, Andrei Zhdanov emphasized the role literature had in the new nation, saying: “The key to the success of soviet literature is to be sought for in the success of socialist construction” (Zhdanov 3). To Zhdanov (who was an integral part of the cultural thought and propaganda in the soviet union), soviet literature was a radically new form of writing, untainted by capitalism. Furthermore, it was to be used as a way of promoting soviet ideals and reflecting the triumphs of the communist system. To the Stalin regime, Science Fiction could not easily fit into this model for the new soviet literature. It presented various themes, such as utopia and dystopia, that did not go well with the official vision of the future propagated by the state. The SF of the Stalin years did not make many grand predictions, instead “revolving around… clear extensions of existing technology” (Major 76), functioning as a way to hail the technology of the time instead of speculation looking towards the future. Following the death of Stalin, the regulations on SF were lessened, to the point where SF was the least regulated form of literature in the Soviet Union. In this period, known as “the thaw,” SF returned to ideas such as utopia, and once more became a seriously speculative genre. Many more western authors became available to the soviets in this time, such as Isaac Asiimov, Ray Bradbury, and Kurt Vonnegut (Major 79). The combination of western influence, alongside the loosening of restrictions, made SF in the Eastern Bloc more critical of soviet practices, and allowed the presentation of alternatives to the “official” future designed by the government.

In Soviet history, the period known as the “Thaw” was a time characterized by post-Stalin liberalization programs. During the Thaw, many programs of the Stalinist era were repealed in a fluctuating method. Under the reign of Kruschev, the Soviet Union began to reorganize in order to catch up with the new developments in western countries. Before the Thaw, Science Fiction literature had been hindered by two key restrictions from the Stalin years: the repression of dissident literature, and the anti-western approach to science. One of the first things Stalin ever did was try to reign in the writers of the USSR, as literature was the primary method of communication in the country due to the lack of a mass media. Furthermore, while Stalin was in charge, many scientific advancements, such as “quantum physics, relativity, cybernetics, and genetics.. [were] proscribed… as ‘bourgeois science,’” (Csicsery-Ronay 337) and thus were not officially allowed to be looked into by Soviet scientists. The expansion of scientific research into exciting new fields following the death of Stalin, therefore, inspired a new generation of science fiction writers with ideas of new possibilities. This new period of increased freedoms during the Thaw was reflected in the advancements of the Science Fiction of the period. For instance, many of the writers of the Thaw period had been scientists, so their works would reflect the mood held by soviet scientists during de-stalinization. The works also reflected changes in the state’s grasp on the cultural output of the nation. No longer were the writers expected to remain in the limits of Socialist Realism; now they could offer new visions of the future that did not coincide with the official doctrine of Marxist-Leninism. Writers in this period were also able to have an effect on the actual policy of the party, as Kruschev regularly joined in discussion with writers’ union, “not as a distant authority (and certainly not as a connoisseur of literature), but as a debating partner” (Cscicsery-Ronay 342). The reverence and respect shown to the position of writers in soviet society, even before the thaw, is reflected in the position of Science Fiction literature in this time period. The authors being seen as legitimate threats just goes to show this importance literature had, and how science fiction was sometimes used in the soviet union as a popular form of rebellion against the doctrines guiding society.

I chose this post as it gives details on Roadside Picnic that show why its content is a product of the Thaw period of Soviet SF. With its discussion on unknown futures and criticisms of governmental practices, the novel would not even be a consideration during the Stalin years. The post makes clear The Strugatskys’ vision of a post-contact world which prompts those discussions. 

 

The Zones in the world of the Strugatskys’ Roadside Picnic are post-apocalyptic wastelands that mark the remnants of the Visit – the inciting incident prior to the start of the novel in which aliens briefly came to Earth. There are numerous Zones alluded to around the world, but the one which Redrick Schuhart, one of our protagonists, frequents is located on the outskirts of the town of Harmont. The Zone, a kind of uber-dangerous archaeological dig site, is populated with strange relics left behind by the aliens during the visit; these relics are recovered “legally” by the industrial military complex operated Institute, and “illegally” by stalkers, who sell off their recovered “swag” to private buyers. As illustrated by the conversation between Noonan and Pillman in chapter 3 of the novel, the Strugatsky brothers, like Lem, are curious but unsure just what contact with aliens would look like. Pillman distastefully outlines the world of pseudoscience within the novel by explaining to a perplexed Noonan that some scientists hold that the Visit has yet to actually occur, and the strange relics are a means of studying humans to decide if they are ready to make “real” contact. Others hold that perhaps the aliens are hold up in the Zone, carefully and continuously studying the perilous attempts made by humans to study their technology, and that the Visit is an ongoing phenomenon rather than a singular event in the past. In my view, the investigation of the Zone is itself the contact; my analogy is that of paleontologists digging up dinosaur bones. Though they are long dead and gone, is piecing together bit by bit behemoths through recovering their bones not a form of making contact with those same creatures? Whether stalker or Institute lab assistant, intrepid Harmontians risk life and limb in the pursuit of knowledge. Red certainly made contact, as evidenced by the silky golden hair coating his daughter, The Monkey, from head to toe. The Vulture, Old Man Burbridge, I’m sure would argue that he made contact when the aliens’ remnant hell slime claimed his legs by dissipating the bones wherever the slime touched. The Strugatskys, like Lem, and like me, know that there is no simple answer to the question of contact. It is both ephemeral and perpetual, noticeable and invisible, boundless and singular. Contact is not a question of where and when, but a question of intelligence. And as Pillman outlines, who knows what intelligence aliens possess?

