Alexandra Kollontai - Class Struggle And Women’s Liberation

To understand the role of women in the Russian Revolution we have to understand the conditions in which most women lived in Tsarist Russia. Women, after their marriage (many of which were arranged), were regarded as the property of the husband, there was no divorce and no abortion rights.

Women didn’t have the right to vote in the limited Duma elections and there were no women elected as representatives. There was virtually no social welfare system and any woman who happened to have a child out of wedlock was likely to end up in the dreaded workhouses. The choices that existed for most women were extremely limited; marrying into a decent family and to a husband who treated you well would be regarded as a ‘success’.

While aristocratic women were happy to remain in their gilded cages, women across many classes, rebelled against their lack of freedom. Middle class women were looking to make their way into professions and gain employment with the economic freedom that would follow. Working class women, on the other hand, were already in employment, many as domestic servants but also rising numbers in factories in the big cities like Petrograd.

The problems faced by women workers, in addition to the questions of the vote and moral standards, were those of low wages, poverty and destitution. On top of this, World War 1 and the subsequent war years added further hardship to the women of Russia. Their husbands, brothers and sons were drafted into the army and sent away to the front to die in their millions, while at home the women had to make do with what little rations they got- which were not enough to feed their families.

It was under these wartime conditions that working class women in Petrograd on International Women’s Day February 1917 marched under the slogan of ‘Land, Bread and Peace’ and kicked off a revolution which would change the entire course of history.

One of the many Russian women rebelling against oppression was Alexandra Kollontai. As a young woman her refusal of a marriage arranged by her parents was the beginning of a life filled with rebellion and revolution. Although not well known today, Kollontai was a pioneer in terms of women in politics. She was one of the first female elected representatives in the world, the first female Minister and member of a Cabinet in a Western government and subsequently the first female Ambassador.

Her journey in politics is not one marked by personal ambition but rather one inseparable from the journey of the Bolshevik Party and the movement of the working class. Kollontai was born in to a family of old Russian nobility. She was the youngest child and in her own words: ‘the most spoiled, the most coddled member of the family’. She was never sent to school but home taught by a female private tutor. At the age of sixteen a young woman was expected to begin the life of a ‘young society woman’. Kollontai’s parents expected her to marry well to someone arranged by them, just like her sister had done at the age of nineteen - marrying a man who was nearly seventy.

But she refused and decided to marry her cousin, a young love that lasted about three years. Many young people in Russia despised the backward state of the country under Tsarist rule and Kollontai began to attend illegal Marxist circles. She began reading any Marxist literature that she could get her hands on. She decided to leave her husband and child and left Russia for Zurich to study political economy, she joined the Russian Social Democratic Party in 1899. By the revolution of 1905 Kollontai had become a popular speaker at meetings and rallies.

She was a supporter of the reformist Mensheviks, however, she later joined the revolutionary Bolsheviks. The defeat of the 1905 revolution led to the exile of many of the most well-known socialists, including Lenin, but also Kollontai. In 1908 she was forced to leave Russia and lived in exile in Scandinavia and the USA until 1917,

Kollontai began her political life with a revolt against backward societal norms which restricted the lives of Russian women and many of her writings were related to the fight for women’s liberation and the necessary relationship between that fight and the workers’ movement. In the years following the 1905 revolution she wrote significant contributions on the question of the oppression of women. Her writings were not divorced from political activity. She spent her time organising women workers into Working Women’s Clubs, and she organised interventions by women party members to conferences organised by the suffragette movement - where they would argue for linking to the struggle of the working class.

Many young women workers who joined at that time became leading members of the Bolshevik Party throughout the years of the revolution. In 1909 Kollontai wrote the short but influential pamphlet “The Social Basis of the Women’s Question”. She argued clearly that in order to win liberation from oppression women must join with the worker’s movement in the fight against a capitalist system of production which utilised women’s oppression. She wrote:

“The women’s world is divided,just as is the world of men, into two camps; the interests and aspirations of one group of women bring it close to the bourgeois class, while the other group has close connections with the proletariat, and its claims for liberation encompass a full solution to the woman question. Thus although both camps follow the general slogan of the ‘liberation of women’, their aims and interests are different. Each of the groups unconsciously takes its starting point from the interests of its own class, which gives a specific class colouring to the targets and tasks it sets itself.”

