The glass of water theory is a doctrine affirming that in communist society the satisfaction of sexual desires and love will be as simple and unimportant as drinking a glass of water.[1] The theory is commonly associated with Alexandra Kollontai, although such characterization ignores the complexity of her theoretical work.[2][3] Anatoly Lunacharsky criticised the theory in his article "On Everyday Life: Young People and the 'Glass of Water' Theory".[4] The place theory held in the Soviet ideological framework was replaced by 12 Sexual Commandments of the Revolutionary Proletariat by Aron Zalkind.[5]
In 1926–1929, the theory was subjected to great criticism and persecution.
1929 is considered the year of the end of the Bolshevik sexual revolution and the theory of the glass of water as the basis of this revolution. However, a number of researchers in the history of the sexual revolution in the USSR argue that the sexual revolution formally ended in 1935 with the advent of a formal law criminalizing pornography.[6]
The glass of water theory
BANGALORE: Comrade R’s trouble with women often meant free rum for some of us whom he considered worthy of being able to give a piece or two of advice. It was easier to explain things to Comra
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BANGALORE: Comrade R’s trouble with women often meant free rum for some of us whom he considered worthy of being able to give a piece or two of advice. It was easier to explain things to Comrade R in a communist fashion, so after gulping down a couple of sixties, I told him: In 1920’s as Mikhail Shatrov describes in one of his plays, a “class approach” to love and sex was mooted by the self-appointed experts of which proletarian culture and was rubbished by Lenin and other sensible communists as “infantile disorder”.
In Shatrov’s play which was fresh in my mind, a speaker tells a bunch of youth, “We all stand for freedom of love, and for the satisfaction of this natural biological urge connected with the need of sexual gratification… I insist that for proletarian youth love must not be a waste of time.” “Just look at some bourgeois young man or woman in their so called period of puberty.
They spend the whole day brooding in the office or at school. They sigh, dream, write love letters and in the evening rush to their anxiously awaited dates. The young man spends a lot of time declaring the purity of his love while the young lady at the most allows him to kiss her hand. But since the young man is 18 or 20, sighs and kisses for him are by far not enough. So what does he do comrades? He goes straight from his rhapsodic date with his sweetheart to gratify his sexual urge elsewhere,” the speaker says.
The speaker then compares (with proletariat), “The young man gets his wages, gives half of them to his parents and from the other half buys his girl a pair of shoes, a ticket to the movies or takes her out to a dance. Their relations have no ups and downs, no disparity of emotions, no shilly shallying or any such thing. If they happen to break up, the girl switches over to one of her boyfriend’s pals, another solid worker. And there’s no tragedy. No emotional mess. No complications.” Later he says, “That is why contrary to this false bourgeois sex morality, Marxism already offers today a satisfaction of biological urges in society should be as simple as drinking a glass of water.” Which was understood by a worker (in the play) as follows, “Every Komsomol girl, every female working student, every female proletarian who is chosen by a male Komsomol member must respond as a class and a party comrade. Otherwise she is a philistine and unworthy of being a member of the Komsomol.” Comrade R was kicked (which man wouldn’t want a girl to drop her pants the moment he looks at her) about the class approach until I borrowed Lenin’s words and told him that the “glass of water” theory was rubbish.
The glass of water theory
BANGALORE: Comrade R’s trouble with women often meant free rum for some of us whom he considered worthy of being able to give a piece or two of advice. It was easier to explain things to Comra
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Published: 02nd September 2009 05:00 AM | Last Updated: 16th May 2012 12:13 AM | A+A A-
“The freedom of love at any rate is not the freedom from what is genuine in love. Or a freedom of adultery. It is probably a freedom from material and financial considerations in live... a freedom from material burdens, from religious superstitions and social prejudice. From a father’s arbitrary restrictions, from the enforced bonds of the law, the courts and the police. It is the complete freedom of the human being at any time to say “NO”. Comrade R got up, spat and left.
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On Love, Sex and Gender: Lenin’s “Own Words”
Sex and Love
Absorption in the Problem of Sex
“The mention of Freud’s hypothesis is designed to give the pamphlet a scientific veneer, but it is so much bungling by an amateur. Freud’s theory has now become a fad. I mistrust sex theories expounded in articles, treatises, pamphlets, etc. — in short, the theories dealt with in that specific literature which sprouts so luxuriantly on the dung heap of bourgeois society. I mistrust those who are always absorbed in the sex problems, the way an Indian saint is absorbed in the contemplation of his navel. It seems to me that this superabundance of sex theories, which for the most part are mere hypotheses, and often quite arbitrary ones, stems from a personal need. It springs from the desire to justify one’s own abnormal or excessive sex life before bourgeois morality and to plead for tolerance towards oneself. This veiled respect for bourgeois morality is as repugnant to me as rooting about in all that bears on sex. No matter how rebellious and revolutionary it may be made to appear, it is in the final analysis thoroughly bourgeois.”(Clara Zetkin,Reminiscences of Lenin, p. 101)
Lenin was not interested in the approach of the method whereby Freud’s “theory” was used to explain everything, as well as “rooting about in all that bears on sex.” This was based simply on a hypothesis — and moreover a nonsensical one. Lenin ridiculed people “who are always absorbed in the sex problems” and the “superabundance of sex theories.”
In bourgeois society the question of sex is one-dimensionally exaggerated in the name of “sexual liberation,” meaning that instead of sex being dealt with in a truly healthy manner, it becomes increasingly mystified and aggrandized, and what is worse, by sex being turned into a business and treated vulgarly, this especially distorts and eats away at the healthy spirit of youth, turning it into something abnormal and lopsided — and this is something that we can see occurring every day. Lenin recognized that a one-dimensional exaggeration of sex in this distorted form is connected to the rule of the bourgeoisie and serves the interests of bourgeois society. Therefore, Lenin took an attitude of extreme cautious towards attempts to place the psychological concern with sex at the center of things.
“Glass-of-water theory”
“You must be aware of the famous theory that in communist society the satisfaction of sexual desire, of love, will be as simple and unimportant as drinking a glass of water. The glass of water theory has made our young people mad, quite mad…I think this glass of water theory is completely un-Marxist, and moreover, anti-social. In sexual life there is not only simple nature to be considered, but also cultural characteristics, whether they are of a high or low order…Of course, thirst must be satisfied. But will the normal man in normal circumstances lie down in the gutter and drink out of a puddle, or out of a glass with a rim greasy from many lips? But the social aspect is the most important of all. Drinking water is of course an individual affair. But in love two lives are concerned, and a third, a new life, arises. It is that which gives it its social interest, which gives rise to a duty towards the community.”(Clara Zetkin, Reminiscences of Lenin, p. 49)
In periods of turmoil, it is easy for sexual relations to be overturned. The French Revolution is a classic example of this. During the 1917 Russian Revolution, and the subsequent civil war, the past order, authority, and morality were completely rejected, collapsed, and were overturned, and a new order and morality emerged. In such an age, it was inevitable that sexual relations among young people would also be very confused and tend towards being impulsive.
A “communist” theory that encouraged this also emerged, and the “glass-of-water theory” criticized here is one example. There was much talk at the time of a new sexual lifestyle, and Kollontai’s history of women sang the praises of absolute free love.
Lenin opposed this tendency, and sought “self-control and self-discipline” even in affairs of love, warning that “dissoluteness in sexual life is bourgeois [and] a phenomenon of decay” and that this should not be imitated. He asked how this “glass-of-water theory” was any different from bourgeois decadent thought.
Lenin, in particular, pointed out that the “glass-of-water theory” completely ignored the social aspect of love. Certainly the drinking of a cup of water is merely an individual thing. But love, although seen as something “private,” in fact has another aspect. Love is first of all a relationship and connection between two people. Therefore, it is already a social relation. Moreover, through the connection of two people, a “third new life” can be born. Seen from the perspective of humanity, the birth of a child through the relationship between a man and a woman is of decisive social importance. Thus, the social significance of love must be noted, rather than viewing it as purely individual problem. Young people tend to view this as a purely individual problem, and there is no lack of theories that appeal to this tendency. However, according to Lenin this is a mistake and he says that, “as a communist I have not the least sympathy for the glass of water theory, although it bears the fine title ‘satisfaction of love.’”
On “Free Love”
“I feel bound to make one point right away. I suggest you delete altogether paragraph 3 dealing with ‘the demand (on the part of women) for free love.’ This is, in fact, a bourgeois, not a proletarian demand. What do you really mean by it?” (Jan. 17, 1915 letter to Inessa Armand, Collected Works vol. 34)
This is one part of Lenin’s reply to Inessa Armand’s plan to publish a pamphlet for women workers. Lenin says that the section on women’s’ “demand for free love” should be eliminated because it is a “bourgeois, not a proletarian demand.” In other words, “what matters is the objective logic of class relations in affairs of love,” not subjective hopes.
Does the term “free love” really express the interests of the proletarian in “freedom from material (financial) considerations in love,” and freedom “from material cares”? The answer is no. What, then, does this term express? Lenin points out that “in modern society the most talkative and noisy ‘top strata’ mean by ‘free love’” such things as “freedom from earnestness in love,” “freedom from childbirth,” and “freedom to commit adultery.” Therefore, he finds the slogan of “free love” to be a demand of bourgeois women.
Pure and Impure Kisses
“Even fleeting passion, a passion liaison” is ‘more poetic and pure’ than the ‘loveless kisses’ exchanged as a matter of habit between husband and wife. That is what you write. And you propose writing this in your pamphlet. Excellent. Is this counterposing logical? Loveless kisses which a husband and wife exchange as a matter of habit are impure. Agreed. What do you want to make the contrary? A loving kiss, it would appear. No. You make the contrary a ‘passing’ (why passing?) ‘passion’ (why not love?). It follows logically that these loveless kisses (since they are passing) are the contrary of loveless kisses exchanged between husband and wife… strange!” (Jan. 24, 1915 letter to Inessa Armand, Collected Works vol. 34)
Inessa Armand raised the idea of “free love,” or “even a short-lived passion and love affair,” in opposition to a vulgar, loveless marriage. But Lenin found this a strange opposition. He felt that a loveless connection between a man and a woman should be contrasted instead with a loving relationship. And so Armand was being inconsistent by contrasting a loveless relationship with another unloving relationship of fleeting passion. For this reason, Lenin gave her the following advice: “Would it not be better in a popular pamphlet to contrast the petty-bourgeois, intellectual or peasant vulgar and dirty marriage without love to the proletarian civic marriage with love (and add, if you must have it in, that a short-lived passionate affair can be pure and can be dirty).” (Ibid.)ussr-1
The Woman Question
Sexual Discrimination and the Subjection and Oppression of Women
“The female half of the human race is doubly oppressed under capitalism. The working woman and the peasant woman are oppressed by capital, but over and above that, even in the most democratic of the bourgeois republics, they remain, firstly, deprived of some rights because the law does not give them equality with men; and secondly — and this is the main thing — they remain in ‘household bondage,’ they continue to be ‘household slaves,’ for they are overburdened with the drudgery of the most squalid and backbreaking and stultifying toil in the kitchen and the individual family household.” (“Speech on International Women’s Day”Collected Works vol. 32)
For the past century, the leaders of the emancipation movement in Europe and the North America have called for legal equality for women. But under capitalism it has even been impossible to consistently sustain the formal equality represented by equality under the law. Real equality has remained elusive. This is because women have been trapped in the position of “household slave.” Fourier once made the profound statement that one can judge the true nature of a society by looking at the position of women within it, and to know the historical limitations of capitalism, it is enough to see how half-baked, hypocritical, and deceptive “women’s emancipation” has been under capitalism. Not only has capitalism been unable to free women from “household bondage,” but in fact offers up fraudulent arguments to justify and prettify this situation, endlessly reproducing paens on the superiority of housewives and their devotion. The situation in which the energy of housewives is needlessly wasted needs to be negated, and sublated. How, then, can this be done?
