Alexandra Kollontai: Collected Works

Compiled from downloaded HTML pages from the Alexandra Kollontai archive at Marxists Internet Archive.

Contents

1907 — International Socialist Conferences of Women Workers

1908 — Introduction to “The Social Basis of the Women’s Question”

1909 — The Social Basis of the Women’s Question

1911 — Love and the New Morality

1912 — The International Proletariat and War

1913 — Women’s Day

1914 — The War and Our Immediate Tasks

1914 — A Giant Mind, a Giant Will

1915 — Who Needs the War?

1915 — Why was the German proletariat silent in the July Days?

1915 — The Third International

1915 — Preface to the Book Society and Motherhood

1916 — The Statue of Liberty

1916 — Do Internationalists Want a Split?

1916 — Working Woman and Mother

1917 — Our Memorial to the Fighters for Freedom

1917 — Our Tasks

1917 — Lenin at Smolny

1917 — Why the Bolsheviks Must Win

1918 — The First Steps Towards the Protection of Motherhood

1918 — V.I. Lenin and the First Congress of Women Workers

1918 — Decree on Child Welfare

1918 — New Woman

1919 — Women Workers Struggle For Their Rights

1919 — What Are We Fighting For?

1919 — History of the movement of Women workers in Russia

1920 — International Women’s Day

1920 — Communism and the Family

1920 — An Interesting Letter from Russia

1921 — The Labour of Women in the Evolution of the Economy

1921 — Prostitution and ways of fighting it

1921 — Letter to Dora Montefiore

1921 — Workers’ Opposition

1921 — Alternative unabridged version

1921 — The Woman Worker and Peasant in Soviet Russia

1921 — Theses on Communist Morality in the Sphere of Marital Relations

1921 — Sexual Relations and the Class Struggle

1921 — The Activity of the International Secretariat of Communist Women

1922 — Soon (In 48 years’ time)

1923 — Make way for Winged Eros: A Letter to Working Youth

1926 — Autobiography of a Sexually Emancipated Communist Woman

1927 — Red Love

1927 — Women fighters in the days of the Great October Revolution

1927 — What has the October Revolution done for Women in the West?

1929 — Great Love

1946 — The Soviet Woman – a Full and Equal Citizen of Her Country

1946 — Lenin Thought of Both Great and Small

International Socialist Conferences of Women Workers (1907)

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A new danger is threatening the domination of the bourgeoisie – women workers are resolutely adopting the path of international class organisation. The downtrodden, submissive slaves humbly bowing before the omnipotence of the modern Moloch of capital are, under the reviving influence of socialist doctrine, lifting their heads and raising their voices in defence of their interests as women and their common class interests.

While the 'poison of socialist doctrine' had infected only one half of the working class, while opposition was concentrated exclusively in the male section of the proletariat, the capitalists could breathe freely; they still had in their power an inexhaustible supply of compliant workers always ready obediently and selflessly to enrich by their labour the happy owners of the instruments of production. With unconscious calculation the bourgeoisie availed itself of the advantage offered by this state of affairs: it set one half of the proletariat against the other, shattered its unity, compelled the women to appear as the menacing rivals of their menfolk, sapping the class solidarity of the workers. With malicious smugness it countered the resistance of united proletarians with the indifference of the unconscious female elements, and the more ignorant and dispersed the women remained, the more unsuccessful was the struggle waged by the organised elements of the working class.

However, the class consciousness of the women workers, once aroused, was sufficient to compel them to grasp the hand of friendship held out to them by their male worker comrades and adopt the path of open and stubborn resistance. The involvement of proletarian women in the common class struggle, and their growing solidarity have shaken the usual self-confidence of the bourgeoisie and spread alarm in place of its previous tranquillity: the increasing organisation of the female proletariat removes the last defenceless victim of capitalist exploitation. The ground is disappearing from beneath the feet of the bourgeoisie, and the light of the approaching social revolution glows ever more brightly.

Is it therefore surprising that the bourgeoisie is doubly hostile to any sign of protest among women workers, and to any attempt on their part to defend their needs and interests as women and their common class interests and needs? Even in the most democratic and advanced countries everything possible is done to make it difficult for women to defend their labour interests. To grant the woman worker the same rights as the man would be to put in the hands of the working class a new and dangerous weapon, to double the active army of the militant opponent; the bourgeoisie is too intelligent to agree to such a dangerous experiment

The whole bourgeois world listened with unconcealed animosity to the solemn and harmonious notes that rang out from Stuttgart in 1907, during the International Socialist Congress. [1] But most of all it was angered by the bold voices of the female proletariat. However radical were the speeches pronounced by the men, whatever 'mad' resolutions they might adopt, the bourgeoisie always consoled itself with the thought that it still had one tested method at its disposal: break the resistance of the 'hotheads' by replacing them with submissive female workers. And now a new surprise: from all over the world women representatives of the working class are gathering in order to forge by their united efforts a new weapon with which to fight the world hostile to the proletariat. [2] The daring of women has exceeded all expectations: yesterday's silent slave is now a courageous fighter for the liberation of the working class. Could one imagine a more vexatious spectacle! Spiteful ridicule rained down upon the heads of the women representatives of the working class, ridicule that failed to conceal the genuine anxiety of the bourgeoisie.

The gentlemen of capital and property do now indeed have something to ponder over, something to be depressed about: new successes are being achieved in the organisation of the working class. And if, until only recently, the bourgeoisie could draw comfort from the lack of unity in the female section of the proletariat, now, after the Stuttgart Conference, it has lost even this sweet solace.

On the basis of facts and figures these women representatives described the growing awareness of the female proletariat and its organisational successes, particularly in recent years. England has the largest number of organised women workers: 150 thousand are members of trade unions; 30 thousand are politically organised in 'independent workers' parties and women workers are also members of the Social-Democratic Federation. [3] In Austria trade union organisations include 42 thousand women among their members. In Germany the number of women who are trade union members is also impressive – 120 thousand; despite all the police harassment, 10,500 women workers have joined the Social-Democratic Party, and the distribution figure for the women workers magazine Die Gleichheit (Equality) [4] is 70 thousand copies. In Finland the Social-Democratic movement has 18,600 women. In Belgium 14 thousand women workers are trade union members. In Hungary 15 thousand women workers are in trade union organisations, etc.

The growing organisation of women workers and the specific social objectives which it is mainly their task to carry through led to an awareness of the need for greater solidarity and closer contact among the organised women workers of the world.

The first women's international conference in Stuttgart set itself two objectives: 1) to elaborate the basis for more uniform activity on the part of the socialist movement (in various countries) in the struggle to win voting rights for women workers; 2) to establish permanent and correct relations between women's organisations throughout the world.

The main question discussed at the conference was, without any doubt, the question of voting rights for women workers. Put forward for discussion by the conference and introduced into the Social-Democratic congress as a special resolution, this question is designed to meet the growing need within the female proletariat to define the future tactics of international Social-Democracy in the struggle for political rights for women workers, and to transfer this principle from the sphere of theoretical recognition to that of practical activity. With the growth of its class consciousness and organisation, the female proletariat was brought by its basic material needs to an acute awareness of its lack of political rights, and learned to see in those rights not only a 'policy principle' but also an urgent and immediate need.

Over recent years, the working class, in one country after the other, has faced the question of achieving universal suffrage. It might have seemed that the four-part election formula advanced by the Social-Democrats and supplemented with a fifth section specifying 'without distinction of sex', would have left no room for doubts and hesitations regarding the way the party would act in such circumstances. However, it turned out, otherwise. When it came to the defence of the fifth section, not only male Social-Democrats, but even the women revealed their fundamental instability, their vacillation, and by their compromising attitude to this issue, so important to the working class, demonstrated that this fundamental principle has not yet become an integral part of Social-Democracy.

One after the other women from Belgium, Austria, Sweden, accepted the removal from the agenda of the demand for political rights for women workers and gave their support to an emasculated, abbreviated compromise formula for electoral reform. However, most characteristic of all was the fact that this opportunist policy was not condemned by consistent and steadfast supporters of socialism but, on the contrary, won their sympathy and approval and was even presented to proletarian women in other countries as a model. The working women themselves cannot be blamed for this compromise tactic – it is typical of less aware and less disciplined party elements but the other, the male section of the proletariat, whose spirit and consciousness has been tempered in battle, should not have allowed itself to be drawn along the path of practical opportunism.

There are democratic principles which, for the sake of its own interests, the working class must not sacrifice: there are slogans which the proletariat cannot change without damaging itself, even though the change is made in order to achieve the maximum results at any given moment.

If, in some politically backward country, the working class had had the opportunity to attain universal, equal, secret but indirect rather than direct voting rights, the position of the Social-Democrats in such a situation would have been obvious: despite the risk of stalling a reform that was otherwise certain to be adopted, the workers party would fight to the last moment for the full formula... Perhaps the indirect electoral system would be adopted despite the opposition of the Social-Democrats, and no doubt they would have to reconcile themselves to this fact, but their attitude to it would be perfectly clear: they could view it only as a defeat.

The situation is different as regards the issue of voting rights for women workers. The demand 'without distinction of sex' has not yet become an integral part of the practice of proletarian struggle: awareness of the importance of full and equal political rights for women workers in the name of the interests of the whole class has not yet had time to take firm root. It must not be forgotten that women began to work outside the home only comparatively recently, and have only recently begun to play a role in the proletarian movement. The ideological survivals of the bourgeois-capitalist world affect the purity and clarity of proletarian class consciousness in regard to women, and blur the distinct outlines of a principle that would appear to be indisputable in the eyes of the proletariat, namely the principle of equality of civil rights for all the members of the world proletarian family.

The vacillating tactic of the party in the struggle for women's voting rights obliged the Social-Democrats to devote particular attention to this issue at the congress. The adoption of a resolution which would clearly and precisely express the willingness of the working class to fight for voting rights for women workers with the same unswerving determination with which Social-Democracy pursues all its principles – this was the slogan of the women's socialist conference, a slogan dictated by the interests of women workers. Such a resolution appeared all the more desirable in that it was fully in accord with the spirit of Social-Democracy...

The resolution on voting rights for women put forward at the women's conference and then introduced at the socialist congress was advanced with a view to demanding the clear and precise recognition of the fifth section of the election formula ('without distinction of sex') as being of equal importance with the other four.

However, the resolution met with opposition. Two trends appeared within the women's socialist movement: one orthodox, the other opportunist in the spirit of unconscious feminism. The first trend was represented by the women Social-Democrats from Germany, the second by those from Austria and some from England.

The resolution put forward by the German delegates had two objectives: in demanding that the socialist parties recognise the full extent of the importance of a practical struggle to secure the political equality of women, the resolution was also intended to draw a distinct line between bourgeois feminism and the women's proletarian movement. This struck the English socialists at their most vulnerable point. It is a well-known fact that many of them work hand-in-glove with bourgeois champions of women's rights, and in the heat of a sometimes selfless struggle in defence of women's interests, they lose sight of class distinctions.

The struggle to achieve political equality for proletarian women is part and parcel of the overall class struggle of the proletariat; when it becomes an independent militant aim in itself it eclipses the class objectives of women workers. The inventive bourgeoisie, who love to hide their real desires behind a screen of splendid-sounding slogans, put the world of women and its objectives in opposition to the class cause of women workers. However, as soon as the women's cause is put above the proletarian cause, as soon as women workers allow themselves to be seduced by fine-sounding phrases about the community of women's interests regardless of class divisions, they lose their living link with their own class cause and thus betray their own particular interests.

Bourgeois women, according to their own assertion, are generously demanding rights for 'all women', whereas women workers are only fighting for their class interests. However, in practice the situation is precisely the reverse: in winning political rights for themselves, women workers are also opening up the way to the voting booth for women of other classes. In resolutely and consistently defending the interests of the women of its own class, Social-Democracy is putting into practice the principles of the fullest form of democracy and promoting the success of the women's cause as a whole.

Bourgeois hypocrisy also affected the English supporters of women's political equality. English women workers are prepared to support limited, qualified electoral rights for women – an unforgivable and despicable betrayal of the proletarian cause. The representatives of the Independent Labour Party and the Fabian Society [5] did not hesitate to defend this clearly treacherous position before the whole socialist world, and only the Social-Democratic Federation, together with the proletariat of other countries, condemned such a solution to the problem and demanded electoral rights for all citizens who had reached majority, regardless of sex.

This disagreement yet again clearly demonstrated the importance for the socialists of working out a clearly defined tactical position on the question of achieving political equality for women workers. However, such a clearly defined formulation of the question was precisely what the English wanted least... Together with the Austrian delegates they demanded that each party be given the right to settle this question independently in accord with the circumstances then obtaining; they declared a single model of action compulsory for each country to be completely unnecessary. The resolution put forward by the German Social-Democrats obliged the English to do some painful thinking. It faced them with a question: are they defending the interests of their class as a whole in its difficult struggle to survive, passing through great trials today in the expectation of equally great triumphs in the future, or are they merely fighting for new privileges for those women who neither sow nor reap, but who gather into the barns?

The Austrian delegates represented the opposite extreme. Furious opponents of feminism, they were not, of course, prepared to work together with bourgeois feminists in the defence of rights for 'all women'. However, despite their sworn hostility towards feminism and its tactic of adaptation, Austrian women socialists fell into the same error as the English. In defending at the conference the position they had adopted during the recent struggle in Austria to achieve universal suffrage, they attempted to show that, in certain political conditions, it is permissible to put aside the interests of one section of the proletariat - in this case women workers - in order to achieve practical advantages for another section. Instead of a categorical demand that the principle of political equality for proletarian women be recognised on the same footing with all other democratic demands by the proletariat, the Austrians introduced into the resolution by means of an amendment a poorly-defined wish that the moment and the very method of struggle for electoral rights for women be determined by each country at its own discretion...

Every time the question of party tactics becomes a matter of urgency for Social-Democracy, it has to return to the tested method of solving this question: it must once more carefully and precisely determine to what extent a given demand, a given principle is essential in order to achieve the ultimate objective of the working class. If this principle is indeed of considerable importance for the ultimate objective being pursued by the workers, then there cannot be, must not be, any room for compromise in policy even if such a compromise promises to bring immediate benefit. Indeed, what would become of the class objectives of the proletariat if Social-Democracy put away its basic policy principles every time it hoped it might thereby acquire some 'practical advantage'? And what would then distinguish its policy principles from hypocritical bourgeois diplomacy?

The principle of political equality for women is beyond dispute. Social-Democracy long ago proclaimed in theory the importance of extending voting rights to women workers. However, the tactic of 'concessions', the tactic of 'step by step' is now seeking another solution to this problem also. In place of the usual principled determination and steadfastness of Social-Democracy, it proposes 'compliance' and 'moderation'. Fortunately the proletariat is only too well aware that its 'modesty' has never reaped any reward. The tractability and compliance of the proletariat are, in the eyes of its enemy, proof positive of its 'impotence', and the more moderate, the more 'reasonable' are its demands, the more miserly are the concessions granted to it.

The victory of one of the two warring sides is decided not by the compliance of one of them, but by the 'actual balance of forces'. The proletariat presses its demands waging a resolute and consistent struggle to achieve them, but it can only achieve that which corresponds to its actual influence and importance at any given moment. The more resolute is Social-Democracy's adherence to its basic principles, the further removed its tactic from concessions decided upon beforehand, the more closely will the results of its struggle correspond to the actual balance of power and forces between the warring sides.

