Alexandra Kollontai: Difference between revisions
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⚫ | '''Alexandra Mikhailovna Kollontai''' ({{lang-ru|Алекса́ндра Миха́йловна Коллонта́й}} — née '''Domontovich''', Домонто́вич) ({{OldStyleDate|March 31|1872|March 19}} – |
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[[File:Alexandra Kollontai.jpg|thumb|Alexandra Kollontai]] |
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⚫ | '''Alexandra Mikhailovna Kollontai''' ({{lang-ru|Алекса́ндра Миха́йловна Коллонта́й}} — née '''Domontovich''', Домонто́вич) ({{OldStyleDate|March 31|1872|March 19}} – 9 March 1952) was a [[Russian people|Russian]] [[Communist]] revolutionary, first as a member of the [[Menshevik]]s, then from 1914 on as a [[Bolshevik]]. In 1923, Kollontai was appointed Soviet Ambassador to [[Norway]], one of the first women to hold such a post ([[Diana Abgar]] was earlier). |
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[[File:AlexandraKollontai.jpg|thumb|right|Kollontai, probably before 1900|alt=Young woman facing right, wearing high-necked, embroidered dress]] |
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== Biography == |
== Biography == |
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=== Early life === |
=== Early life === |
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[[File:Дибенки Павло Олександра 2.jpg|right |
[[File:Дибенки Павло Олександра 2.jpg|right|thumb|[[Pavlo Dybenko]] of enslaved Ukrainian [[cossack]] origin and his wife Oleksandra of [[registry cossack]] origin]] |
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Alexandra Mikhailovna Domontovich was born on {{OldStyleDate|March 31|1872|March 19}} in [[St. Petersburg]], the capital of the [[Russian empire]]. Her father, General Mikhail Alekseevich Domontovich, from a [[Hetmanate|Ukrainian Cossack]] family that traced its ancestry back to the 13th Century,{{sfn|Clements|p=3}} served as a cavalry officer in the [[Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78]] and as an advisor to the Russian administration in [[Bulgaria]] after the war until 1879. He entertained liberal political views, favoring a [[constitutional monarchy]] like that of the [[United Kingdom]], and in the 1880s had written a study of the Bulgarian war of independence which was confiscated by the [[Tsarist]] censors, presumably for showing insufficient Russian [[nationalism|nationalist]] zeal.{{sfn|Clements|p=4}} Alexandra's mother, Alexandra Androvna Masalina-Mravinskaia,{{efn|name=Mravinskii}} the daughter of a [[Finns|Finnish]] [[peasant]] who had made a fortune selling wood, obtained a divorce from an unhappy arranged first marriage so that she could marry Domontovich, with whom she had fallen in love.{{sfn|Clements|p=4}} The saga of her parents' long and difficult struggle to be together in spite of the norms of society would color and inform Alexandra Kollontai's own views of relationships, sex, and marriage.{{citation needed|date=December 2011}} |
Alexandra Mikhailovna Domontovich was born on {{OldStyleDate|March 31|1872|March 19}} in [[St. Petersburg]], the capital of the [[Russian empire]]. Her father, General Mikhail Alekseevich Domontovich, from a [[Hetmanate|Ukrainian Cossack]] family that traced its ancestry back to the 13th Century,{{sfn|Clements|p=3}} served as a cavalry officer in the [[Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78]] and as an advisor to the Russian administration in [[Bulgaria]] after the war until 1879. He entertained liberal political views, favoring a [[constitutional monarchy]] like that of the [[United Kingdom]], and in the 1880s had written a study of the Bulgarian war of independence which was confiscated by the [[Tsarist]] censors, presumably for showing insufficient Russian [[nationalism|nationalist]] zeal.{{sfn|Clements|p=4}} Alexandra's mother, Alexandra Androvna Masalina-Mravinskaia,{{efn|name=Mravinskii}} the daughter of a [[Finns|Finnish]] [[peasant]] who had made a fortune selling wood, obtained a divorce from an unhappy arranged first marriage so that she could marry Domontovich, with whom she had fallen in love.{{sfn|Clements|p=4}} The saga of her parents' long and difficult struggle to be together in spite of the norms of society would color and inform Alexandra Kollontai's own views of relationships, sex, and marriage.{{citation needed|date=December 2011}} |
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=== Political career === |
=== Political career === |
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[[File:Alexandra Kollontay - To dear comrade Louise Bryant from her friend, September 1918.gif|thumb |
[[File:Alexandra Kollontay - To dear comrade Louise Bryant from her friend, September 1918.gif|thumb|To dear comrade [[Louise Bryant]]{{efn|name=Bryant}} from her friend Alexandra Kollontay, [[Petrograd]], 1 September 1918.]] |
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At the time of the split in the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party into the [[Mensheviks]] under [[Julius Martov]] and the [[Bolshevik]]s under [[Vladimir Lenin]] in 1903, Kollontai did not side with either faction. It wasn't until 1915 that Kollontai officially joined the Bolshevik party.{{sfn|Holt|p=80}} |
