A.k. 47 - Selections From The Works Of Alexandra Kollontai

In this episode, Kristen R. Ghodsee reads selections from Kollontai's 1926 speech, “Marriage and Everyday Life.” By this time Vladimir Lenin was dead and Kollontai was already serving as a diplomat in Norway. She came back to the Soviet Union to participate in the discussions surrounding the proposed Family Code which was to replace the original 1918 Family Code that Kollontai had a big hand in shaping. By 1925, the Bolshevik leaders were retreating from their commitments to sexual equality and focusing instead on building the Soviet Economy. Kollontai fought hard to force the state to support women and children, but the project was too expensive and the population was exhausted from the chaos and instability that followed the initial liberalization of divorce laws. Mentioned in this episode is Wendy Goldman's excellent book: Women, the State and Revolution: Soviet Family Policy and Social Life, 1917-1936 (Cambridge University Press, 1993)The intro music is a Russian version of The Internationale Mo