All of the above constitutes a 'well-worn truth', but a truth that has to be repeated every time a proposed compromise tactic postpones a new victory by the proletariat and threatens to damage one of the basic tenets of Social-Democracy. If the amendment introduced by the Austrian delegates were accepted, such damage would be unavoidable. With their precautionary 'compliance' the Austrian delegates would not only postpone the extension of voting rights to proletarian women but also, and more importantly, violate one of the basic principles of socialism: preserving the unity of the working class as the major guarantee of success in the proletarian struggle.

'Naturally,' said Clara Zetkin, addressing the commission on women's voting rights at the congress, 'we are not so politically uneducated as to demand that the socialist parties of every country, in every struggle for electoral reform and in all circumstances, make the demand for voting rights for women the cornerstone, the deciding factor in their struggle. That will depend on the level of historical development in individual countries. We are criticising the tactic of 'abandoning in advance, without a struggle, the demand for voting rights for women...' [6]

This precise and consistent class policy was also defended by German Social-Democrats: Luise Zietz, Emma Ihrer, Ottilie Baader, Hilja Pärssinen, woman deputy to the Finnish Seim, Csozi from Hungary, representatives from Russia, Shaw from England and others. Those who supported this view demanded that the international congress confirm the proposition that the struggle for voting rights for women workers is not separate from the class struggle, and that any concession in this area, any deviation from principle, is a compromise that damages the whole cause of the working class.

The defenders of the opportunist tactic came mainly from among the Austrian delegates, and they received a measure of support from Viktor Adler. Lily Braun was also on their side. However, this trend did not meet support at the conference. All the arguments advanced by the Austrians to the effect that the 'obstinacy' of the Social-Democrats only served to make political gains by the proletariat more difficult to achieve, all the arguments of the representatives of Catholic countries – Belgium and France – that the influence of clericalism would allegedly increase with the involvement of women in politics and would lead to a regrouping of parliamentary representation to the disadvantage of the working class, paled before the indisputable fact that the most impoverished, exploited section of the proletariat women workers are still deprived of the possibility of opposing the violation of their rights. It is to these pariahs of contemporary society, these pale, worn slaves of capitalism, that their comrades in misery, their comrades in the struggle for a brighter future, preach resignation, patience and self-denial - the cliched, pharisaical virtues of the bourgeoisie!...

The mood of the conference was not favourable to such trends. In contrast to the usual 'respectful obedience' of women, the conference was marked by a lively, bracing atmosphere quite distinct from the somewhat dry, businesslike air of the socialist congress itself. The massive organisational structure of the congress, the presence of almost 900 delegates and the need to observe a whole series of formalities cooled the enthusiasm of the representatives of the socialist world, and only now and again was this enthusiasm able to break through to the surface and affect all those taking part. Here at the congress the most experienced 'masters of the spoken word', skilled in all the finer points of parliamentary battle, crossed verbal swords, but perhaps for this very reason many of them sounded excessively 'cautious'...

At the women's conference, on the other hand, the living pulse of bold faith and confidence beat without ceasing and one could sense that courageous rejection of and revulsion towards compromise decisions which are characteristic of organisations that are still young and have not yet become set in fixed forms. The majority of the representatives of proletarian women could not but realise what tragic consequences would follow upon the adoption of the Austrian amendment...

By a majority of 47 votes to 11, the women's socialist conference adopted the resolution put forward by the German delegation and placed it before the socialist congress.

The living spirit of proletarian self-consciousness compelled the representatives of the workers to support this resolution and confirm the principle of the common interests of both sexes, their solidarity in the struggle for political rights for the whole of the working class. This is without doubt a major event in the' history of the workers' movement, demonstrating yet again to the bourgeois world that, despite repeated assertions about the 'death of Marxism', the true spirit of scientific socialism is still alive and is continually inspiring the many millions who make up international Social-Democracy.

The question of the formation of an international women's socialist secretariat was second on the conference agenda. The German Social-Democrats introduced a proposal to establish closer contacts among representatives of the working class from different countries and to set up for this purpose a secretariat which would gather information on the women's proletarian movement everywhere. Although this question was purely organisational, it provoked a lively exchange of opinions, and once more revealed two heterogeneous trends within the women's section of Social-Democracy.

The proposal to form an independent women's international secretariat was put forward by the German delegates, and the Austrian delegates once again introduced an amendment. Having declared themselves opposed to separating proletarian women in any way whatsoever, they considered it unnecessary to form a separate secretariat to ensure international communication among women workers. In their opinion, comrades abroad could be kept informed on the state of the women's proletarian movement in each country by empowering a member of the party in each country to send reports on the position of women workers' organisations and on successes achieved by the movement to the central socialist organs of the other countries. This amendment vividly illustrates the constant fear on the part of the Austrians of discrediting themselves by a too clearly-marked defence of 'women's interests' which might earn them the label 'feminists'...

The German Social-Democrats, on the contrary, defended the idea that an independent grouping of proletarian women within the party has clear organisational advantages. Such an organisation would make it possible to concentrate the attention of the party on the specific needs and requirements of women workers, and would also make it easier to rally around the party the generally less aware female members of the proletarian class.

The involvement of women workers in the party is necessitated by practical and urgent considerations. Up till now women workers remain the most deprived section of the proletarian family, they are still oppressed everywhere by 'special laws', and even in countries which have broad democratic representation women alone remain without rights.

With every year that passes, involvement in the political life of their country is becoming an increasingly urgent issue for the women of the working class. However, among the broad masses of the male proletariat the urgency of this demand is not as yet sufficiently recognised.

In order to defend this demand, in order to inculcate in their comrades the proper attitude to the question of equal rights for women workers in every sphere and draw them into the struggle to attain in practice equal civil rights for women, women have only one course – to unite their forces around the party. Women workers must set up a women's secretariat, a commission, a bureau within the party, not in order to wage a separate battle for political rights and defend their own interests by themselves but in order to exert pressure on the party from within, in order to compel their comrades to wage their struggle in the interests of the female proletariat as well.

Thus greater party concern about the specific requirements of women workers will increase the popularity of the party among the less class-conscious female population, stimulating the flow of new forces into the army of the fighting proletariat, while the unification of women workers within the party will allow this homogeneous core, motivated by the same requirements, to defend its specific requirements and needs more resolutely within the party too. It was not only police obstacles that led in Germany to special, separate propaganda work among women: this method of work is gradually being adopted in other countries living under freer political regimes.

The need to unite women's forces within the party is, of course, felt with particular force in countries where it is only the women who remain without political rights. In those cases where the question of the struggle for the further democratisation of voting rights is to the fore, the core of class-conscious women workers can only strive to ensure a more steadfast attitude in the party towards the question of achieving voting rights for women also...

The position of proletarian women in contemporary society, and the specific needs which they experience in the field of social relations, create a practical basis for conducting special work among the female proletariat. However, such a grouping of proletarian women within the party (the setting up of commissions, bureaus, sections, etc.) has, of course, nothing in common with feminism. Whereas the feminists are struggling to extend to the women of the bourgeois classes those privileges which were hitherto enjoyed only by the men, women workers are pursuing a solely proletarian, common class objective.

At the women's international conference, the victory went to the left, that is, to that section which suggested the creation of an independent international secretariat. [7] The editorial board of Die Gleichheit (Equality) has been elected as the central organ of the international movement of socialist women until the next international congress. There can be no doubt that both this purely organisational decision and also the congress resolution on tactics, a resolution which determines the attitude of Social-Democracy to the question of votes for women, will have a beneficial effect upon the further development of the Social-Democratic movement among women workers, and will promote the more rapid growth of the organised army of the female proletariat.

Only if they are firmly united amongst themselves and, at the same time, one with their class party in the common class struggle, can women workers cease to appear as a brake on the proletarian movement and march confidently foreward, arm in arm with their male worker comrades to the noble and cherished proletarian aim-towards a new, better and brighter future.

THE SECOND INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S CONFERENCE IN COPENHAGEN, IN 1910

When the First International Conference of Socialist Women was held in Stuttgart in 1907 on the initiative of the German socialists, the women's socialist movement was still in its infancy everywhere except Germany. Its shape was still hazy and unclear, and the conference itself was convened not so much to review what had been already achieved as to give its 'blessing' to the movement and stimulate its further development. Stuttgart was merely a symptom of the awakening of broad masses of working-class women, but a symptom nonetheless significant, promising and pregnant with consequences...

Three years have passed. During this short period of time the women's proletarian movement has succeeded not only in increasing its numbers, but also in becoming social force which cannot be ignored in the process of the class struggle. Particularly rapid has been the success achieved by Germany in the organisation of the female proletariat: according to the data presented at the conference in Stuttgart, that is, in 1907 the Social-Democratic Party had only some 10 thousand women members; by 1910 it already had more than 82 thousand, and the central socialist organ for women workers Die Gleichheit (Equality) had a circulation of 80 thousand.

Similar giant strides have been taken by Austria in the organisation of working-class women: in 1909 the party had only 7 thousand women members; in 1910 it had more than 14 thousand, the trade union movement had around 44 thousand women members and the women's worker newspaper had a circulation of 20 thousand. Finland, though small in population, was also not left behind. Here women (more than 16 thousand) accounted for some 31 per cent of the membership of the workers' party. England can boast of more than 200 thousand women trade union members. Everywhere – in Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Switzerland, Holland, Italy, the United States – the women of the working class are awakening, attempting to create a women's socialist movement and direct it along the path boldly marked out by the energetic efforts of German women socialists.

According to the calculations made by the Swiss delegation, the numerical relationship between the male and female sections of the organised working class in various countries is as follows:

Finland: For every 1 organized woman worker there are 6 organized male workers.
Denmark: For every 1 organized woman worker there are 8 organized male workers.
Austria: For every 1 organized woman worker there are 10 organized male workers.
England: For every 1 organized woman worker there are 11 organized male workers.
Italy: For every 1 organized woman worker there are 12 organized male workers.
Sweden & Norway: For every 1 organized woman worker there are 13 organized male workers.
Germany: For every 1 organized woman worker there are 14 organized male workers.
Switzerland: For every 1 organized woman worker there are 18 organized male workers.

[Statistical Report to the Second International Conference of Socialist Women, 1910, p. 26.]

Of course, if these figures are compared with the number of women workers on the labour market and the growing number of women earning their own living in every country, the scale of female participation in the workers movement appears very modest even insignificant. However, in order to assess the importance of the women's socialist movement accurately, two things must be remembered: firstly, its short history – l5-20 years ago it had never been heard of; secondly, the prospects opening up before it. The question of the further democratisation of the electoral system, which is now posing itself in one form or another in England and the United States, in the federal states of Germany and the Scandinavian countries, must have and will have its inevitable effect upon the further development and success of the women's proletarian movement. The women's proletarian movement has ceased to be merely a luxury and become a daily practical necessity...

The growth of the women's proletarian movement over the last three years was noticeable at the opening of the Copenhagen Conference. [8] In Stuttgart the delegates numbered 52, in Copenhagen they already numbered around 100 and represented 17 countries. This time only the French and the Belgians were absent. Socialist parties and trade unions were represented, together with clubs, societies, and unions of women workers adopting a class position.

The conference agenda included, in addition to the organisational question of establishing closer links between organised socialist women from different countries, two major issues: 1) ways and means of achieving in practice universal suffrage for women and 2) social security and protection for mother and child. Despite these seemingly specifically female topics, the conference in Copenhagen was free of that sickly-sweet 'feminine flavour' which provokes such irrepressible boredom in the practical politician who is used to the 'cut and thrust' of real political battle... The questions discussed at the conference were examined not only from the point of view of the common tasks of proletarian class policy, but were also, and inevitably, supplemented with more general demands. The fate of Finland, a country with an extremely democratic system of popular representation, the question of war, peace and the fight against militarism, the struggle against domestic manufacture and night work, compelled those taking part in the congress to move beyond the narrow framework of feminine issues and, having become more familiar with wide-ranging, urgent issues, to join in the active struggle being waged by the many millions who compose the army of the organised working class.

However, while one cannot object to the position adopted by the conference on the issues it debated, and while, indeed, one can note with satisfaction that the 'women's worker army' is marching side by side with the whole proletarian movement, it must be stated that, in terms of the formal conduct of its conferences, the women representatives of international socialism still have something to learn from their male colleagues. The lack of familiarity with 'parliamentary practice' led to a number of omissions, which gave rise to misunderstanding and dissatisfaction: certain resolutions were not only not put to the vote, but were not even debated: debates were bunched together, questions were removed from the agenda on the decision of a questionable majority, etc. All of these errors could have been avoided with greater experience...

The main topic discussed at the conference was, of course, that of voting rights. The conflict between the left wing of the women's international, led by the German delegation, and the representatives of those English workers' organisations who work together with the suffragettes [9] and thus support the slogan of qualified electoral rights, was inevitable. The English produced as their 'trump card' the venerable and well-known socialist and champion of the women's cause, Charlotte Despard, whose personal attractiveness, noble bearing, grey hair and skilful, impressive speech was intended to win sympathy and soften the severity of the left-wing judgement. A 'furious battle' was expected.

However, although the discussion was lively, the expected 'battle' did not take place: from the very beginning it was clear that the overwhelming majority at the conference supported the 'left', and that the English were fighting for a lost cause... The ease with which victory over the'right' was won is explained in part by the fact that, with the exception of Despard, they did not have one good orator on their side. The English defence lacked spirit and imagination, their arguments in defence of their tactic were naive, almost 'genteel' – the 'harmony' of women's interests, complaints against the 'harshness' of class politics, against social injustice, which also affected the bourgeois woman...

The conference, sharply criticising co-operation between English socialists and the bourgeois suffragettes, adopted a resolution which, however, failed to stress this aspect sufficiently. 'The women's socialist movement in every country rejects qualified electoral rights,' runs the resolution, as a falsification and as an insult to the very principle of political equality for women. The movement is fighting for the only viable and concrete expression of this principle: universal suffrage for all women who have reached their majority, without qualifications of property, tax, education or any other kind which hinder members of the working class from availing themselves of their civil rights. The women's socialist movement wages its struggle not together with the women's bourgeois movement, but in close co-operation with socialist parties, who are defending electoral rights for women as one of the basic and, in practice, one of the most essential demands in the call for the full democratisation of the electoral system. [10] The conciliatory note sounded by the Austrian delegate, Adelheid Popp, in a speech intended to soften the harshness of this judgement found no support, and the resolution was passed by an overwhelming majority, with ten votes against.

On the issue of maternity insurance and protection, no serious differences emerged, and it was only a formal oversight on the part of the presidium that caused conflict with part of the English delegation, which them left the conference hall. The resolution introduced by the German delegation on this issue repeated in essence the basic demands of the Social-Democrats, as developed and supplemented at the women's conference in Mannheim [11] : the demand for an 8-hour working day, the prohibition of the use of female labour in particularly unhealthy branches of production, 16-week leave for expectant and nursing mothers, and the introduction of the principle of compulsory maternity insurance, etc.

Unfortunately this fundamental question that affects directly the interests of every working woman was accorded too little time, and the debates were hurried and abbreviated. Resolutions introducing important addenda to the demands presented by the German delegation were not put forward for debate nor put to the vote, and this despite the fact that the Finnish resolution proposed by Pärssinen, Aalle and Silänpäa and other deputies to the Seim, clearly emphasised a point omitted in the German resolution – the extension of all forms of maternity protection to include both legitimate and illegitimate mothers, and a review of the laws on infanticide, committed mainly by mothers who have been abandoned to their fate...

It should not be thought that all the measures demanded in the resolution automatically covered both legitimate and illegitimate mothers. It is precisely such a fuddled mode of thinking that dominates in the West, sadly even among women socialists, that preference for legalised marital cohabitation, which made it desirable to debate this fundamental point more thoroughly. It was important to emphasise with all the authority of the conference that maternity is to be recognised as a social function independently of the marital and family forms it assumes... The question of principle involved in maternity insurance and protection was, however, submerged in a number of practical details.

