We (novel)

We (Мы, 1920) is a novel by Yevgeny Zamyatin. It was written in response to the author's personal experiences with the Russian revolutions of 1905 and 1917. We is a futuristic dystopic satire, generally considered to be the grandfather of the genre. It takes the totalitarian and conformative aspects of Communism to an extreme conclusion, depicting a state that believes that free will is the cause of unhappiness, and that citizen's lives should be controlled with mathematical precision (among many other innovations, Zamyatin's future vision includes houses made entirely out of transparent materials so that everyone can observe everyone else all the time).

The story is told in the diary of the protagonist, called "D-503", in which he describes his work building a spaceship, "The Integral", whose purpose is to seek out and convert any extraterrestrial civilizations to the happiness that the One State has discovered, and his misadventures with a resistance group that seeks to do away with the Benefactor and his regime.

The novel was banned by Stalin and got Zamyatin arrested, though he eventually was released and exiled to Paris.