Conditions for the Emancipation of Women
“Owing to her work in the house, the woman is still in a difficult position. To effect her complete emancipation and make her the equal of the man it is necessary for housework to be socialized and for women to participate in common productive labor. Then women will occupy the same position as men.” (“The Tasks of the Working Women’s Movement in the Soviet Republic” Collected Works vol. 30)
In order for women to be liberated Lenin says that two things are necessary: first of all individual housework and housekeeping must be eliminated (are at least reduced to being on the level of a supplemental pastime), and secondly women must participate in common productive labor along with men.
However, have these two things been achieved in bourgeois society, and if so to what extent and in what form have they been achieved?
In bourgeois society, women’s participation in productive labor has been realized to a certain extent. Already one big part of production, and a significant part of such social labor as the textile industry, electrical appliance production, retail labor, service industries, management, agriculture, etc. is performed by women. Needless to say, this participation in the labor force is defended from the stingy bourgeois individualists who say “a woman’s place is in the home.” The issue here is that since, in bourgeois society, this necessary participation is not accompanied by other conditions women are forced to bear an increasingly heavy burden. The issue is not the participation of women in the workforce itself, since this participation is historically inevitable. Without such participation any talk of improving women’s position in society or emancipation would be meaningless.
However, in bourgeois society do the conditions exist for women to participate equally in production alongside men? Has the creation of such conditions actually been seriously considered in bourgeois society? And could this actually be achieved in such a society?
Socialism and the Emancipation of Women
“The real emancipation of women, real communism will begin only where and when a mass struggle begins (led by the proletariat wielding the power of the state) against this petty household economy, or rather when its wholesale transformation into large-scale socialist economy begins.
“Public dining rooms, creches, kindergartens — here we have examples of these shoots, here we have the simple, everyday means, involving nothing pompous, grandiloquent or ceremonial, which can in actual fact emancipate women, which can in actual fact lessen and abolish their inequality with men as regards their role in social production and public life. These means are not new, they (like all the material prerequisites for socialism) were created by large-scale capitalism; but under capitalism they remained, first, a rarity, and secondly, which is particularly important, either profit-making enterprises, with all the worst features of speculation, profiteering, cheating and fraud, or “acrobatics of bourgeois philanthropy,” which the best workers rightly detested and despised.” (“A Great Beginning” Collected Works vol. 29, p. 429)
Here I basically have little to add to what Lenin has already said here. Just think of how many women would like to work but cannot because daycare is unavailable, or those who are reluctant to leave their children at the hands of daycare profits run for the sole purpose of profit! The bourgeoisie not aware that to improve this situation even slightly would require a fundamental change; and even if they were the defense of their own interests would prevent them from doing anything about this. Lenin’s view here that the true liberation of women could only come through the efforts of a proletarian government is filled with very profound truth.417868_357314191055982_1553055859_n
On the Freedom of Divorce
“This example clearly demonstrates that one cannot be a democrat and socialist without demanding full freedom of divorce now, because the lack of such freedom is additional oppression of the oppressed sex — though it should not be difficult to realize that recognition of the freedom to leave one’s husband is not an invitation to all wives to do so!” (“A Caricature of Marxism and Imperialist Economism”Collected Works vol. 23, p. 72)
Of course, even if the complete freedom of divorce is ensured by law, the true liberation of women is still far away. This is because divorce is first of all an individual solution, and therefore an incomplete one. Secondly, in bourgeois society, owing to women’s economic dependence this right cannot always be exercised. Nevertheless, Lenin defended this right and recognized its significance because “the fuller the freedom of divorce, the clearer will women see that the source of their ‘domestic slavery’ is capitalism, not lack of rights” (Ibid. p. 73). Just as Lenin was opposed to bourgeois liberals who felt that protecting the right of divorce was sufficient in itself, he also opposed “extreme leftists” who said that it was problematic to give unconditional support to this demand since it does not represent the fundamental solution to the problem or signify the true liberation of women.
Workers and the Value of the Birth Control Movement
“And to fight not singly as did the best of our fathers and not for deceitful bourgeois slogans, but for our own slogans, the slogans of our class. We fight better than our fathers. Our children will fight still better and they will win. The working class is not dying. It is growing, becoming strong, grown up, united; it is learning and becoming tempered in struggle. We are pessimists as regards serfdom, capitalism and small-scale production, but ardent optimists about the workers’ movement and its aims. We are already laying the foundations of the new building and our children will finish its construction.
“That is why — and that is the only reason — we are unconditional enemies of neo-Malthusianism, which is a trend proper to the petty-bourgeois couple, hardened and egoistical, who mutter fearfully: ‘Only let us hang on somehow. As for children, we’d better not have any.’ It stands to reason that such an approach does not in any way prevent us from demanding the unconditional repeal of all laws persecuting abortion or laws against the distribution of medical works on contraceptive measures and so on. Such laws are simply the hypocrisy of the ruling classes. These laws do not cure the ills of capitalism, but simply turn them into especially malignant and cruel diseases for the oppressed masses.” (“The Working Class and Neo-Malthusianism” Collected Works vol. 19, p. 236)
Lenin was opposed to the Neo-Malthusian birth control movement. This was because this movement was based on egotistical thinking and adopted a hopeless, demoralized view of the future. This is connected to the feeling of fearful petty bourgeois who want to decrease the number of children who they feel only increase the amount of hardship and unhappiness. Workers, however, are different, and have nothing to do with the cries of those who tell people to avoid bearing children since they will only “be maimed” by society. Lenin instead looks to children of the future to “fight better, more unitedly, consciously and resolutely than we are fighting against the present-day conditions of life that are maiming and ruining our generation?” (Ibid. p. 237)
This isn’t in contradiction, however, with the position of opposing laws against abortion, since “such laws are nothing but the hypocrisy of the ruling classes” which “do not heal the ulcers of capitalism [but] merely turn them into malignant ulcers that are especially painful for the oppressed masses.” (Ibid.) The problem lies with efforts that seek to tie a cowardly petty bourgeois dogma to the movement of workers struggling for socialism.
The Woman Question and Social Problems
“And what is the result of this futile, un-Marxist dealing with the question? That questions of sex and marriage are understood not as part of the large social question? No, worse! The great social question appears as an adjunct, a part, of sexual problems. The main thing becomes a subsidiary matter. That does not only endanger clarity on that question itself, it muddles the thoughts, the class consciousness of proletarian women generally.” (Clara Zetkin, Reminiscences of Lenin, p. 54)
Lenin says that he could “scarcely believe [his] ears” when he hared that the chief subjects of interest at “reading and discussion evenings” of German women comrades was sex and marriage. As we have already seen, Lenin was not fond of the bourgeois tendency to speak of sex exaggeratedly. Here as well, Lenin was opposed to women devoting themselves solely to questions of sex and marriage. For him, the most fundamental question is the “great social question” — in other words, the question of the revolutionary overturn of the capitalist system — and the women’s question is one part of this. Lenin emphasized that these women comrades should always bear in mind this and position the women’s question clearly within this overall question.
Markandey Katju
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Alexandra Kollontai and the Glass of Water Theory
Alexandra Kollontai ( 1872-1952 ) was a Russian Revolutionary, Peoples' Commissar for Social Welfare ( 1917-1918 ) and Ambassador to Norway, Mexico and Sweden.
She is regarded as an advocate of free love, and proponent of the Glass of Water theory.
This theory was set forth in her story ' Three Generations '. In this story, Zhenya, an 18 year old Komsomol member, and model of the thoroughly emancipated ' New Woman ', does not think that sex is in any way connected with love.
Zhenya lives with two men, gets pregnant by one of them, doesn't know which, and doesn't care. " Sex " she says, " is like drinking a glass of water, to quench one's thirst."
So according to this theory, the desire for sex is like thirst. When you desire it, have it with anyone you like.
There are obvious flaws in this theory, and in fact Kollontai later herself said that she had been misunderstood.
Sex among humans is not like sex among animals. It has a cultural side to it, which is usually missing among animals.
Among humans, sex is usually within the framework of marriage ( though this is breaking down after the invention of contraceptives ). A man and a woman, on getting married share with each other, take care of each other, have a stable companionship,and share in bringing up a child ( or children ).
Ordinarily no woman will voluntarily surrender her body to a man unless she loves and respects him. Sex workers ( prostitutes ) do it not for the pleasure but due to abject poverty, to fill her stomach ( see my orders online in Budhadev Karmaskar vs. State of West Bengal )
The Glass of Water Theory is total nonsense
Clara Zetkin
Lenin on the Women’s Question
From My Memorandum Book
Source: The Emancipation of Women: From the Writings of V.I. Lenin;
Publisher: International Publishers;
Transcribed: Sally Ryan.
Comrade Lenin frequently spoke to me about the women’s question. Social equality for women was, of course, a principle needing no discussion for communists. It was in Lenin’s large study in the Kremlin in the autumn of 1920 that we had our first long conversation on the subject.
“We must create a powerful international women’s movement, on a clear theoretical basis”, Lenin began. “There is no good practice without Marxist theory, that is clear. The greatest clarity of principle is necessary for us communists in this question. There must be a sharp distinction between ourselves and all other Parties. Unfortunately, our Second World Congress did not deal with this question. It was brought forward, but no decision arrived at. The matter is still in commission, which should draw up a resolution, theses, directions. Up to the present, however, they haven’t got very far. You will have to help.”
I was already acquainted with what Lenin said and expressed my astonishment at the state of affairs. I was filled with enthusiasm about the work done by Russian women in the revolution and still being done by them in its defence and further development. And as for the position and activities of women comrades in the Bolshevik Party, that seemed to me a model Party. It alone formed an international communist women’s movement of useful, trained and experienced forces and a historical example.
Movement of Working Women
“That is right, that is all very true and fine”, said Lenin, with a quiet smile. “In Petrograd, here in Moscow, in other towns and industrial centres the women workers acted splendidly during the revolution. Without them we should not have been victorious. Or scarcely so. That is my opinion. How brave they were, how brave they still are! Think of all the suffering and deprivations they bore. And they are carrying on because they want freedom, want communism. Yes, our proletarian women are excellent class fighters. They deserve admiration and love. Besides, you must remember that even the ladies of the ‘constitutional democracy’ in Petrograd proved more courageous against us than did the junkers. That is true. We have in the Party reliable, capable and untiringly active women comrades. We can assign them to many important posts in the Soviet and Executive Committees, in the People’s Commissariats and public services of every kind. Many of them work day and night in the Party or among the masses of the proletariat, the peasants, the Red Army. That is of very great value to us. It is also important for women all over the world. It shows the capacity of women, the great value their work has in society. The first proletarian dictatorship is a real pioneer in establishing social equality for women. It is clearing away more prejudices than could volumes of feminist literature. But even with all that we still have no international communist women’s movement, and that we must have. We must start at once to create it. Without that the work of our International and of its Parties is not complete work, can never be complete. But our work for the revolution must be complete. Tell me how communist work is going on abroad.”
Lenin listened attentively, his body inclined forward slightly, following, without a trace of boredom, impatience or weariness, even incidental matters.
“Not bad, not at all bad”, said Lenin. “The energy, willingness and enthusiasm of women comrades, their courage and wisdom in times of illegality or semi-legality indicate good prospects for the development of our work. They are valuable factors in extending the Party and increasing its strength, in winning the masses and carrying on our activities. But what about the training and clarity of principle of these men and women comrades? It is of fundamental importance for work among the masses. It is of great influence on what closely concerns the masses, how they can be won, how made enthusiastic. I forget for the moment who said: ‘One must be enthusiastic to accomplish great things.’ We and the toilers of the whole world have really great things to accomplish. So what makes your comrades, the proletarian women of Germany, enthusiastic? What about their proletarian class-consciousness; are their interests, their activities concentrated on immediate political demands? What is the mainspring of their ideas?