Mention must also be made of yet another important omission in the resolution adopted at the conference: it fails to point clearly and precisely to the principle underlying maternal insurance. Is such insurance an independent section of social insurance, or is it merely a subsection of social insurance in case of illness? The formulation of the resolution indicates that those who drew it up viewed maternity insurance as one of the functions to be carried out by hospital bursaries. If this proposition had been more clearly expressed, however, it would undoubtedly have led to an elucidation of certain other propositions which require closer examination. It would have raised the question of the grounds for extending insurance to cover that large section of the female population not gainfully employed (i.e. the wives of workers) that can still be found in many countries. Is it possible, and is it acceptable to extend insurance to them via their husbands? What is then to be done in the case of 'non-legalised' cohabitation?

A 'simplification' of this complex question in order to avoid debates of principle and heated feelings would scarcely be in the interests of the cause. Despite the adoption of the resolution, the question of maternity insurance cannot be considered as fully dealt with, and Social-Democracy will undoubtedly have to return to it.

More impassioned debate was provoked by the Danish proposal on night work. This resolution, introduced on the initiative of women type-setters, pointed out that legislation prohibiting night work for women but permitting it for men hindered the working woman in her struggle to earn her living. It is only with enormous effort that women succeed in gaining access to better-paid jobs and better working conditions (in printing, for example), and the prohibition oil night work for women pushes them back into the ranks of the unskilled workers, exposes them once more to all the temptations of prostitution and the horrors of approaching destitution. Night work must be abolished simultaneously for both men and women, as it is equally harmful to both...

The 'over-simplified' way in which the Danish delegates presented the question of night work meant that their resolution was unable to win support. By a majority of 13 votes to 2 (voting was by country) the resolution was rejected. An individual demand meeting the interests of only one specific profession (night work in a skilled profession is found mainly in the printing industry) could not override a demand corresponding to the interests of the class as a whole. However, the conflict this question provoked indicates the need for a serious approach to the question raised by the Danish and Swedish delegations, namely the simultaneous equalising of the conditions of male and female labour...

The resolution put forward by the chairwoman of the conference, Clara Zetkin, expressing sympathy with Finland, and another resolution put forward by the English, reminding women of their obligation to oppose chauvinism and bring up their children in a spirit of anti-militarism were both adopted without debate and were met with warm applause.[12]

The central women's international bureau remained as before in Stuttgart, and Die Gleichheit (Equality) was again recognised as the organ of the international socialist movement.

Whatever may have been the superficial failings, of the second international socialist conference, its work will undoubtedly have a major and beneficial influence upon the further success of the workers' movement. There is every reason to hope that the women's socialist movement, which is an integral part of the whole workers movement, will assume larger and even more impressive dimensions before the next, the third conference. It will also clearly and irrefutably demonstrate that only special propaganda work among the female proletariat, work organised within the party on the basis of technical independence, can supplement the ranks of the organised workers with a 'second army', the army of women workers fighting for the common workers' cause and for the comprehensive emancipation of women.

SUMMARY

What is the women's socialist movement, and what are its objectives and aims? What are the forms that it is taking? Is it not simply a branch of bourgeois feminism, its 'left wing'? And if not, how is the existence of separate women's newspapers and magazines, the convocation of meetings, congresses and conferences to be explained? Why is the movement not absorbed into the powerful current of the whole workers' movement?

These questions, which inevitably arise in connection with the women s international socialist conference in Copenhagen in August 1910, frequently cause bewilderment even among socialists, who are, unfortunately, insufficiently familiar with the history of the women's working-class movement in the West.

The history of this movement, however, is instructive and to a certain extent provides the answer to such questions.

Today there is hardly a socialist who would openly dispute the importance of the organisation of women workers and the desirability of creating a broad women's socialist movement. Socialists now take pride in the size of the 'women's army' and, when estimating the chances of success in the process of class struggle, take into account this new and rapidly increasing active force. However, there was a time, and not all that long ago - about 25 years - when such a thing as a women's socialist movement had never been heard of in any country, even if it had hundreds of thousands, millions, of women workers.

When, 14 years ago, during the international congress held in London in 1896, 30 women delegates (from England. Germany, America, Holland, Belgium and Poland) arranged for their own separate women's conference, only a couple of countries (Germany, England) were making their first attempts to set up a women's socialist movement. The workers' organisations in every country did, it is true, include individual women in their ranks, but, on entering the ranks of the party and taking part in the trade union struggle, the majority of these women as it was renounced in advance their work on behalf of the most deprived and legally unprotected section of the working class – women workers. Virtually nothing was being done by the party to raise the class consciousness of working women, for the emancipation of women as housewives and mothers.

This was the situation in Germany until the beginning of the 1890s, in England and other countries until the beginning of the 20th century, and in Russia up to the revolutionary upheavals of 1905. In those countries where organisations of working women assumed primarily a professional form (for example, England and America), work was conducted in the main together with the bourgeois feminists and under their direct leadership; there was no question of a class struggle.

The first unofficial conference of women socialist delegates held in London in 1896 concerned itself mainly with an examination of the relationship between bourgeois feminism and the women's proletarian movement. It was recognised as desirable to distinguish between the women's bourgeois movement and the women's socialist movement, and emphasis was placed upon the urgent need to intensify socialist propaganda work among working women in order to involve them in the class struggle.

Eleven years have passed since then. Capitalism has continued its successful progress, developing itself to the full and subordinating to itself not only new branches of production, but also new countries. Female labour has become a major social force within the national economy. However it was precisely women workers, outside any organisation, not linked to their class comrades by any obligations, dispersed and isolated from one another, who were in effect dangerous and damaging rivals of the male section of the working class, often undermining the successes the latter had achieved by active demonstrations.

The question of organising women workers and of the ways and means of involving them in the general movement became an urgent and immediate issue. Feeling their way, adapting to the conditions in their country, the worker organisations in different countries attempted, each using its own methods, to solve this problem. The result was a variegated and motley scene. The forms taken by the women's proletarian movement varied according to local conditions. However, the most important thing was that the movement of the women of the working class had been called into being – it existed.

By 1907 the movement had assumed such a scale that it was possible to convene the first international women's conference in Stuttgart. When the representatives from the various countries revealed what they had achieved in their own countries, the results, if not impressive of themselves, held promise in terms of the possibilities opened up for the future. There now emerged the question of the formation of an international women's bureau to co-ordinate the women's socialist organisations in different countries. The bureau was set up in Stuttgart, and the magazine Die Gleichheit (Equality) was recognised as the central organ of the international movement.

The conference held in Stuttgart was of decisive importance for the socialist movement. It secured for the movement that independence which it needed for the future success of its work. It became clear that the women's proletarian movement was an integral part of the whole movement of the working class. Nonetheless, the specific social and political position of women in contemporary society requires that a particular approach be adopted towards women, and puts before the party a number of special objectives. These objectives, while they form part of the whole working-class movement, while they form part of the common aim, nonetheless affect specifically female interests more closely and are therefore more properly pursued by the women representatives of the working class themselves. This point of view has now prevailed, but its elaboration nonetheless required great effort on the part of the women, and provoked a sharp conflict of opinions...

The German party was the first to conduct independent propaganda work among the female proletariat; other countries gradually followed its example. The seeds sown by the first supporters of the women's socialist movement led by Clara Zetkin are already taking root...

Over recent years efforts have been made everywhere to arouse the awareness of working-class women by drawing them into the party. Everywhere the movement is carrying out painstaking work to involve working women in the broad current of the whole movement... The reports made by different countries at the women's conference in Copenhagen is proof of this tireless activity.

How this meeting of almost 100 representatives of the working class of 17 countries differed from the usual bourgeois congresses of suffragettes!...

After two days of animated and enthusiastic work, the delegates to the second socialist women's conference left the hall of the hospitable People's House imbued with the firm belief that by the third international conference of socialist women, [13] the 'second army' of the working class in every country will be able to swell its ranks with a fresh inflow of new and active forces from among the women of the working class.

A. Kollontai.

Footnotes

1. This is a reference to the Seventh International Congress of the Second International, held in Stuttgart on 18-24 August, 1907. The congress was attended by delegates from 25 countries, including Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, England, Germany, Italy, Norway, Poland, Russia and the USA – 886 delegates in all. The Bolshevik delegation was led by Lenin, who did a great deal of work to consolidate the left-wing forces of international Social-Democracy. The congress adopted a resolution committing socialists to oppose the approaching war.

2. In 1907, just before the opening of the International Socialist Congress in Stuttgart, the First International Conference of Socialist Women was held, attended by 58 women delegates from 14 countries. The main aim of the conference was to formulate one united tactic for all the Socialist parties in the campaign to win voting rights for women workers as part of universal and equal voting rights for both sexes.

3. The Social-Democratic Federation – founded in England in 1884, declared itself a socialist organisation, but did not recognise Marxism. It had no contact with the workers and was extremely sectarian in nature. In 1907 it was renamed the Social-Democratic Party.

4. Die Gleichheit (Equality) – a Social-Democratic bimonthly magazine issued by the women's proletarian movement in Germany. It was published from 1890 to 1925, and was edited by Clara Zetkin from 1892 to 1917.

5. The Independent Labour Party – founded in England in 1893. Its aims were to secure the election of workers to Parliament in order to pursue its own independent policies, to campaign for the nationalisation of land and the means of production, and also to work within the trade unions. It soon lost its militant spirit under the influence of bourgeois fellow-travellers, and its leadership became opportunist.

The Fabian Society founded in England in 1884 by representatives of the bourgeois intelligentsia. The Fabians rejected class struggle, and proposed a programme of state or municipal 'socialism', hoping to transform capitalist society into a socialist society by means of gradual reform.

6. Cf. the speech delivered by Clara Zetkin at the Seventh International Socialist Congress of the Second International in Stuttgart, August, 1907.

7. This is a reference to the creation during the Women's Conference at Stuttgart of an International Women's Secretariat, headed by Clara Zetkin. The work of the Secretariat was to include gathering information on women's movements and on the leadership of the women's socialist movement.

8. The Second International Conference of Socialist Women was held on 26-27 August, 1910, prior to the opening of the Eighth International Congress of the Second International in Copenhagen, 28 August-3 September, 1910.

9. Suffragettes – members of a bourgeois women's movement seeking voting rights for women. The suffragettes adopted a tactic of obstruction, organised street demonstrations, and caused disruption of every kind. The suffragettes did not seek the support of working women.

10. Cf. the resolutions adopted at the International Conference of Socialist Women in Copenhagen, 25-26 August, 1910, and the Reports to the international Socialist Congress.

11. A reference to the Fourth Socialist Conference of German Women, which was held in Mannheim on 22-23 September, 1906, and attended by 50 women delegates and 5 women socialists from other countries, including Alexandra Kollontai. The agenda included: the campaign for voting rights for women, propaganda work among rural women, involving domestic servants in the women's movement, etc. On all these issues resolutions were adopted which called for intensification of the struggle for women's rights and satisfaction of their demands.

12. In addition to the resolutions listed above, the international women's conference in Copenhagen also decided to declare 8 March the International Day of Working Women, and to mark it every year as the day of international solidarity among the female proletariat in their struggle for equal economic and political rights. The first International Women's Day was held in 1911 in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Denmark under the slogan 'Voting rights for women workers so as to unite forces in the struggle for socialism'.

Introduction to “The Social Basis of the Women’s Question” (1908)

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The book The Social Basis of the Women's Question (approximately 450 pages) was written shortly before the First All-Russia Women's Congress, and published in St Petersburg in 1909. In it, Alexandra Kollontai provides a detailed analysis of this issue from a Marxist point of view. After a general survey of the question in the introduction, the author, basing herself on considerable factual material, examines and proffers a solution to such problems as the struggle for women's economic independence, marriage and the family, protection for expectant and nursing mothers, etc. The author devotes a large part of her book to the issue of the women's struggle for political rights.

The women's movement in Russia is passing through a decisive moment in its history: in December 1908 it will be reviewing the creative activity carried out by women's organisations over the last few years, and at the All-Russia Women's Congress it must decide upon the 'course of action' to be followed by feminists [2] in the coming years of struggle for women's emancipation. Complex socio-political problems, which until recently still belonged to the realm of abstract 'thorny' issues, are now, as a result of the events that have taken place in Russia, becoming urgent issues demanding energetic practical involvement and solution. These problems include the so-called women's question. With each passing day a growing number of women are drawn into the search for an answer to three disturbing questions: Which way shall we go? What should we do? How can we make sure that the female section of the population of Russia also receives the fruit of the long, stubborn and agonisingly difficult struggle for a new political structure in our homeland?

The Alliance for Equality, together with the section on women's voting rights of the Russian Women's Mutual Aid Society, [3] have decided to convene the First All-Russia Women's Congress [4] in order to give a comprehensive answer to these three questions.

The programme of the forthcoming women's congress is extremely broad: in the first section it is proposed to undertake an evaluation of women's activity in various professions in Russia; in the second section it is proposed to examine the economic position of women and investigate the conditions of work in trade and industry and in the domestic services, and also to look at the question of the protection of female labour, etc.; a special subsection will be set up to discuss questions relating to the family, marriage and prostitution; the work of the third section will include the present civil and political position of women and measures to be taken in the struggle for women's equality in these areas; finally, section four will study questions related to women's education.

One cannot but welcome this broadened programme of the All-Russia Women's Congress, particularly when one compares it with the draft programme published in the magazine Soyuz zhenshchin (The Women's Alliance) No. 3, 1907. This draft programme totally omitted such an important question as the economic position of women in connection with the legal protection of female labour. Was this merely an oversight, an accident? If it was indeed simply an oversight, then it was a characteristic oversight, to forget about the economic aspect of the women's question, about the situation of working women and the protection of female labour, is the kind of 'accident' that would immediately determine the nature of the forthcoming congress and would make the participation of those sections of the female population for whom the women's question is intimately and inextricably bound up with the overall labour issues of our day both impossible and futile. Now this oversight has been corrected; the second section will be given over entirely to the question of female labour and the economic position of women. Therefore it would not have been worthwhile pausing to comment on such a minor incident had it not been typical of our bourgeois 'suffragettes'.

With the caution typical of bourgeois feminists, the organisers of the congress hesitated for a long time: what should the nature of the congress be? The omission from the draft programme of the point dealing with the economic position of women is, in our opinion, closely connected with these hesitations. At one of the meetings on the forthcoming congress, individuals with considerable influence in the feminist world insisted that the congress should not become involved in 'propaganda work' but should concentrate on concrete issues such as the fight against alcoholism. Thus until quite recently the organisers of the congress still did not know whether it ought to assume the nature of a benevolent 'ladies' conference concerned with moral and charitable activities, or whether an attempt should be made to break through women's indifference to their own fate and draw them into the ranks of those fighting for women's emancipation. However, under the influence of the more clear-thinking supporters of equal rights, the second tendency gradually won the upper hand. The slogan chosen for the forthcoming congress is the traditional feminist rallying cry: the union of all women in the struggle for purely female rights and interests.

The congress has served as a spur to feminist organisations. The female ant-hill has stirred. One after the other such feminists as Pokrovskaya, Kalmanovich, Shchepkina, Vakhtina and others delivered speeches and lectures whose content could be summed up in the same women's rallying call: 'Women from all classes of the population, unite!'

However tempting this 'peaceful' slogan may sound, however much it may appear to promise to the poor younger sister of the bourgeois woman - the working woman - it is precisely this slogan so beloved of the feminists that compels us to pause and examine in greater detail the forthcoming women's congress, and to subject its objectives and fundamental aspirations to a careful appraisal from the point of view of the interests of working-class women.