At the time of the split in the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party into the [[Mensheviks]] under [[Julius Martov]] and the [[Bolshevik]]s under [[Vladimir Lenin]] in 1903, Kollontai did not side with either faction. It wasn't until 1915 that Kollontai officially joined the Bolshevik party.{{sfn|Holt|p=80}} |
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[[File:Kollontay-Grave 2.jpg|thumb|Grave of Kollontai at the [[Novodevichy Cemetery]] in Moscow.]] |
[[File:Kollontay-Grave 2.jpg|thumb|Grave of Kollontai at the [[Novodevichy Cemetery]] in Moscow.]] |
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Alexandra Kollontai died in Moscow on |
Alexandra Kollontai died in Moscow on 9 March 1952, less than a month away from her 80th birthday. |
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Kollontai was the subject of the 1994 TV film, ''A Wave of Passion: The Life of Alexandra Kollontai,'' with [[Glenda Jackson]] as the voice of Kollontai. A female [[Soviet Union|Soviet]] diplomat in the 1930s with unconventional views on sexuality, probably inspired by Kollontai, was played by [[Greta Garbo]] in the movie ''[[Ninotchka]]'' (1939). |
Kollontai was the subject of the 1994 TV film, ''A Wave of Passion: The Life of Alexandra Kollontai,'' with [[Glenda Jackson]] as the voice of Kollontai. A female [[Soviet Union|Soviet]] diplomat in the 1930s with unconventional views on sexuality, probably inspired by Kollontai, was played by [[Greta Garbo]] in the movie ''[[Ninotchka]]'' (1939). |
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{{efn |
{{efn |
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| name = Aztec Eagle |
| name = Aztec Eagle |
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| Kollontai was awarded the Order of the Aztec Eagle on the basis of her friendship with Mexican Presidents [[Lázaro Cárdenas]] del Río (May |
| Kollontai was awarded the Order of the Aztec Eagle on the basis of her friendship with Mexican Presidents [[Lázaro Cárdenas]] del Río (21 May 1895 – 19 October 1970), who served between 1934 and 1940, and [[Manuel Ávila Camacho]] (24 April 1897 – 13 October 1955), who served between 1940 and 1946. |
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== Footnotes == |
== Footnotes == |
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{{reflist |
{{reflist |
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<ref name="Hoskisson"> |
<ref name="Hoskisson"> |
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Hoskisson, Mark [http://www.permanentrevolution.net/entry/3111] |
Hoskisson, Mark [http://www.permanentrevolution.net/entry/3111 THE RED JACOBINS: Thermidor and the Russian Revolution in 1921]. permanentrevolution.net |
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</ref> |
</ref> |
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<ref name="Erofeev"> |
<ref name="Erofeev"> |
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V. |
Erofeev, V. (2011) Diplomat, Moskva. |
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</ref> |
</ref> |
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<ref name="Kollontai, Kommunistka"> |
<ref name="Kollontai, Kommunistka"> |
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A. |
Kollontai, A. (1920) [http://www.marxists.org/archive/kollonta/1920/communism-family.htm "Communism and the Family,"] text ''Kommunistka''. |
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</ref> |
</ref> |
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<ref name="Yerofeev"> |
<ref name="Yerofeev"> |
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V. |
Yerofeev, V. (2004) Diplomat, Moskow. |
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</ref> |
</ref> |
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<ref name="nobelprize"> |
<ref name="nobelprize"> |
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[http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/articles/njolstad/index.html The Nobel Peace Prize: Revelations from the Soviet Past]. Nobelprize.org. Retrieved on |
[http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/articles/njolstad/index.html The Nobel Peace Prize: Revelations from the Soviet Past]. Nobelprize.org. Retrieved on 16 June 2011. |
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</ref> |
</ref> |
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<ref name="vor"> |
<ref name="vor"> |
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[http://www.vor.ru/Spanish/26/26_03.html The Voice Of Russia] |
[http://web.archive.org/web/20080503062817/http://www.vor.ru/Spanish/26/26_03.html The Voice Of Russia]. vor.ru (Spanish) |
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</ref> |
</ref> |
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| DATE OF BIRTH = 1872 |
| DATE OF BIRTH = 1872 |
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| PLACE OF BIRTH = |
| PLACE OF BIRTH = |
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| DATE OF DEATH = |
| DATE OF DEATH = 9 March 1952 |
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| PLACE OF DEATH = |
| PLACE OF DEATH = |
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}} |
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Revision as of 03:02, 3 April 2015
