danger of biography. sympathise subject, and, in view, Porter tends to shape the historical context around Kollontai, rather than place her within At important ideas and events are lost in a mass of detail, even of trivia.
However, the more serious lack in Cathy Porter's book is the absence of a critical framework. she implies that Kollontai did not become a terrorist because it would ental chastity It she unwanted pregnancies!
Kollontai herself did not have a theory of contraception; she thought women's solution to this problem could onlv be personal - a matter of individual conscience, not legislation. Kollontai's view described *tantalisingly inadequate'. quate, certainly. Cathy suggests that Kollontai realised, and deplored the backwardness of Russia liberating universally available But she was also unwilling to take on the more conservative Party members who might want to inhibit women's sexual independence, and emphasised increasing the birth-rate!
Ambivalent Porter describes position on this as 'ambivalent'. On the contrary, it seems only too clear.