I chose this post in order to highlight the lengths at which SF authors went to imagine new futures. It highlights Ursula Le Guin’s use of language in her novel in the context of a utopian project, revealing an idea that language could be a factor in how we could achieve Utopia.

 

I immediately found the concept of language explored in The Dispossessed to be interesting, specifically because while we read it in English, the languages spoken are not. As early as page 3, we see the foreman of the Defense gang noted to be speaking a language called “Iotic”. “No. They, ah, protest,” she said in her slow and limited Iotic,” (Le Guin, 3). In most science fiction, there is a universal language spoken by most, if not all members of the universe. English assumes this role even in our daily lives, acting as a global language and lingua franca. However, the planets of Anarres and Urras possess different languages, which even individuals such as the Defense gang foreman, a profession likely to be in constant contact with people from Urras, have difficulty speaking. Within that initial conversation between the Defense gang foreman and the ship captain, we find that the word “bastard” does not translate from Iotic to the language of Anarres, Pravic. However, as an intelligent human being, the foreman is able to infer the meaning of the word through the captain’s tone, as well as her own perceptions of the sound of the word, and of the captain himself.

Certain phrases and words may not always translate from one language to another, but the fact that a common insult such as “bastard” does not make it from Urras to Anarres was something interesting that Le Guin introduces as soon as page 3. It seems an immediate commentary on even the title of the novel itself, as a “bastard” is someone who does not belong, or as the foreman notes, “some kind of foreign term for her people,” (Le Guin, 3). The language of Anarres is also explained in some depth on page 58. “The singular forms of the possessive pronoun in Pravic were used mostly for emphasis; idiom avoided them,” (Le Guin, 58). As we understand Anarres to be an anarcho-syndicalist utopia, it makes much sense that even the language itself avoids possessive pronouns. It is mentioned that the use of them is something small children do by mistake; a mistake that is corrected swiftly. In this, we see that on Anarres, people are not even allowed to own feelings of kinship or familial connection, as “my mother” corrects to “the mother”.

On page 29, children are reprimanded for “egoizing” language. “Speech is sharing—a cooperative art. You’re not sharing, merely egoizing.” (Le Guin, 29). This sort of radical expression of anarcho-syndicalism contributes to the overarching question asked early on by the presence of the physical wall around the Anarres spaceport. While the ownership of others is not particularly a positive concept, especially in the context of socio-economic affairs such as quasi-indentured servitude under the auspices of capitalism, Anarres seems to me like simply the opposite extreme, in which thoughts are policed, and deviancy is punished ruthlessly—much like the actual Soviet Union. I found it funny, then, that such similar principles are expressed by a nominally anarcho-syndicalist commune. Also, the name for ANARres seems ripped from ANARcho-syndicalism, which I found funny as well.

Joanna Russ’ “The Image of Women in Science Fiction” is particularly interesting to me, not only because of its criticism of the misogynistic trends found in much SF but also because of its pointing out of the problematic nature of underlying biases in the genre’s futures. In the essay, Russ discusses not only blatantly misogynistic space opera types of SF, but also the problem with many kinds of SF writings that intend to promote women in the story. The underlying current in this discussion that interests me is how the speculation of the future relies heavily on the past. Russ writes: “It’s the whole difficulty of Science Fiction, of genuine speculation: how to get away from traditional assumptions which are nothing more than traditional straitjackets” (Russ 208). Even the most radical examples of trying to escape traditional views that she lists fall short of truly removing themselves from these assumptions. In her main argument concerning the speculation of what becomes of modern conceptions of femininity, Russ writes that most stories attempting to be progressive end up not going far enough to truly speculate on future conditions for women. When faced with the egalitarian premise of Star Trek’s crew, she claims that it “is a reflection of present reality, not genuine speculation… the real problems of a society without gender-role differentiation are not faced” (204). Though it works to make sure women are equal in their roles on the ship, Star Trek is criticized by Russ by not truly addressing women as anything other than their role in the crew. The so-called futuristic advancements for women are simply reflections of what contemporary progressive values had called for at the same time. To truly be termed “speculative fiction,” a story like star trek would need more than just basic progression in this aspect of society; it would need an entirely new idea of what the future holds for both men and women, especially one many centuries ahead in time. This example brings to light an idea important throughout SF, that writers’ own traditional assumptions can quietly hide under the surface of worlds at first completely removed from that of our own.