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href="#The_Autobiography_of_a_Sexually_Emancipated_Communist_Woman_(1926)"> <div class="vector-toc-text"> <span class="vector-toc-numb">1.1</span> <span><i>The Autobiography of a Sexually Emancipated Communist Woman</i> (1926)</span> </div> </a> <ul id="toc-The_Autobiography_of_a_Sexually_Emancipated_Communist_Woman_(1926)-sublist" class="vector-toc-list"> </ul> </li> </ul> </li> <li id="toc-Quotes_about_Alexandra_Kollontai" class="vector-toc-list-item vector-toc-level-1 vector-toc-list-item-expanded"> <a class="vector-toc-link" href="#Quotes_about_Alexandra_Kollontai"> <div class="vector-toc-text"> <span class="vector-toc-numb">2</span> <span>Quotes about Alexandra Kollontai</span> </div> </a> <ul id="toc-Quotes_about_Alexandra_Kollontai-sublist" class="vector-toc-list"> </ul> </li> <li id="toc-External_links" class="vector-toc-list-item vector-toc-level-1 vector-toc-list-item-expanded"> <a class="vector-toc-link" href="#External_links"> <div class="vector-toc-text"> <span 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mw-list-item" title="good article badge"><a href="https://ig.wikiquote.org/wiki/Alexandra_Kollontai" title="Alexandra Kollontai – Igbo" lang="ig" hreflang="ig" data-title="Alexandra Kollontai" data-language-autonym="Igbo" data-language-local-name="Igbo" class="interlanguage-link-target"><span>Igbo</span></a></li><li class="interlanguage-link interwiki-it mw-list-item"><a href="https://it.wikiquote.org/wiki/Aleksandra_Michajlovna_Kollontaj" title="Aleksandra Michajlovna Kollontaj – Italian" lang="it" hreflang="it" data-title="Aleksandra Michajlovna Kollontaj" data-language-autonym="Italiano" data-language-local-name="Italian" class="interlanguage-link-target"><span>Italiano</span></a></li><li class="interlanguage-link interwiki-pl mw-list-item"><a href="https://pl.wikiquote.org/wiki/Aleksandra_Ko%C5%82%C5%82ontaj" title="Aleksandra Kołłontaj – Polish" lang="pl" hreflang="pl" data-title="Aleksandra Kołłontaj" data-language-autonym="Polski" data-language-local-name="Polish" 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mw-parser-output" lang="en" dir="ltr"><figure class="mw-default-size" typeof="mw:File/Thumb"><a href="/wiki/File:Aleksandra_Kollontaj_10.gif" class="mw-file-description"><img src="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/57/Aleksandra_Kollontaj_10.gif" decoding="async" width="206" height="300" class="mw-file-element" data-file-width="206" data-file-height="300" /></a><figcaption>I always <a href="/wiki/Believed" class="mw-redirect" title="Believed">believed</a> that the <a href="/wiki/Time" title="Time">time</a> <a href="/wiki/Inevitably" class="mw-redirect" title="Inevitably">inevitably</a> must come when <a href="/wiki/Woman" class="mw-redirect" title="Woman">woman</a> will be <a href="/wiki/Judged" class="mw-redirect" title="Judged">judged</a> by the same <a href="/wiki/Moral" class="mw-redirect" title="Moral">moral</a> <a href="/wiki/Standards" class="mw-redirect" title="Standards">standards</a> applied to <a href="/wiki/Man" title="Man">man</a>. For it is not her specific <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/feminine" class="extiw" title="wikipedia:feminine">feminine</a> <a href="/wiki/Virtue" title="Virtue">virtue</a> that gives her a place of <a href="/wiki/Honor" title="Honor">honor</a> in <a href="/wiki/Human" title="Human">human</a> <a href="/wiki/Society" title="Society">society</a>, but the <a href="/wiki/Value_(ethics)" title="Value (ethics)">worth</a> of the useful <a href="/wiki/Mission" class="mw-redirect" title="Mission">mission</a> <a href="/wiki/Accomplished" class="mw-redirect" title="Accomplished">accomplished</a> by her, the worth of her <a href="/wiki/Personality" title="Personality">personality</a> as human being, as <a href="/wiki/Citizen" class="mw-redirect" title="Citizen">citizen</a>, as <a href="/wiki/Thinker" class="mw-redirect" title="Thinker">thinker</a>, as <a href="/wiki/Fighter" class="mw-redirect" title="Fighter">fighter</a>.</figcaption></figure> <p><b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandra_Kollontai" class="extiw" title="w:Alexandra Kollontai">Alexandra Mikhailovna Kollontai</a></b> (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_language" class="extiw" title="w:Russian language">Russian</a>: Алекса́ндра Миха́йловна Коллонта́й — née <b>Domontovich</b>, Домонто́вич; 31 March (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates" class="extiw" title="w:Old Style and New Style dates">O.S.</a> 19 March) 1872 – 9 March 1952) was a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_people" class="extiw" title="w:Russian people">Russian</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_revolution" class="extiw" title="wikipedia:Communist revolution">Communist revolutionary</a>, first as a member of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menshevik" class="extiw" title="wikipedia:Menshevik">Mensheviks</a>, then from 1915 on as a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolshevik" class="extiw" title="wikipedia:Bolshevik">Bolshevik</a>. In 1922, Kollontai was appointed a diplomatic counsellor to the <a href="/wiki/Soviet_Union" title="Soviet Union">Soviet</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/legation" class="extiw" title="wikipedia:legation">legation</a> in <a href="/wiki/Norway" title="Norway">Norway</a>, being soon promoted to head of the legation, one of the first women to hold such a post. </p> <meta property="mw:PageProp/toc" /> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="Quotes">Quotes</h2><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Alexandra_Kollontai&action=edit&section=1" title="Edit section: Quotes"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <ul><li>'Women's Day' is a link in the long, solid chain of the women's proletarian movement. The organised army of working women grows with every year. Twenty years ago the trade unions contained only small groups of working women scattered here and there among the ranks of the workers party... Now English trade unions have over 292 thousand women members; in Germany around 200 thousand are in the trade union movement and 150 thousand in the workers party, and in Austria there are 47 thousand in the trade unions and almost 20 thousand in the party. Everywhere – in Italy, Hungary, Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Switzerland – the women of the working class are organising themselves. The women's socialist army has almost a million members. A powerful force! A force that the powers of this world must reckon with when it is a question of the cost of living, maternity insurance, child labour and legislation to protect female labour.<br />There was a time when working men thought that they alone must bear on their shoulders the brunt of the struggle against capital, that they alone must deal with the 'old world' without the help of their womenfolk. However, as working-class women entered the ranks of those who sell their labour, forced onto the labour market by need, by the fact that husband or father is unemployed, working men became aware that to leave women behind in the ranks of the 'non-class-conscious' was to damage their cause and hold it back. The greater the number of conscious fighters, the greater the chances of success. What level of consciousness is possessed by a woman who sits by the stove, who has no rights in society, the state or the family? She has no 'ideas' of her own! Everything is done as ordered by the father or husband... <ul><li>"Women's Day", (17 February, 1913)</li></ul></li> <li>There are individuals – a mere handful in the history of mankind – who, while themselves being the product of an imminent catastrophic change, leave their mark upon an entire epoch. Vladimir Ilyich Lenin is one such giant mind, one such giant will...