Alexandra Kollontai

A Biography

by Cathy Porter

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Description

Alexandra Kollontai was a key leader of the Russian Socialist movement, the only woman in the early Soviet government, and one of the most famous women in Russian history. She worked tirelessly all her life as a speaker, writer, and organizer for women's emancipation. This compelling biography recounts her life for an emerging generation of fighters for women's liberation.

Cathy Porter is a translator, teacher, and researcher on Russian history. She is the author of Fathers and Daughters: Russian Women in Revolution and translator of Alexandra Kollontai's Love of Worker Bees.

Author Bios

Cathy Porter was born in Oxford in 1947, and grew up there. She spent a year in Poland before studying Russian and Czech at London University. Since then she has become deeply involved in the political life and intellectual ideas of the nineteenth - and twentieth-century Russia. She is the author of Fathers and Daughters: Russian Women in Revolution, and translator of Kollontai's fiction Love of Worker Bees. Porter lives in London and divides her time between translating, teaching literacy and researching Russian history.

More Info

Publication date: August 5, 2014

Table of Contents

CONTENTS
Chronology xi
Introduction 1
Chapter One: Too Much Family Happiness 7
Chapter Two: Small Deeds 38
Chapter Three: Marxists and Revisionists 65
Chapter Four: What Is To Be Done? 85
Chapter Five: After Bloody Sunday 103
Chapter Six: Heckling the Feminists 121
Chapter Seven: Exiled in Workers’ Europe 141
Chapter Eight: The Collapse of Internationalism 164
Chapter Nine: War on War! 190
Chapter Ten: Agitating for Revolution 213
Chapter Eleven: Militant Spring 233
Chapter Twelve: Peace, Bread, Land and Justice 250
Chapter Thirteen: Cooks and Commissars 269
Chapter Fourteen: Civil War 293
Chapter Fifteen: The Crisis of the Revolution 323
Chapter Sixteen: Workers’ Opposition 347
Chapter Seventeen: Exiled in Diplomats’ Europe 372
Chapter Eighteen: Years of Uncertainty 390
Chapter Nineteen: The Purges, Fascism and War 412
Chapter Twenty: The Last Years 445
Notes 452
Bibliography 474
Organisations and Russian Terms 499
Index

Reviews

"A very detailed life-story of this extraordinary woman . . . Cathy Porter has written a sad, serious, and very readable book . . ." —Tamara Deutscher, Marxism Today (first edition)

"Alexandra Kollontai has the potential to be a true delight for the connoisseur by providing an alternative historical account of Russia and the socialist movement. However, what makes it transcend time is Kollontai's chief belief that women should be at the centre of the economy, not the periphery" —Spokeman

"an interesting and detailed account of some of the most exciting years in working class history" —Socialist Review
"Kollontai, a staunch opponent of the first world war, broke with moderates who supported the war and joined the Bolsheviks, becoming a vital figure in the women’s liberation movement for which she struggled throughout her life. She was the first woman ever to be appointed an ambassador to Norway and wrote: “I realised that I had thereby achieved a victory not only for myself, but for women in general … When on occasion I am told that it is truly remarkable that a woman has been appointed to such a responsible position, I always think to myself that in the final analysis … what is of a wholly special significance here is that a woman, like myself, who has settled scores with the double standard and who has never concealed it, was accepted into a caste which to this very day staunchly upholds tradition and pseudo-morality.”
—Tariq Ali

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"A very detailed life-story of this extraordinary woman . . . Cathy Porter has written a sad, serious, and very readable book . . ." —Tamara Deutscher, Marxism Today (first edition)

"Alexandra Kollontai has the potential to be a true delight for the connoisseur by providing an alternative historical account of Russia and the socialist movement. However, what makes it transcend time is Kollontai's chief belief that women should be at the centre of the economy, not the periphery" —Spokeman

"an interesting and detailed account of some of the most exciting years in working class history" —Socialist Review

"Kollontai, a staunch opponent of the first world war, broke with moderates who supported the war and joined the Bolsheviks, becoming a vital figure in the women’s liberation movement for which she struggled throughout her life. She was the first woman ever to be appointed an ambassador to Norway and wrote: “I realised that I had thereby achieved a victory not only for myself, but for women in general … When on occasion I am told that it is truly remarkable that a woman has been appointed to such a responsible position, I always think to myself that in the final analysis … what is of a wholly special significance here is that a woman, like myself, who has settled scores with the double standard and who has never concealed it, was accepted into a caste which to this very day staunchly upholds tradition and pseudo-morality.”

—Tariq Ali

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Alexandra Kollontai

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