*The struggles which Alexandra Kollontai lived through and wrote about continue, and constantly draw from a greater understanding of their historical origins.' Kollontai, as a Marxist, held that women's position in society is directly dependent on the historical stage of economic development. But she also insisted that women have particular problems relating to their sex, some often make them more politically backward than men. She saw that socialist parties must make a special effort to organise and educate working and combat appeal of bourgeois feminism:
She stressed that emancipation was a vital factor of the class struggle. Working-class morality had to be worked out in the struggle against capitalism, and not left until after capitalism was defeated.
For Cathy Porter, Kollontal is an exceptional woman," enormous historical and inspirational value ano extraordinary Unfortunately this view is a trap for biographers.
strength the women's *a feminist of orginality".
is to the Cathy times, For example, was to avoid in The rise InadePorter future generation effects of children, explains Cathy Porter. birth-control.
social duty.
Kollontai, Kollontai's necessary, but temporary Kollontai La member Many Bolsheviks thought the only assurance of Russia's future lay in the the socialist equivalent of capitalist accumulation. This is the reason for Kollontai's and stress on the social duty of having Where is the ambivalence in this? Social function has already become On abortion, Porter claims that like most Party leaders, regarded it as a liberating and long- the overdue measure. But these leaders in fact supported the abortion law as a evli -the wording of the law itself reveals.
often attacked the the Workers' feminist.
Biography by JANE McDERMID sexual hypocrisy of bourgeois cuiture, yet frequently reiterated traditional sexual attitudes. Her Theories were concerned only heterosexual, general The implication toas monogamous sne thought any olet form or sexua attraction to be 'unnatural' It's true that Kollontai wrote that there were a whole range of possible 'erotic trendshios' between the sexes but she did not elaborate.
forms of relationship, presupposed the sallell y motherhood.
at great length, on the need for relationships to be freely entered into, for women to be Alexandra equal and independent. And yet, once she is pregnant, Kollontai holds that a women is subject to the collective, simply carrying resources within her.
Cathy Porter does not adequately the contradictions in Kollontai's views. In her anxiety Cathy Porter makes mistakes, and assertions. all she of Bolsheviks thought that the Leninist Party would be formed of the between employers and producers'. Apparently, Lenin 1922!
working curcies, Brusnev when she husband; implies that her Opposition?
temper. the dictatorship of individuals was vehicle for dictatorship of the revolutionary class (no source is given). She holds that Stalin was already secure in power in Finally Cathy Porter claims that the first attempt to take up the conditions Russian women, and give political direction to them, appeared at the end of 1900. In tact. from at least as early asky there had been a network of women's malles on textile workers, which were linked to the organisation. This organisation claimed to be Marxist and was anti-intelligentsia Cathy Porter has put much effort and dedication into her subject, hence it is a shame that she makes silly mistakes: neither the ILP nor Keir Hardie (by implication) are English! Kollontai herself is undermined. Is it recessary, or useful, to describe how attractive Kollontai was, how young she looked for her age; to record 'fell in love with her to call her relationships 'affairs'? If Kollontai had to find a new vocabulary to discuss ideas of sexual relations and the new women, should we not also try?
Porter claims for Kollontai a 'pure revolutionary consciousness', yet she politics were often heavily influenced by her emotions Why did she refuse to join the Left Apparently Kollontai Trotsky's
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1917, Opposition from diplomat from 1923.
ALEXANDRA Kollontai was a Bolshevik, a commissar in the first Soviet government
1920 and a Soviet modern women's
movement reawakened interest in her, mainly because of her role as a pioneering
Cathy Porter, published by Virago, is here reviewed by