<br />However mighty such giants of history may be, the universal-general principle that they symbolise and embody dissolves all the narrowly individual. The ordinary measuring rod of the qualities, failings and passions characteristic of the people of that age is not applicable to them. It is not a question of the personal characteristics of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin but what he symbolises... He has gathered to himself like a magnet everything in the revolution that is expressive of will, power, ruthless destruction and constructive persistence. Everyone who values what the workers' revolution brings with it in its cleansing whirlwind cannot but value and cherish its symbol, its embodiment – <a href="/wiki/Vladimir_Ilyich_Lenin" class="mw-redirect" title="Vladimir Ilyich Lenin">Vladimir Ilyich Lenin</a>. <ul><li>"A Giant Mind, a Giant Will"</li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li>One must write not only for oneself. But for others. For those far-away, unknown women who will live then. Let them see that we were not heroines or heroes at all. But we believed passionately and ardently. <ul><li>Quoted by Margaret S Marsh, <i>Anarchist Women, 1870-1920</i> (1981)</li></ul></li></ul> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading3"><h3 id="The_Autobiography_of_a_Sexually_Emancipated_Communist_Woman_(1926)"><span id="The_Autobiography_of_a_Sexually_Emancipated_Communist_Woman_.281926.29"></span><i>The Autobiography of a Sexually Emancipated Communist Woman</i> (1926)</h3><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Alexandra_Kollontai&action=edit&section=2" title="Edit section: The Autobiography of a Sexually Emancipated Communist Woman (1926)"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <dl><dd><small><i><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.marxists.org/archive/kollonta/1926/autobiography.htm">The Autobiography of a Sexually Emancipated Communist Woman</a></i> (1926), Translated by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvator_Attanasio" class="extiw" title="wikipedia:Salvator Attanasio">Salvator Attanasio</a>, <i>Herder and Herder</i>, 1971.</small></dd></dl> <ul><li><b><a href="/wiki/Nothing" class="mw-redirect" title="Nothing">Nothing</a> is more <a href="/wiki/Difficult" class="mw-redirect" title="Difficult">difficult</a> than <a href="/wiki/Writing" title="Writing">writing</a> an <a href="/wiki/Autobiography" title="Autobiography">autobiography</a>.</b> What should be emphasized? Just what is of general interest? It is advisable, above all, to write <a href="/wiki/Honestly" class="mw-redirect" title="Honestly">honestly</a> and dispense with any of the conventional introductory protestations of <a href="/wiki/Modesty" title="Modesty">modesty</a>. For if one is called upon to tell about one's <a href="/wiki/Life" title="Life">life</a> so as to make the events that made it what it became useful to the general public, it can mean only that one must have already wrought something positive in life, accomplished a task that people recognize. Accordingly it is a matter of <a href="/wiki/Forgetting" title="Forgetting">forgetting</a> that one is writing about <a href="/wiki/Oneself" class="mw-redirect" title="Oneself">oneself</a>, of making an effort to abjure one's <a href="/wiki/Ego" title="Ego">ego</a> so as to give an account, as <a href="/wiki/Objectively" class="mw-redirect" title="Objectively">objectively</a> as possible, of one's life in the making and of one's <a href="/wiki/Accomplishments" class="mw-redirect" title="Accomplishments">accomplishments</a>.</li></ul> <ul><li>By looking back while <a href="/w/index.php?title=Prying&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Prying (page does not exist)">prying</a>, simultaneously, into the <a href="/wiki/Future" title="Future">future</a>, I will also be presenting to myself the most crucial turning points of my being and accomplishments. In this way I may succeed in setting into bold relief that which concerns the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marxist_feminism#Accomplishments_and_activism" class="extiw" title="w:Marxist feminism">women's liberation struggle</a> and, further, the <a href="/wiki/Social" class="mw-redirect" title="Social">social</a> significance which it has. That I ought not to shape my life according to the given model, that I would have to grow beyond myself in order to be able to discern my life's <a href="/wiki/True" class="mw-redirect" title="True">true</a> line of vision was an <a href="/wiki/Awareness" title="Awareness">awareness</a> that was mine already in my <a href="/wiki/Youngest" class="mw-redirect" title="Youngest">youngest </a><a href="/wiki/Years" class="mw-redirect" title="Years">years</a>. At the same time I was also aware that in this way I could <a href="/wiki/Help" title="Help">help</a> my <a href="/wiki/Sisters" class="mw-redirect" title="Sisters">sisters</a> to shape their lives, in accordance not with the given <a href="/wiki/Traditions" class="mw-redirect" title="Traditions">traditions</a> but with their own <a href="/wiki/Free_choice" class="mw-redirect" title="Free choice">free choice</a> to the extent, of course, that social and <a href="/wiki/Economic" class="mw-redirect" title="Economic">economic</a> circumstances permit. <b>I always <a href="/wiki/Believed" class="mw-redirect" title="Believed">believed</a> that the <a href="/wiki/Time" title="Time">time</a> <a href="/wiki/Inevitably" class="mw-redirect" title="Inevitably">inevitably</a> must come when <a href="/wiki/Woman" class="mw-redirect" title="Woman">woman</a> will be <a href="/wiki/Judged" class="mw-redirect" title="Judged">judged</a> by the same <a href="/wiki/Moral" class="mw-redirect" title="Moral">moral</a> <a href="/wiki/Standards" class="mw-redirect" title="Standards">standards</a> applied to <a href="/wiki/Man" title="Man">man</a>. For it is not her specific <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/feminine" class="extiw" title="wikipedia:feminine">feminine</a> <a href="/wiki/Virtue" title="Virtue">virtue</a> that gives her a place of <a href="/wiki/Honor" title="Honor">honor</a> in <a href="/wiki/Human" title="Human">human</a> society, but the <a href="/wiki/Value_(ethics)" title="Value (ethics)">worth</a> of the useful <a href="/wiki/Mission" class="mw-redirect" title="Mission">mission</a> accomplished by her, the worth of her <a href="/wiki/Personality" title="Personality">personality</a> as human being, as <a href="/wiki/Citizen" class="mw-redirect" title="Citizen">citizen</a>, as <a href="/wiki/Thinker" class="mw-redirect" title="Thinker">thinker</a>, as <a href="/wiki/Fighter" class="mw-redirect" title="Fighter">fighter</a>.</b> <a href="/wiki/Subconsciously" class="mw-redirect" title="Subconsciously">Subconsciously</a> this motive was the leading <a href="/wiki/Force" title="Force">force</a> of my whole life and activity. To go my way, to <a href="/wiki/Work" title="Work">work</a>, to struggle, to <a href="/wiki/Create" class="mw-redirect" title="Create">create</a> side by side with men, and to strive for the attainment of a universal human <a href="/wiki/Goal" class="mw-redirect" title="Goal">goal</a> (for nearly thirty years, indeed, I have belonged to the <a href="/wiki/Communists" class="mw-redirect" title="Communists">Communists</a>) but, at the same time, to shape my <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_life" class="extiw" title="w:Personal life">personal, intimate life</a> as a woman according to my own <a href="/wiki/Will" class="mw-disambig" title="Will">will</a> and according to the given <a href="/wiki/Laws" class="mw-redirect" title="Laws">laws</a> of my nature. It was this that conditioned my line of vision.