“I have heard some peculiar things on this matter from Russian and German comrades. I must tell you. I was told that a talented woman communist in Hamburg is publishing a paper for prostitutes and that she wants to organise them for the revolutionary fight. Rosa acted and felt as a communist when in an article she championed the cause of the prostitutes who were imprisoned for any transgression of police regulations in carrying on their dreary trade. They are, unfortunately, doubly sacrificed by bourgeois society. First, by its accursed property system, and, secondly, by its accursed moral hypocrisy. That is obvious. Only he who is brutal or short-sighted can forget it. But still, that is not at all the same thing as considering prostitutes – how shall I put it? – to be a special revolutionary militant section, as organising them and publishing a factory paper for them. Aren’t there really any other working women in Germany to organise, for whom a paper can be issued, who must be drawn into your struggles? The other is only a diseased excrescence. It reminds me of the literary fashion of painting every prostitute as a sweet Madonna. The origin of that was healthy, too: social sympathy, rebellion against the virtuous hypocrisy of the respectable bourgeois. But the healthy part became corrupted and degenerate.
“Besides, the question of prostitutes will give rise to many serious problems here. Take them back to productive work, bring them into the social economy. That is what we must do. But it is difficult and a complicated task to carry out in the present conditions of our economic life and in all the prevailing circumstances. There you have one aspect of the women’s problem which, after the seizure of power by the proletariat, looms large before us and demands a practical solution. It will give us a great deal of work here in Soviet Russia. But to go back to your position in Germany. The Party must not in any circumstances calmly stand by and watch such mischievous conduct on the part of its members. It creates confusion and divides the forces. And you yourself, what have you done against it?”
Sex and Marriage
Before I could answer, Lenin continued: “Your list of sins, Clara, is still longer. I was told that questions of sex and marriage are the main subjects dealt with in the reading and discussion evenings of women comrades. They are the chief subject of interest, of political instruction and education. I could scarcely believe my ears when I heard it. The first country of proletarian dictatorship surrounded by the counter-revolutionaries of the whole world, the situation in Germany itself requires the greatest possible concentration of all proletarian, revolutionary forces to defeat the ever-growing and ever-increasing counter-revolution. But working women comrades discuss sexual problems and the question of forms of marriage in the past, present and future. They think it their most important duty to enlighten proletarian women on these subjects. The most widely read brochure is, I believe, the pamphlet of a young Viennese woman comrade on the sexual problem. What a waste! What truth there is in it the workers have already read in Bebel, long ago. Only not so boringly, not so heavily written as in the pamphlet, but written strongly, bitterly, aggressively, against bourgeois society.
“The extension of Freudian hypotheses seems ‘educated’, even scientific, but it is ignorant, bungling. Freudian theory is the modern fashion. I mistrust the sexual theories of the articles, dissertations, pamphlets, etc., in short, of that particular kind of literature which flourishes luxuriantly in the dirty soil of bourgeois society. I mistrust those who are always contemplating the several questions, like the Indian saint his navel. It seems to me that these flourishing sexual theories which are mainly hypothetical, and often quite arbitrary hypotheses, arise from the personal need to justify personal abnormality or hypertrophy in sexual life before bourgeois morality, and to entreat its patience. This masked respect for bourgeois morality seems to me just as repulsive as poking about in sexual matters. However wild and revolutionary the behaviour may be, it is still really quite bourgeois. It is, mainly, a hobby of the intellectuals and of the sections nearest them. There is no place for it in the Party, in the class-conscious, fighting proletariat.”
I interrupted here, saying that the questions of sex and marriage, in a bourgeois society of private property, involve many problems, conflicts and much suffering for women of all social classes and ranks. The war and its consequences had greatly accentuated the conflicts and sufferings of women in sexual matters, had brought to light problems which were formerly hidden from them. To that were added the effects of the revolution. The old world of feeling and thought had begun to totter. Old social ties are entangling and breaking, there are the tendencies towards new ideological relationships between man and woman. The interest shown in these questions is an expression of the need for enlightenment and reorientation. It also indicates a reaction against the falseness and hypocrisy of bourgeois society. Forms of marriage and of the family, in their historical development and dependence upon economic life, are calculated to destroy the superstition existing in the minds of working women concerning the eternal character of bourgeois society. A critical, historical attitude to those problems must lead to a ruthless examination of bourgeois society, to a disclosure of its real nature and effects, including condemnation of its sexual morality and falseness. All roads lead to Rome. And every real Marxist analysis of any important section of the ideological superstructure of society, of a predominating social phenomenon, must lead to an analysis of bourgeois society and of its property basis, must end in the realisation, “this must be destroyed”.
Lenin nodded laughingly. “There we have it! You are defending counsel for your women comrades and your Party. Of course, what you say is right. But it only excuses the mistakes made in Germany; it does not justify them. They are, and remain, mistakes. Can you really seriously assure me that the questions of sex and marriage were discussed from the standpoint of a mature, living, historical materialism? Deep and many-sided knowledge is necessary for that, the dearest Marxist mastery of a great amount of material. Where can you get the forces for that now? If they existed, then pamphlets like the one I mentioned would not be used as material for study in the reading and discussion circles. They are distributed and recommended, instead of being criticised. And what is the result of this futile, un-Marxist dealing with the question? That questions of sex and marriage are understood not as part of the large social question? No, worse! The great social question appears as an adjunct, a part, of sexual problems. The main thing becomes a subsidiary matter. That not only endangers clarity on that question itself, it muddles the thoughts, the class-consciousness of proletarian women generally.
“Last and not least. Even the wise Solomon said that everything has its time. I ask you: Is now the time to amuse proletarian women with discussions on how one loves and is loved, how one marries and is married? Of course, in the past, present and future, and among different nations-what is proudly called historical materialism! Now all the thoughts of women comrades, of the women of the working people, must be directed towards the proletarian revolution. It creates the basis for a real renovation in marriage and sexual relations. At the moment other problems are more urgent than the marriage forms of Maoris or incest in olden times. The question of Soviets is still on the agenda for the German proletariat. The Versailles Treaty and its effect on the life of the working woman – unemployment, falling wages, taxes, and a great deal more. In short, I maintain that this kind of political, social education for proletarian women is false, quite, quite false. How could you be silent about it. You must use your authority against it.”
Sexual Morality
I have not failed to criticise and remonstrate with leading women comrades in the separate districts, I told him. By my criticism I had laid myself open to the charge of “strong survivals of social democratic ideology and old-fashioned philistinism”.
“I know, I know”, he said. “I have also been accused by many people of philistinism in this matter, although that is repulsive to me. There is so much hypocrisy and narrow-mindedness in it. Well, I’m bearing it calmly! The little yellow-beaked birds who have just broken from the egg of bourgeois ideas are always frightfully clever. We shall have to let that go. The youth movement, too, is attacked with the disease of modernity in its attitude towards sexual questions and in being exaggeratedly concerned with them.” Lenin gave an ironic emphasis to the word modernity and grimaced as he did so. “I have been told that sexual questions are the favourite study of your youth organisations, too. There is sup posed to be a lack of sufficient speakers on the subject. Such misconceptions are particularly harmful, particularly dangerous in the youth movement. They can very easily contribute towards over-excitement and exaggeration in the sexual life of some of them, to a waste of youthful health and strength. You must fight against that, too. There are not a few points of contact between the women’s and youth movements. Our women comrades must work together systematically with the youth. That is a continuation, an extension and exaltation of motherliness from the individual to the social sphere. And all the awakening social life and activity of women must be encouraged, so that they can discard the limitations of their philistine individualist home and family psychology. But we’ll come to that later.
“With us, too, a large part of the youth is keen on ‘revising bourgeois conceptions and morality’ concerning sexual questions. And, I must add, a large part of our best, our most promising young people. What you said before is true. In the conditions created by the war and the revolution the old ideological values disappeared or lost their binding force. The new values are crystallising slowly, in struggle. In relations between man and man, between man and woman, feelings and thoughts are becoming revolutionised. New boundaries are being set up between the rights of the individual and the rights of the whole, in the duties of individuals. The matter is still in a complete chaotic ferment. The direction, the forces of development in the various contradictory tendencies are not yet clearly defined. It is a slow and often a very painful process of decay and growth. And particularly in the sphere of sexual relationships, of marriage and the family. The decay, the corruption, the filth of bourgeois marriage, with its difficult divorce, its freedom for the man, its enslavement for the woman, the repulsive hypocrisy of sexual morality and relations fill the most active minded and best people with deep disgust.
“The constraint of bourgeois marriage and the family laws of bourgeois states accentuate these evils and conflicts. It is the force of ‘holy property’. It sanctifies venality, degradation, filth. And the conventional hypocrisy of honest bourgeois society does the rest. People are beginning to protest against the prevailing rottenness and falseness, and the feelings of an individual change rapidly. The desire and urge to enjoyment easily attain unbridled force at a time when powerful empires are tottering, old forms of rule breaking down, when a whole social world is beginning to disappear. Sex and marriage forms, in their bourgeois sense, are unsatisfactory. A revolution in sex and marriage is approaching, corresponding to the proletarian revolution. It is easily comprehensible that the very involved complex of problems brought into existence should occupy the mind of the youth, as well as of women. They suffer particularly under present-day sexual grievances. They are rebelling with all the impetuosity of their years. We can understand that. Nothing could be more false than to preach monkish asceticism and the sanctity of dirty bourgeois morality to the youth. It is particularly serious if sex becomes the main mental concern during those years when it is physically most obvious. What fatal effects that has!
“The changed attitude of the young people to questions of sexual life is of course based on a ‘principle’ and a theory. Many of them call their attitude ‘revolutionary’ and ‘communist’. And they honestly believe that it is so. That does not impress us old people. Although I am nothing but a gloomy ascetic, the so-called ‘new sexual life’ of the youth – and sometimes of the old – often seems to me to be purely bourgeois, an extension of bourgeois brothels. That has nothing whatever in common with freedom of love as we communists understand it. You must be aware of the famous theory that in communist society the satisfaction of sexual desires, of love, will be as simple and unimportant as drinking a glass of water. This glass of water theory has made our young people mad, quite mad. It has proved fatal to many young boys and girls. Its adherents maintain that it is Marxist. But thanks for such Marxism which directly and immediately attributes all phenomena and changes in the ideological superstructure of society to its economic basis! Matters aren’t quite as simple as that. A certain Frederick Engels pointed that out a long time ago with regard to historical materialism.
“I think this glass of water theory is completely un-Marxist, and, moreover, anti-social. In sexual life there is not only simple nature to be considered, but also cultural characteristics, whether they are of a high or low order. In his Origin of the Family Engels showed how significant is the development and refinement of the general sex urge into individual sex love. The relations of the sexes to each other are not simply an expression of the play of forces between the economics of society and a physical need, isolated in thought, by study, from the physiological aspect. It is rationalism, and not Marxism, to want to trace changes in these relations directly, and dissociated from their connections with ideology as a whole, to the economic foundations of society. Of course, thirst must be satisfied. But will the normal person in normal circumstances lie down in the gutter and drink out of a puddle, or out of a glass with a rim greasy from many lips? But the social aspect is most important of all. Drinking water is, of course, an individual affair. But in love two lives are concerned, and a third, a new life, arises, it is that which gives it its social interest, which gives rise to a duty towards the community.