In concrete terms, the question is whether working-class women should respond to the call of the feminists and participate actively and directly in the struggle for women's equality, or whether, faithful to the traditions of their class, they should go their own way and fight using other means in order to free not only women but all mankind from the oppression and enslavement of contemporary capitalist forms of social life.

Before going on to answer this question, however, I believe it necessary to state the basic propositions that serve as the starting point for the arguments I am about to present.

Leaving our right honourable friends, the bourgeois scholars, to examine more closely the question of the superiority of one sex over the other, or to weigh the brain and calculate the intellectual make-up of men and women, the supporters of historical materialism fully recognise the naturally existing differences between the sexes and demand only one thing, namely that each individual, man or woman, be given the real possibility of achieving the freest and fullest self-determination, that the widest possible opportunities be provided for the development and application of all natural talents. At the same time, the supporters of historical materialism deny the existence of specifically female issues apart from the overall social issue of our day. Certain economic factors once led to the subordinate position of women, with her natural characteristics playing a purely secondary role. Only the total disappearance of those (economic) factors, only the evolution of those economic forms that once caused the enslavement of women, can effect a radical change in their social position. In other words, women can only become truly free and equal in a world that has been transformed and based on new social and economic principles.

This assertion, however, does not rule out the possibility of a partial improvement in the life of women within the framework of the existing system, although a truly radical solution of the labour problem is possible only with the complete restructuring of existing production relations. Nonetheless, such a view of the situation should not act as a brake upon reform work aimed at satisfying the immediate interests of the proletariat. On the contrary, each new gain by the working class is a rung in the ladder leading mankind to the kingdom of freedom and social equality; each new right won by women brings them closer to their goal - total emancipation.

One further comment: in discussing the question of women's emancipation, one must, as with any other socio-political question, base oneself firmly upon the actually existing relationships. Everything that pertains to the realm of 'moral aspirations' or other ideological structures we willingly leave at the disposal of bourgeois liberalism. For us, the emancipation of women is not a dream, nor even a principle, but a concrete reality, a fact coming into being with every day that passes. Step by step, modern economic relations and the entire future course of development of the productive forces are assisting and will continue to assist the liberation of women from centuries of oppression and enslavement. One need only look around to see that this is so. Everywhere, in almost every sphere of production, women are now working alongside men. In England, France, Germany, Italy and Austria, of the 81 million individuals employed in manufacture, 27 million are women. [5] The number of women leading an independent existence and their proportional relationship to the total female population in civilised countries is shown in the following table; according to the most recent national censuses, the percentage of the male and female population living on its own earnings was as follows: [6]

Country | Women | Men
Austria | 47% | 63%
Italy | 40% | 66%
Switzerland | 29% | 61%
France | 27% | 58%
Great Britain and Ireland | 27% | 58%
Belgium | 26% | 60%
Germany | 25% | 61%
United States | 13% | 59%
Russia | 10% | 43%

On turning from proportional evaluation to absolute figures we discover that, although the number of women in Russia who live on their own earnings is lower than in other countries, that number is nonetheless fairly large. According to the last census, of the 63 million female population in Russia, more than six million live on their own earnings; in the cities two out of eight million (i.e. 25 per cent) earn their own living; in rural areas four million of the total 55 million female population are independent. If one considers the total gainfully employed population in Russia (i.e. the population living on its own earnings) then of the 33 million gainfully employed individuals, 27 million are men and six million women...

In Russia, female labour is particularly widespread in the textile industry, in every branch of which female labour predominates over male... [7] In addition to the textile industry, female industrial labour in Russia is also widely used in such branches of industry as food processing, and in particular bakeries – 4,391 women and 8,868 men; in the chemical industry, in particular cosmetics – 4,074 women and 4,508 men; in the glass industry - about 5 thousand women; in the china industry - about 4 thousand, in the tile and brick industry about 6 thousand. Only in the metal-processing industry is the number of women small.

The figures quoted above are, in our opinion, sufficient to show that female labour is widely used in Russian industry. Moreover, it must be remembered that Russia moved to large-scale capitalist production comparatively recently, and that, as the sphere of capitalist economics expands, its industry will draw in an ever greater number of women workers.

Even now, in the bigger towns and cities of Russia that have large-scale capitalist enterprises, female labour, and in particular female proletarian labour, constitutes, taking account of female labour reserves, a fairly considerable proportion of the total work force. In St Petersburg, for example, according to the 1900 census, for every 100 men living by their own labour, there were 40 women...[8]

Women are most numerous among those who earn their living by proletarian labour: for every 269 thousand working men there are 74 thousand working women, and for every 40 thousand 'single' men, there are 30 thousand 'single' women. Who are these 'single' women? Naturally they constitute the most exploited section of the petty handicraft workers: seamstresses, knitters, flowergirls, etc., who work at home as supposedly independent workers for capitalist middlemen and are subjected, as a result of their isolation from each other, to the harshest enslavement by capital. There are considerably fewer women employed in the professions – 13 thousand for every 74 thousand men – while only 13 thousand women for every 31 thousand men come under the heading 'proprietor'.

The proportions within female labour of the various social groups in other countries, and the position of male and female industrial workers among those who earn their living independently, is shown in the following table.

As can be seen from this table, in Austria the number of women workers exceeds the number of men: for 4.4 million men there are more than 5 million women. In Germany, the number of women workers amounts to over half the number of men. The same is true for France and England. Only in America is this correlation somewhat less favourable to women.

Country | Year of Census | Total Population | Industrial Population | Including Industrial Workers
Men | Women | Men | Women | Men | Women
Austria | 1890 | 11.7 | 12.2 | 7.8 | 6.2 | 4.4 | 5.3
Germany | 1895 | 25.4 | 26.4 | 15.5 | 6.6 | 9.3 | 5.3
France | 1891 | 18.9 | 19.2 | 11.1 | 5.2 | 5.0 | 3.6
England & Wales | 1891 | 14.1 | 14.9 | 8.9 | 4.0 | 5.4 | 3.1
USA | 1890 | 32.1 | 30.6 | 18.8 | 3.9 | 8.7 | 2.9
Total | – | 102.2 | 103.3 | 62.1 | 25.9 | 32.8 | 20.2

...The growth in female labour naturally means a continuing growth in the role of women in national production. Already women produce about 1/3 of the total world production of goods for the world market. This constant growth of female labour arouses fear in many bourgeois economists, forcing them to see in the woman a dangerous rival to the man in the sphere of labour and to react with hostility to the expansion of female labour. Is such an attitude justified, and is the woman always merely a 'threatening' rival to the man?

The number of working women is constantly increasing, but the continuous development of the productive forces also demands a larger and larger work force. Only at certain moments of technological revolution is there either a reduction in the demand for new workers, or a replacement of one category of workers by another: women replace men only to be replaced in their turn by children and juveniles. However, each step forward in technological progress eventually causes the rate of production to intensify, and this new surge in production inevitably brings with it a new demand for workers of every category. Thus, despite temporary lulls and, at times, sharp fluctuations, the number of workers drawn into industry ultimately grows with the growth of world productive forces. The growth in the number of both categories of workers-men and women – is absolute, whereas the more intensive growth of female labour in comparison to male labour is only relative...

Viewed overall, what is happening on the labour market is not the replacement of male labour by female labour, but rather the grouping of the labour forces of both these categories according to profession: some professions and branches of industry are employing more and more women (domestic service, the textile industry, the clothing industry), while others rely mainly on male labour (mining, the iron and steel industry, the machine industry, etc.). Moreover, there can be no doubt that the quantitative growth of female labour is also taking place thanks to a drop in child labour, and this is something that one can only welcome. With the promulgation of new laws to protect young children and raise the age at which children may be employed in industrial labour, the regrouping of the labour forces undoubtedly involves an increase in the number of women workers.

Thus the assertion that women are men's most dangerous labour rival can only be accepted with a number of reservations. Leaving aside the question of the competition existing in the professions, we will note only that in the proletarian milieu, the woman worker only constitutes a rival to the man when she is isolated, not involved in the joint proletarian struggle. The woman worker is a rival to the male, a 'threatening' rival who lowers his wages and mercilessly destroys the fruit of his successes in his organised struggle against capital, only when she is not drawn into the general class and professional movement. However, is not every unorganised proletarian just such a rival, whether he be a hungry village 'yokel', a 'has-been' pushed out of his profession, or simply a worker deprived of a permanent job? The woman worker has a detrimental effect upon the conditions of work insofar as she is, as yet, the less organised section of the working class. Capital readily makes use of her to counter the more conscious and united section of the working class. However, the moment she enters the ranks of the organised fighters for working-class liberation, the assertion that she - the woman worker - is the worst rival of the working man - ceases to be categorical. The organised proletariat of whichever sex loses his or her capacity for harming class comrades.

Having made these preliminary reservations and looked very briefly at some statistical examples, we will now seek the answer to the questions posed earlier. We refer those who wish to acquaint themselves more fully with the conditions of female labour, the growth of the female work force and its significance in the economic life of the nations to special works written on this subject. Here we wish merely to stress once again the close link which undoubtedly exists between the desire for emancipation on the part of women and the trends that can be observed in the economic development of society. Keeping these trends constantly in mind will enable us to discover more easily the path that should be followed by the woman who has a broad understanding of what must be done to achieve the full and comprehensive emancipation of women.

In answer to the question, what must be done by women who wish to defend their violated rights and interests, the bourgeois ideologist hastens to reply: 'Unite with another socially weak element, organise and join together in the struggle against the male oppressors'...

Such advice has not fallen on stony ground. Over recent years we have seen feminist organisations spring up one after the other. Feminism in Russia, including feminism as we traditionally understand it, is indisputably a new phenomenon. The first feminist publication Zhenskoye dyelo (The Women's Cause) appeared in 1899. [9] For many years the desire for emancipation on the part of Russian women was limited to calls for equal educational opportunities. From the 1860s, when the women's question was first raised in Russia, up to the present, the women's movement has been nothing other than the history of the struggle to improve and expand the level of female education, and primarily higher education. In the successes obtained in this sphere the women of the bourgeois classes saw, and not without reason, one of the principal methods of extending the sphere of female professional labour, the basis of their economic independence.

With the abolition of serfdom, which radically altered both economic and social relations in Russia [10] and compelled a large section of the population to seek the means of existence, the women's question also arose in Russia. The post-reform system began to toss onto the labour market not only the professional male worker, but also a hitherto unknown type of woman who, like her male colleague, was also seeking work in order to earn her daily bread. The traditional women's slogan 'freedom to work' became, when adopted by Russian women, a demand for the freedom to receive education, without which all the doors of professional employment remained closed. Naturally, having completed their higher education, women then demanded free access to state and private employment, and this demand was satisfied on the basis of purely economic considerations as private enterprise and state institutions began to realise the advantages of employing the cheaper and more amenable female work force.

The sphere of female professional labour gradually expanded, but women still continued to call for 'the freedom of education and choice of profession'. There could be no question of demanding political equality, for at that time even the men lacked political rights. As regards women's civil rights, the position of Russian women in this regard was fairly tolerable as compared with that of their Western European colleagues, [11] and thus there was little obvious ground here for feminist agitation.

It goes without saying that the women's movement here under discussion was distinctly bourgeois in nature: it involved only a fairly narrow circle of women, mainly from the nobility, with a few representatives of the raznochintsy, (the new 'middle classes'). [12] No socialist ideals found expression in the demands put forward by the leading champions of female equality in Russia. It was indeed true that every year Russian industry was employing thousands more proletarian women, but it seemed that an unbridgeable gulf separated the emancipated, educated woman and the woman worker with calloused hands, and that no contact whatsoever was possible between them.

The women from these two opposing social camps were brought into contact only through philanthropic activity. From the very beginning of the women's movement in Russia – as, indeed, everywhere where women's organisations had still not arrived at self-determination – philanthropy was in the forefront. [13] Almost all the women's organisations in Russia over recent years have been essentially philanthropic. Women organised themselves and set up women's societies not in order to win reforms in the sphere of women's rights but in order to carry out individual acts of charity. From the Society to Supply Material Support for Women's Higher Educational Courses - the largest in terms of the scope of its activity to the first women's club founded by the Women's Mutual Aid Society, all such societies, as their names indicate, pursued philanthropic aims.

The above is not meant to accuse Russian women of indifference towards social and political issues. Can any other country boast of such a host of truly noble and charming nameless heroines' who gave their strength, their youth. their very life to the struggle for the ideals of social justice and the political liberation of their country? What has history to offer that can rival the inner beauty of the 'repentant gentlewoman' of the 1870s who put aside not only her finery but also all the privileges of her 'noble birth' in order to merge with the people and repay at least part of the debt owed them by her class... And later, when, as a result of repression, any protest inevitably turned into a bitter struggle against the old order, there emerged from among the women of Russia innumerable heroines who amazed the world with their selflessness, their inner strength and their limitless dedication to the people... Following upon the 'repentant gentlewoman', with her gentleness and inner beauty, came the fearless raznochinka, and thereafter an endless stream of martyr women workers who fought for the emancipation of their class... The list of women martyrs fighting for the ideals of social justice is constantly being replenished by the names of new victims and the future historian writing about our age will only be able to bow his head in respect before these noble examples of women-fighters and women-martyrs...

However, this is not the central issue here. Here we are speaking of those women who are struggling for what is called 'female emancipation'. In this particular area, the objectives and aspirations of our first feminists were extremely narrow and limited. Philanthropy and education constituted, until recently, the sum total of the activity undertaken by women's organisations. Even the first women's congress planned for 1905 was to limit its objectives to these two areas. [14]

The picture changes sharply following the memorable events of January. [15] The revolutionary upsurge which swept through all sections of the population also affected the feminists, hitherto modest in their claims. Women's circles became more active, stirred into life. Bold speeches and radical demands could be heard. Declarations, resolutions and petitions were dispatched to rural and urban councils and to radical organisations, and this was followed by a series of conferences and meetings which adopted decisive political resolutions. In 1905, it seemed that there was not a corner of Russia where women were not, in one way or another, making themselves heard, reminding society of their existence and demanding that they too be granted new civil rights. The feminists, until recently so modest in their demands, became aware of the fact that the regeneration of Russia and the establishment of a new state system were the essential prerequisites of female emancipation...

The women's movement is abandoning its former, modest course and adopting a new path of social action. This, of course, did not happen without friction. Among the new members who had poured into the women's organisations two tendencies were becoming clearly distinguishable: some, more to the left, insisted upon the need to clearly define the political credo of the women's movement and gave priority to the struggle for political equality for women, those to the right, on the other hand, remained faithful to the old traditions, not wishing to bring 'politics' into their narrowly feminist aspirations. In April, 1905, the more left-wing elements formed the Alliance for the Equality of Women – the first women's organisation in Russia to adopt a clear political platform. Meanwhile the right-wingers continued to group themselves around the Women's Mutual Aid Society and the Zhensky vestnik (Women's Herald), pursuing the idea of politically neutral feminism. The Alliance for Equality set up a broad network of branches across Russia, and as little as one year later, in May, 1906, its bureau estimated its membership at around 8,000. [16] The Alliance hoped to rally together women from all social classes on the basis of its vague slogans, and just as the Cadets had, in their early days, spoken in the name of the whole people, so the Alliance for Equality declared that it was voicing the needs of all Russian women.