</li></ul> <ul><li>I have <a href="/wiki/Succeeded" class="mw-redirect" title="Succeeded">succeeded</a> in structuring my <a href="/wiki/Intimate" class="mw-redirect" title="Intimate">intimate</a> life according to my own standards and I make no <a href="/wiki/Secret" class="mw-redirect" title="Secret">secret</a> of my <a href="/wiki/Love" title="Love">love</a> <a href="/wiki/Experiences" class="mw-redirect" title="Experiences">experiences</a> anymore than does a man. Above all, however, I never let my <a href="/wiki/Feelings" title="Feelings">feelings</a>, the <a href="/wiki/Joy" title="Joy">joy</a> or <a href="/wiki/Pain" title="Pain">pain</a> of love take the first place in my life inasmuch as <a href="/wiki/Creativity" title="Creativity">creativity</a>, activity, struggle always occupied the foreground.</li></ul> <ul><li>I managed to become a member of a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabinet_(government)" class="extiw" title="w:Cabinet (government)">government cabinet</a>, of the first <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Lenin%27s_Cabinet" class="extiw" title="w:Vladimir Lenin's Cabinet">Bolshevik cabinet</a> in the years <a href="/wiki/1917" class="mw-disambig" title="1917">1917</a>/<a href="/wiki/1918" class="mw-disambig" title="1918">18</a>. I am also the first woman ever to have been appointed <a href="/wiki/Ambassadress" class="mw-redirect" title="Ambassadress">ambassadress</a>, a post which I occupied for three years and from which I resigned of my own free will. This may serve to prove that <i>woman certainly can stand above the conventional conditions of the age.</i> The <a href="/wiki/World_War_I" title="World War I">World War</a>, the <a href="/wiki/Stormy" class="mw-redirect" title="Stormy">stormy</a>, <a href="/wiki/Revolutionary" class="mw-redirect" title="Revolutionary">revolutionary</a> spirit now prevalent in the <a href="/wiki/World" title="World">world</a> in all areas has greatly contributed to blunting the edge of the <a href="/wiki/Unhealthy" class="mw-redirect" title="Unhealthy">unhealthy</a>, overheated <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_standard#Morality" class="extiw" title="w:Double standard">double standard of morality</a>. We are already accustomed not to make overly taxing demands, for example, on <a href="/wiki/Actresses" class="mw-redirect" title="Actresses">actresses</a> and women belonging to the free <a href="/wiki/Professions" class="mw-redirect" title="Professions">professions</a> in matters relating to their <a href="/wiki/Married" class="mw-redirect" title="Married">married</a> life. Diplomacy, however, is a <a href="/wiki/Caste" class="mw-redirect" title="Caste">caste</a> which more than any other maintains its old <a href="/wiki/Customs" title="Customs">customs</a>, usages, traditions, and, above all, its <a href="/w/index.php?title=Strict&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Strict (page does not exist)">strict</a> <a href="/wiki/Ceremonial" class="mw-redirect" title="Ceremonial">ceremonial</a>. The fact that a woman, a "free," a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_person" class="extiw" title="w:Single person">single</a> woman was recognized in this position without <a href="/wiki/Opposition" title="Opposition">opposition</a> shows that the time has come when all human beings will be <a href="/wiki/Equally" class="mw-redirect" title="Equally">equally</a> appraised according to their activity and their general human <a href="/wiki/Dignity" title="Dignity">dignity</a>.</li></ul> <ul><li>When I was appointed as Russian <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Envoy_(title)" class="extiw" title="w:Envoy (title)">envoy</a> to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oslo" class="extiw" title="wikipedia:Oslo">Oslo</a>, I realized that I had thereby achieved a <a href="/wiki/Victory" title="Victory">victory</a> not only for myself, but for women in general and indeed, a victory over their <a href="/wiki/Worst" title="Worst">worst</a> <a href="/wiki/Enemy" class="mw-redirect" title="Enemy">enemy</a>, that is to say, over conventional morality and <a href="/wiki/Conservative" class="mw-redirect" title="Conservative">conservative</a> concepts of marriage. ... What is of a wholly <a href="/wiki/Special" class="mw-redirect mw-disambig" title="Special">special</a> significance here is that a woman, like myself, who has settled scores with the double standard and who has never concealed it, was accepted into a caste which to this very day staunchly upholds tradition and pseudo-morality. Thus the example of my life can also serve to dispel the old goblin of the double standard also from the lives of other women. And this is a most crucial point of my own <a href="/wiki/Existence" title="Existence">existence</a>, which has a certain social-psychological worth and contributes to the liberation struggle of <a href="/wiki/Women_in_the_workforce" title="Women in the workforce">working women</a>.</li></ul> <ul><li>I am still far from being the type of the positively <a href="/wiki/New_women" class="mw-redirect" title="New women">new women</a> who take their experience as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/females" class="extiw" title="wikipedia:females">females</a> with a relative lightness and, one could <a href="/wiki/Say" class="mw-redirect" title="Say">say</a>, with an enviable <a href="/wiki/Superficiality" title="Superficiality">superficiality</a>, whose feelings and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_(psychological)" class="extiw" title="w:Energy (psychological)">mental energies</a> are directed upon all other <a href="/wiki/Things" class="mw-redirect" title="Things">things</a> in life but <a href="/wiki/Sentimental" class="mw-redirect" title="Sentimental">sentimental</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falling_in_love" class="extiw" title="w:Falling in love">love feelings</a>. After all I still belong to the generation of women who <a href="/wiki/Grew_up" class="mw-redirect" title="Grew up">grew up</a> at a turning point in <a href="/wiki/History" title="History">history</a>. Love with its many <a href="/wiki/Disappointments" class="mw-redirect" title="Disappointments">disappointments</a>, with its <a href="/wiki/Tragedies" class="mw-redirect" title="Tragedies">tragedies</a> and <a href="/wiki/Eternal" class="mw-redirect" title="Eternal">eternal</a> demands for <a href="/wiki/Perfect" class="mw-redirect" title="Perfect">perfect</a> happiness still played a very <a href="/wiki/Great" class="mw-redirect" title="Great">great</a> <a href="/wiki/Role" title="Role">role</a> in my life. An all-too-great role! It was an expenditure of precious time and energy, fruitless and, in the final <a href="/wiki/Analysis" title="Analysis">analysis</a>, utterly <a href="/wiki/Worthless" class="mw-redirect" title="Worthless">worthless</a>. We, the women of the past <a href="/wiki/Generation" title="Generation">generation</a>, did not yet <a href="/wiki/Understand" class="mw-redirect" title="Understand">understand</a> how to be free. The whole thing was an absolutely incredible squandering of our mental energy, a diminution of our <a href="/wiki/Labor_power" title="Labor power">labor power</a> which was dissipated in barren <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experience#Emotional" class="extiw" title="w:Experience">emotional experiences</a>. It is certainly true that we, myself as well as many other <a href="/wiki/Activists" class="mw-redirect" title="Activists">activists</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/militants" class="extiw" title="wikipedia:militants">militants</a> and working women contemporaries, were able to understand that love was