We

We is a science fiction dystopia written by Russian author Yevgeny Zamyatin and first published in 1924. The novel is set in the One State, a totalitarian society where citizens are identified by numbers rather than names, and individuality is suppressed in favor of collective conformity. The protagonist, D-503, is a spacecraft engineer who begins to question the regime after encountering a woman named I-330, leading to his internal conflict between loyalty to the state and personal desire.

The work is structured as a series of diary entries and employs innovative narrative techniques including stream-of-consciousness passages and fragmented prose. Zamyatin's vision of surveillance, propaganda, and the elimination of privacy became foundational to the dystopian genre. The novel directly influenced George Orwell's 1984 and Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, establishing key tropes of totalitarian fiction. Despite its Russian origins, We was initially suppressed in the Soviet Union and gained wider recognition in the West during the Cold War, where it became a symbol of resistance to authoritarianism.