By Gene Ogorodov
Alexandra
Kollontai is an interesting figure that emerged out of Russian
Revolutionary politics. A child of a Finish peasant and a Russian
General, reared in luxury, she was an early member of the Russian Social
Democratic Party that opposed both Martov and Lenin in the
Bolshevik/Menshevik split who, like Trotsky, joined Lenin's Bolshevik's
in the eleventh hour rising to prominence in the early Soviet Union. She
shattered the glass ceiling as a Peoples' Commissar (Soviet equivalent
of a Cabinet Secretary) in 1917 and Ambassador in 1923 half a century
before Margaret Thatcher, Indira Gandhi, or Golda Meir became Prime
Ministers in there respective countries.Outspoken and fearless Kollontai relentlessly pursued social and economic equality for women in the Soviet Union, going toe-to-toe with anyone including Lenin when ever she felt the need. She vehemently opposed prostitution and marital infidelity as exploitative for women. (In fact A Great Love was itself written as little more than a thinly veiled attack on Lenin's extra-marital affair with Inessa Armand). Nevertheless, Kollontai was one of the first proponents of "free love." Marriage was, she believed, a relic of the patriarchal domination of women and would vanish along with the state in a perfectly free and communal society.