not the main goal of our life and that we knew how to place work at its center. Nevertheless we would have been able to create and achieve much more had our energies not been fragmentized in the eternal struggle with our egos and with our feelings for another. It was, in fact, an eternal defensive <a href="/wiki/War" title="War">war</a> against the intervention of the male into our ego, a struggle revolving around the <a href="/wiki/Problem" title="Problem">problem</a>-complex: work or marriage and love? We, the older generation, did not yet understand, as most men do and as young women are <a href="/wiki/Learning" title="Learning">learning</a> <a href="/wiki/Today" title="Today">today</a>, that work and the longing for love can be <a href="/wiki/Harmoniously" class="mw-redirect" title="Harmoniously">harmoniously</a> combined so that work remains as the main goal of existence. Our mistake was that each time we succumbed to the belief that we had finally found the one and only in the man we loved, the <a href="/wiki/Person" class="mw-redirect" title="Person">person</a> with whom we believed we could blend our <a href="/wiki/Soul" title="Soul">soul</a>, one who was ready fully to recognize us as a <a href="/wiki/Spiritual" class="mw-redirect" title="Spiritual">spiritual</a>-physical force. But over and over again things turned out <a href="/wiki/Differently" class="mw-redirect" title="Differently">differently</a>, since the man always tried to impose his ego upon us and <a href="/wiki/Adapt" class="mw-redirect" title="Adapt">adapt</a> us fully to his <a href="/wiki/Purposes" class="mw-redirect" title="Purposes">purposes</a>. Thus despite everything the inevitable inner <a href="/wiki/Rebellion" title="Rebellion">rebellion</a> ensued, over and over again since love became a fetter. We felt <a href="/wiki/Enslaved" class="mw-redirect" title="Enslaved">enslaved</a> and tried to loosen the love-<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_bonding" class="extiw" title="w:Human bonding">bond</a>. And after the eternally recurring struggle with the beloved man, we finally tore ourselves away and rushed toward <a href="/wiki/Freedom" title="Freedom">freedom</a>. Thereupon we were again <a href="/wiki/Alone" class="mw-redirect" title="Alone">alone</a>, <a href="/wiki/Unhappy" class="mw-redirect" title="Unhappy">unhappy</a>, lonesome, but free–free to pursue our beloved, chosen <a href="/wiki/Ideal" title="Ideal">ideal</a> ...work. <a href="/wiki/Fortunately" class="mw-redirect" title="Fortunately">Fortunately</a> young people, the present generation, no longer have to go through this kind of struggle which is absolutely unnecessary to human society. Their <a href="/wiki/Abilities" class="mw-redirect" title="Abilities">abilities</a>, their work-energy will be reserved for their creative activity. Thus the existence of barriers will become a spur.</li></ul> <ul><li><b>I wanted to be free. I wanted to <a href="/wiki/Express" class="mw-redirect" title="Express">express</a> <a href="/wiki/Desires" class="mw-redirect" title="Desires">desires</a> on my own, to shape my own little life.</b></li></ul> <ul><li>Already as a small <a href="/wiki/Child" class="mw-redirect" title="Child">child</a> I <a href="/wiki/Criticized" class="mw-redirect" title="Criticized">criticized</a> the <a href="/wiki/Injustice" title="Injustice">injustice</a> of <a href="/wiki/Adults" class="mw-redirect" title="Adults">adults</a> and I experienced as a blatant <a href="/wiki/Contradiction" title="Contradiction">contradiction</a> the <a href="/wiki/Fact" title="Fact">fact</a> that everything was offered to me whereas <a href="/wiki/Social_inequality" title="Social inequality">so much was denied</a> to the other children. My criticism sharpened as the years went by and the feeling of revolt against the many proofs of love around me grew apace.</li></ul> <ul><li>I revolted against this <a href="/wiki/Marriage_of_convenience" title="Marriage of convenience">marriage of convenience</a>, this marriage for <a href="/wiki/Money" title="Money">money</a> and wanted to marry only for love, out of a great <a href="/wiki/Passion" title="Passion">passion</a>.</li></ul> <ul><li>I stood close to the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_materialism" class="extiw" title="w:Historical materialism">materialist conception of history</a>, since in early womanhood I had inclined towards the realistic school.</li></ul> <ul><li>I could not lead a happy, <a href="/wiki/Peaceful" class="mw-redirect" title="Peaceful">peaceful</a> life when the <a href="/wiki/Working_class" title="Working class">working population</a> was so terribly enslaved.</li></ul> <ul><li>Not a single one of the men who were close to me has ever had a direction-giving influence on my inclinations, strivings, or my <a href="/wiki/World-view" class="mw-redirect" title="World-view">world-view</a>. On the contrary, most of the time I was the <a href="/wiki/Guiding" class="mw-redirect" title="Guiding">guiding</a> <a href="/wiki/Spirit" title="Spirit">spirit</a>. I acquired my view of life, my <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/political_line" class="extiw" title="wikipedia:political line">political line</a> from life itself, and in uninterrupted <a href="/wiki/Study" class="mw-redirect" title="Study">study</a> from <a href="/wiki/Books" title="Books">books</a>.</li></ul> <ul><li>My <a href="/wiki/Marxist" class="mw-redirect" title="Marxist">Marxist</a> outlook pointed out to me with an illuminating <a href="/wiki/Clarity" title="Clarity">clarity</a> that women's <a href="/wiki/Liberation" class="mw-redirect" title="Liberation">liberation</a> could take place only as the result of the victory of a new <a href="/wiki/Social_order" title="Social order">social order</a> and a different <a href="/wiki/Economic_system" title="Economic system">economic system</a>.</li></ul> <ul><li>The vehement struggle between the two <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_faction" class="extiw" title="w:Political faction">factions</a> of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Workers_Party" class="extiw" title="wikipedia:Russian Workers Party">Russian Workers Party</a> broke out anew: the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolsheviks" class="extiw" title="wikipedia:Bolsheviks">Bolsheviks</a> on the one side, the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mensheviks" class="extiw" title="wikipedia:Mensheviks">Mensheviks</a> on the other. In <a href="/wiki/1908" class="mw-disambig" title="1908">1908</a> I belonged to the Menshevik faction, having been forced thereto by the <a href="/wiki/Hostile" class="mw-redirect" title="Hostile">hostile</a> position taken by the Bolsheviks towards the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_Duma_(Russian_Empire)" class="extiw" title="w:State Duma (Russian Empire)">Duma</a>, a pseudo-<a href="/wiki/Parliament" class="mw-disambig" title="Parliament">Parliament</a> called by the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Czar" class="extiw" title="wikipedia:Czar">Czar</a> in order to Pacify the rebellious spirits of the age. Although with the Mensheviks I espoused the <a href="/wiki/Point_of_view_(philosophy)" title="Point of view (philosophy)">point of view</a> that even a pseudo-Parliament should be utilized as a <a href="/w/index.php?title=Tribute&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Tribute (page does not exist)">tribute</a> for our <a href="/wiki/Political_parties" title="Political parties">Party</a> and that the elections for the Duma must be used as an assembling point for the working class. But I did not side with the Mensheviks on the question of coordinating the forces of the workers with the <a href="/wiki/Liberals" class="mw-redirect" title="Liberals">Liberals</a> in