[MANIFESTO FOR COLLECTIVE LIFE] Novyi byt, novaia sem'ia (sem'ia, liubov', brak, prostitutsiia) [i.e. New Lifestyle, New Family (Family, Love, Marriage, Prostitution)]

Kostroma: Krasnyi pechatnik, 1924. 56 pp. 18,5x14 cm. In original printed wrappers. Pale water stains on front cover and upper margin of first leaves, otherwise very good and clean internally.

First edition. One of 3000 copies.
This is a curious provincial edition promoting collective dwelling and behavior. It was much more than anti-capitalist propaganda. This small, nondescript book became a tribune for socialist dreams. The Kostroma-based author, Mikhail Shchekin had written a range of books on the new lifestyle and sexual health issues - and his editions were banned (probably for Trotskyism). Other curious books by him are 'Anti-Religious Table Book' (1924) and 'Patterns and Norms of Sexual Life' (1925).
This work drew attention to the front of the daily routine and changes the Soviet people needed to implement. Shchekin suggested kitchen factories and nurseries, as well as a new type of houses: one-floor, with windows and doors on the roofs, that was supposed to be co-build in a long tape for economical purposes and contain an abundance of plants. In his plans, these buildings and general human nudity will discourage undesirable diseases because society will be under control. The marriage will be out-of-use and relationships will be free of any restrictions until people are healthy. Actually, he proposed to regulate an opportunity of any individual to have sexual relations in the socialist community. The scientific organization of labor and workers' clubs were included as the main components of the new life.
Shchekin's manifesto for collective life was based on a statement that "propaganda should gradually become the brain of mankind, dictating tendencies, desires and interests". That was his reason to deny contemporary art and hope for the printed word. In particular, he wrote about a phonograph that could automatically print all spoken words and might change the publishing business.

Worldcat doesn't track this edition.