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/23/Alexandra_Kollontai.jpg/220px-Alexandra_Kollontai.jpg)
Alexandra Mikhailovna Kollontai (
Biography
Early life
Alexandra Mikhailovna Domontovich was born on March 31 [
Alexandra Mikhailovna – or "Shura" as she was called growing up – was close to her father, with whom she shared an analytical bent and an interest in history and politics.[3] Her relationship with her mother, for whom she was named, was more complex. She later recalled:
"My mother and the English nanny who reared me were demanding. There was order in everything: to tidy up toys myself, to lay my underwear on a little chair at night, to wash neatly, to study my lessons on time, to treat the servants with respect. Mama demanded this."[4]
Alexandra was a good student growing up, sharing her father's interest in history, and mastering a range of languages. She spoke French with her mother and sisters, English with her nanny, Finnish with the peasants at a family estate inherited from her mother's father in
In 1890 or 1891, Alexandra, aged around 19, met her future husband Vladimir Ludvigovich Kollontai, an engineering student of modest means enrolled at a military institute.[7] Alexandra's mother objected bitterly to the potential union since the young man was so poor, to which her daughter replied that she would work as a teacher to help make ends meet. Her mother bitterly scoffed at the notion:
"You work! You, who can't even make up your own bed to look neat and tidy! You, who never picked up a needle! You, who go marching through the house like a princess and never help the servants with their work! You, who are just like your father, going around dreaming and leaving your books on every chair and table in the house!"[8]
Her parents forbade the relationship and sent Alexandra on a tour of
Revolutionary activities
While Kollontai was initially drawn to the populist ideas of a restructuring of society based upon the
Years later, she wrote about her marriage, "We separated although we were in love because I felt trapped. I was detached, (from Vladimir), because of the revolutionary upsettings rooted in Russia". In 1898 she left little Mikhail with her parents to study economics in Zürich, Switzerland, with Prof. Heinrich Herkner. She then paid a visit to England, where she met members of the British Labour Party. She returned to Russia in 1899, at which time she met Vladimir Ilych Ulyanov, a.k.a. Vladimir Lenin.
Alexandra Mikhailovna became interested by Marxist ideas while studying the history of working movements in Zürich, under Herkner, later described by her as a Marxist Revisionist.
She became a member of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, aged 27, in 1899. She was a witness of the popular rising in 1905 known as Bloody Sunday, at Saint Petersburg in front of the Winter Palace.
She went into exile, to Germany, in 1908[13] after publishing "Finland and Socialism", which called on the Finnish people to rise up against oppression within the Russian Empire. She visited England, France, and Germany, and became acquainted with Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht.
With the onset of World War I Kollontai left Germany due to the German social democrats’ support of the war. Kollontai was strongly opposed to the war and very outspoken against it. After leaving Germany Kollontai traveled to Denmark, only to discover that the Danish social democrats also supported the war. The next place Kollontai tried to speak and write against the war was Sweden. In Sweden the government imprisoned her for her activities. After her release Kollontai traveled to Norway, where she at last found a socialist community that was receptive to her ideas. Kollontai stayed primarily in Norway until 1917, only traveling internationally to speak about war and politics.[14] In 1917 Kollontai left Norway to return to Russia upon receiving news of Tsar's abdication and the onset of the Russian Revolution.[15]
Political career
At the time of the split in the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party into the
After the Bolshevik revolution in October 1917 Kollontai's political career began. She became
In the government, Kollontai increasingly became an internal critic of the
Kollontai lacked political influence and was appointed by the Party to various diplomatic positions from the early 1920s, keeping her from playing a leading role in the politics of women's policy in the USSR. In 1923, she was appointed Soviet Ambassador to Norway, becoming the world's second female ambassador in modern times, after Armenia Ambassador to Japan Diana Abgar.[d] She later served as Ambassador to Mexico (1926–27) and Sweden (1930–1945). When she was in Stockholm, the Winter War between Russia and Finland broke out; it has been said that it was largely due to her influence that Sweden remained neutral.[21] After the war, she received Vyacheslav Molotov's praises. During World War II, there were some Nazi discussions that her embassy in Stockholm could have potentially been a channel for German-Soviet negotiations, although they never came to pass. She was also a member of the Soviet delegation to the League of Nations.