order to accelerate the overthrow of <a href="/wiki/Absolutism" title="Absolutism">absolutism</a>. On this point I was, in fact, very <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_left" class="extiw" title="w:Radical left">left-radical</a> and was even branded as a "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/syndicalist" class="extiw" title="wikipedia:syndicalist">syndicalist</a>" by my Party <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comrade#Russian_usage" class="extiw" title="w:Comrade">comrades</a>. Given my attitude towards the Duma it <a href="/wiki/Logically" class="mw-redirect" title="Logically">logically</a> followed that I considered it useless to exploit the first <a href="/wiki/Bourgeois" class="mw-redirect" title="Bourgeois">bourgeois</a> women's congress in the interest of our Party. Nevertheless I worked with might and main to assure that <i>our</i> women workers, who were to participate in the Congress, emerged as an <a href="/wiki/Independent" class="mw-redirect" title="Independent">independent</a> and distinct group. I managed to carry out this plan but not without opposition. My Party comrades accused me and those women-comrades who shared my views of being "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_feminism" class="extiw" title="w:Liberal feminism">feminists</a>" and of placing too much emphasis on matters of concern to women only. At the time there was still no <a href="/wiki/Comprehension" class="mw-redirect" title="Comprehension">comprehension</a> at all of the extraordinarily important role in the struggle devolving upon <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/self-employed" class="extiw" title="wikipedia:self-employed">self-employed</a> <a href="/wiki/Professional" title="Professional">professional</a> women. Nevertheless our will prevailed.</li></ul> <ul><li>It must be admitted that, although I possessed a certain degree of <a href="/wiki/Ambition" title="Ambition">ambition</a>, like every other active human being, I was never animated by the desire to obtain "a post." For me "what I am" was always of less importance than "what I can," that is to say, what I was in a position to accomplish. In this way I, too, had my ambition and it was especially noticeable there where I stood <i>with my whole <a href="/wiki/Heart" title="Heart">heart</a> and soul</i> in the struggle, where the issue was the abolition of the slavery of working women.</li></ul> <ul><li>The <a href="/wiki/Question" title="Question">question</a> rises whether in the middle of all these manifold, exciting <a href="/wiki/Labor" class="mw-redirect" title="Labor">labors</a> and Party-assignments I could still find rime for intimate experiences, for the pangs and joys of love. Unfortunately, yes! I say unfortunately because ordinarily these experiences entailed all too many cares, disappointments, and pain, and because all too many energies were pointlessly consumed through them. Yet the longing to be understood by a man down to the deepest, most secret recesses of one's soul, to be recognized by him as a striving human being, repeatedly decided matters. And repeatedly disappointment ensued all too swiftly, since the <a href="/wiki/Friend" class="mw-redirect" title="Friend">friend</a> saw in me only the feminine element which he tried to mold into a willing sounding board to his own ego. So repeatedly the moment inevitably arrived in which I had to shake off the <a href="/wiki/Chains" class="mw-redirect" title="Chains">chains</a> of <a href="/wiki/Community" title="Community">community</a> with an aching heart but with a <a href="/wiki/Sovereign" class="mw-redirect" title="Sovereign">sovereign</a>, uninfluenced will. Then I was again alone. But the greater the demands life made upon me, the more the <a href="/wiki/Responsible" class="mw-redirect" title="Responsible">responsible</a> work waiting to be tackled, the greater grew the longing to be enveloped by love, <a href="/wiki/Warmth" class="mw-redirect" title="Warmth">warmth</a>, understanding. All the easier, consequently, began the old <a href="/wiki/Story" title="Story">story</a> of disappointment in love, the old story of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titania" class="extiw" title="wikipedia:Titania">Titania</a> in "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Midsummer_Night%27s_Dream" class="extiw" title="wikipedia:A Midsummer Night's Dream">A Midsummer Night's Dream</a>."</li></ul> <ul><li>To me the war was an <a href="/wiki/Abomination" title="Abomination">abomination</a>, a <a href="/wiki/Madness" class="mw-redirect" title="Madness">madness</a>, a <a href="/wiki/Crime" title="Crime">crime</a>, and from the first moment onwards–more out of impulse than reflection–I inwardly rejected it and could never reconcile myself with it up to this very moment. <ul><li>About the <a href="/wiki/First_World_War" class="mw-redirect" title="First World War">first World War</a>.</li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li>Such is life's <a href="/wiki/Irony" title="Irony">irony</a>.</li></ul> <ul><li>Looking back one perceives only a massive operation, struggle, and action. In<a href="/wiki/Reality" title="Reality">reality</a> there were no <a href="/wiki/Heroes" title="Heroes">heroes</a> or <a href="/wiki/Leaders" class="mw-redirect" title="Leaders">leaders</a>. It was the people, the working people, in <a href="/wiki/Soldiers" title="Soldiers">soldiers</a>' <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_uniform" class="extiw" title="w:Military uniform">uniform</a> or in civilian <a href="/wiki/Attire" class="mw-redirect" title="Attire">attire</a>, who <a href="/wiki/Controlled" class="mw-redirect" title="Controlled">controlled</a> the situation and who recorded its will indelibly in the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Russia" class="extiw" title="w:History of Russia">history of the country</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_world" class="extiw" title="w:History of the world">mankind</a>. It was a sultry summer, a crucial <a href="/wiki/Summer" title="Summer">summer</a> of <a href="/wiki/Russian_Revolution" title="Russian Revolution">the revolutionary flood-tide in 1917</a>!</li></ul> <ul><li>The issue was to wage a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opposition_to_World_War_I" class="extiw" title="w:Opposition to World War I">struggle against the war</a>, against coalescence with the liberal bourgeoisie, and for the <a href="/wiki/Power" title="Power">power</a> of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/workers%27_councils" class="extiw" title="wikipedia:workers' councils">workers' councils</a>, the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_(council)" class="extiw" title="w:Soviet (council)">Soviets</a>.</li></ul> <ul><li>Then came the great days of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_Revolution" class="extiw" title="wikipedia:October Revolution">October Revolution</a>. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smolny" class="extiw" title="wikipedia:Smolny">Smolny</a> became historic. The <a href="/wiki/Sleepless" class="mw-redirect" title="Sleepless">sleepless</a> <a href="/wiki/Nights" class="mw-redirect" title="Nights">nights</a>, the permanent sessions. And, finally, the stirring declarations. "The Soviets take power!" "The Soviets address an appeal to the peoples of the world to put an end to the war." "The land is <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_ownership" class="extiw" title="w:Social ownership">socialized</a> and belongs to the <a href="/wiki/Peasants" class="mw-redirect" title="Peasants">peasants</a>!"