“As a communist I have not the least sympathy for the glass of water theory, although it bears the fine title ‘satisfaction of love’. In any case, this liberation of love is neither new, nor communist. You will remember that about the middle of the last century it was preached as the ‘emancipation of the heart’ in romantic literature. In bourgeois practice it became the emancipation of the flesh. At that time the preaching was more talented than it is today, and as for the practice, I cannot judge. I don’t mean to preach asceticism by my criticism. Not in the least. Communism will not bring asceticism, but joy of life, power of life, and a satisfied love life will help to do that. But in my opinion the present widespread hypertrophy in sexual matters does not give joy and force to life, but takes it away. In the age of revolution that is bad, very bad.
“Young people, particularly, need the joy and force of life. Healthy sport, swimming, racing, walking, bodily exercises of every kind, and many-sided intellectual interests. Learning, studying, inquiry, as far as possible in common. That will give young people more than eternal theories and discussions about sexual problems and the so-called ‘living to the full’. Healthy bodies, healthy minds I Neither monk nor Don Juan, nor the intermediate attitude of the German philistines. You know, young comrade –– ? A splendid boy, and highly talented. And yet I fear that nothing good will come out of him. He reels and staggers from one love affair to the next. That won’t do for the political struggle, for the revolution. And I wouldn’t bet on the reliability, the endurance in struggle of those women who confuse their personal romances with politics. Nor on the men who run petticoat and get entrapped by every young woman. That does not square with the revolution.
“The revolution demands concentration, increase of forces. From the masses, from individuals. It cannot tolerate orgiastic conditions, such as are normal for the decadent heroes and heroines of D’Annunzio. Dissoluteness in sexual life is bourgeois, is a phenomenon of decay. The proletariat is a rising class. It doesn’t need intoxication as a narcotic or a stimulus. Intoxication as little by sexual exaggeration as by alcohol. It must not and shall not forget, forget the shame, the filth, the savagery of capitalism. It receives the strongest urge to fight from a class situation, from the communist ideal. It needs clarity, clarity and again clarity. And so I repeat, no weakening, no waste, no destruction of forces. Self-control, self-discipline is not slavery, not even in love. But forgive me, Clara, I have wandered far from the starting point of our conversation. Why didn’t you call me to order. My tongue has run away with me. I am deeply concerned about the future of our youth. It is a part of the revolution. And if harmful tendencies are appearing, creeping over from bourgeois society into the world of revolution – as the roots of many weeds spread – it is better to combat them early. Such questions are part of the women question.”
Principles of Organisation
Lenin glanced at the clock. “Half of the time I had set aside for you has already gone”, he said. “I have been chattering. You will draw up proposals for communist work among women. away. What sort of proposals have you in mind?”
I gave a concise account of them. Lenin nodded repeatedly in agreement without interrupting me. When I had finished, I looked at him questioningly.
“Agreed”, said he. “I only want to dwell on a few main points, in which I fully share your attitude. They seem to me to be important for our current agitation and propaganda work, if that work is to lead to action and successful struggles.
“The thesis must clearly point out that real freedom for women is possible only through communism. The inseparable connection between the social and human position of the woman, and private property in the means of production, must be strongly brought out. That will draw a clear and ineradicable line of distinction between our policy and feminism. And it will also supply the basis for regarding the woman question as a part of the social question, of the workers’ problem, and so bind it firmly to the proletarian class struggle and the revolution. The communist women’s movement must itself be a mass movement, a part of the general mass movement. Not only of the proletariat, but of all the exploited and oppressed, all the victims of capitalism or any other mastery. In that lies its significance for the class struggles of the proletariat and for its historical creation communist society. We can rightly be proud of the fact that in the Party, in the Communist International, we have the flower of revolutionary woman kind. But that is not enough. We must win over to our side the millions of working women in the towns and villages. Win them for our struggles and in particular for the communist transformation of society. There can be no real mass movement without women.
“Our ideological conceptions give rise to principles of organisation. No special organisations for women. A woman communist is a member of the Party just as a man communist, with equal rights and duties. There can be no difference of opinion on that score. Nevertheless, we must not close our eyes to the fact that the Party must have bodies, working groups, commissions, committees, bureaus or whatever you like, whose particular duty it is to arouse the masses of women workers, to bring them into contact with the Party, and to keep them under Its influence. That, of course, involves systematic work among them. We must train those whom we arouse and win, and equip them for the proletarian class struggle under the leadership of the Communist Party. I am thinking not only of proletarian women, whether they work in the factory or at home. The poor peasant women, the petty bourgeois – they, too, are the prey of capitalism, and more so than ever since the war. The unpolitical, unsocial, backward psychology of these women, their isolated sphere of activity, the entire manner of their life – these are facts. It would be absurd to overlook them, absolutely absurd. We need appropriate bodies to carry on work amongst them, special methods of agitation and forms of organisation. That is not feminism, that is practical, revolutionary expediency.”
I told Lenin that his words encouraged me greatly. Many comrades, and good comrades at that, strongly combated the idea that the Party should have special bodies for systematic work among women.
“That is neither new nor proof”, said Lenin. “You must not be misled by that. Why have we never had as many women as men in the Party – not at any time in Soviet Russia? Why is the number of women workers organised in trade unions so small? Facts give food for thought. The rejection of the necessity for separate bodies for our work among the women masses is a conception allied to those of our highly principled and most radical friends of the Communist Labour Party. According to them there must be only one form of organisation, workers’ unions. I know them. Many revolutionary but confused minds appeal to principle ‘whenever ideas are lacking’. That is, when the mind is closed to the sober facts, which must be considered. How do such guardians of ‘pure principle’ square their ideas with the necessities of the revolutionary policy historically forced upon us? All that sort of talk breaks down before inexorable necessity. Unless millions of women are with us we cannot exercise the proletarian dictatorship, cannot construct on communist lines. We must find our way to them, we must study and try to find that way.
Immediate Demands
“That is why it is right for us to put forward demands favourable to women. That is not a minimum, a reform programme in the sense of the Social Democrats, of the Second International. It is not a recognition that we believe in the eternal character, or even in the long duration of the rule of the bourgeoisie and their state. It is not an attempt to appease women by reforms and to divert them from the path of revolutionary struggle. It is not that nor any other reformist swindle. Our demands are practical conclusions which we have drawn from the burning needs, the shameful humiliation of women, in bourgeois society, defenceless and without rights. We demonstrate thereby that we recognise these needs, and are sensible of the humiliation of the woman, the privileges of the man. That we hate, yes, hate everything, and will abolish everything which tortures and oppresses the woman worker, the housewife, the peasant woman, the wife of the petty trader, yes, and in many cases the women of the possessing classes. The rights and social regulations which we demand for women from bourgeois society show that we understand the position and interests of women, and will have consideration for them under the proletarian dictatorship. Not of course, as the reformists do, lulling them to inaction and keeping them in leading strings. No, of course not; but as revolutionaries who call upon the women to work as equals in transforming the old economy and ideology.”
I assured Lenin that I shared his views, but that they would certainly meet with resistance. Nor could it be denied that our immediate demands for women could be wrongly drawn up and expressed.
“Nonsense!” said Lenin, almost bad temperedly. “That danger is present in everything that we do and say. If we were to be deterred by fear of that from doing what is correct and necessary, we might as well become Indian Stylites. Don’t move, don’t move, we can contemplate our principles from a high pillar! Of course, we are concerned not only with the contents of our demands, but with the manner in which we present them. I thought I had made that clear enough. Of course we shan’t put forward our demands for women as though we were mechanically counting our beads. No, according to the prevailing circumstances, we must fight now for this, now for that. And, of course, always in connection with the general interests of the proletariat.
“Every such struggle brings us in opposition to respectable bourgeois relationships, and to their not less respectable reformist admirers whom it compels, either to fight together with us under our leadership – which they don’t want to do – or to be shown up in their true colours. That is, the struggle clearly brings out the differences between us and other Parties, brings out our communism. It wins us the confidence of the masses of women who feel themselves exploited, enslaved, suppressed, by the domination of the man, by the power of the employer, by the whole of bourgeois society. Betrayed and deserted by all, the working women will recognise that they must fight together with us.
“Must I again swear to you, or let you swear, that the struggles for our demands for women must be bound up with the object of seizing power, of establishing the proletarian dictatorship? That is our Alpha and Omega at the present time. That is clear, quite clear. But the women of the working people will not feel irresistibly driven into sharing our struggles for the state power if we only and always put forward that one demand, though it were with the trumpets of Jericho. No, no! The women must be made conscious of the political connection between our demands and their own suffering, needs, and wishes. They must realise what the proletarian dictatorship means for them: complete equality with man in law and practice, in the family, in the state, in society; an end to the power of the bourgeoisie.”
“Soviet Russia shows that”, I interrupted.
“That will be the great example in our teaching”, Lenin continued. “Soviet Russia puts our demands for women in a new light. Under the proletarian dictatorship those demands are not objects of struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. They are part of the structure of communist society. That indicates to women in other countries the decisive importance of the winning of power by the proletariat. The difference must be sharply emphasised, so as to get the women into the revolutionary class struggle of the proletariat. It is essential for the Communist Parties, and for their triumph, to rally them on a clear understanding of principle and a firm organisational basis. But don’t let us deceive ourselves. Our national sections still lack a correct understanding of this matter. They are standing idly by while there is this task of creating a mass movement of working women under communist leadership. They don’t understand that the development and management of such a mass movement is an important part of entire Party activity, indeed, a half of general Party work. Their occasional recognition of the necessity and value of a powerful, clear-headed communist women’s movement is a platonic verbal recognition, not the constant care and obligation of the Party.”
What About the Men?
“Agitation and propaganda work among women, their awakening and revolutionisation, is regarded as an incidental matter, as an affair which only concerns women comrades. They alone are reproached because work in that direction does not proceed more quickly and more vigorously. That is wrong, quite wrong! Real separatism and as the French say, feminism à la rebours, feminism upside down! What is at the basis of the incorrect attitude of our national sections? In the final analysis it is nothing but an under-estimation of woman and her work. Yes, indeed! Unfortunately it is still true to say of many of our comrades, ‘scratch a communist and find a philistine’. 0f course, you must scratch the sensitive spot, their mentality as regards women. Could there be a more damning proof of this than the calm acquiescence of men who see how women grow worn out In petty, monotonous household work, their strength and time dissipated and wasted, their minds growing narrow and stale, their hearts beating slowly, their will weakened! Of course, I am not speaking of the ladies of the bourgeoisie who shove on to servants the responsibility for all household work, including the care of children. What I am saying applies to the overwhelming majority of women, to the wives of workers and to those who stand all day in a factory.
“So few men – even among the proletariat – realise how much effort and trouble they could save women, even quite do away with, if they were to lend a hand in ‘women’s work’. But no, that is contrary to the ‘rights and dignity of a man’. They want their peace and comfort. The home life of the woman is a daily sacrifice to a thousand unimportant trivialities. The old master right of the man still lives in secret. His slave takes her revenge, also secretly. The backwardness of women, their lack of understanding for the revolutionary ideals of the man decrease his joy and determination in fighting. They are like little worms which, unseen, slowly but surely, rot and corrode. I know the life of the worker, and not only from books. Our communist work among the women, our political work, embraces a great deal of educational work among men. We must root out the old ‘master’ idea to its last and smallest root, in the Party and among the masses. That is one of our political tasks, just as is the urgently necessary task of forming a staff of men and women comrades, well trained in theory and practice, to carry on Party activity among working women.”
