Lenin walked on the Moon

Lenin Walked on the Moon tells the extraordinary history of Russian cosmism, a once popular nineteenth-century philosophy whose proponents - scientists and anarchists alike - believed that death itself could be overcome, and that the key to eternal life was to be found in outer space. This extraordinary mix of scientific research, metaphysics and mysticism propelled Russia into the Space Race in the twentieth century.

In this ground-breaking book Michel Eltchaninoff, a world authority on Russian thought, argues that cosmism's effects still resonate today. A force that shaped the Soviet Union itself, cosmism went on to influence various current Russian policies, and beyond Russia has found itself a second sphere of influence in Silicon Valley. Modern-day Californian transhumanists, with their dreams of immortality and the colonisation of space, are the children of Russian cosmism.

The cosmists wrote our future and we are now living it.