</li></ul> <ul><li>When one <a href="/wiki/Recalls" class="mw-redirect" title="Recalls">recalls</a> the first <a href="/wiki/Months" class="mw-redirect" title="Months">months</a> of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_republic_(system_of_government)" class="extiw" title="w:Soviet republic (system of government)">Workers' Government</a>, months which were so rich in magnificent <a href="/wiki/Illusions" class="mw-redirect" title="Illusions">illusions</a>, plans, ardent initiatives to <a href="/wiki/Improve" class="mw-redirect" title="Improve">improve</a> life, to organize the world anew, months of the real romanticism of the Revolution, one would in fact like to write about all else save about one's self.</li></ul> <ul><li>I never gave a <a href="/wiki/Thought" title="Thought">thought</a> to any kind of <a href="/wiki/Danger" title="Danger">danger</a>, being all too engrossed in matters of an utterly different character.</li></ul> <ul><li>The Revolution was in full swing. The struggle was becoming increasingly irreconcilable and <a href="/wiki/Violence" title="Violence">bloodier</a>, much of what was happening did not fit in with my outlook. But after all there was still the unfinished task, women's liberation. Women, of course, had received all <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_rights" class="extiw" title="w:Women's rights">rights</a> but in practice, of course, they still lived under the old yoke: without <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_inequality#At_home" class="extiw" title="w:Gender inequality">authority in family life</a>, enslaved by a thousand menial household chores, bearing the whole burden of <a href="/w/index.php?title=Maternity&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Maternity (page does not exist)">maternity</a>, even the material cares, because many women now found life alone as a result of the war and other circumstances.</li></ul> <ul><li>In the <a href="/wiki/Autumn" title="Autumn">autumn</a> of <a href="/wiki/1916" class="mw-disambig" title="1916">1916</a> when I devoted all my energies to drawing up systematic guidelines for the liberation of working women in all areas, I found a valuable support in the first President of the Soviets, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakov_Sverdlov" class="extiw" title="w:Yakov Sverdlov">Sverdlov</a>, now dead. Thus the first Congress of Women Workers and Women Peasants could be called as early as November of 1918; some 1147 delegates were present. Thus the foundation was laid for methodical work in the whole country for the liberation of the women of the working and the peasant <a href="/wiki/Social_class" title="Social class">classes</a>. A flood of new work was waiting for me. The question now was one of drawing women into the people's kitchens and of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_education" class="extiw" title="w:Female education">educating</a> them to devote their energies to children's homes and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_care" class="extiw" title="w:Child care">day-care</a> centers, the school system, household reforms, and still many other pressing matters. The main thrust of all this activity was to implement, in fact, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equality_before_the_law" class="extiw" title="w:Equality before the law">equal rights</a> for women as a labor unit in the national economy and as a citizen in the political sphere and, of course, with the special proviso: maternity was to be appraised as a social function and therefore protected and provided for by the State.</li></ul> <ul><li>In all the <a href="/wiki/Social_relations" class="mw-redirect" title="Social relations">social relations</a> which I had during the three years of my work in <a href="/wiki/Norway" title="Norway">Norway</a>, I never once experienced the least trace of aversion or mistrust against woman's <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/capabilities" class="extiw" title="wikipedia:capabilities">capabilities</a>. To be sure, the healthy, <a href="/wiki/Democratic" class="mw-redirect" title="Democratic">democratic</a> spirit of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_people" class="extiw" title="wikipedia:Norwegian people">Norwegian people</a> greatly contributed to this. Thus the fact is to be confirmed that my work as official <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norway%E2%80%93Russia_relations" class="extiw" title="w:Norway–Russia relations">Russian representative in Norway</a> was never, and in no wise, made difficult for the reason that I belonged "to the <a href="https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/weaker_sex" class="extiw" title="wiktionary:weaker sex">weaker sex</a>."</li></ul> <ul><li>The work began with great zeal and the most roseate <a href="/wiki/Hopes" class="mw-redirect" title="Hopes">hopes</a>. A splendid summer and an eventful <a href="/wiki/Winter" title="Winter">winter</a> marked the year of <a href="/wiki/1923" class="mw-disambig" title="1923">1923</a>! The newly resumed trade relations were in full swing: Russian corn and Norwegian herring and fish, Russian wood products and Norwegian paper and cellulose.</li></ul> <ul><li>My life was as crammed with strenuous work and highly interesting experiences alike.</li></ul> <ul><li><b>If I have attained something in this world, it was not my personal qualities that originally brought this about. Rather my achievements are only a <a href="/wiki/Symbol" class="mw-redirect" title="Symbol">symbol</a> of the fact that woman, after all, is already on the march to general recognition.</b> It is the drawing of millions of women into <a href="/wiki/Productive" class="mw-redirect" title="Productive">productive</a> work, which was swiftly effected especially during the war and which thrust into the realm of <a href="/wiki/Possibility" title="Possibility">possibility</a> the fact that a woman could be advanced to the highest <a href="/wiki/Political" class="mw-redirect" title="Political">political</a> and diplomatic positions. Nevertheless it is obvious that only a country of the future, such as the Soviet Union, can dare to confront <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_Russia#Soviet_era" class="extiw" title="w:Women in Russia">woman</a> without any <a href="/wiki/Misogyny" title="Misogyny">prejudice</a>, to appraise her only from the standpoint of her skills and talents, and, accordingly, to entrust her with responsible tasks. <b>Only the fresh revolutionary storms were strong enough to sweep away hoary prejudices against woman and only the productive-working people is able to effect the complete <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_equality" class="extiw" title="w:Gender equality">equalization</a> and liberation of woman by building a new society.</b></li></ul> <ul><li><b>I stand on the threshold of new missions and life is making new demands upon me. No matter what further tasks I shall be carrying out, it is perfectly clear to me that the complete liberation of the working woman and the creation of the foundation of a new <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_ethics" class="extiw" title="w:Sexual ethics">sexual morality</a> will always remain the highest aim of my activity, and of my life.