She argued that regardless of the intentions of bourgeois feminists their aims and interests were different from those of working class women, because they belonged to a class whose interests lay in maintaining the exploitative status quo. At times, the struggle of both groups may coincide but in the long term the women of the ruling class will be satisfied with the equality of their own class. In practice this becomes an equal opportunity for women and men of the ruling class to engage in the exploitation of all workers in the process of production.

As we know today, a female Minister of the ruling class is just as likely to impose austerity measures that affect women as her male counterparts are. Or you just have to look at how Thatcher used the British state to attack striking miners and their families. Does this mean that women’s questions should be ignored by socialists? On the contrary, Kollontai argued clearly that there must be specific agitation by the Party amongst women workers on the question of women’s rights. She also took inspiration from the socialist movements in Europe, specifically Clara Zetkin in Germany and organised clubs for socialist education of women. She argued that the workplace broadened horizons and that women needed to escape the confines of the home but also with tradition, she wrote:

“It is natural that even the psychology of a woman, under the influence of century-long slavery, is different from that of a working class man. The man worker is more independent, more decisive, and has more feeling of solidarity; his horizon is wider because he is not confined within the framework of narrow family relationships; it is easier for him to become aware of his interests and to connect these to class problems. But for a woman worker to reach the maturity of the views of an average male worker – that means a complete break with the tradition, the concepts, the morals, the customs, which have become part of her since the cradle. These traditions and customs, attempting to retain and hold onto a type of woman produced by past stages of economic development, turn into almost insuperable obstacles in the path of the class-consciousness of the woman worker.”

In this passage Kollontai argued that women in the early 1900’s had been so indoctrinated with Victorian values and morals that it required a specific tactical approach - to engage these women in the socialist class struggle. In the hundred years that have passed since, women have moved from homes into workplaces and though there are still issues that mainly affect women, such as reproductive rights, there is not the same need for ‘special tactics’- especially if they lead to separatism. Whilst understanding the necessity of drawing in women workers through the Women’s Clubs she argued strongly against the separation of working women in to ‘women only’ parties and trade unions. She wrote:

“Trade union organisations have a definite task- to struggle for the economic interests of the members of the working class; moreover, it is precisely these, that is the economic interests, which for the representatives of the proletariat of both sexes are the same and inseparable. On this point any separation on the basis of sex is artificial; it runs absolutely counter to the interests of the worker and can only damage the immediate aims of the trade union struggle.”

Her arguments surrounding the “woman’s question” were built on the writings of Marx and Engels on the role of the family under capitalism. Both wrote extensively on the family and the role of women, Marx in “The Holy Family” and Engels in “The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State”. Engels tracked the development of class society from a tribal ‘primitive communism’, through various class societies, to capitalism and argued that the role of women was dramatically transformed by the emergence of class society.

The transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture over a long period of time led to the gradual removal of women from public life through increased childbearing and the subsequent reduction women’s participation in productive labour. Engels described this period as ‘the world historical defeat of the female sex’. This placed the oppression of women in a historical context, in opposition to the common biological determinism which argued that women’s oppression was caused by the biological differences between men and women. The consequence of the Marxist position was that the oppression of women arose historically and could therefore be not only fought against but eliminated, through revolution and the destruction of class society.

Kollontai had begun her political journey by revolting against the lack of rights and choices for Russian women and had quickly come to the conclusion that the only solution was a revolutionary overthrow of the capitalist system by the working class. Like many of her comrades, she dreamed of a different kind of society where men and women could live as equals. In 1917 for the first time in history, there was an opportunity to realise that dream. In February 1917 the women of Petrograd lived in hardship under the yoke of the Tsarist dictatorship, war rations and ex-treme poverty. On International Women’s Day women workers poured onto the streets to protest with demands for ‘Land, Bread and Peace’.

They marched to the factories, threw snowballs at the windows and called on their husbands, fathers, brothers and friends to join them. These events unleashed a strike wave which forced the Tsar to abdicate and began the winding road to the October Revolution. In October the working class assemblies, called Soviets, took power into their own hands. During her years in exile Kollontai had become a celebrated orator. She travelled extensively throughout Europe to various congresses and conferences. With the outbreak of World War 1 Kollontai immediately took a strong position against the war. Living in ‘neutral’ Sweden, she worked closely with the left Social Democrats Zeth ‘Zäta’ Höglund and Frederick Ström agitating against the war.