However, the continuous growth of class self-consciousness and the inevitable differentiation among the various social strata of the population led to a further regrouping within women's social organisations also. The political bloc that fulfilled specific purposes in the heyday of the Union of Unions [17] was becoming increasingly unsatisfactory, particularly as many of the suffragettes had, as a result of their convictions, aligned themselves with certain political parties. Thus, as early as the spring of 1906 the St Petersburg branch of the Alliance split into two parts: the 'left-wing' feminists who aligned themselves, as a result of their political convictions, with the revolutionary parties, and the 'right-wing', who founded the Women's Progressive Party [18] similar in spirit to the Party of Peaceful Renovation, [19] almost as small in number and just as ineffectual. Both of these women's organisations marked the beginning of their activity by establishing political clubs – the first of a more or less democratic nature, [20] the second still preserving its bourgeois nature, with high membership fees, etc.

The process by which women of various social strata gathered around politically and socially diverse banners took place spontaneously, regardless of the will or desires of those who struggled passionately to unite women in one, universal women's organisation. The Women's Progressive Party in fact expressed the demands and requirements of the big bourgeoisie and, while continuing to argue the need to unite all women without any distinction of class and political conviction, elaborated its own political programme corresponding to the desires of that social stratum of which it was, in fact, the mouthpiece. The Alliance for Equality united women representatives of the liberal, 'Cadet-type' opposition; around it there gathered, and continue to gather, women from the middle bourgeoisie, mainly members of the intelligentsia. The Women's Political Club in St Petersburg won the approval of the more radical elements, but here also the possibility of forming a political bloc led to vagueness in its objectives and, indeed, in the very nature of the organisation. [21] Although they had dissociated themselves from all the more moderate women's organisations, the members of the Women's Political Club were, however, unable to define for themselves or for others whose class interests they expressed or what were their immediate objectives. Should they defend the interests of the proletarian women, of peasant women, or simply of all 'working women'? Should they pursue specific feminist goals, or operate on a general political basis? Hesitation between these basic objectives marked the whole of the short-lived activity of the Women's Political Club. When the club discussed the question of handing in to the first State Duma a petition demanding that voting rights be extended to women – a petition that had been signed mainly by women workers from the city – the members found themselves seriously embarrassed: the club was unable to make up its mind which political party was closest to it in spirit and finally decided to send the petition to the Trudoviks. [22]

As women continued to argue the need for a women's bloc, the actual facts of life were clearly and irrefutably revealing the illusory nature of such a plan. Women's organisations, as men's organisations, underwent a rapid and irresistible process of differentiation. The champions of women's unity could do nothing to prevent the grouping of women into various feminist organisations distinguished by varying degrees of political radicalism as a result of the inevitable growth of class consciousness in the whole of Russian society. The age of the women's political bloc came to an end shortly after the demise of the men's liberal bloc. Yet feminists and suffragettes of every hue continue to shout about the need for women's unity, the possibility of a broad-based women's party pursuing its own specific goals...

Such a proposition would, however, only have any meaning if not one of the existing political parties had contained in its programme the demand for total female emancipation.

When arming themselves against the indifference, or even hostility of men towards the question of female equality, feminists turn their attention only to the representatives of every shade of bourgeois liberalism, ignoring the existence of a large political party which, on the issue of women's equality, goes further than even the most fervent suffragettes. Since the appearance of the Communist Manifesto in 1848, Social-Democracy has always defended the interests of women. The Communist Manifesto was the first to point to the close link between the overall proletarian problem existing today and the women's question. It traced the process whereby capitalism gradually draws woman into production and makes her a co-participant in the great struggle waged by the proletariat against oppression and exploitation. Social-Democracy was the first to include in its programme the demand for equal rights for women; always and everywhere, by the spoken and written word, it demands the abolition of all limitations restricting women. It is only as a result of this pressure that other parties and governments have been compelled to introduce reforms to the benefit of the female population... In Russia also this party is not merely a theoretical defender of women's interests, but always and everywhere pursues in practice the principle of women's equality.

What, then, is preventing our suffragettes from standing beneath the protective shield of this experienced and powerful party? While the right-wing feminists are frightened by the 'extremism' of Social-Democracy, the Alliance, which went so far as to speak of Constituent Assembly, should find the political position of the Social-Democrats perfectly to their taste. However here lies the catch! Despite all their political radicalism, our suffragettes continue to base themselves on the aspirations of their own bourgeois class. Political liberty is now an essential prerequisite of the growth and power of the Russian bourgeoisie; without this political liberty, its economic prosperity will prove to be built on sand. Capital requires certain norms and guarantees if it is to grow and flourish; these norms can be ensured only with the participation of bourgeois representatives in the government of the country. Next comes the attainment of political rights equally important for both men and women. The demand for political equality is, for women, a necessity dictated by life itself.

The slogan 'freedom of profession' has ceased to appear all-embracing in the eyes of women; only the direct participation of women in the running of the state promises to help ensure a rise in their economic well-being. Hence the passionate desire of women from the middle bourgeoisie to finally attain access to the ballot box, hence their hostility to the present bureaucratic system...

However, our feminists, as their sisters abroad, go no further than demands for political equality. The broad horizons opened up by the doctrines of Social-Democracy are, for them, alien and incomprehensible. The feminists are striving for equality within the framework of the existing class-based society and without in any way encroaching upon its foundations; they are fighting for their female prerogatives without striving to achieve the abolition of all existing prerogatives and privileges...

We are not blaming the representatives of the bourgeois women's movement for these 'unwitting sins'; they are the inevitable consequence of their class position. Nor do we wish to minimise the importance of feminist organisations for the success of the purely bourgeois women's movement. However, we would like to caution the female proletariat against enthusiasms for narrowly feminist aims. Insofar as bourgeois women limit their activity to arousing the self-awareness of their own sisters, we can only applaud them. However, as soon as they begin to call into their ranks women workers, Social-Democrats should not, dare not, remain silent. One cannot stand by and watch this futile dissipation of the forces of the proletariat. One must then put the question directly: what benefit could an alliance with their bourgeois 'sisters' bring the women workers, and what, on the other hand, could women workers achieve through their own class organisation?

Is a united women's movement possible, and in particular in a society based on class antagonisms?...

The world of women, as the world of men, has divided into two camps: one, in its aims, aspirations and interests, sides with the bourgeois classes, while the other is closely linked to the proletariat, whose aspiration to freedom also involves the solution of the women's question in all its aspects. These two groups of fighting women differ in their aims, interests and methods of struggle, even though they are both acting on the basis of the common slogan 'the emancipation of women'. Each of these militant groups unconsciously proceeds on the basis of the interests of its own class, which gives a specific class colouring to its aspirations and objectives. One individual woman may be capable of standing above the interests of her own class and of disregarding them in the name of the triumph of the aims of another class, but this is impossible for a united women's organisation reflecting all the real needs and interests of the social group that had founded it. However radical the demands of the feminists may appear, it must not be forgotten that, by virtue of their class position, the feminists cannot struggle to achieve a fundamental restructuring of the present economic-social structure of society, and that without this the emancipation of women cannot be complete.

Whereas in individual instances the immediate objectives of women of all classes coincide, the ultimate objectives determining the direction of the movement and the very tactic to be used differ sharply. For the feminists, the achievement of equal rights with men within the framework of the contemporary capitalist world is a concrete 'end in itself' [23] ; for proletarian women equal rights is merely a means to be used in the continuing struggle against the economic enslavement of the working class. For the feminists, the immediate enemy are men as such, who have arrogated to themselves all rights and privileges and left women only bondage and obligation. Each victory of the feminists means that men must concede their exclusive prerogatives in favour of the 'fair sex'. The proletarian woman, however, has a completely different attitude to her position: in her eyes men are not her enemy and oppressor but, on the contrary, first and foremost a comrade in sharing a common, joyless lot, and a loyal comrade-in-arms in the struggle for a brighter future. The same social relations enslave both the woman and her comrade; one and the same hateful bonds of capitalism oppress their will and deprive them of the happiness and pleasures of life. It is indeed true that certain specific characteristics of the present system weigh doubly upon the woman; it is also true that the conditions of hired labour sometimes transform the woman friend and worker into a menacing rival of the man. However, the working class knows who is to blame for these unfortunate conditions.

The woman worker, no less than her brother in suffering, loathes that insatiable monster with the gilded maw which falls upon man, woman and child with equal voracity in order to suck them dry and grow fat at the cost of millions of human lives... The woman worker is bound to her male comrade worker by a thousand invisible threads, whereas the aims of the bourgeois woman appear to her to be alien and incomprehensible, can bring no comfort to her suffering proletarian soul and do not offer women that bright future on which the whole of exploited humanity has fixed its hopes and aspirations... While the feminists, arguing the need for women's unity, stretch out their hands to their younger working-class sisters, these 'ungrateful creatures' glance mistrustfully at their distant and alien female comrades and gather more closely around the purely proletarian organisations that are more comprehensible to them, and nearer and dearer to their hearts.

Political rights, access to the election booth and a seat in parliament – this is the real aim of the bourgeois women's movement. But can political equality in the context of the retention of the entire capitalist-exploiter system free the working woman from that abyss of evil and suffering which pursues and oppresses her both as a woman and as a human being?

The more aware among proletarian women realise that neither political nor juridical equality can solve the women's question in all its aspects. While women are compelled to sell their labour force and bear the yoke of capitalism, while the present exploitative system of producing new values continues to exist, they cannot become free and independent persons, wives who choose their husbands exclusively on the dictates of the heart, and mothers who can look without fear to the future of their children... The ultimate objective of the proletarian woman is the destruction of the old antagonistic class-based world and the construction of a new and better world in which the exploitation of man by man will have become impossible.

Naturally, this ultimate objective does not exclude attempts on the part of proletarian women to achieve emancipation even within the framework of the existing bourgeois order, but the realisation of such demands is constantly blocked by obstacles erected by the capitalist system itself. Women can only be truly free and equal in a world of socialised labour, harmony and justice.

The above is something the feminists cannot and do not wish to understand. It seems to them that if they can attain formal equality as recognised by the letter of the law, they will be perfectly able to make their way, even in the 'old world of oppression and enslavement, groans and tears'. And this is true, to a degree. Whereas for the majority of women workers equality of rights with men would simply mean equality in 'lack of rights', for bourgeois women it would indeed open the doors to new and hitherto unprecedented rights and privileges that until now have been available only to the male members of the bourgeoisie. However, each such success, each new prerogative attained by the bourgeois woman, only puts into her hands yet another instrument with which to oppress her younger sister, and would merely deepen the gulf dividing the women from these two opposing social camps. Their interests would clash more sharply, their aspirations become mutually exclusive.

Where, then, is this universal 'women's question'? Where is that unity of objectives and aspirations of which the feminists talk so much? A sober examination of reality reveals that this unity does not and cannot exist. In vain the feminists seek to convince themselves that 'the women's question is in no way a question of political party' and that 'it can be solved only with the participation of all parties and all women', the argument advanced by the radical German feminist Minna Cauer. The logic of the facts refutes this feminist reassuring self-delusion.

It would be pointless to try to convince all bourgeois women of the fact that the victory of the women's cause depends on the victory of the common proletarian cause. However, appealing to those among them who are capable of abandoning the narrow objectives of 'short-term politics', who are able to take a broader view of the destiny of all women, we insistently urge you not to summon into your ranks your proletarian sisters alien to you in spirit! Throw off the finery of idealistic phraseology in which you – the women of the bourgeois classes – so love to dress yourselves, and, arming yourselves with the sobering lessons of history, look yourselves to the defence of your own class rights and interests, leaving the working women to follow their own path, struggle by their own methods for the freedom and happiness of women. Whose path is the shorter and whose means the more certain will be shown by life itself...

Footnotes

2. Feminism – a bourgeois women's movement which sought equal rights for women within the framework of the bourgeois state. The feminists demanded that women be accorded the right to elect and be elected, the right to engage in commerce and business operations.

3. The Alliance for Female Equality – a feminist organisation formed in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century. The alliance demanded that women be given political equality and the right to enter various professions. The Alliance was dissolved after the defeat of the first Russian revolution of 1905-1907.

The Russian Women's Mutual Aid Society – a bourgeois women's organisation which was founded in 1899 and was exclusively of a charitable-cultural nature. Its members came from the intelligentsia - teachers, physicians, translators, etc., and it disseminated its ideas through such magazines as Zhenskoye Dyelo (The Women's Cause) and Soyuz Zhenshchin (The Women's Alliance).

4. The First All-Russia Women's Congress, organised by bourgeois societies, took place in St Petersburg from 10 to 16 December, 1908. It was attended by 700 delegates, including a group of 45 women workers. The feminists, who organised the congress, intended to conduct it under the slogan: ‘The women's movement should not be either bourgeois or proletarian, but a single movement animated by one spirit.’ In their speeches, the women worker delegates exposed the class-opposite nature of the proletarian and the bourgeois women's movements. Despite the fact that they were in the minority, the women worker delegates were able to persuade the congress to adopt resolutions on the protection of female and child labour, on the protection of peasant mothers, and others. The women workers also introduced a resolution demanding universal, equal, direct and secret voting rights. The presidium refused to put foreward this resolution, and replaced it with another, drawn up in the liberal-bourgeois spirit. The group of women-worker delegates then left the congress in protest.

Kollontai was one of the organisers in charge of preparatory work with the women worker delegates prior to the congress, in which she herself took an active part. A speech which she had prepared was read at the congress by V. I. Volkova, a woman worker, as Kollontai had been forced to flee abroad as a result of police surveillance.

5. Cf. T. Schlesinger-Eckstein, Women at the Beginning of the 20th Century, p. 38 – in Russian. – A.K.

6. Cf. Prof. Y. Pirstorf, Women's Labour and the Women's Question, St Petersburg, 1902, p. 27 — in Russian. – A.K.

7. Statistical Handbook, Issue III, 1908 — in Russian. – A.K.

8. In 1881 in St Petersburg there were 27 women living by their own labour for every 100 men; in 1890 there were 34 women, and by 1900 this figure had risen to 40. Levikson-Lessing, On the Employment of Women in St Petersburg According to the Censuses of 1881, 1890 and 1900, pp. 141-147 — in Russian. – A.K.

9. Prior to this, starting from 1898, there existed only the annual Zhensky kalendur (Woman's Almanac). The magazine Zhenskoye dyelo (The Women's Cause) appeared for only two years and was replaced in 1904 by the feminist Zhensky vestnik (Woman's Herald). This was replaced in turn by the magazine Soyuz zhenshchin (Women's Alliance). – A.K.

10. This is a reference to the abolition of serfdom in Russia in 1861 by the tsarist government, which was compelled to introduce this reform as a result of economic development within the country, and the increase of large-scale peasant actions caused by landowner exploitation of peasant serfs. The objective result of the 'Peasant Reform' was, as Lenin wrote, the replacement of one form of exploitation by another, the replacement of serfdom by capitalism.

11. According to Russian legislation a woman, on attaining her majority, is considered fully competent in law: she may undertake civil actions in her own right, become the guardian even of non-relatives, be a witness, etc. The woman disposes of her own property, even if she marries, as the law recognises the independent property rights of each marriage partner. The guardianship of the husband over the wife, as is practised, for example, in France, does not exist in Russia. Only in matters of inheritance is the woman discriminated against in law as compared to the man: in the direct line of descent the daughter inherits only 1/14 of the fixed and 1/7 of the moveable property, while in the collateral line of descent the rights of the women are even fewer. – A.K.

12. Raznochintsy – people from various social strata who, having acquired education, changed their previous social milieu, that of low-ranking civil servants, the petty bourgeoise, merchants, clergy and peasants. With the development of capitalism, the number of raznochintsy increased. Lenin described them as 'the educated representatives of the liberal and democratic bourgeoisie'.

13. Cf. the chapter 'Women's Societies and Their Objectives' in the book The Women's Movement by Kechedzhi-Shapovalova — in Russian. – A.K.