</b></li></ul> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="Quotes_about_Alexandra_Kollontai">Quotes about Alexandra Kollontai</h2><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Alexandra_Kollontai&action=edit&section=3" title="Edit section: Quotes about Alexandra Kollontai"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <ul><li>Within the Russian Party itself, the first organized opposition to the policies of both Lenin and Trotsky was led by a woman-Alexandra Kollontai. Alexandra was not an Old Bolshevik, but she had joined the Bolshevik Party even before Trotsky had done so and much earlier than I. During these first few years of the Revolution she was a frequent source of both personal and political annoyance to the Party leaders. On more than one occasion the Central Committee had wanted me to substitute for her in the leadership of the women's movement, thus facilitating the campaign against her and isolating her from the women of the masses. Fortunately, I understood this intrigue and refused these offers, emphasizing that no one could do this work so well as she, and trying to augment her prestige and create sympathy for her whenever possible. By the Ninth Congress of the Russian Party, the last vestiges of trade-union autonomy and workers' control in industry was swept away to be replaced by the control of the political had become the leader of the "Workers' Opposition," a protest missars over the trade unions and the workers' soviets. Kollantai movement against the bureaucratic suffocation of the labour unions and the democratic rights of the workers. As there was no possibility, even at that time, of publicly criticizing the Central Committee or of placing an unofficial opinion before the Party rank and file, she was courageous enough to have a pamphlet secretly printed for distribution to the delegates at the Party Convention. I have never seen Lenin so angry as when one of these pamphlets was handed to him at the Convention-in spite of the fact that "opposition" within the Party itself was still supposed to be legitimate. Taking the platform, he denounced Kollontai as the Party's worst enemy, a menace to its unity. He went so far in his attack as to make allusions to certain episodes in Kollontai's intimate life that had nothing whatever to do with the issue. It was the kind of polemic which did no credit to Lenin, and it was on this occasion that I realized the lengths to which Lenin would go in the pursuit of his strategic aims, his opposition to a party opponent. I admired Kollontai for the calm and self-control with which she answered Lenin's attack. Among the examples she quoted of the methods which were used by the Central Committee against Party "rebels" was the attempt of the "Central Committee to send Angelica Balabanoff to Turkestan to eat peaches." Like many other rebellious members of the Party, she was sent away soon after on a diplomatic mission. For old revolutionists like Kollontai it was a punishment to be separated from the field of revolutionary activity, but after years in Norway, Mexico, and Sweden as Soviet ambassador, she seemed to become reconciled to her position and to fall completely into line. <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Angelica_Balabanoff" title="Angelica Balabanoff">Angelica Balabanoff</a> <i>My Life As a Rebel</i> (1938)</li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li>Kollontai was never a brilliant Marxist scholar or an innovative theoretician as was her friend <a href="/wiki/Rosa_Luxemburg" title="Rosa Luxemburg">Rosa Luxemburg</a>, for example. She "discovered" <a href="/wiki/Marx" class="mw-redirect" title="Marx">Marx</a> in a copy of Communist Manifesto which she picked up in a bookstore in Germany during the cooling off period forced on her by her parents. It quickly replaced her populism, which had been shallow and emotional, and seemed to pull her previous ideas together in an intellectually satisfying form-a common experience for many Marxist converts. <ul><li><a href="/w/index.php?title=Shirley_Fredricks&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Shirley Fredricks (page does not exist)">Shirley Fredricks</a> in <i>European Women on the Left</i> edited by Jane Slaughter and Robert Korn (1981)</li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li>Alexandra Kollontay and <a href="/wiki/Angelica_Balabanoff" title="Angelica Balabanoff">Angelica Balabanoff</a> were within easy reach, as they were living in the National. I sought out the former first. Mme Kollontay looked remarkably young and radiant, considering her fifty years and the severe operation she had recently undergone. A tall and stately woman, every inch the grande dame rather than the fiery revolutionist. Her attire and suite of two rooms bespoke good taste, the roses on her desk rather startling in the Russian greyness. They were the first I had seen since our deportation. [...] She leaned back in her arm-chair and I began speaking of the harrowing things that had come to my knowledge. She listened attentively without interrupting me, but there was not the slightest indication in her cold, handsome face of any perturbation on account of my recital. "We do have some dull grey spots in our vivid revolutionary picture," she said when I had concluded. "They are un-avoidable in a country so backward, with a people so dark and a social experiment of such magnitude, opposed by the entire world as it is. They will disappear when we have liquidated our military fronts and when we shall have raised the mental level of our masses." I could help in that, she continued. I could work among the women; they were ignorant of the simplest principles of life, physical and otherwise, ignorant of their own functions as mothers and citizens. I had done such fine work of that kind in America, and she could assure me of a much more fertile field in Russia. "Why not join me and stop your brooding over a few dull grey spots?" she said in conclusion; "they are nothing more, dear comrade, really nothing more." People raided, imprisoned, and shot for their ideas! The old and the young held as hostages, every protest gagged, iniquity and favouritism rampant, the best human values betrayed, the very spirit of revolution daily crucified-were all these nothing but "grey, dull spots," I wondered! I felt chilled to the marrow of my bones. <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Emma_Goldman" title="Emma Goldman">Emma Goldman</a>, <i>Living My Life (1931)</i></li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li>No American socialist-feminist successfully integrated the anarchist-feminist analysis of domestic oppression into a socialist framework...Nevertheless, a socialist framework existed, in the work of Aleksandra Kollontai. Kollontai, a Russian Marxist revolutionary who participated in the birth of the Bolshevik state, wrote her most extensive analysis of the Woman Question while in exile in Western Europe in the years immediately preceding World War I." Following Bebel and Engels, Kollontai argued that the first requisite for women's emancipation was productive work outside the confines of the domestic circle. However, participation in the work force would not free women unless there were also changes in the industrial system. Ultimately, of course, the workers must overthrow capitalism, Kollontai declared. But, more immediately, socialists should work for shorter hours, less dangerous working conditions, paid maternity leaves, nursery facilities in all factories, and scheduled breaks from work so that mothers could breast feed their babies. Not all socialists agreed with Kollontai on the above issues. Most men and some women refused to countenance the urging of special reforms for women because they believed it undermined the solidarity of the proletariat. But Kollontai further extended her analysis of female oppression to include an attack on the emotional dependence of women upon men. <ul><li>Margaret S Marsh, <i>Anarchist Women, 1870-1920</i> (1981)</li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li>Barbara Clements has shown that for Kollontai "woman's inferiority was imbedded in the pattern of erotic love, the most private of human relationships." Socialism for her, therefore, was more than the overthrow of capitalism as an economic