As she explained: “So long as the war continued, the problem of women’s liberation obviously had to recede into the background since my only concern, my highest aim, was to fight against the war and call a new Workers International into being.”

The majority of the Socialist parties in Europe had taken an active or passive position in favour of the War, leading to splits to the left in most parties. Kollontai has been described as hugely influential in encouraging a left split in the Swedish Social Democratic Party. In June 1915 she officially joined the Bolshevik Party because of their clear anti-war position and following extensive correspondence with Lenin.

The moment Kollontai received news of the outbreak of the February revolution she travelled from Norway to Russia through Northern Sweden. At the border she was greeted with joy by young soldiers. During the months of the revolution Kollontai worked tirelessly as an orator, a writer and an agitator. She was elected to the Soviet executive in April 1917, she helped publish the weekly newspaper “The Women Workers” in May and took part in strikes by women laundry workers. The Women Workers paper actively encouraged women to take part in revolutionary activity, as seen in this article by Kollontai:

“We, the women workers, were the first to raise the Red Banner in the days of the Russian revolution, the first to go out onto the streets on Women’s Day. Let us now hasten to join the leading ranks of the fighters for the workers’ cause, let us join trade unions, the Social-Democratic Party, the Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies!”

The work carried out by women members of the Bolshevik party was certainly not in vain. Russian women were for the first time drawn into civic and political life in their masses. Women workers attended the meetings of the Soviet in the cities while peasant women took part in the movement against the landlords in the countryside. We can only imagine the energy and enthusiasm that must have been flowing from the masses of women who were transforming from oppressed mothers and wives to fighting activists and decision makers. Working women were throwing off the yoke of slavery and becoming independent members of society.

By October 1917 Kollontai had been elected to the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party and she stated proudly in her autobiography that she voted for the policy of an armed uprising. With the formation of the Soviet government following the successful insurrection in October Kollontai was appointed People’s Commissar of Social Welfare, the first woman in history to occupy a Ministerial post. Now there was a real opportunity to put into practice the ideas of equality and fairness promoted in her writings and speeches. However, there was significant resistance by former department officials with open sabotage against the new government, forcing Kollontai to set up an auxiliary council of workers with experts such as physicians and teachers represented. New officials were employed, without experience but with extraordinary enthusiasm.

The diverse work of the Department was evident in the first act by Kollontai as People’s Commissar: to compensate a small peasant for his requisitioned horse. There was an enormous amount of work to be done in order to start transforming Russia in to a socialist country. There were decrees to improve care for disabled soldiers, to abolish religious instruction in girl’s schools, to set up homeless hostels, bring in maternity and infant care and introduce a free public healthcare system. However, Kollontai understood that: “To attain legal rights is insufficient; women must be emancipated in practice. The emancipation of women means giving them the opportunity to bring up their children, combining motherhood with work for society.”

In November 1918 she helped organise the “First Congress of Women Workers and Women Peasants” which was the beginning of a programme of education and involvement of women into societal tasks. They included the establishment of communal kitchens, communal laundries and children’s day care with the aim of drawing women out of the home and into working collectively for the good of society. In addition, there was anenormous effort made to educate working and peasant women, many of whom were illiterate. By 1919 abortion had been legalised and several world conferences of women communists had been organised including work with the Muslim women of the Eastern regions of Russia. This extensive work was undertaken despite the extremely difficult period of civil war, hunger and poverty.

In 1920 Kollontai wrote an article on ‘Communism and the Family’ where she discussed the role of the family under feudalism, the changing role of the family under capitalism and the possibilities of a new type of family under Communism. She argued that the patriarchal family under feudalism was a sphere of production where women produced cloth, leather, wool and preserved foods in the home. This division of labour meant that women were excluded from production outside of the home and subsequently from civic life. Capitalism, however, changed the role of the family from a productive unit to one of consumption:

“The housework that remains consists of cleaning…, cooking…, washing and the care of the linen and clothing of the fam-ily… These are difficult and exhausting tasks and they absorb all the spare time and energy of the working woman who must, in addition, put in her hours at a factory. But this work is different in one important way from the work our grandmothers did: the four tasks enumerated above, which still serve to keep the family together, are of no value to the state and the national economy, for they do not create any new values or make any contribution to the prosperity of the country.”