14. 'The tasks facing the first congress of Russian women include philanthropy and education. Russian women have long been active in both these spheres, and are therefore able to speak on both issues.' Zhensky vestnik, No. 1, 1905. – A.K.

15. This is a reference to 9 January, 1905, when tsarist troops fired on a peaceful demonstration by workers who were taking a petition to the tsar. More than one thousand people were killed, and two thousand were wounded. This marked the beginning of the first bourgeois-democratic revolution in Russia of 1905-1907.

16. Cf. Female Equality, Reports and Minutes, 1906 — in Russian. – A.K.

17. The Union of Unions – a political organisation set up by the liberal-bourgeois intelligentsia in May, 1905, at the first congress of representatives of 14 unions: lawyers, writers, physicians, engineers, teachers and others. The congress demanded that a Constituent Assembly be convened on the basis of universal suffrage.

In the spring of 1906, the Women's Progressive Party was formed from among the right wing of the Union of Unions, and became the mouthpiece for the demands and requirements of women from the big bourgeoisie. The party programme was clearly feminist in orientation. The Union of Unions was dissolved at the end of 1906.

18. This party put out the Zhensky vetsnik (Woman's Herald), edited by the woman physician M.I. Pokrovskaya. – A.K.

19. The Party of Peaceful Renovation – a moderate-liberal party. Its main aims were: a legal 'solution' to the labour problem, and the resettlement of peasants with insufficient land. In 1907 the Party of Peaceful Renovation merged with the Party of Democratic Reforms.

20. 'A distinctive feature of the Women's Political Club was its genuinely democratic organisation, which was achieved firstly, by the fact that all meetings were open to anyone who wished to attend, and the entry charge was minimal – 2 kopecks; secondly, by the fact that every group of 25 members, organised according to political party or profession, could have a representative on the management committee to defend its interests.' Cf. 'The Women's Political Club', article by M. Margulies, in Zhensky kalendar — Woman's Almanac for 1907. – A.K.

21. It must, however, be noted to its credit that the Women's Political Club attempted to organise in St Petersburg the first political clubs for women industrial workers. In the spring of 1906 there were four such clubs, among which the Vasilyeostrovsky was particularly active. It organised lectures and discussions intended to stimulate the interest of working women in the political life going on around them. Together with the other three clubs, it was closed down by the police after only six weeks, following the dissolution of the First Duma. The Women's Political Club also ceased to exist. – A.K.

22. The Trudoviks – a group of petty-bourgeois democrats formed in April, 1906, from among the peasant delegates to the First State Duma, a representative legislative institution set up by the tsar following the 1905-1907 revolution. The Trudoviks demanded the abolition of all estate and national restrictions, the democratisation of the Zemstvo and city self-administration, and the introduction of universal suffrage for elections to the State Duma. The group existed up to 1917.

23. The very principle of equality is viewed by each group of women according to the social stratum to which it belongs. Women of the big bourgeoisie, who are coming to suffer more and more from property inequality in Russia, for example, in the laws of inheritance – are concerned primarily to secure the removal from the civil code of those clauses inimical to women's interests. For women from the middle bourgeoisie, equality hinges on 'freedom to work'. However, both recognise the need to secure the right to have a voice in the running of the country, as without this no achievement, no reform, is secure. Hence the focal point has been shifted to the struggle for political equality. – A.K.

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The Social Basis of the Woman Question

Leaving it to the bourgeois scholars to absorb themselves in discussion of the question of the superiority of one sex over the other, or in the weighing of brains and the comparing of the psychological structure of men and women, the followers of historical materialism fully accept the natural specificities of each sex and demand only that each person, whether man or woman, has a real opportunity for the fullest and freest self-determination, and the widest scope for the development and application of all natural inclinations. The followers of historical materialism reject the existence of a special woman question separate from the general social question of our day. Specific economic factors were behind the subordination of women; natural qualities have been a secondary factor in this process. Only the complete disappearance of these factors, only the evolution of those forces which at some point in the past gave rise to the subjection of women, is able in a fundamental way to influence and change their social position. In other words, women can become truly free and equal only in a world organised along new social and productive lines.

This, however, does not mean that the partial improvement of woman’s life within the framework of the modern system is impossible. The radical solution of the workers’ question is possible only with the complete reconstruction of modem productive relations; but must this prevent us from working for reforms which would serve to satisfy the most urgent interests of the proletariat? On the contrary, each new gain of the working class represents a step leading mankind towards the kingdom of freedom and social equality: each right that woman wins brings her nearer the defined goal of full emancipation. ...

Social democracy was the first to include in its programme the demand for the equalisation of the rights of women with those of men; in speeches and in print the party demands always and everywhere the withdrawal of limitations affecting women; it is the party’s influence alone that has forced other parties and governments to carry out reforms in favour of women. And in Russia this party is not only the defender of women in terms of its theoretical positions but always and everywhere adheres to the principle of women’s equality.

What, in this case, hinders our “equal righters” from accepting the support of this strong and experienced party? The fact is that however “radical” the equal righters may be, they are still loyal to their own bourgeois class. Political freedom is at the moment an essential prerequisite for the growth and power of the Russian bourgeoisie, without it, all the economic welfare of the latter will turn out to have been built upon sand. The demand for political equality is for women a necessity that stems from life itself.

The slogan of “access to the professions” has ceased to suffice; only direct participation in the government of the country promises to assist in raising women’s economic situation. Hence the passionate desire of women of the middle bourgeoisie to gain the franchise, and hence their hostility to the modern bureaucratic system.

However, in their demands for political equality our feminists are like their foreign sisters; the wide horizons opened by social democratic learning remain alien and incomprehensible to them. The feminists seek equality in the framework of the existing class society, in no way do they attack the basis of this society. They fight for prerogatives for themselves, without challenging the existing prerogatives and privileges. We do not accuse the representatives of the bourgeois women’s movement of failure to understand the matter; their view of things flows inevitably from their class position. ...

The Struggle for Economic Independence

First of all we must ask ourselves whether a single united women’s movement is possible in a society based on class contradictions. The fact that the women who take part in the liberation movement do not represent one homogeneous mass is clear, to every unbiased observer.

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. ...

However apparently radical the demands of the feminists, one must not lose sight of the fact that the feminists cannot, on account of their class position, fight for that fundamental transformation of the contemporary economic and social structure of society without which the liberation of women cannot be complete.

If in certain circumstances the short-term tasks of women of all classes coincide, the final aims of the two camps, which in the long term determine the direction of the movement and the tactics to be used, differ sharply. While for the feminists the achievement of equal rights with men in the framework of the contemporary capitalist world represents a sufficiently concrete end in itself, equal rights at the present time are, for the proletarian women, only a means of advancing the struggle against the economic slavery of the working class. The feminists see men as the main enemy, for men have unjustly seized all rights and privileges for themselves, leaving women only chains and duties. For them a victory is won when a prerogative previously enjoyed exclusively by the male sex is conceded to the “fair sex”.

Proletarian women have a different attitude. They do not see men as the enemy and the oppressor; on the contrary, they think of men as their comrades, who share with them the drudgery of the daily round and fight with them for a better future. The woman and her male comrade are enslaved by the same social conditions; the same hated chains of capitalism oppress their will and deprive them of the joys and charms of life. It is true that several specific aspects of the contemporary system lie with double weight upon women, as it is also true that the conditions of hired labour sometimes turn working women into competitors and rivals to men. But in these unfavourable situations, the working class knows who is guilty. ...

The woman worker, no less than her brother in misfortune, hates that insatiable monster with its gilded maw which, concerned only to drain all the sap from its victims and to grow at the expense of millions of human lives, throws itself with equal greed at man, woman and child. Thousands of threads bring the working man close. The aspirations of the bourgeois woman, on the other hand, seem strange and incomprehensible. They are not warming to the proletarian heart; they do not promise the proletarian woman that bright future towards which the eyes of all exploited humanity are turned. ...

The proletarian women’s final aim does not, of course, prevent them from desiring to improve their status even within the framework of the current bourgeois system, but the realisation of these desires is constantly hindered by obstacles that derive from the very nature of capitalism. A woman can possess equal rights and be truly free only in a world of socialised labour, of harmony and justice. The feminists are unwilling and incapable of understanding this; it seems to them that when equality is formally accepted by the letter of the law they will be able to win a comfortable place for themselves in the old world of oppression, enslavement and bondage, of tears and hardship. And this is true up to a certain point.

For the majority of women of the proletariat, equal rights with men would mean only an equal share in inequality, but for the “chosen few”, for the bourgeois women, it would indeed open doors to new and unprecedented rights and privileges that until now have been enjoyed by men of the bourgeois class alone. But each new concession won by the bourgeois woman would give her yet another weapon for the exploitation of her younger sister and would go on increasing the division between the women of the two opposite social camps. Their interests would be more sharply in conflict, their aspirations more obviously in contradiction.

Where, then, is that general “woman question”? Where is that unity of tasks and aspirations about which the feminists have so much to say? A sober glance at reality shows that such unity does not and cannot exist. In vain the feminists try to assure themselves that the “woman question” has nothing to do with that of the political party and that “its solution is possible only with the participation of all parties and all women”; as one of the radical German feminists has said, the logic of facts forces us to reject this comforting delusion of the feminists. ...

The conditions and forms of production have subjugated women throughout human history, and have gradually relegated them to the position of oppression and dependence in which most of them existed until now.

A colossal upheaval of the entire social and economic structure was required before women could begin to retrieve the significance and independence they had lost. Problems which at one time seemed too difficult for the most talented thinkers have now been solved by the inanimate but all-powerful conditions of production. The same forces which for thousands of years enslaved women now, at a further stage of development, are leading them along the path to freedom and independence. ...

The woman question assumed importance for woman of the bourgeois classes approximately in the middle of the nineteenth century – a considerable time after the proletarian women had arrived in the labour arena. Under the impact of the monstrous successes of capitalism, the middle classes of the population were hit by waves of need. The economic changes had rendered the financial situation of the petty and middle bourgeoisie unstable, and the bourgeois women were faced with a dilemma of menacing proportions, either accept poverty, or achieve the right to work. Wives and daughters of these social groups began to knock at the doors of the universities, the art salons, the editorial houses, the offices, flooding to the professions that were open to them. The desire of bourgeois women to gain access to science and the higher benefits of culture was not the result of a sudden, maturing need but stemmed from that same question of “daily bread”.

The women of the bourgeoisie met, from the very first, with stiff resistance from men. A stubborn battle was waged between the professional men, attached to their “cosy little jobs”, and the women who were novices in the matter of earning their daily bread. This struggle gave rise to “feminism” – the attempt of bourgeois women to stand together and pit their common strength against the enemy, against men. As they entered the labour arena these women proudly referred to themselves as the “vanguard of the women’s movement”. They forgot that in this matter of winning economic independence they were, as in other fields, travelling in the footsteps of their younger sisters and reaping the fruits of the efforts of their blistered hands.

Is it then really possible to talk of the feminists pioneering the road to women’s work, when in every country hundreds of thousands of proletarian women had flooded the factories and workshops, taking over one branch of industry after another, before the bourgeois women’s movement was ever born? Only thanks to the fact that the labour of women workers had received recognition on the world market were the bourgeois women able to occupy the independent position in society in which the feminists take so much pride. ...

We find it difficult to point to even one fact in the history of the struggle of the proletarian women to improve their material conditions to which the general feminist movement has contributed significantly. Whatever the proletarian women have achieved in the sphere of raising their own living standards is the result of the efforts of the working class in general and of themselves in particular. The history of the struggle of the working women for better conditions of labour and for a more decent life is the history of the struggle of the proletariat for its liberation.

What, if not the fear of a dangerous explosion of proletarian dissatisfaction, forces the factory owners to raise the price of labour, reduce hours and introduce better working conditions? What, if not the fear of “labour unrest”, persuades the government to establish legislation to limit the exploitation of labour by capital? ...

There is not one party in the world that has taken up the defence of women as social democracy has done. The working woman is first and foremost a member of the working class, and the more satisfactory the position and the general welfare of each member of the proletarian family, the greater the benefit in the long run to the whole of the working class. ...

In face of the growing social difficulties, the sincere fighter for the cause must stop in sad bewilderment. She cannot but see how little the general women’s movement has done for proletarian women, how incapable it is of improving the working and living conditions of the working class. The future of humanity must seem grey, drab and uncertain to those women who are fighting for equality but who have not adopted the proletarian world outlook or developed a firm faith in the coming of a more perfect social system. While the contemporary capitalist world remains unchanged, liberation must seem to them incomplete and impartial. What despair must grip the more thoughtful and sensitive of these women. Only the working class is capable of maintaining morale in the modern world with its distorted social relations. With firm and measured step it advances steadily towards its aim. It draws the working women to its ranks. The proletarian woman bravely starts out on the thorny path of labour. Her legs sag; her body is torn. There are dangerous precipices along the way, and cruel beasts of prey are close at hand.

But only by taking this path is the woman able to achieve that distant but alluring aim – her true liberation in a new world of labour. During this difficult march to the bright future the proletarian woman, until recently a humiliated, downtrodden slave with no rights, learns to discard the slave mentality that has clung to her, step by step she transforms herself into an independent worker, an independent personality, free in love. It is she, fighting in the ranks of the proletariat, who wins for women the right to work; it is she, the “younger sister”, who prepares the ground for the “free” and “equal” woman of the future.

For what reason, then, should the woman worker seek a union with the bourgeois feminists? Who, in actual fact, would stand to gain in the event of such an alliance? Certainly not the woman worker. She is her own saviour; her future is in her own hands. The working woman guards her class interests and is not deceived by great speeches about the “world all women share”. The working woman must not and does not forget that while the aim of bourgeois women is to secure their own welfare in the framework of a society antagonistic to us, our aim is to build, in the place of the old, outdated world, a bright temple of universal labour, comradely solidarity and joyful freedom. ...

Marriage and the Problem of the Family

Let us turn our attention to another aspect of the woman question, the question of the family. The importance that the solution of this urgent and complex question has for the genuine emancipation of women is well known. The struggle for political rights, for the right to receive doctorates and other academic degrees, and for equal pay for equal work, is not the full sum of the fight for equality. To become really free woman has to throw off the heavy chains of the current forms of the family, which are outmoded and oppressive. For women, the solution of the family question is no less important than the achievement of political equality and economic independence.

In the family of today, the structure of which is confirmed by custom and law, woman is oppressed not only as a person but as a wife and mother, in most of the countries of the civilised world the civil code places women in a greater or lesser dependence on her husband, and awards the husband not, only the right to dispose of her property but also the right of moral and physical dominance over her. ...

Where the official and legal servitude of women ends, the force we call “public opinion” begins. This public opinion is created and supported by the bourgeoisie with the aim of preserving “the sacred institution of property”. The hypocrisy of “double morality” is another weapon. Bourgeois society crushes woman with its savage economic vice, paying for her labour at a very low rate. The woman is deprived of the citizen’s right to raise her voice in defence of her interests: instead, she is given only the gracious alternative of the bondage of marriage or the embraces of prostitution – a trade despised and persecuted in public but encouraged and supported in secret. Is it necessary to emphasise the dark sides of contemporary married life and the sufferings women experience in connection with their position in the present family structure?

So much has already been written and said on this subject. Literature is full of depressing pictures of the snares of married and family life. How many psychological dramas are enacted! How many lives are crippled! Here, it is only important for us to note that the modern family structure, to a lesser or greater extent, oppresses women of all classes and all layers of the population. Customs and traditions persecute the young mother whatever the stratum of the population to which she belongs; the laws place bourgeois women, proletarian women and peasant women all under the guardianship of their husbands.