system. It promised the creation of a new order in which men and women could live together and love in harmony and in community. Clements has demonstrated Kollontai's unique place within Marxism: "Other contemporaries, most eloquently <a href="/wiki/Virginia_Woolf" title="Virginia Woolf">Virginia Woolf</a> but also feminists such as the Pankhursts, knew the price of female emancipation, but of the Marxists, only Kollontai gave it a place within the ideology. Into a socioeconomic theory that valued rationality as the road to social liberation, Kollontai introduced an emotional understanding of woman alone in an isolating world." Kollontai's emphasis on psychological and emotional liberation was remarkably similar to American anarchist-feminism, but she differed in her insistence on integrating these issues into an uncompromising materialist analysis. She believed that "solitude and women's struggle for independence [were] economically determined and therefore ... soluble. She remained resolutely an ideologue and an optimist." <ul><li>Margaret S Marsh, <i>Anarchist Women, 1870-1920</i> (1981)</li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li>Kollontai's analysis in the pre-World War years did not find its way into the work of American socialist-feminists, and it is not clear that they would have accepted her views had they been exposed to them. Nevertheless, her integration of the most important aspects of anarchist-feminism into socialist ideology offered a tantalizing possibility for the creation of a truly feminist radicalism. That the promise remains to be fulfilled does not detract from her accomplishment. <ul><li>Margaret S Marsh, <i>Anarchist Women, 1870-1920</i> (1981)</li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li>Throughout the history of the socialist movement there has, therefore, been a strand of feminist critique from within. Many feminists shared in the vision of a just society, but criticised the ways in which communist parties sought to bring it about. Amongst the Bolsheviks, <a href="/w/index.php?title=Inessa_Armand&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Inessa Armand (page does not exist)">Inessa Armand</a> and <a class="mw-selflink selflink">Alexandra Kollontai</a> were early critics of their party's policies and practice, and they, along with anarchist feminists such as <a href="/wiki/Emma_Goldman" title="Emma Goldman">Emma Goldman</a>, laid some of the early groundwork in identifying socialism's failures. <ul><li><a href="/w/index.php?title=Maxine_Molyneux&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Maxine Molyneux (page does not exist)">Maxine Molyneux</a> Women's Movements in International Perspective: Latin America and Beyond (2000)</li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li>It was a great privilege to work so closely with these wonderful women of our movement...I was very much impressed too with the brilliant and handsome Alexandra Kollontai, who had been active in the woman's movement even in pre-revolutionary days. She had been for a time People's Commissar of Social Welfare. When I first met her, she was one of the leaders of the Workers' Opposition, taking the line that the interests of the trade unions were opposed to those of the Soviet state and the Party. Lenin, to whom she was deeply devoted, convinced her of the fallacy of her position, and she abandoned her oppositionist stand, becoming a loyal supporter of the Party's position. She became Minister Plenipotentiary to Norway, the first woman ambassador in the world, was for a time ambassador to Mexico and is today Soviet Ambassador to Sweden. <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Ella_Reeve_Bloor" title="Ella Reeve Bloor">Ella Reeve Bloor</a> <i>We Are Many: An Autobiography</i> (1940)</li></ul></li></ul> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="External_links">External links</h2><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Alexandra_Kollontai&action=edit&section=4" title="Edit section: External links"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <div class="noprint" style="clear: right; border: solid #aaa 1px; margin: 0 0 1em 1em; font-size: 90%; background: #f9f9f9; width: 250px; padding: 4px; spacing: 0px; text-align: left; float: right;"> <div style="float: left;"><figure class="mw-halign-none" typeof="mw:File"><a href="/wiki/File:Wikipedia-logo-v2.svg" class="mw-file-description" title="Wikipedia"><img alt="Wikipedia" src="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/80/Wikipedia-logo-v2.svg/50px-Wikipedia-logo-v2.svg.png" decoding="async" width="50" height="46" class="mw-file-element" srcset="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/80/Wikipedia-logo-v2.svg/75px-Wikipedia-logo-v2.svg.png 1.5x, //upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/80/Wikipedia-logo-v2.svg/100px-Wikipedia-logo-v2.svg.png 2x" data-file-width="103" data-file-height="94" /></a><figcaption>Wikipedia</figcaption></figure></div> <div style="margin-left: 60px;"><a href="/wiki/Wikipedia" title="Wikipedia">Wikipedia</a> has an article about: <div style="margin-left: 10px;"><i><b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandra_Kollontai" class="extiw" title="wikipedia:Alexandra Kollontai">Alexandra Kollontai</a></b></i></div> </div> </div> <div class="noprint" style="clear: right; border: solid #aaa 1px; margin: 0 0 1em 1em; font-size: 90%; background: #f9f9f9; width: 250px; padding: 4px; spacing: 0px; text-align: left; float: right;"> <div style="float: left;"><figure class="mw-halign-none" typeof="mw:File"><a href="/wiki/File:Commons-logo.svg" class="mw-file-description" title="Commons"><img alt="Commons" src="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4a/Commons-logo.svg/50px-Commons-logo.svg.png" decoding="async" width="50" height="67" class="mw-file-element" srcset="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4a/Commons-logo.svg/75px-Commons-logo.svg.png 1.5x, //upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4a/Commons-logo.svg/100px-Commons-logo.svg.png 2x" data-file-width="1024" data-file-height="1376" /></a><figcaption>Commons</figcaption></figure></div> <div style="margin-left: 60px;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Commons" class="extiw" title="w:Wikimedia Commons">Wikimedia Commons</a> has media related to: <div style="margin-left: 10px;"><i><b><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Alexandra_Kollontai" class="extiw" title="commons:Category:Alexandra Kollontai">Alexandra Kollontai</a></b></i></div> </div> </div> <ul><li><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.marxists.org/archive/kollonta/index.htm">Alexandra Kollontai Internet Archive</a> at <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marxists_Internet_Archive" class="extiw" title="wikipedia:Marxists Internet Archive">Marxists Internet Archive</a>.</li> <li>Christine Thomas, <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.geocities.com/socialistparty/Documents/Kollantai.htm">"For socialism and women's liberation,"</a> (<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.webcitation.org/5kmWj7QOj?url=http://www.geocities.com/socialistparty/Documents/Kollantai.htm">Archived</a> 2009-10-25) <i>Socialism Today,</i> March 2003.</li> <li>Helen Ward, <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.permanentrevolution.net//?view=entry&entry=1094">"Alexandra Kollontai,"</a> PermanentRevolution.net</li> <li>Gabrille Tousignant, <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.kollontai.net/en/about-us.html">"St-Petersbourg workers of the textile industry,"</a> Kollontai.net</li></ul> <table id="authorityControl" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="margin:0.5em 0 0 0; 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