Millions Building New Life
To my question about the conditions in Soviet Russia on this point, Lenin replied:
“The Government of the proletarian dictatorship, together with the Communist Party and trade unions, is of course leaving no stone unturned in the effort to overcome the backward ideas of men and women, to destroy the old un-communist psychology. In law there is naturally complete equality of rights for men and women. And everywhere there is evidence of a sincere wish to put this equality into practice. We are bringing the women into the social economy, into legislation and government. All educational institutions are open to them, so that they can increase their professional and social capacities. We are establishing communal kitchens and public eating-houses, laundries and repairing shops, nurseries, kindergartens, children’s homes, educational institutes of all kinds. In short, we are seriously carrying out the demand in our programme for the transference of the economic and educational functions of the separate household to society. That will mean freedom for the woman from the old household drudgery and dependence on man. That enables her to exercise to the full her talents and her inclinations. The children are brought up under more favourable conditions than at home. We have the most advanced protective laws for women workers in the world, and the officials of the organised workers carry them out. We are establishing maternity hospitals, homes for mothers and children, mothercraft clinics, organising lecture courses on child care, exhibitions teaching mothers how to look after themselves and their children, and similar things. We are making the most serious efforts to maintain women who are unemployed and unprovided for.
“We realise clearly that that is not very much, in comparison with the needs of the working women, that it is far from being all that is required for their real freedom. But still it is tremendous progress, as against conditions in tsarist-capitalist Russia. It is even a great deal compared with conditions in countries where capitalism still has a free hand. It is a good beginning in the right direction, and we shall develop it further. With all our energy, you may believe that. For every day of the existence of the Soviet State proves more clearly that we cannot go forward without the women.”
On The Emancipation of Women -VI Lenin
Alexandra Kollontai and Marxist Feminism
Author(s): Jinee Lokaneeta
Source: Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 36, No. 17 (Apr. 28 - May 4, 2001), pp. 1405-
1412
Published by: Economic and Political Weekly
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NOT FOR COMMERCIAL USE
Alexandra Kollontai
and Marxist Feminism
To record the contradictions within the life and writings of Alexandra Kollontai is to
reclaim a largely unidentified part of Marxist feminist history that attempted to extend
Engel's and Bebel's analysis of women's oppression but eventually went further to
expose the inadequacy of prevalent Marxist feminist history and practice in analysing
the woman's question. This essay is not an effort to reclaim that history uncritically,
but to give recognition to Kollontai's efforts and understand her perspective.
I
Politics of Memory
T he 150th year of the Communist
Manifesto saw many initiatives all
over the world to critically re-
examine the basic tenets of Marxism. There
are also efforts on to review the socialist
experiments in Soviet Union and other
countries. Simultaneous is a need felt to
recover the voices of those who professed
Marxist ideology but were marginalised
in history, theory and practice, for their
critical questioning and dissenting inter-
ventions. It is important also because these
life experiences lay bare not only the nature
of official historics and history-makers but
the possibilities which existed or did not
exist for experimentation within a parti-
cular ideology/history/practice.
Acclaimed either as the first woman
ambassador of the Soviet state in the 1920s-
1930s or denounced as the proponent of
'free love' in post-revolutionary Russia,
Alexandra Kollontai (I 872-1952) has been
usually subjected to a monolithic charac-
terisation. The list of prominent women of
the socialist revolutionary tradition has
included names of Clara Zetkin, Nadhezda
Krupskaya and Rosa Luxembourg.
Alexandra Kollontai, who was described
reportedly as a 'brilliant orator and power-
ful propagandist' by Lenin during the
revolution, was the only woman in the
central committee in August 1917 and
became the commissar of social welfare
in the first soviet government, is conspicu-
ous by her absence in these accounts.
Kollontai later went on to head the central
women's department ('Zhenotdel') of
Soviet Russia as a foremost leader of the
Russian Social Democratic women's
movement. For such a person to be remem-
JINEE LOKANEETA
bered for the post of an ambassador, which
actually indicated her political downfall,
requires a little explanation:
It reaffirms the selective memory of
official histories, which retain only those
aspects of history that fit within the
dominant version recorded. Two illustra-
tions to indicate how Kollontai was ig-
nored by the Socialist revolutionary tradi-
tion and more specifically by Soviet his-
tory should be sufficient as cases in point.
Lenin's writings on women titled On the
Emancipation of Women (1965) seem to
be oblivious to the very existence of
Alexandra Kollontai let alone responding
to the questions raised by her. The life and
writings of Kollontai are restricted to a thin
volume of Selected Speeches and Articles
of Kollontai published by Progress Pub-
lishers, Moscow (1984). The publishers
are indeed 'selective' as they attempt to
present a completely abridged and un-
controversial picture of Kollontai that
overlooks all issues of dissension from the
official party history. Her contributions as
a close comrade-in-arms of Lenin and a
successful commissar are lauded. But what
are carefully concealed are the moments
of opposition and resistance against the
'dominant' party positions and the struggles
that she waged inside the party. It is accord-
ing to the latter that the political graph of
Kollontai's life rose and fell and finally
led to her removal from the mainstream
of Soviet politics, to be remembered merely
as an ambassador of Soviet Russia or for
a distorted version of her writings. The
present essay attempts to retrieve the lesser-
known facets of Kollontai' s life. This would
not only expose the politics of official
history writings but would also raise certain
questions about Marxist feminism in
earlier times and today. "It is clearly not
the absence of information about women,
but the sense that such information was
not relevant to the concerns of history that
led to the invisibility of women in the
formal accounts of the past" [Scott 1988].
Kollontai's case indicates that it is not
irrelevance of information but rather the
critical nature of her speeches and articles
that led to her invisibility and irrelevance
for official history. If one looks at the
attempts made to democratise written
history, one finds that, since the 1970s, the
women's movement and women's studies
have attempted to record women's history
in contrast to the andro-centric history that
existed earlier. The exclusion of women's
lives and their perspectives from a patri-
archal recording of 'male' history was
sought to be rectified. New methods and
techniques were developed to write a
feminist history. Much of the early at-
tempts were in terms of a 'compensatory
history' that is placing the 'great women'
alongside the 'great men' and study their
contribution to the social concerns of
patriarchal history. Although this attempt
to 'retrieve' women from history was a
major contribution, the limitations of this
method were also recognised. Compensa-
tory history was considered inadequate
due to its inability to transcend the history
of the privileged. In other words, it could
only locate 'exceptional' women who
had been able to contribute towards the
major events in 'male' history, which
excluded the majority of women, their
perspectives and experiences along with
other subaltern sections of society. The
documentary evidence about these excep-
tional women was also a consequence of
their 'privileged' position.
Hence women's history focused on
alternative forms of evidence especially
Economic and Political Weekly April 28, 2001 1405
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All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
oral histories, customs, photographs, relics,
iconography in order to rewrite history
from a feminist as well as a subaltern
viewpoint. It was "the attempt to demo-
cratise access to history, its production and
its content" [Davin 1988]. The periodisation
of earlier history writing was also ques-
tioned since it had failed to account for
-the transformations in women's lives
say, for instance, in terms of reproductive
rights or other issues concerning their
everyday lives.
While recognising the limitations of
'compensatory history', I would still like
to place the present attempt within this
trend with some qualifications especially
because through such a history one can
lay bare the history of marginalisation
even in recent times. The question of
periodisation on the basis of changes in
women's lives is important but these
changes have to be also related to periods
of large-scale transformations in society so
that it is not a partial representation of
societal history. Further, it was not history
itself that excluded the majority of women
but the patriarchal forces and structures
of society that excluded women's parti-
cipation in several large-scale social pro-
cesses, for instance, say the renaissance
which Joan Kelly drew attention to, in her
path breaking article 'Did Women Have
a Renaissance?' It would be pertinent,
however, to clarify that one is not trivialis-
ing the need to record the contribution of
the invisible majority of women in history.
Rather it is to draw attention alongside to
the struggle waged by many exceptional
women in the specifically 'male' domains
of a patriarchal society. These women's
lives have often been obliterated from social
memories. Official versions sought to
either destroy or conceal the 'documentary
evidence' of their contribution.
To reclaim a part of past history becomes
all the more difficult when one has to piece
together fragments of theory from selected
speeches, articles and fiction, the selections
and interpretations being different in
western and Soviet literature. Being a
theorist, agitator, party member and govern-
ment official at different moments, or
simultaneously, Kollontai responded to
different situations and audiences. Within
the party structure, with the masses (men
and women), with the rank and file mem-
bers (men and women), Kollontai entered
into debates according to the levels of
consciousness perceived, and the extent of
'democratic discussion' permitted which
could partially explain the inconsistency
in her writings. Further, her practical
considerations as a, people's commissar
could seem at variance with her vision and
the ideological questions raised by her
within the party. This also leads to a dif-
ficulty in systematically analysing
Kollontai's writings. Yet it is within these
levels that one senses the contradictions
in her and the alternative tradition that she
tried to represent.
Soviet history is replete with symbols of
dissent; the question is what was it that
made Kollontai 'important' enough to be
obliterated almost entirely from revolu-
tionary Soviet history? Kollontai had
opposed the official party positions most
forthrightly on various occasions whether
it was on participation in the first world
war,2 Brest Litovsk Treaty,3 and Workers
Opposition.4 It even led to her being ousted
from prominent government posts in the
latter two cases. But it was on her ideas
on the 'woman's question' that she faced
maximum criticism.
Although Kollontai stated that the
struggle for women's rights had to be waged
both inside the party and outside it, it was
the latter that had been theorised and
directed against the bourgeois women's
movement. Kollontai explained at great
length the class nature of the bourgeois
women's movement and its, limitation in
taking up issues of working class women.
But she failed to extend even a semblance.
oftheorisation to the 'male attitudes' within
the party and government. The criticism
and hostility that she faced for her attempts
to build an autonomous women's group
within the party and for her views on the
communist morality has never been referred
to, let alone analysed, except in very general
terms. The struggles that she and other
women had to wage within the party to gain
due recognition of the woman's question
has to be read from her mild criticism of
male attitudes in her writing as well as
from other accounts of that period. The
contradictions in her roles as party/govern-
ment official and a Marxist feminist theo-
rist is-perhaps most evident in her inability
to criticise the party/governments under-
standing of the woman's question. Yet to
record the contradictions within the life
and writings,of Alexandra Kollontai is to
reclaim a largely unidentified part of
Marxist feminist history that attempted to
extend Engel's and Bebel's analysis of
women's oppression but eventually went
further to expose the inadequacy of preva-
lent Marxist feminist theory and practice
in analysing the woman's question.
This essay is not an effort to uncritically
reclaim that history but to recognise the
attempts made by Kollontai to raise the
'woman's question' in a Marxist frame-
work and understand her perspective. The
obvious limitations of her work arise not
only from the fact that she was writing in
the early part of the century when the
revolutionaries were engaged in a variety
of campaigns but also in the context of the
'struggle within a struggle'5 that she was
a part of. The Bolshevik Party as a whole
had to fight first against the czarist system,
and then continuing foreign intervention
and the women within the party fought a
dual struggle. They not only fought along-
side their male comrades but also had to
fight against the patriarchal values and
practices prevailing in society, party and the
state, even though in varying magnitudes.
II
Zhenotdel:An Invisible Quest
for Autonomy
Zhenotdel, the women's department was
created to provide an autonomous space
for women within the Russian Socialist
Democratic movement. 'Rabonitsa' or
'woman worker' existed as a separate
women' s paper while the other party papers
had special pages related to women. It is
little known that these spaces for raising
the women's question came not due to a
mechanical implementation of the Rus-
sian Socialist Democratic Party's (RSDP)
commitment towards equality for women
but were a result of a continuous and
arduous struggle by revolutionary women
like Alexandra Kollontai.
Russian history had experienced a tra-
ditionof women's movement long before
the torchbearers of the Bolshevik revolu-
tion even realised the necessity of mass
mobilisation of women for the socialist
cause. Right from the onset of the early
revolutionary movement, women had
participated in the peasant revolts that led
to the abolition of serfdom in 1861 and
Bakunin's campaign of 'going to the
people'. The prominent leaders among
women came mainly from the aristocratic
background like Vera Figner and the
Leshern sisters on which Turgenev
[Kollontai 1984:41] wrote his famous poem
'On the Threshold' describing women who
had left their homes to fight against social
injustice. In the latter part of the 19th
century there were a series of factory strikes
and unrest which not only involved many
proletarian women but were also often
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initiated by them. Strikes in the 1870s and
80s in factories of Moscow and Petersburg
were historic struggles where women played
a very significant role. Very few however
were attracted to the Socialist Party.