Have we not discovered at last that aspect of the woman question over which women of all classes can unite? Can they not struggle jointly against the conditions oppressing them? Is it not possible that the grief and suffering which women share in this instance will soften the claws of class antagonism and provide common aspirations and common action for the women of the different camps? Might it not be that on the basis of common desires and aims, co-operation between the bourgeois women and the proletarian women may become a possibility? The feminists are struggling for freer forms of marriage and for the “right to maternity”; they are raising their voices in defence of the prostitute, the human being persecuted by all. See how rich feminist literature is in the search for new forms of relationships and in enthusiastic demands for the “moral equality” of the sexes. Is it not true that while in the sphere of economic liberation the bourgeois women lag behind the many-million strong army of proletarian women who are pioneering the way for the “new woman”, in the fight for the solution, of the family question the laurels go to the feminists?

Here in Russia, women of the middle bourgeoisie – that army of independent wage-earners thrown on to the labour market during the 1860s – have long since settled in practice many of the confused aspects of the marriage question. They have courageously replaced the “consolidated” family of the traditional church marriage with more elastic types of relationship that meet the needs of that social layer. But the subjective solution of this question by individual women does not change the situation and does not relieve the overall gloomy picture of family life. If any force is destroying the modern form of the family, it is not the titanic efforts of separate and stronger individuals but the inanimate and mighty forces of production, which are uncompromisingly budding life, on new foundation’s. ...

The heroic struggle of individual young women of the bourgeois world, who fling down the gauntlet and demand of society the right to “dare to love” without orders and without chains, ought to serve as an example for all women languishing in family chains – this is what is preached by the more emancipated feminists abroad and our progressive equal righters at home. The marriage question, in other words, is solved in their view without reference to the external situation; it is solved independently of changes in the economic structure of society. The isolated, heroic efforts of individuals is enough. Let a woman simply “dare”, and the problem of marriage is solved.

But less heroic women shake their heads in distrust. “It is all very well for the heroines of novels blessed by the prudent author with great independence, unselfish friends and extraordinary qualities of charm, to throw down the gauntlet. But what about those who have no capital, insufficient wages, no friends and little charm?” And the question of maternity preys on the mind of the woman who strives for freedom. Is “free love” possible? Can it be realised as a common phenomenon, as the generally accepted norm rather than the individual exception, given the economic structure of our society? Is it possible to ignore the element of private property in contemporary marriage? Is it possible, in an individualistic world, to ignore the formal marriage contract without damaging the interests of women?

For the marital contract is the only guarantee that all the difficulties of maternity will not fall on the woman alone. Will not that which once happened to the male worker now happen to the woman? The removal of guild regulations, without the establishment of new rules governing the conduct of the masters, gave capital absolute power over the workers. The tempting slogan “freedom of contract for labour and capital” became a means for the naked exploitation of labour by capital. “Free love”, introduced consistently into contemporary class society, instead of freeing woman from the hardships of family life, would surely shoulder her with a new burden – the task of caring, alone and unaided, for her children.

Only a whole number of fundamental reforms in the sphere of social relations – reforms transposing obligations from the family to society and the state – could create a situation where the principle of “free love” might to some extent be fulfilled. But can we seriously expect the modern class state, however democratic it may be, to take upon itself the duties towards mothers and children which at present are undertaken by that individualistic unit, the modern family? Only the fundamental transformation of all productive relations could create the social prerequisites to protect women from the negative aspects of the “free love” formula. Are we not aware of the depravity and abnormalities that in present conditions are anxious to pass themselves off under this convenient label? Consider all those gentlemen owning and administering industrial enterprises who force women among their workforce and clerical staff to satisfy their sexual whims, using the threat of dismissal to achieve their ends. Are they not, in their own way, practising “free love”? All those “masters of the house” who rape their servants and throw them out pregnant on to the street, are they not adhering to the formula of “free love”?

But we are not talking of that kind of ‘freedom’ object the advocates of free marriage. On the contrary, we demand the acceptance of a ‘single morality’ equally binding for both sexes. We oppose the sexual licence that is current, and view as moral only the free union that is based on true love.” But, my dear friends, do you not think that your ideal of “free marriage”, when practised in the conditions of present society, might produce results that differ little from the distorted practice of sexual freedom? Only when women are relieved of all those material burdens which at the present time create a dual dependence, on capital and on the husband, can the principle of “free love” be implemented without bringing new grief for women in its wake.

As women go out to, work and achieve economic independence, certain possibilities for “free love” appear, particularly for the better-paid women of the intelligentsia. But the dependence of women on capital remains, and this dependence increases as more and more proletarian women sell their labour power. Is the slogan “free love” capable of improving the sad existence of these women, who earn only just enough to keep themselves alive? And anyway, is not “free love” already practised among the working classes and practised so widely that the bourgeoisie has on more than one occasion raised the alarm and campaigned against the “depravity” and “immorality” of the proletariat?

It should be noted that when the feminists enthuse about the new forms of cohabitation outside marriage that should be considered by the emancipated bourgeois woman, they speak of “free love”, but when the working class is under discussion these relationships are scornfully referred to as “disorderly sexual intercourse”. This sums up their attitude.

But for proletarian women at the present time all relationships, whether sanctified by the church or not, are equally harsh in their consequences. The crux of the family and marriage problem lies for the proletarian wife and mother not in the question of the sacred or secular external form, but in the attendant social and economic, conditions which define the complicated obligations of the working-class woman, of course it matters to her too whether her husband has the right to dispose of her earnings, whether he has the right by law to force her to live with him when she does not want to, whether the husband can forcibly take her children away etc. However, it is not such paragraphs of the civic code that determine the position of woman in the family, nor is it these paragraphs which make for the confusion and complexity of the family problem. The question of relationships would cease to be such a painful one for the majority of women only if society, relieved women of all those petty household cares which are at present unavoidable (given the existence of individual, scattered domestic economies), took over responsibility for the younger generation, protected maternity and gave the mother to the child for at least the first months after birth.

In opposing the legal and sacred church marriage contract, the feminists are fighting a fetish. The proletarian women, on the other hand, are waging war against the factors that are behind the modern form of marriage and family. In striving to change fundamentally the conditions of life, they know that they are also helping to reform relationships between the sexes. Here we have the main difference between the bourgeois and proletarian approach to the difficult problem of the family.

The feminists and the social reformers from the camp of the bourgeoisie, naively believing in the possibility of creating new forms of family and new types of marital relations against the dismal background of the contemporary class society, tie themselves in knots in their search for these new forms. If life itself has not vet produced these forms, it is necessary, they seem to imagine, to think them up whatever the cost. There must, they believe, be modern forms of sexual relationship which are capable of solving the complex family problem under the present social system. And the ideologists of the bourgeois world – the journalists, writers and prominent women fighters for emancipation one after the other put forward their “family panacea”, their new “family formula”.

How utopian these marriage formulas sound. How feeble these palliatives, when considered in the light of the gloomy reality of our modern family structure. Before these formulas of “free relationships” and “free love” can become practice, it is above all necessary that a fundamental reform of all social relationships between people take place; furthermore, the moral and sexual norms and the whole psychology of mankind would have to undergo a thorough evolution, is the contemporary person psychologically able to cope with “free love"? What about the jealousy that eats into even the best human souls? And that deeply-rooted sense of property that demands the possession not only of the body but also of the soul of another? And the inability to have the proper respect for the individuality of another?

The habit of either subordinating oneself to the loved one, or of subordinating the loved one to oneself? And the bitter and desperate feeling of desertion, of limitless loneliness, which is experienced when the loved ceases to love and leaves? Where can the lonely person, who is an individualist to the very core of his being, find solace? The collective, with its joys and disappointments and aspirations, is the best outlet for the emotional and intellectual energies of the individual. But is modern man capable of working with this collective in such a way as to feel the mutually interacting influences? Is the life of the collective really capable, at present, of replacing the individual’s petty personal joys?

Without the “unique,” “one-and-only” twin soul, even the socialist, the collectivist, is quite alone in the present antagonistic world; only in the working class do we catch the pale glimpse of the future, of more harmonious and more social relations between people. The family problem is as complex and many-faceted as life itself. Our social system is incapable of solving it.

Other marriage formulas have been put forward. Several progressive women and social thinkers regard the marriage union only as a method of producing progeny. Marriage in itself, they hold, does not have any special value for woman – motherhood is her purpose, her sacred aim, her task in life. Thanks to such inspired advocates as Ruth Bray and Ellen Key, the bourgeois ideal that recognises woman as a female rather than a person has acquired a special halo of progressiveness. Foreign literature has seized upon the slogan put forward by these advanced women with enthusiasm. And even here in Russia, in the period before the political storm [of 1905], before social values came in for revision, the question of maternity had attracted the attention of the daily press. The slogan “the right to maternity” cannot help producing lively response in the broadest circles of the female population. Thus, despite the fact that all the suggestions of the feminists in this connection were of the utopian variety, the problem was too important and topical not to attract women.

The “right to maternity” is the kind of question that touches not only women from the bourgeois class but also, to an even greater extent, proletarian women as well. The right to be a mother – these are golden words that go straight to “any women’s heart” and force that heart to beat faster. The right to feed “one’s own” child with one’s own milk, and to attend the first signs of its awakening consciousness, the right to care for its tiny body and shield its tender soul from the thorns and sufferings of the first steps in life – what mother would not support these demands?

It would seem that we have again stumbled on an issue that could serve as a moment of unity between women of different social layers: it would seem that we have found, at last, the bridge uniting women of the two hostile worlds. Let us look closer, to discover what the progressive bourgeois women understand by “the right to maternity”. Then we can see whether, in fact, proletarian women can agree with the solutions to the problem of maternity envisaged by the bourgeois fighters for equal rights. In the eyes of its eager apologists, maternity possesses an almost sacred quality. Striving to smash the false prejudices that brand a woman for engaging in a natural activity – the bearing of a child – because the activity has not been sanctified by the law, the fighters for the right to maternity have bent the stick in the other direction: for them, maternity has become the aim of a woman’s life. ...

Ellen Key’s devotion to the obligations of maternity and the family forces her to give an assurance that the isolated family unit will continue to exist even in a society transformed along socialist lines. The only change, as she sees it, will be that all the attendant elements of convenience or of material gain will be excluded from the marriage union, which will be concluded according to mutual inclinations, without rituals or formalities – love and marriage will be truly synonymous. But the isolated family unit is the result of the modern individualistic world, with its rat-race, its pressures, its loneliness; the family is a product of the monstrous capitalist system. And yet Key hopes to bequeath the family to socialist society! Blood and kinship ties at present often serve, it is true, as the only support in life, as the only refuge in times of hardship and misfortune. But will they be morally or socially necessary in the future? Key does not answer this question. She has too loving a regard for the “ideal family”, this egoistic unit of the middle bourgeoisie to which the devotees of the bourgeois structure of society look with such reverence.

But it is not only the talented though erratic Ellen Key who loses her way in the social contradictions. There is probably no other question about which socialists themselves are so little in agreement as the question of marriage and the family. Were we to try and organise a survey among socialists, the results would most probably be very curious. Does the family wither away? or are there grounds for believing that the family disorders of the present are only a transitory crisis? Will the present form of the family be preserved in the future society, or will it be buried with the modern capitalist system? These are questions which might well receive very different answers. ...

With the transfer of educative functions from the family to society, the last tie holding together the modern isolated family will be loosened; the process of disintegration will proceed at an even faster pace, and the pale silhouettes of future marital relations will begin to emerge. What can we say about these indistinct silhouettes, hidden as they are by present-day influences?

Does one have to repeat that the present compulsory form of marriage will be replaced by the free union of loving individuals? The ideal of free love drawn by the hungry imagination of women fighting for their emancipation undoubtedly corresponds to some extent to the norm of relationships between the sexes that society will establish. However, the social influences are so complex and their interactions so diverse that it is impossible to foretell what the relationships of the future, when the whole system has fundamentally been changed, will he like. But the slowly maturing evolution of relations between the sexes is clear evidence that ritual marriage and the compulsive isolated family are doomed to disappear.

The Struggle for Political Rights

The feminists answer our criticisms by saying: even if the arguments behind our defence of the political rights of women seem to you mistaken, is the importance of the demand itself, which is equally urgent for feminists and for representatives of the working class, thereby reduced? Cannot the women of the two social camps, for the sake of their common political aspirations, surmount the barriers of class antagonism that divide them? Surely they are capable of waging a common struggle against the hostile forces that surround them? Division between bourgeois and proletarian is inevitable as far as other questions are concerned, but in the case of this particular question, the feminists imagine,, the women of the various social classes have no differences.

Feminists keep returning to these arguments with bitterness and bewilderment, seeing preconceived notions of partisan loyalty in the refusal of representatives of the working class to join forces with them in the struggle for women’s political rights. Is this really the case?

Is there a complete identity of political aspirations, or does antagonism hinder the creation of an indivisible, above-class army of women in this instance as in all others? We have to answer this question before we can outline the tactics that proletarian women will employ in winning political rights for their sex.

The feminists declare themselves to be on the side of social reform, and some of them even say they are in favour of socialism – in the far distant future, of course – but they are not intending to struggle in the ranks of the working class for the realisation of these aims. The best of them believe, with a naive sincerity, that once the deputies’ seats are within their reach they will be able to cure the social sores which have in their view developed because men, with their inherent egoism, have been masters of the situation. However good the intentions of individual groups of feminists towards the proletariat, whenever the question of class struggle has been posed they have left the battlefield in a fright. They find that they do not wish to interfere in alien causes, and prefer to retire to their bourgeois liberalism which is so comfortably familiar.

No, however much the bourgeois feminists try to repress the true aim of their political desires, however much they assure their younger sisters that involvement in political life promises immeasurable benefits for the women of the working class, the bourgeois spirit that pervades the whole feminist movement gives a class colouring even to the demand for equal political rights with men, which would seem to be a general women’s demand. Different aims and understandings of how political rights are to be used create an unbridgeable gulf between bourgeois and proletarian women. This does not contradict the fact that the immediate tasks of the two groups of women coincide to a certain degree, for the representatives of all classes which have received access to political power strive above all to achieve a review of the civil code, which in every country, to a greater or lesser extent, discriminates against women. Women press for legal changes that create more favourable conditions of labour for themselves; they stand together against the regulations legalising prostitution etc. However, the coincidence of these immediate tasks is of a purely formal nature. For class interest determines that the attitude of the two groups to these reforms is sharply contradictory. ...

Class instinct – whatever the feminists say – always shows itself to be more powerful than the noble enthusiasms of “above-class” politics. So long as the bourgeois women and their “younger sisters” are equal in their inequality, the former can, with complete sincerity, make great efforts to defend the general interests of women. But once the barrier is down and the bourgeois women have received access to political activity, the recent defenders of the “rights of all women” become enthusiastic defenders of the privileges of their class, content to leave the younger sisters with no rights at all. Thus, when the feminists talk to working women about the need for a common struggle to realise some “general women’s” principle, women of the working class are naturally distrustful.

Love and the New Morality (1911)

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In the period from 1910-1911 onward there was less talk in Russia about the problems of sex. But in Germany a psycho-sociological study of the sexual crisis was written by Grete Meisel-Hess. The book wasn't a success with the general public. Whereas the novel, Karin Michaelis, published not long before and not daring to say anything more than is proper in writing of ‘good taste’, created a great stir (although it is of little artistic value). The main criticism of Meisel-Hess was that her work was interesting but not scientific. The book only made an impression amongst the intelligentsia, the so-called ‘cream’ of German society, who greeted her ideas either with sympathy and agreement or with hissing disapproval. This generally happens when someone sets out to find the truth.