What Kollontai argued was not to say that housework was not necessary or important for capitalist society, but that it did not produce any new value or be sold as commodity on a market. This means that under capitalism women are left with the double burden of working outside and inside the home. In addition to the family serving as a unit of consumption under capitalism it also plays an ideological role. As Kollontai said:

“For the capitalists are well aware that the old type of family, where the woman is a slave and where the husband is responsible for the well-being of his wife and children, constitutes the best weapon in the struggle to stifle the desire of the working class for freedom and to weaken the revolutionary spirit of the working man and working woman. The worker is weighed down by his family cares and is obliged to compromise with capital.”

For Kollontai this meant that the new Russia had to take steps towards eradicating the old oppressive family and creating a new type of family based on equality between the sexes and the responsibility of the state for the wellbeing of children, the elderly - and for housework. She said: “In Soviet Russia the working woman should be surrounded by the same ease and light, hygiene and beauty that previously only the very rich could afford. Instead of the working woman having to struggle with the cooking and spend her last free hours in the kitchen preparing dinner and supper, communist society will organise public restaurants and communal kitchens.”

Kollontai also took on the arguments propagated by opponents of the Bolsheviks who said that they were breaking up the family and tearing children away from their parents: “Communist society has this to say to the working woman and working man: ‘You are young, you love each other. Everyone has the right to happiness. Therefore live your life. Do not flee happiness. Do not fear marriage, even though under capitalism marriage was truly a chain of sorrow. Do not be afraid of having children. Society needs more workers and rejoices at the birth of every child. You do not have to worry about the future of your child; your child will know neither hunger nor cold.”

That short article clearly spelled out what plans Kollontai and the Bolsheviks had to create a new type of family for the new socialist society. It included descriptions of already attained demands- many of which we still have not won today- such as ‘free school meals for children’, ‘free textbooks’,‘free shoes and clothing for children’ and of course communal laundries and communal restaurants. This new family would not be a unit of production or consumption but rather a unit formed by love and equality between partners. The achievements made in the first few years following the revolution are absolutely extraordinary, especially when you take into account the hardships of the civil war and capitalist embargo on the country.

By the end of the civil war Soviet Russia was all but destroyed. Millions of workers had perished in the fighting or from disease, factories had been closed down, large sections of the most fertile grain-producing land had been lost and productivity had plummeted. Many of the leading Bolsheviks had died fighting against the White Army. In an article written by Kollontai in 1927 her description of the many leading women members of the Bolshevik Party during the October Revolution, and the number of them who died “performing their revolutionary duties was heart-breaking.

Lenin spent his last year complaining about growing bureaucracy. By the death of Lenin in 1923 the party was sick. Kollontai had earlier raised concerns of a lack of democracy as part of the “Workers Opposition”, however the grouping offered no way forward or realistic alternative to the existing strategy. In 1922 Kollontai accepted the appointment of Soviet Ambassador in Norway. She was the first woman ever to hold this position and she found herself overwhelmed by work on treaties and trade agreements. There was a distinct lack of writings by Kollontai from 1929 onwards. She never criticised Stalin’s regime, even writing a terrible endorsement of the policies of the 1940’s - which included giving medals to women who had many children!

But the gains of October should never be forgotten. Never in history had women achieved so much in such a short space of time, not just by legal decrees but through the actions taken by women revolutionaries. These changes came through the struggle of working men and women united through their own actions and guided by their Bolshevik Party. The notion, prevalent in some liberal and feminist circles, that the ruling class will grant us gradual progressive change is made redundant when you study the October Revolution and its effect on the lives of women in Russia. A revolution of working class women and men was able to win rights we still haven’t won today in the 21st Century. It pays to rebel. Revolutionaries should work in broad campaigns and with people fighting for any change that benefits the majority of women, but in those campaigns we should point out that only a working class revolution can fully liberate women.

Sounds radical? But as James Connolly wrote: “‘Be moderate,’ the trimmers cry, Who dread the tyrants’ thunder.‘You ask too much’… Tis passing strange, for I declare Such statements give me mirth, For our demands most moderate are, We only want the earth.”