Social ideas
Kollontai raised eyebrows with her unflinching advocacy of free love. However, this does not mean that she advocated casual sexual encounters; indeed, she believed that due to the inequality between men and women that persisted under socialism, such encounters would lead to women being exploited, and being left to raise children alone. Instead she believed that true socialism could not be achieved without a radical change in attitudes to sexuality, so that it might be freed from the oppressive norms that she saw as a continuation of bourgeois ideas about property. A common myth [citation needed] quotes her as saying that "...the satisfaction of one's sexual desires should be as simple as getting a glass of water"; what she actually said, in number 18 of her Theses on Communist Morality in the Sphere of Marital Relations, was that "...sexuality is a human instinct as natural as hunger or thirst."
Kollontai's views on the role of marriage and the family under Communism were arguably more influential on today's society than her advocacy of "free love." [citation needed] Kollontai believed that, like the state, the family unit would wither away once the second stage of communism became a reality. She viewed marriage and traditional families as legacies of the oppressive, property-rights-based, egoist past. Under Communism, both men and women would work for, and be supported by, society, not their families. Similarly, their children would be wards of, and reared basically by society.
Kollontai admonished men and women to discard their nostalgia for traditional family life. "The worker-mother must learn not to differentiate between yours and mine; she must remember that there are only our children, the children of Russia’s communist workers." However, she also praised maternal attachment: "Communist society will take upon itself all the duties involved in the education of the child, but the joys of parenthood will not be taken away from those who are capable of appreciating them."[22]
Death and legacy
Alexandra Kollontai died in Moscow on 9 March 1952, less than a month away from her 80th birthday.
Kollontai was the subject of the 1994 TV film, A Wave of Passion: The Life of Alexandra Kollontai, with Glenda Jackson as the voice of Kollontai. A female Soviet diplomat in the 1930s with unconventional views on sexuality, probably inspired by Kollontai, was played by Greta Garbo in the movie Ninotchka (1939).
The resurgence of radicalism in the 1960s and the growth of the feminist movement in the 1970s spurred a new interest in the life and writings of Alexandra Kollontai in Britain and America. A spate of books and pamphlets were subsequently published by and about Kollontai, including full-length biographies by historians Cathy Porter and Barbara Evans Clements.
Anecdotes
While she was ambassador to Sweden, a
Soon after the revolution, while she was a minister in the new revolutionary government, she disappeared for ten days to reunite with
Awards
- Order of Lenin (1933)[24]
- Order of the Red Banner of Labour (1945)[24]
- Knights Grand Cross of the Royal Norwegian Order of St. Olav (Norwegian highest award at the time)[25]
- Order of the Aztec Eagle (1944)[24][26][e]
Works
- "The Attitude of the Russian Socialists," The New Review, March 1916, pp. 60–61.
- Red Love. [novel] New York: Seven Arts, 1927.
- Free Love. London: J.M. Dent and Sons, 1932.
- Communism and the Family. Sydney: D. B. Young, n.d. [1970].
- The Autobiography of a Sexually Emancipated Communist Woman. n.c. [New York]: Herder and Herder, n.d. [1971].
- Sexual Relations and the Class Struggle: Love and the New Morality. Bristol: Falling Wall Press, 1972.
- Women Workers Struggle for their Rights. Bristol: Falling Wall Press, 1973.
- The Workers' Opposition. San Pedro, CA: League for Economic Democracy, 1973.
- International Women's Day. Highland Park, MI: International Socialist Publishing Co., 1974.
- Selected Writings of Alexandra Kollontai. Alix Holt, trans. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1977.
- Love of Worker Bees. [novel] Cathy Porter, trans. London: Virago, 1977 [new translation of Red Love plus 2 short stories]
- A Great Love. [novel] Cathy Porter, trans. London: Virago, 1981. Also: New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1982.
- Selected Articles and Speeches. New York: International Publishers, 1984.
- The Essential Alexandra Kollontai. Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2008.
- The Workers Opposition in the Russian Communist Party: The Fight for Workers Democracy in the Soviet Union. St. Petersburg, FL: Red and Black Publishers, 2009.
- A comprehensive bibliography of Russian-language material by Kollontai appears in Clements, pp. 317–331.
See also
Notes
- Tsar Alexander II was assassinated two weeks later by less sophisticated means when he changed his ordinary route through the streets, but Mravinskii was arrested when the dynamite tunnel was discovered, charged with misleading the police. Alexandra's mother persuaded her second husband to use his influence to aid her first, and as a result Mravinskii was saved from harsh Siberian exile, stripped of his rights and exiled to European Russia instead. Clements, p. 9.