Two factors in that period forced the
Social Democratic Party to take up the task
of mobilising women. Firstly, the 1905-06
struggle had revealed the revolutionary
potential of women as a section. Women
bore the brunt of the czar's soldiers for
demanding their rights, which reflected
their growing consciousness. Secondly,
the party could observe the increasing
influence of the so-called bourgeois
women's organisations which were mobi-
lising women on various fronts. Kollontai,
like most Marxists distinguished the
socialists from the so-called bourgeois
women's organisations. While the bour-
geois women's organisations were said to
restrict their demands for civil and politi-
cal rights within a capitalist framework,
the socialists believed in a joint struggle
of women and oppressed masses for socio-
economic equality in a socialist society.
Although Kollontai in her writings sug-
gested that the bourgeois women's
organisations were to die a natural death
due to their-own internal contradictions,
they actually posed a major challenge to
the socialists. The first attempt to organise
women was by clubs like the Russian
Women's Mutual Aid society, meant to
provide conditions for recreation to bour-
geois women. But gradually other
organisations articulating the demands of
women as a whole emerged. Accounts6
[Cliff] of that period write of the emer-
gence and growth of some militant femi-
nists organisations which tried to raise
themselves 'above their class interests'
and include the rights of working women,
like the Union for Women's Equality,
Women's Equal Rights Union, Women's
Progressive Pairty. Some of them not
only demanded suffrage right but also
a set of radical, social and labourreforms.
For a brief period, feminist and socialists
worked together and attracted women to
the United Women's Platform until the
socialists felt the need to dissociate
entirely from the bourgeois organisations.
Kollontai's apprehensions about the growth
of bourgeois women's organisations are
apparent in her extensive writing on the
difference between the working class
perspective and the 'feminist' perspective.
On the whole the bourgeois women's
organisations were restricted to fighting
for limited rights without demanding
restructuring of society. However, they
were able to attract working women to
their fronts, which was a disturbing fact
for the socialists.
Hence, it became a political compulsion
for the RSDP to attract women towards a
class view of politics that integrated the
women's question with proletarian revo-
lution. The weakness of the party in this
sphere is exposed by the First All Russian
Women's conference in 1905 where only
two women spoke of the working class
women's emancipation as being related to
overthrow of capitalism and this motion
too was decisively defeated. At this junc-
ture Alexandra Kollontai was one of the
few who even while criticising the notion
of sisterhood of all women that the bour-
geois women's organisations propagated,
sensed the need to create autonomous
channels to approach women. Compre-
hending the triple burden that women
had to bear as a worker, housewife and
mother she recognised the need to estab-
lish separate channels of communication
to bring women into a struggle for a socialist
society. The everyday oppression of peas-
ant and working class women were seen
as specific and required to be articulated
alongwith the other demands of the strug-
gling masses.
The struggle for a separate organisation
for women started from 1906 onwards and
got actualised only after the revolution. In
1906 Kollontai tried to set up a women
workers bureau but failed in the face of
the opposition within the party. Any effort
towards this purpose were thwarted by
party members as 'divisive' of the working
class and smacking of the very bourgeois
'feminism' that Kollontai and others had
spoken against so ardently. In her writings
Kollontai mentions instances of party men
deliberately creating obstacles in their initial
efforts to organise women. Buildings for
holding meetings were often found locked
and notices attached, declaring those spaces
as unavailable for women's meetings.
Kollontai herself mentions the hostility
they faced. "They gave no encouragement
and even went as far as trying to hinder
the group" [Kollontai 1984:55].
Yet in the very next paragraph, Kollontai
seems to defend the hostile attitudes of the
party comrades almost as if any criticism
would he interpreted wrongly. "Such an
attitdde was based on an easily under-
standable fear that the working class might
leave their class movement and get en-
tangled in the snare of feminism" [Kollontai
1984:55]. It is interesting to observe the
various meanings of feminism that were
perceived within the Marxist parties. On
the one hand, Kollontai recognised the
need to articulate the women's question
but preferred to dissociate herself from the
term 'feminism'. Feminism wvas equated
with bourgeois feminism, which believed
in a united struggle for women's rights
across all classes; thereby denying the
possibility of a struggle of the entire
working class (both men and women)
against the propertied classes which
Marxists propagated. On the other hand,
within the party it was almost as if any
attempt to organise women separately was
seen as a divisive attempt by 'feminists'
to hinder class struggle. It seems ironical
that Kollontai who demolished the views
of bourgeois feminists was accorded such
criticism from the very party comrades she
sought to represent and defend; and that
she herself was unable to transcend these
criticisms and redefine feminism within
Marxism.
It was in 1907 that party women were
first able to establish a club, the Society
for Working Women's Mutual Aid clari-
fying beforehand that"generally speaking
the society did not bear the stamp of a
specifically women's club" indicating the
suspiciousness towards the issue of any
specific women's mobilisation. In these
unfavourable circumstances, even this club
was a hard earned victory and this forum
was utilised to mobilise and agitate amongst
working women.
The next phase of massive mobilisation
came in the wake of the February revo-
lution in 1917. The number of working
women had rapidly increased. The war and
the subsequent shortage of bread brought
thousands of men and women on the streets
on February 23 (March 8). And it was
again the militancy of the working class
women in braving the wrath of the Czar's
soldiers that led to the RSDP to direct its
attention towards mobilising women.
Despite the history of joint struggles by
working class men and women, the hosti-
lity towards any specifically women-related
activity continued. Alexandra Kolfontai
had been forced to leave the country to
avoid arrest by the Czar for her 'anti
establishment' activities from 1908 onwards
till 1917 and it is no mere coincidence that
the issue of women's organisation was
taken up again in a'big way only after her
return. Vera Slutskaya, a party member,
who had been asked to draw a plan for the
party suggested the formation of a bureau
to coordinate agitational work among
Economic and Political Weekly April 28, 20011407
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women and to restart the newspaper
Rabonitsa. Hence bureaus were set up but
were poor substitutes for separate women's
organisations that Kollontai and others
were demanding. Further, most of these
bureaus existed only on paper.
The extent of fear on the idea of separate
women's organisation was such that in the
Seventh Party Conference when a special
commission raised this issue, they were
asked to withdraw almost entirely without
discussion. The minutes reveal the bureau-
cratic and patriarchal high-handedness with
which the issue was tackled. When the
issue of women's organisation was raised
the minutes recorded the following con-
versation: "The chairman suggests that the
question be withdrawn since none of the
women attending have voting rights
...Sergei suggests that it is necessary to
create a technical organ for the direction
of agitation among women...The chair-
man suggests that the question be with-
drawn. The question is withdrawn" (em-
phasis added).
It was only in September 1919 that
women's departments coordinated by the
Central Women's Department, Zhenotdel
were finally formed. This was a consequence
of the All Russian Women's Conference
on 1918 where over a thousand women
passed a resolution for "a special commis-
sionforpropaganda and agitation among
women" [Holt 1977:120] (emphasis
added). Extremely interesting and reveal-
ing is the cautious wording of the func-
tions to be performed by the women's
departments. Vera Slutskaya in her proposal
for a bureau had been particular in differ-
entiating between the function of organis-
ing and agitating clarifying the bureaus'
role as the latter. Organising seemed to
smack inherently of 'divisiveness' and in
the 1918 conference of women, a further
clause was added to ensure the boundary
ofjurisdiction. It was stated that the commis-
sion was to be the apparatus "for carrying
out the decrees of the Central Committee"
[Holt 1977:12]. Hence an attempt to create
an autonomous space was subverted even
before the establishment of the commis-
sion. There were also instances of women
issues being undermined in party confer-
ences which made the need of the com-
mission more significant. In the eighth
party conference, the resolution of women's
work was sought to be passed without any
discussion since there were no disagree-
ments or objections. Despite protests from
Kollontai the issues were relegated to some
future session which never took place.
Given the level of patriarchal bias
against the women's organisations, it was
only outside the party congress that the
women's department was finally created.
It was the central committee, which rati-
fied the decision to establish the Zhenotdel,
and accorded some freedom of activity
compared to the earlier bureaus. In this
respect the establishment of the Inter-
national Socialist Women's Conference
and International Women's Secretariat
also had its influence on Soviet Party and
government.
Kollontai's persistence for the creation
of Zhenotdel reflects the recognition of the
patriarchal biases prevalent in the Bolshe-
vik Party, which required an autonomous
space for women. The women's depart-
ments could not only increase the scale of
earlier agitational activities but could take
up organisational activities as well. Meet-
ings and conferences were held for non-
party women. The most important of these
was the delegate meetings where 'working
and peasant women and housewives
elected their representatives who for a
period of several months met to discuss
local problems, attend political lectures
and were attracted to sections of the Soviets,
participating in its administrative work.'
Efforts to make women politically and
economically independent were also made
and in some areas women's departments
set up canteens and creches to unburden
the working women. The Zhenotdel deve-
loped into a space where the everyday
forms of oppression faced by women could
be brought to the socialist agenda and
became subjects for discussion. The dif-
ficulty in bringing women into the-political
process as long as they continued to be
burdened with housework and childcare
was felt by party women.
The situation grew worse under the New
Economic Policies7 (1921) when the party
withdrew funds from most of the
socialisation activities. Problems such as
unemployment and prostitution confronted
many working class and peasant women.
Zhenotdel became a forum for criticism of
the New Economic Policies at that time.
Even earlier Sofia Smidovich, a prominent
leader of Zhenotdel had given a choice to
the party to either give trained workers or
close Zhenotdel. With no party help forth-
coming even at that critical juncture,
Zhenotdel found their hands tied.
Zhenotdel represented a symbol of
struggle for autonomy, which however
failed to develop into a women's move-
ment for their rights in a socialist society.
That there existed a difference in the
conception of an autonomous space be-
tween the party and Kollontai is obvious
by the struggle that she and others con-
stantly waged for a separate women's
organisation as also by the questions that
she raised on the various psycho sexual
aspects of the women's question. Her
exploration into the realm of the 'personal'
took her beyond the traditional Marxist
analysis.
She recognised the need to theorise the
specificity of the women's question within
a Marxist framework. Kollontai represented
a tradition whose demand for autonomy
emerged out of a realisation that it would
provide a space for women oppressed
for centuries to articulate, analyse and
struggle against patriarchal oppression in
relation to other forms of oppression in
society. This perspective also underlies
Kollontai's endeavour to theorise the
sexual and ideological aspects of women's
oppression (along with the economic) in
greater depth.
She recognised the need to analyse and
develop theories of family, love, sexuality
and morality, which had been a source of
women's subordination for centuries. The
relation between the different forms of
'personal' institutions and ideology
under different stages of history was
studied and the need to challenge those
was regarded as a simultaneous but sepa-
rate part of socialist struggle. Practice
required not only an analysis of the preva-
lent forms and ideology of oppression but
an alternative vision of the future, which
Kollontai envisioned and put forward in
her writings.
Ill
Personal Is Political:
Kollontai's Views
The family had been located as the site
of economic and sexual oppression of
women by Engels and Bebel. By providing
an analysis of the social bases of women's
oppression, Engels questioned the 'nor-
mality' of a biological basis. Emergence
of the monogamous family was to ensure
inheritance for the 'legitimate heirs' for
men in a capitalist society. Some feminists
have critiqued the anthropological evidence
given by Engelson the,emergence of family
and other institutions. Engels is also
criticised for assuming a natural sexual
division of labour, which weakens the
force of his arguments. Yet his treatise
continues to remain a point of reference
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for all streams of feminists analysing
woman's oppression.
