Kollontais Road from Bolshevism

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is held in great esteem by various elements on the left in the West, because of her reputation as a Bolshevik, an opponent of the bureaucracy and an ardent campaigner for women's rights.

This collection of her 'Selected Writings' brings together a wide variety of articles, speeches and excerpts from books, which enables us to investigate the basis for her high reputation.

Fifteen years

Kollontai Joined the Bolshevik Party in 1915, after about 15 years work witl 1 the Social Democratic partir es in Russia and elsewhere in Europe, in particular the German party Lenin (right, -commended Kollontai's popularising Bolshevik policies.

The outbreak of war in 1914 crystallised political differences within the Social Democratic parties, and it was the betrayal of the majority of the German party in voting war credits for the German bourgeoisie which decisively turned Kollontai towards the Bolsheviks.

Pacifist

At this stage Kollontai's position on the war was basically one of pacifist anti-militarism.

The Excerpts from a Diary published here (pp81-7) describe her horror at the growing chauvinism among the leading members of the German Social Democratic party, but contains no class analysis of why the war should be opposed.

It is only after she enters into correspondence with pamphlets Lenin that Kollontai develops these positions, and in 1917, during the period of the Provisional Government, she published Where does 'Revolutionary Defencism' lead?, which clearly explains what the imperialist war signifies:

...colonies, trade agreements and the struggle between English and German capitalists for domination of the world market". (p.111).

She condemns the Menshevik policy of revolutionary defence of freedom in the face of the attack from the external enemy' as:

"The renunciation of independent class politics".

Kollontai supported Lenin's "April Theses" against the support given by Stalin and Kamenev to the Provisional Government, and played án important part in the organisation of the October Revolution, especially through the popularisation of Bolshevik policies in her pamphlets and speeches.

Loyalty

However, despite her loyalty to Bolshevism from 1915, there is some confusion throughout her theoretical work,-both on women's questions and on the more general questions-about the relationship of the spontaneous activity of the masses and the leadership of the revolutionary party.

There are constant references to the 'self-activity' of the masses, but this mystical concept is never explained.

In her pamphlet Why was the German Proletariat Silent during the July Days? she explains the apparent passivity of the German working class at the outbreak of the war in 1914, in terms of the leadership of the trade union centres, and of the German socia Democrats who were increasingly following the road to reformism and class collaboration for some years prior to 1914.

Teach masses

However, she sees the task of the revolutionary party as being to teach the masses:

"to respond independently and energetically to events.. (and to) boldly advocate all methods of struggle which revolutionary creativity suggests". (pp. 102-3).

The overall impression the reader is left with from this pamphlet and others is that the task of the vanguard party is simply to teach the masses 'self-activity', rather than to lead them.

These ambiguities come to fruition in 1921, when Kollontai became a leading member of the Workers' Opposition, writing their programme which is reproduced in collection. 159-200).

This faction represented a utopian reaction to the difficulties and contradictions involved in War Communism.

Protests

Their protests about the influx of non-proletarian careerist elements into the party were acted on by the party leadership, but their objections that the party had betrayed Soviet principles represent a utopian denial of the real economic difficulties in which the young Soviet Union found itself after the Civil War.

Production had fallen to 12.9% of the 1913 level, and the country had been ravaged by the wars-yet Kollontai was suggesting that the retention of money and the wage system was a betrayal of socialist policies:

"Taking into consideration the utter collapse of our industries while still clinging to the capitalist mode of production (payment for labour in money, variations in wages received according to work done) our party leaders, in a fit of distrust in the creative abilities of workers' collectives, are seeking salvation from the industrial chaos. Where? In the hands of scions of the bourgeois-capitalist class. In businessmen and technicians, whose creative abilities in the sphere of industry are subject to the routine, habits and methods of the capitalist system of production and economy".

Specialists

In criticising the hiring of bourgeois specialists in industry, and arguing that the workers should have immedAnn Evans reviews Alexandra Kollontai: Selected Writings. Edited by Alix Holt.: Published by Allison and Busby at £2.95 (paperback).

Kollontai iate control over all production, she ignores the simple fact that the working class is barred, under capitalism, from learning about the workings of business and industry, and must hire those who have these skills, until the workers can also acquire them.

Naive belief

She has a naive belief that the working class will spontaneously develop new forms of production, as soon as they have direct control over The collection includes a large number of other writings on the woman question, which are in many ways more significant than articles The storming of the Winter , on more general theoretical questions.

She concentrates particularly on the relationships between sexuality, the family and revolution. Kollontai was the only woman member of the Bolshevik Party's Central Committee, and she was the leading figure fighting within the party for a serious orientation towards the organisation of working women.

She sharply differentiates between bourgeois feminism, and the communist attitude towards the fight fol women's emancipation.

In her book The Social Basis of the Woman Question (written in 1909), she tal up this question. with attack on the bourge feminists:

"If, in the near future, d peasant woman wins a bet position for herself, if 1 everyday conditions of l life improve and economic and legal status raised, this will be thanks the unified efforts of peasa democracy directed towar the realisation of the gene peasant demands which 1 rural community E constantly put forward.

The attempts of feminists to 'clear the way : women' are irrelevant here If the peasant woman c free herself from the existi agricultural relations she v have won more than all 1 feminist organisatic together are in a position give her". (p. 48).

The most interest: writings on the woman qu tion in this book are 1 excerpts from her boc Towards a History of e Working Women's Moveme in Russia and The Social Ba of the Woman Question.

As well as drawing the l: between bourgeois femini communism, describes the way in wh. she and other Bolshev organised working wOn around revolutiona demands.

She also goes into 1 important role which wo Palace in the Russian Revoluti ing women played in ! 1905 revolution, in strikes the textile industry, and protests against the exclus: of women deputies fro elected committees and -denial of a woman's right vote for delegates to -Duma, the Russian par ment.

Oppression

When Kollontai goes on discuss detailed aspects women's oppression attempts to formulate rev utionary policies to fight the emancipation of wom

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rch, 1978