This is one of ?apek's earlier works, he wrote it in 1920, 15 years before The War with the Newts, where he expanded the main theme of a revolt of previously 'enslaved' species against its human masters. He was also a better and much more experienced writer when he was writing The War with the Newts, that is why it is more complex and I think also better written than R.U.R.

This play also deals with the topic of big supranational corporations, and you can also find it in The War with the Newts. They don't have a very positive role, they are described inhuman, always striving to make a bigger profit, and through their actions they create a situation that leads to the destruction of the human race. That is because ?apek saw big corporations this way and considered them dangerous. He was indeed not a socialist or even a communist. He wrote a short essay titled Why I'm not a communist, where he explains his reasons why it is so. I think you can find it on the internet, it's an interesting reading as it shows some of ?apeks views.

One little correction on the creation of the word Robot. It comes from the words robota = serfdom or serf labour and robotovat = work as a serf. They could also be used to describe drudgery, but that's only through association with serfdom and it is a very old-fashioned use of these words. The words robot and roboti are ?apeks inventions, they didn't exist before. He created them specifically for this play from the words robota and robotovat so as to give this new species of his a strong association with serf labour. The word robot (roboti is a plural from robot, it means robots) then spread worldwide and is now used for these artificial entities. And, by the way, the association between the word robot and the machine is now so strong that a Czech who doesn't know the origins of the word usually doesn't make the connection with the word robota and thinks that it is a word of foreign origin.

If you liked R.U.R. and The War with the Newts, you can also try his Krakatit, it deals with arms race and invention of new destructive weapons from the point of view of the inventor. And, in this book, ?apek predicted the invention of atomic bomb and more or less its destructive potential some 20 years before its invention. It's a little bit like Doctor Zhivago as it uses several women in the main protagonist life to describe various states of his mind. ?apek again uses allegories a lot in this book, maybe a little bit too much, but it's still an interesting read. Or you can try his other, non-science-fiction books.