Relating woman's oppression with other
forms of social oppression and identifying
the determining factors of exploitation has
been a significant contribution of Marx-
ists. But the analysis of the sexual, psy-
chological and ideological dimensions of
the oppression as translated into the lives
of women is largely absent. Theorising the
everyday realities of women's lives has
been the contribution primarily of the
radical feminist tradition. That the theory
of patriarchy cannot be determined from
a predominantly economic analysis of
society but had to provide a theoretical
framework for understanding the multi-
faceted nature of women's oppression, has
been pointed out.
Issues relating to sexuality, marriage,
family have often been considered as
secondary issues to be addressed only after
the transformation of economic structures
in early Marxist theory. In case of Soviet
Russia, even after the revolution, such
issues were largely ignored in face of the
primary task of reconstruction of state and
economy. The few mentions made by
Engels, Marx and Bebel on family, love
and monogamy within capitalist society
and their future forms were treated as
'gospels of truth'.8 The fact that the so-
called private domains are often the pri-
mary sites of women's oppression remained
unaddressed by such a perspective.
Kollontai attempted to fill the void to
a certain extent. Her writings, especially
considering the period in which they were
written, were a path-breaking contribution
to Marxist feminist theory. Underlying her
writings on psychosexual aspects of
women's lives are the various roles that
she assumed in Soviet history and society
- dialectically interacting with each other.
As a member of the government, people's
commissar, director - Zhenotdel, party
member and a Marxist feminist she faced
several conflicting situations which she
attempted to address both theoretically and
practically.
As a Marxist, she believed that worker's
oppression was related to women's op-
pression. There was a need to jointly
struggle for the socialist revolution.
Kollontai, however, understood the need
to address the complexities underlying this
general formulation. There was an attempt
to analyse gender as a separate but related
category of oppression. Two themes define
her theory of understanding and resolving
the woman's question. Firstly, she applies
the Marxist concept of labour. Kollontai
starts with the Marxist notion that the
essence of a human being is her/his capa-
city to creatively interact with nature. Hence
any role which deprives woman of her
basic right to labour is oppressive. Any-
thing hindering her right to labour had to
be opposed. This general critique is then
used to analyse the specific oppression
faced by the mother, housewife, prostitute,
etc, that society has imposed on women
and to evolve methods of emancipation in
a socialist society.
Secondly, it is the collective, which gains
primacy in socialist society. The brutish,
short, egoistic and possessive individual
who is the basis of capitalist society is
sought to be replaced by the socialised
collective/the Soviet state in this case.
Equality, solidarity, love and comradeship
are to be the determining features in a
socialist society. This would be the basis
of the social relationships and institutions
in future societies. Her writings on ques-
tions of communist morality and sexual
relations have to be understood in this
perspective. The right to labour of an
individual was integrally related to the life
of the collective or the state. In the case
of Russia, it was the Russian state, society
and economy which was of paramount
importance. All labour had to contribute
towards the rapid development of Soviet
economy.
Maternity and Housework
As a commissar of social welfare,
Kollontai attempted to put her theory on
motherhood into practice. There was an
understanding that childbearing and rear-
ing were not just private concerns. The
state had to perform an important role in
the entire process. The Soviet state was to
emancipate the woman from the 'burdens
of motherhood'. Decrees were passed and
an elaborate system of institutions were
sought to be developed to 'take over the
difficulties of childbirth' by state and
society. For the first time in history creches,
milk kitchens, maternity provisions at
workplace, consultation centres for preg-
nant women, etc, were established by
the Soviet state. The state was to ensure
the health of the mother and bear the
child-rearing functions. The mother was
'expected' to take care of herself and
give birth to a 'healthy baby' within favou-
rable conditions provided by the state.
The maternity provisions were available
for both single and married women
demolishing the hypocritical attitude to-
wards single mothers in pre-revolutionary
society. Childbearing was separated from
child-rearing as Kollontai the commissar
of social welfare, claimed that "maternity
does not involve the mother always being
with the child or devoting herself entirely
to its physical and moral education"
[Kollontai 1984:145]. The responsibility
to educate the children as the member of
the collective also lay with the state not
the parents.
It is however essential to analyse the
perspective underlying these efforts. The
point of reference for Kollontai, the com-
missar, is the welfare of the socialist state
and economy and ensuring adequate labour
power for the Soviet state. Motherhood is
not a private matter, rather it is a 'social
obligation'. Therefore the unburdening of
the mother has to be located within this.
The state may take over the functions in
order to ensure healthy members of the
state but the reproductive rights of women
of childbearing or contraception do not
seem to figure in this understanding or if
present have to be fitted within social
requirements. Even as far as abortion is
concerned, Kollontai while agreeing in
principle to legalise abortion felt that it'
was counterproductive for the labour-short
Soviet Union. In other words, Kollontai
keeps the state interests as paramount
without adequately developing a theory of
rights for women.
Furthermore, while seeking to emanci-
patewomen from the burdens of mother-
hood, she herself glorifies the relationship
between the mother and the child and
asserts the necessity of breastfeeding.
The woman's (second) obligation is to
breastfeed her baby, only when she has
done this the woman has the right to say
that she has fulfilled her obligations. The
other tasks involved in caring for the
younger generations can be carried out by
the collective. Of course the maternal
instinct is strong and there is no need to
stifle it. But why should this instinct be
narrowly limited to the love and care of
one's own child? Why not allow this
instinct, which for the labour republic has
valuable potential, the opportunity to
develop vigorously and to reach its highest
stage, where the woman not only cares for
her own children but has a tender affection
for all children (emphasis added) [Kollontai
1984:144].
This paragraph sums up the dilemma of
a Marxist feminist visionary officiating in
a transition period. The socialist society
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would create conditions where all women
would avail themselves of the maternity
benefits, consciously consider themselves
a part of the collective and raise them-
selves above the individual affection for
one's own child to extend it to other
children. But given the fact that Kollontai
was addressing the Soviet woman in a
phase of transition where the Soviet state
was unable to provide all maternal provi-
sions and women were suspicious of the
new ideas, she seems to address the issue
only as a practical administrator. That in
the process she glorifies the obligation of
motherhood and breastfeeding does not
seem to occur to her.
Further her notion of maternity has no
concept of choice regarding motherhood
itself, or says about contraception for
women. It is 'necessary' to perform the
social obligation of reproduction in order
to increase the workforce for the nation,
since the health of the collective is the most
important. While child-rearing is separated
from childbearing, on occasions when the
state was unable to fulfil its obligations,
the women were burdened with not only
factory labour but also with the household
work. A notion of sharing housework with
men in the transition period is found
wanting. Her vision of state being respon-
sible for the childbearing functions then
becortes oppressive for the very women
that it seeks to liberate.
With regard to housework too,
Kollontai's theory of labour is applied.
Although she renders household labour as
unproductive, she refers to it in the context
of capitalist society. In a peasant economy,
the 'well-being' of the family depended,
on the women's capacity to produce not
only: the immediate needs of the family
(cooking, washing) but also things that
could be sold on the market like cloth,
thread, butter. And every man whether
peasant or worker tried to find a wife who
had 'hands of gold', for he knew that a
family could not get along without this
'domestic labour' [Kollontai 1977:155].
In fact Kollontai feels that this labour
was not only beneficial for the family but
also for the prosperity ofthe nation. Under
capitalism however the production of
commodities shifted to the public sphere
and hence family according to Kollontai
was reduced to a consuming unit where
housework becomes restricted to cleaning,
cooking, washing and care of linen and
clothing of the family. These four tasks she
feels are not only exhausting, strenuous
and time-consuming but are of no value
to the state and national economy. Here
again the emphasis is on the creation of
values for the Soviet economy through
productive labour.
Feminists (for a discussion on domestic
labour see Delphy 1984, Barrett 1980 and
Oakley 1974) have rightly criticised
Marxists [Marx 1969:152] for defining
productive labour only as that labour which
has exchange value (not use value), creates
surplus value and has a direct relation to
capital, since this understanding devalues
and delegitimises the significance of do-
mestic labour performed by women.
Kollontai too follows the same framework.
(fn Marx, on Productive Labour As Marx
puts it, from the viewpoint of capital
"Productive Labour...is wage labour which
exchanged against the variable part of
capital (the part of the capital that is spent
on wages) reproduces not only this part of
the capital (or the value of its own labour
power), but in addition produces surplus
value for the capitalist...Only that wage
labour is productive which produces capi-
tal." Delphy rightly points out that while
Marxists recognise the exploitation in the
industrial mode of production, they fail to
look at the family system.
The family or the domestic mode of
production is based on the unpaid labour
of the wife and creates antagonistic rela-
tions of production between the husband
and wife. This is the basis of the patriarchal
exploitation where the men are the exploit-
ers. Hence, it was not the nature of produce
that determines whether the labour was
productive or unproductive, rather it was
the relations of production, which deter-
mined the status of the labour. Women
provided the unpaid labour within the
framework of universal and personal re-
lationship of marriage and this constituted
a relationship of domestic slavery. The fact
that the same labour when performed in
the market is considered productive and
has exchange value reflects the concealed
value of the domestic labour. Marxists
never considered domestic labour as con-
tributing to production, as it was believed
that under capitalism the family ceased to
be productive. Hence domestic labour
was said to be contributing to reproduc-
tion (of labour power - daily, generation
and human) which was seen as separate
from production.
But despite these limitations, what must
be appreciated is the fact that Kollontai
was one of the foremost theorists to ad-
dress the question of domestic labour.
(fn The domestic labour debate took place
only in the 1960s.) Although she failed to
go beyond the Marxist understanding of
productive labour, given the time she was
writing, her attempt to analyse the issue
itself;was an extremely important contri-
bution. Kollontai's differentiation between
the everyday drudgery of the four endless
tasks from the earlier 'creative' tasks is
also significant. This is more a critique of
the nature of tasks rather than devaluing
the work of women.- About the nature of
tasks she rightly\argues, "even if a working
woman were to give a thousand years, she
would still have to begin everyday from
the beginning. There would always be a
new layer of dust to be removed from-the
mantelpiece, her husband would always
come in hungry and her children bring in
mud in their shoes" [Kollontai 1977:255].
With regard to both child-rearing and
housekeeping, Kollontai observes that the
process of socialisation was not new. In
the capitalist society these were already
being transferred to the public sphere.
Creches, schools kindergartens had always
been available to the rich. So were the
restaurants and the laundries. It is only that
under socialism the working class seeks
to unburden the women from these oppres-
sive forms of work by opening public
dining rooms, communal kitchens and cloth
mending centres. The vision underlying
that was "the four categories of housework
are deemed to extinction with the victory
of communism" [Kollontai 1977:255].
Sexual Relations
and Communist Morality
The family had performed economic
functions under capitalism. With the state
attempting to take over the functions of
housekeeping and childcare, what remained
according to Kollontai were the relations
between the sexes. Sexual relations had a
close link with social struggles in society.
Kollontai criticised both the bourgeois
notions, which advocated non-interference
in the so-called private realm as also those
socialists who believed that such ques-
tions could be dealt with, after the com-
plete reorganisation of society. For
Kollontai dealing with the psychosexual
realm was simultaneous with the process
of social reconstruction.
"Why has the fact been ignored that
throughout history one of the constant
features of social struggle has been the
attempt to change the relationships be-
tween the sexes, and the type of moral
codes that determine these relationships,
1410 Economic and Political Weekly April 28, 200t
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and that the way personal relations are
organised in a certain social group has had
a vital influence on the outcome of the
struggle between hostile social classes?"
[Kollontai 1977:240].
Tracing the history of marriage, Kollontai
explains how the women's oppressive
situation was based on an ideology of love
used to justify changing forms of mar-
riage/family. Throughout history there were
material considerations that determined
marriage. In ancient times, respect for the
kinship ties and collective material inter-
ests dominated in determining marriage.