- ^ "The library loaned maps, globes, textbooks, and other materials to groups meeting in various parts of the city and sent out illegal populist and Marxist tracts under the cover of the legal activity." Clements, pp. 18.
- ^ Louise Bryant (1885–1936) was a radical journalist and the wife of American journalist and Communist Party founder John Reed (1887–1920).
- Henry VIII of England, served as ambassador of Spain to the court of England for a brief period in 1507 before her marriage at a time when her father, Ferdinand of Aragon, did not have an ambassador available. See Weir, p. 59.
- ^ Kollontai was awarded the Order of the Aztec Eagle on the basis of her friendship with Mexican Presidents Lázaro Cárdenas del Río (21 May 1895 – 19 October 1970), who served between 1934 and 1940, and Manuel Ávila Camacho (24 April 1897 – 13 October 1955), who served between 1940 and 1946.
Footnotes
- ^ Clements, p. 3.
- ^ a b Clements, p. 4.
- ^ Clements, p. 5.
- ^ Kollontai, Aleksandra (1945). "Iz vozpominanii". Oktiabr' (9): 61. Cited in Clements, p. 6.
- ^ Clements, p. 11.
- ^ a b Clements, p. 12.
- ^ Clements, p. 14.
- ^ Kollontai, Aleksandra (1945). Den första etappen. Stockholm: Bonniers. pp. 218–219. Cited in Clements, p. 15.
- ^ Clements, p. 15.
- ^ Clements, p. 16.
- ^ Clements, p. 18.
- ^ Clements, pp. 18–19.
- ^ Clive James, Cultural Amnesia, p. 359.
- ^ Holt, pp. 78–79.
- ^ Holt, p. 105.
- ^ Holt, p. 80.
- ^ Kollontai, Alexandra The Social Basis of the Woman Question 1909.
- ^ Kollontai, Alexandra Women Workers Struggle For Their Rights 1919.
- ^ de Haan et al., p. 255
- ^ Hoskisson, Mark THE RED JACOBINS: Thermidor and the Russian Revolution in 1921. permanentrevolution.net
- ^ Erofeev, V. (2011) Diplomat, Moskva.
- ^ Kollontai, A. (1920) "Communism and the Family," text Kommunistka.
- ^ Yerofeev, V. (2004) Diplomat, Moskow.
- ^ a b c Template:Ru icon Alexandra Kollontai – the Soviet Ambassador.
- ^ The Nobel Peace Prize: Revelations from the Soviet Past. Nobelprize.org. Retrieved on 16 June 2011.
- ^ The Voice Of Russia. vor.ru (Spanish)
Bibliography
- Clements, Barbara Evans (1979). Bolshevik Feminist: The Life of Aleksandra Kollontai. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. ISBN 978-0-253-31209-9.
- de Haan, Francisca; Daskalova, Krasimira; Loutfi, Anna (2006). A Biographical Dictionary of Women's Movements and Feminisms: Central, Eastern and South Eastern Europe, 19th and 20th Centuries. ISBN 978-963-7326-39-4.
- Holt, Alix (trans.), ed. (1980) [1977]. Alexandra Kollontai Selected Writings. USA: Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0-393-00974-3.
- Weir, Alison (1991). The Six Wives of Henry VIII.
Further reading
- Bobroff, Anne. "Alexandra Kollontai: Feminism, Workers' Democracy, and Internationalism," Radical America, vol. 13, no. 6 (Nov.-Dec. 1979), pp. 50–75.
- Farnsworth, Beatrice. Aleksandra Kollontai: Socialism, Feminism and the Bolshevik Revolution. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 1980.
- Lilie, Stuart A. and John Riser. Four Socialist Reformers of Socialism: Alexandra Kollontai, Andrei Platonov, Robert Havemenn, and Stefan Heym. Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press, 2009.
- Porter, Cathy. Alexandra Kollontai: A Biography. New York: Doubleday, 1980.
External links
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/4/4a/Commons-logo.svg/30px-Commons-logo.svg.png)
- Alexandra Kollontai Internet Archive at Marxists Internet Archive.
- Christine Thomas, "For socialism and women's liberation," (Archived 2009-10-25) Socialism Today, March 2003.
- Helen Ward, "Alexandra Kollontai," PermanentRevolution.net
- Gabrille Tousignant, "St-Petersbourg workers of the textile industry," Kollontai.net