Soviet ape-human hybridization project (Ilya Vasiliev / Ivanov)
anecdote · Soviet history ·
retold in 3 talks
A Stalinist-era biologist (follower of Bogdanov) was funded to organize sexual coupling between humans and orangutans in Congo to breed perfect workers who would not want trade unions, the project was both racist and failed, with the scientist eventually sent to the Gulag.
≤2000talks it is told in, per year2026
As told 3
“Maybe through coupling, organizing sex orgies between apes or orangutans and men, we will be able to give birth to a perfect worker. They will talk, but they will not want any trade unions.”
“to create a perfect worker which can read, write elementarily, but is too stupid to organize socially, to rebel, by coupling humans and apes”
“Stalin was convinced by some stupid biologist…to create a perfect worker which can read, write elementarily, but is too stupid to organize socially, to rebel, by coupling humans and apes.”
What it carries
one story, many jobs: the ideas this anecdote is deployed to argue, one tally mark per use (an idea page shows the same relation from the other end, as its shelf of stories)
contents · one story, 3 jobsuses
techno-gnosis
×1
post-human capital
×1
upgrading vs. downgrading humanity
×1
Its cast and sources
populated by
Steve Mann1Kevin Warwick1Nigel Ackland1Neil Harbisson1Bill McKibben1Alexander Bogdanov1Will Self1Mike Pence1
alongside works
Every retelling 3
A Stalinist-era biologist (follower of Bogdanov) was funded to organize sexual coupling between humans and orangutans in Congo to breed perfect workers who would not want trade unions, the project was both racist and failed, with the scientist eventually sent to the Gulag., illustrating techno-gnosticism,post-human capital,Soviet post-humanism
~12:34 The future of transhumanism | Anders Sandberg, Slavoj Žižek, Nicky Ashwell, David Pearce and more2022-11-25 · 23:28
In the late 1920s Stalin, convinced by a biologist, tried to breed a perfect worker who could read and write but was too stupid to rebel, by crossing humans and apes, apes imported from Congo (female apes, 'typical male chauvinism'), four strong Russian peasants made to copulate with them; it failed, and the scientist was unmasked as a British spy., illustrating the new Soviet man,Stalinist bio-engineering of the human,ideology
In the late 1920s, Stalin was convinced by a biologist to create a perfect worker by cross-breeding humans and apes: intelligent enough to work but too stupid to rebel. A delegation was sent to Congo, female apes were imported, and four strong Russian farmers were made to copulate with them. It did not work., illustrating biotechnological manipulation,downgrading humanity,totalitarianism and biological engineering