Under feudalism, family business interests
were the basis of marriage but. for the first
time a theory of platonic love for a 'lady'
also emerged as an incentive for the 'knight'
to commit acts of bravery. However, it was
under capitalism that monogamous love
was upheld as the basis of marriage.
Bourgeois love, of course, demanded
women's undivided love and loyalty to
ensure inheritance within the family while
men could exploit women in the parallel
institution of prostitution.
For Kollontai the ideology of love in
capitalist society was both a patriarchal
ideology and individualistic in nature. In
the capitalist society she identified two
characteristic features of the psychology
of modem man. (a) the idea of possessing
the married partner and (b) the belief that
the sexes are unequal, that they are of
unequal worth in everyday, in every sphere,
including the sexual sphere.
According to Kollontai the crude indi-
vidualism which was the basis of capitalist
society created a sense of loneliness
which made one yearn for the "finding
for themselves through another person, a
means to a larger share of spiritual and
physical pleasure" [Kollontai 1977:240].
The urge to overcome this loneliness was
so strong that the it resulted in a desire to
own the very soul of the other such that
it even became oppressive. It was also this
feeling of 'possessiveness' that pervaded
the capitalist society and provided an
illusion of searching for the 'ideal
partner'. This 'individual psyche' was
worsened by the inequality assumed in the
relationship.
Kollontai's notion of patriarchy is con-
scious of not only the actual sexual and
economic oppression but also the ideo-
logical creation of women. The woman is
not only considered the property of the
husband but is defined stereotypically as
having no personality of her own. "We are
used to evaluating a woman not as a
personality with individual gratitudes and
failings irrespective of her physical and
emotional experience, but only as an
appendage of a man. This man, the husband
or the lover, throws the light of his per-
sonality over the woman, and it is this
reflection and not the woman herself that
we consider the true definition of her
emotional and moral make up. In the eyes
of society the personality of a man can be
more.easily separated from his actions in
the sexual sphere. The personality of a
woman is judged almost exclusively in
terms of her sexual life" [Kollontai
1977:245].
Kollontai realises that mere economic
independence will not itself lead to the
emancipation of women. In fact there is
a recognition of the autonomy that patri-
archal ideas and practices have vis-a-vis
the economic structures of society. This is
hinted when she writes, "Only a change
in the economic role of women, and her
independent involvement in production,
can and will bring about the weakening
of these mistaken and hypocritical ideas"
[Kollontai 1977:245].
In other words, although economic in-
dependence is a primary need it would
only lead to a weakening of patriarchal
ideas and not their elimination. Special
efforts have to be made to struggle against
patriarchy.
Morality for New Society
Kollontai hence sees the sexual relations
as suffering from three factors - extreme
egoism, possessing the married partner
and inequality among the sexes. These
according to her have to undergo a radical
transformation to change the individual
psyche along side the structural changes
in society. Her theory of communist
morality is an attempt to envision a mo-
rality for a new society. Post-revolutionary
Russia saw an emergence of various forms
of sexual relationships and while most
communist leaders defined it as sexual
anarchy; Kollontai's response was to
create a debate on the question of morality
for the workers collective. Since it was a
phase of transition, it was essential to
outline the basis of a new morality in face
of the critique of the capitalist society in
the psychosexual realm. For Kollontai, in
other words, it would be a society where
there would be equality in relationships,
where freedom in personal relationships
became a fact and the principle of com-
radeship overtook inequality.
The concept of comradeship and soli-
darity would be the key elements in a
socialist society. In capitalist society,
wingless Eros (sexual attraction) existed
outside marriage in the form of momentary
sexual encounters. In a workers collective
there would be no limits on the Eros.
Winged Eros (sexual attraction with sen-
sitivity and mutual respect) would be able
to flourish. It was unimportant whether
the relationship was temporary or perma-
nent, what mattered was that 'it was based
on equality, mutual recognition of rights
of the other and comradely sensitivity,
of ability to listen and understand the
inner workings of the loved person
[Kollontai 1977:245]. While these were
the basis of sexual relations, they were
subordinate to the concept of solidarity
within the collective. To ensure that the
unit of two loved persons does not become
exclusive, Kollontai emphasised the need
to uphold the interests of the collective
by creating inner bonds between the
members.
Kollontai is often wrongly 'credited' or
rather denounced for the glass of water
theory that is considering sex to be as
natural as drinking a glass of water. It is
on this basis that she was accused of
propagating free sex and perpetuating
sexual anarchy. A close look at her writings
reveals that this is a clear distortion of her
views. Firstly, her concept of new mo-
rality is a response to the sexual crisis
in Soviet society. Soviet society experi-
enced various forms of relationships
during the early 1920s.
Kollontai (1977) expressed the need to
make it an issue of debate so as to create
a morality based on egalitarian values. "In
the New World the accepted norms of
sexual relations will probably be based on
free, healthy and natural attraction (with-
out distortion and excesses) and on trans-
formed Eros." Hence for Kollontai, it is
for the sake of the collective, *that the
ideology of the working class had to create
a morality that would emerge along with
the socialist struggle though the actual
forms it would take, was left undefined.
Forms would only emerge in the course
of struggle.
It was Kollontai's ideas on sexual rela-
tions that became a major source of criti-
cism within the Soviet party. Although
there were some writings on the subject
by others, they were not as radically
different from the analysis of Marx, Engels
and Bebel. Kollontai had tried to raise
the issue of the personal realm simulta-
Economic and Political Weekly April 28, 2001 1411
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neously with other 'political' issues like
class struggle and social reconstruction.
No attempt was made by the other party
leaders to systematically analyse the
relation between the personal realm and
women' s oppression, which was the most
significant contribution of Kollontai.
Ironically, it was from the Central Women's
Department that she often faced criticism.
Vinogradskaya a young woman who
worked in the department was extremely
critical of Kollontai. Alix Holt (1977:240)
writes "Vinogradskaya herself is convinced
the Marxism and sex are mutually exclu-
sive, and that in a time of social turmoil,
'multifaceted love' is not on the agenda,
the idea that sexual love can be 'for its own
sake' and is not connected with the birth
of children should be vigorously de-
nounced". It is perhaps in Kollontai's
unorthodox writings on the realm of the
personal that one can locate the cause of
her political downfall and the amnesia
towards her writings on the part of the
official record keepers of Soviet history.
Conclusion
Kollontai was a prominent leader of the
Russian Social Democratic Women's
Movement. She was even the director of
Zhenotdel (Central Women's Department)
for a brief period. Her writings were an
analysis of the various aspects of women's
oppression and constituted a preliminary
attempt to integrate Marxism with Psycho-
sexual analysis and the critique of patri-
archy. Despite these insights, her limita-
tions in terms of the issues raised by
contemporary women's movement are
numerous. Kollontai failed to develop her
ideas on autonomy and specificity of the
women's question even within the Marxist
framework that she followed. She
overemphasised on the larger interests
of the state/economy over the rights of
individuals, groups and communities.
Definitions of productive labour were
uncritically accepted, and women were
almost considered as agents of reproduc-
tion for the welfare of the economy and
society. The concept of women's choices
and rights did not come up adequately. In
a sense her analysis and understanding of
women's experience were fitted within the
requirements of the Soviet economy be-
lying the significance of her own percep-
tive analysis on various aspects of women's
oppression.
But what is more significant is that she
was a symbol of struggle within the Soviet
state which was unique in itself in giving
many equal rights to women for the first
time in world history. At the present his-
torical juncture, as Marxist theory and
practice' attempts to critically evaluate its
history, it has to rediscover the views of
women revolutionaries like Alexandra
Kollontai. While the Soviet state took
several progressive steps to liberate women,
its inability to identify the multifaceted
dimensions of patriarchy that govern
women's lives has to be recognised.
Kollontai's attempt in such circumstances
was a radical development in the Marxist
tradition towards the understanding of some
unexplored spheres of women's lives.
Issues of the autonomy of women's
question and women's organisations within
a Marxist analysis and movement: and a
Marxist feminist approach to women's
oppression continues to be subjects of
debate and discussion. The relationship
between Marxism and Feminism has been
a, tenuous one. Socialist feminist have
attempted to integrate feminism and
Marxism and some have even given up the
efforts in the process. The fact remains
however that given the continuous
marginalisation and oppression of large
sections of society, there is a requirement
for larger alliances among the oppressed.
This would need the resolution of ques-
tions of autonomy and primacy in analyses
and practice, which Kollontai raised and
which continue to be raised within Marxist
theory and practice. [M
Notes
[I thank Sarah Joseph, my supervisor, Uma
Chakravarty and Sanjay for their critical
comments.]
1 Joan Kelly drew attention to, in her path-
breaking article 'Did Women Have A
Renaissance?'
2 Kollontai was a part of the Zimmerwald left
- a section within the second International,
which was opposed to the war.
3 Kollontai opposed Lenin's views on the peace
treaty at the end of the war. After the first world
war she resigned or was removed from the
Commissar of Women's Welfare.
4 Party members including Kollontai and
Trotsky demanded the restructuring of the
entire system of administration. They
challenged bureaucratisation and asked for
more participation of proletarians in the
decision-making.
5 This term has been used by Nalini Nayak in
Ilina Sen's Space within the Struggle: Women 's
Participation in People's Movements, Kali
for Women, New Delhi, 1990, p 140.
6 Tony Cliff gives detailed account of the
bourgeois women's movement of that period.
7 In 1921, New Economic Policies were
introduced in response to economic crisis that
Soviet Russia was facing. Private managers
and entrepreneurs were given powers in
industrial activity to achieve faster economic
growth. The workers' opposition came as a
response to that.
Lenin as the leader of the party had recognised
the need to mobilise women and was sup-
portive of women's department for attract-
ing them to the party but failed to recognise
the need to develop an autonomous space
which could be helpful in developing a Marxist
perspective on the women's question.
8 I have been told that at the evenings arranged for reading and discussion with working
women, sex and marriage problems come
first...It is said 'that a pamphlet on the sex
question written by a communist authoress
from Vienna enjoys the greatest popularity.
What rot that booklet is! The workers read
what is right in it long ago in Bebel...It seems
to me that this superabundance of sex theories,
which for the most part are mere hypotheses
and often quite arbitrary ones, stems from a
personal need... There is no room for it in the
party among the conscious, fighting proletariat.
Extract from conversations with Clara Zetkin,
Lenin, op cit, p 10.
References
Barrett, Michelle (1980): Women's Oppression
Today: Problems in Marxist FeministAnalysis,
Verso, London.
Cliff, Tony: Class Struggle and Women's
Liberation: 1640 to the Present Today,
Bookmarks, London.
Delphy, Christine (1984): Close to Home: A
Materialist Analysis of Women 's Oppression,
Massachussetts Press, Amherst.
Holt, Alix (1977): Selected Writings of Alexandra
Kollontai (translated and commentaries) Alison
and Busby, London.
Kollontai, Alexandra (1977a): 'Communism and
the Family' in Holt, op cit, p 155.
- (1977b): 'Sexual Relations and the Class
Struggle' in Holt, op cit, p 240.
- (1984): Selected Speeches and Articles of
Kollontai, Progress Publishers, Moscow.
- 'Make Way for the Winged Eros: A Letter to
Working Youth' in Holt, op cit, p 291.
Lenin, V I (1965): On the Emancipation of Women,
Progress Publishers, Moscow.
Marx, Karl (1969): Theories of Surplus Value,
Vol 1, Lawrence and Wishart, London.
Oakley, Ann (1974): The Sociology of Housework,
Martin Robertson, Oxford.
Scott, Joan Wallach (1988): In S Jay Kleinberg
(ed), Retrieving Women's History: Changing
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and Society, Unesco Press, Paris, p 10.
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