Even though Meisel-Hess's book lacks a whole number of scholarly qualities–her method of research is at fault, she is unsystematic, her argument jumps and twists and often repeats some point already made–this doesn't affect the importance of her work.

The book has a freshness of approach. Its arguments are set down in the strong vigorous way of someone trying to get at the truth. You sense that this woman has seen and experienced much in life. Her thoughts are not new in the sense that these ideas are in the air, they are implied in the whole climate of attitudes towards morality.

Every person has secretly been living out and thinking out these problems. In trying to come to grips with them every thinking person has come by one path or another to the conclusions printed on the pages of The Sexual Crisis. But hypocrisy still persuades us to bow down in public before the old and dead idol of bourgeois morality. Meisel-Hess is like the child in Anderson's fairy story: she has had the courage to cry out in a fearless and composed voice that the Emperor has no clothes on; that contemporary sexual morality is a piece of empty fiction.

Moral norms regulating sexual life can in fact have only two aims:

• Contemporary morality fulfils neither of these aims; it serves only the interests of Mammon, the interests of property. The whole complicated code of present-day sexual morality–indissoluble monogamous marriage, based only in rare cases on ‘Eros’, the widespread institution of commercial prostitution–far from leading humanity to health and to improvement creates the situation where ‘sexual selection’ is turned upside-down. Contemporary morality leads mankind in the path of degeneration.

• People who marry have to practise ‘self-control’ during those years most suitable for child-bearing. Prostitution, which has no result as far as the perpetuation of the race is concerned, flourishes. There is no ‘ecstasy of love’ in marriages of convenience and this has an effect on the physical health of the children of such families. With the acceptance of indissoluble, legal marriage as the norm, the most ‘magnificent examples of woman-hood’, those women most capable of bringing out the erotic in men, are filtered off into prostitution and remain without children. We pronounce the ‘sentence of death’ on the illegitimate ‘children of love’ who are often the more healthy, flourishing and valuable representatives of the race. These are the indirect results of the current morality. This morality leads to deformity and physical deterioration, to the physical and moral degeneration of the human race.

Meisel-Hess's attempts to square sexual morality with the demands of race hygiene deserve our full attention. Her arguments are of special interest to those who accept the materialist interpretation of history. The demands of the socialist programme, the defence of the young working population, the protection of maternity and childhood, the struggle against prostitution etc., also have ‘race hygiene’ in the widest sense as their object. To dislodge the halo that sexual morality possesses of being an unchanging and ‘categorical imperative’, to bring sexual morality in line with the practical demands of living people and the demands of the progressive sections of humanity: these are the tasks which, without a doubt, are standing in the queue and waiting for a serious and inspired response from socialists.

Although Meisel-Hess has valuable ideas on these questions, an analysis of this special part of her work would mean leaving the bounds of a brief essay. Therefore we are limiting ourselves to a review of the other side of the sexual problem. We shall deal with the no less interesting and valuable answers that Meisel-Hess gives to the question of whether present day personal relationships serve to enrich the human psyche with feelings of solidarity and friendship.

Subjecting to analysis all three basic forms of relationships between the sexes–legal marriage, prostitution and the ‘free union’–Meisel-Hess comes to the pessimistic conclusion that in a capitalist system all three forms equally block up and distort the human soul; they smash every hope of continuous and real happiness, and of genuinely human relationships between people. While there is no change, while the human psyche remains in its present state, there is no way out of this continuing sexual crisis.

We can fling open the locked door leading out into the fresh air, and on to the path to closer, more loving and consequently happier relationships between the sexes only if the human psyche is changed radically and man's ‘potential for loving’ is increased. Such a change inevitably demands the basic transformation of socio-economic relations: in other words it demands the transition to communism.

What are the chief inadequacies, what are the dark sides, of legal marriage? Legal marriage is based on two equally false principles: that marriage should be forever and that the partners belong to each other and are each other's property.

The idea of marriage-for-ever is in contradiction to all that psychological scientists know about how the psyche changes during the long course of a human's life. The demand made by contemporary morality deserves to be laughed at: each person must at all costs ‘find their happiness’. People are obliged to select straight away and without making a mistake the one person from among the millions of their contemporaries with whom their soul is in harmony. Only by discovering their “second self” will they be guaranteed a successful marriage. If a person–especially if that person is a woman–in groping for the ideal, tears the heart on the sharp thorns of life's disappointments, society, perverted by current morality, instead of coming forward to help a fellow human being in distress starts victimising that person.

“Society must coerce people into their ‘happiness’–this is the fine flower of our sexual morality.” Modern society doesn't care about individual happiness or even about ‘appearances’. Society has the interests of property at heart and for this reason is prepared to look on an open change of relationship as a great personal insult. Meisel-Hess drily points out that “marriage is like a flat: you become aware of its dark corners only when you've lived in it a while. It's hard luck, of course, if you have to change flats all the time because they turn out to be uncomfortable and inadequate. But that's better than being forced by circumstances to stay in an unsuitable place. It must be completely accepted by society that a person, in the course of his long life and in the process of the development of his personality, will change sexual partners.”

It seems even more absurd that marriages should be indissoluble when you bear in mind that most legal marriages are contracted ‘in the dark’; the marriage partners have only the vaguest idea of each other. They know little about the personality of the other and more than that they have absolutely no idea if they are suited physically–and happiness in marriage is not possible unless there is this physical harmony. ‘Trial nights’ which according to Meisel-Hess were common practice in the Middle Ages, are far from being ‘absurdly lacking in decency’. In a different social environment people might, in the interest of the human race and in order to ensure the happiness of individuals, exercise this right.

The idea of property and the ‘undisputed rights of possession’ that one partner has over the other is the second factor poisoning legal marriage. In fact you get this ridiculous situation. The complicated, many-sided personalities of two people who are close to each other only in a few ways are ‘obliged’ to suit each other in every way. ‘Undisputed possession’ leads to the partners being always and inconveniently with each other. You no longer have your own time, your own will, and because of the economic dependence involved, you often don't have even your ‘own separate corner’. The continual presence of the other person and the inevitably unreasonable demands made on one, as on a piece of property, turn even a passionate love into indifference and lead to an insufferable nagging over little things. You really have to agree with Meisel-Hess that when two people live on top of each other all the time the tender spring flower of even the most loving attachment will be killed. You need to have so much consideration for the other person, such a great supply of ‘warmth’, if you are to develop out of the first rush of passion the rich fruits of a deep irrevocable emotional attachment, formed in the sun of mutual warmth.

The sense of ‘property’ and of the ‘foreverness’ of legal marriage has a harmful effect on the psyche; a man has to make only the smallest emotional effort to preserve the external trappings of an attachment since the partner is in any case rivetted to him for life. The modern form of legal marriage impoverishes the soul and in no way helps mankind to gather the store of ‘great love’ which the Russian genius Tolstoy talked of and longed for.

But the other form of sexual contact–mercenary prostitution–distorts the human psyche even more. “What could be more monstrous than the act of love reduced to the level of a profession?” Leaving aside all the social poverty connected with prostitution–all the physical suffering, illness, deformity and degeneration–let us stop to consider the question of the influence of prostitution on the human psyche. Nothing so empties the human soul as the buying of physical love from a stranger or the selling of love in this way. Prostitution extinguishes the love in people's hearts. Eros flies away in terror fearing to soil his golden wings in a bed so bespattered with dirt.

Prostitution deforms a normal attitude towards sex. It cripples and impoverishes the spirit, it cuts out and takes away what is most valuable–the ability to feel the passion and love that extend and enrich the individual by giving him a store of emotional experience. Prostitution distorts our understanding. It makes us see something shameful, low and coarsely animal in one of the most serious moments of human life–in the act of love, in the final harmony of complicated emotional experience.

When men purchase their pleasure they don't achieve psychological fulfilment, and this has a particularly pernicious effect on the male psyche. With a prostitute a man finds no moments of deeply-felt, truly-erotic ecstasy that are somehow transforming. He learns to come to a woman with ‘lowered’ needs, with a psyche oversimplified and faded. Used to submissive ‘obliging’ caresses he no longer watches the complicated emotional process working itself out in the woman, his partner. He ceases to ‘hear’ and catch the subtle shade of her emotions. How many of the scenes that women make are sparked off by this ‘simplification’ of the male psyche, a simplification that takes place in the brothel! Prostitution inevitably spreads dark shadows even over the heads of the ‘independent’ lover, and over the woman who loves naively and is thus expecting a lot. Prostitution ruthlessly poisons the joy of loving for those women who see the sexual act as the ‘final harmony’ of mutual all-absorbing passion.[2]

A woman normally looks to personal relationships for fulfilment and harmony. But a man educated in prostitution has lost sight of the intricate vibrations of feeling. He follows only the pale monotony of physical attraction and ends up with a feeling of unfulfilment and emotional hunger. The mutual ‘misunderstanding’ of the sexes grows. The greater the individuality of the woman, the more complicated her emotional needs and the more acute the sexual crisis becomes. Prostitution is dangerous just because it has an influence far beyond the confines of the brothel.

Meisel-Hess talks of venereal disease and the physical weakening of the race. We shall leave this question aside and consider the other psychological moment that casts a shadow on the emotional impulses, that blocks and distorts the erotic consciousness, and leads to a situation where the mutual understanding of the man and woman disappears, and they are unable to enjoy each other without misusing each other. On the boundary between physical and psychological emotions is the feeling which determines the activity of man that involves the continuation of the race. And it is this feeling, on which all hangs, on which both the individual and the society depend, that is ruthlessly distorted.

The third form of personal relationship, the ‘free relationship’ also has its dark sides. A ‘free relationship’ does not succeed because it is a reflection of the total situation. The man of today begins a ‘free’ relationship with his psyche already deformed by false and unhealthy ideas about morality. He has already been educated on the one hand by legal marriage and on the other, by prostitution. The ‘free union’ inevitably comes up against two obstacles: our inability to love (an inability that is the essence of our atomised individualistic world) and the absence of the necessary leisure time for truly emotional experience. Modern man has no time to ‘love’.

In a society based on competition, in a society where the battle for existence is fierce and everyone is involved in a race for profit, for a career, or for just a crust of bread, there is no room left for the cult of the demanding and fragile Eros. Poor Aspasia [3] would wait in vain these days for the feast of love and joy and for friendship decorated with roses. She could not bring herself to be with a man of coarse and unworthy emotions and the man of ‘noble spirit’ would not have the time to spend his evenings with her.

Meisel-Hess rightly points out how widespread this attitude is: modern man looks upon love and passion as the ‘greatest misfortune’, as something that can only be a burden and prevent him attending to the proper and really important things–the conquest of position, capital, the acquisition of a secure job, of praise etc. Man avoids the poisoned arrows of Eros, he avoids being caught up in a ‘great love’ that might divert him from the ‘main things’ in life. And a ‘free union’ in the whole context of modern life demands a much greater amount of time and emotional energy than either registered marriage or momentary and purchased pleasure. ‘Free’ lovers are usually more attached to each other than legal partners and spend more time with each other.

How many valuable ‘business’ hours are lost over one ‘rendez-vous’. There are thousands of other demons lying in wait for the pair that are bound by the tie of love alone–there are misunderstandings, there is temporary estrangement and conflict. A ‘union of love’ in the conditions that exist today ends either by breaking up or by taking on the form of legal marriage. The strong and complete man who could include love without risk in the complex of his living has not yet, in Meisel-Hess's opinion, emerged. That is why we see the men of today, absorbed by the cares of business, preferring to open their wallets and acquire for themselves a ‘kept woman’, or pay a woman with their ‘name’ and shoulder the burden of a legal family, rather than waste their ‘precious’ time and energy on experiencing love.

The same dilemma faces women, particularly those women who support themselves (and in developed countries that means 30-40%). Love or a profession? The problem of maternity further complicates the position of the working woman. It is in fact worth looking through the biographies of all outstanding women to be convinced of the inevitable conflict between on the one side love and having children and on the other a career and a vocation. Perhaps it is just because the independent ‘spinster’ woman, in giving her love to someone, throws on the scales of happiness not only her emotions but also work that is dear to her that she expects from the man in return a generous payment, ‘the richest gift’. She demands his soul.

The ‘free union’ suffers because there is no sense of moral responsibility, no consciousness of an inner duty. While the complicated structure of social inter-relations remains unchanged there is no ground for thinking, as the supporters of ‘free love’ do, that this type of personal relationship will lead humanity out of the sexual crisis.

It could be an answer only if the psyche had been radically re-educated. This re-education would demand as a necessary precondition that the basis of social life, which determines ideas about morality, be also changed.

There is nothing fundamentally new in the suggestions brought forward by Meisel-Hess concerning social politics, legislation and reform. They are already implied in the relevant demands of the socialists’ programmes. The demands made by socialists–the economic independence of women, protection in every possible way for mothers and children, the struggle against prostitution at its economic base, the end of the concept of ‘legitimate’ and ‘illegitimate’ children, the replacement of church marriage by easily altered civil marriage, and a radical reconstruction of society along communist lines–cover all the points she makes. Meisel-Hess's merit is not that she has taken all her socio-political demands from the socialists. Much more important is the fact that although not an ‘active socialist’ she has, in her sincere desire for truth in sexual matters, unconsciously found the only way to settle the sexual question. However, if all social reforms had been passed and all the essential pre-requisites for new personal relationships existed, the sexual crisis would still not be settled unless the great creative force that can increase humanity's ‘potential for loving’ had been developed.

Meisel-Hess has reached this conclusion through intuition and the sincerity of her approach. She sees that all the energies that society spends in the education and moulding of human emotions to cope with personal relationships must be directed to this end.

According to Meisel-Hess, a marriage relationship based on deep feeling and emotional and physical harmony will continue to be the ideal in the future. But one should not forget that ‘great love’ is a gift that destiny rarely gives, it falls only to a few chosen ones. The magician ‘great love’ doesn't often touch our hearts with his enchanting rod, painting our grey life with sunny colours. Millions of people never know these all-powerful charms. What are we to do with these unfortunate people? Are they to be left to the cold embraces of marriage without Eros? Or to prostitution? Will people always be faced with the same cruel dilemma that confronts us in contemporary society: either ‘great love’ or erotic hunger?

Meisel-Hess seeks and finds an alternative. Where there is no ‘great love’ ‘game-love’ should take its place. To be capable of ‘great love’ humanity must pass through the difficult ‘school of love’ where the emotions are refined. ‘Game-love’ is this school; it is the way for the human psyche to develop its ‘potential for loving’.

In different forms you come across ‘game-love’ at all stages of the long history of humanity. It is not difficult to trace the basic elements of this relationship in the behaviour of the haetaera[4] of Ancient Greece and her ‘friend’; in the ‘gallant love’ between the courtesan and her ‘patron’ lover at the time of the Renaissance; in the erotic friendship of the ‘grizetka'[5], free and carefree as a bird, and her ‘comrade-student’.

You don't find here the all-absorbing Eros with a tragic face demanding full and undivided possession, or a crude sexualism that confines itself to the physical act. Sanis with his over-simplified psycho-physiological make-up would be a poor partner in the ‘game-love’ that Meisel-Hess describes. Because human emotions are being educated and formed in the process, ‘game-love’ demands a great delicacy, psychological awareness and genuine and responsive sensitivity. ‘Game-love’ is very demanding. “People coming together on the grounds of mutual attraction alone expect the smiles of life from each other. They won't allow someone to play with their emotions and go unpunished; they are not prepared to adopt a casual attitude toward someone's psyche, an attitude that ignores the internal world. ‘Game-love’ demands a far more careful, considerate and thoughtful relationship between people: one that will gradually break them from that fathomless egoism which accompanies all contemporary emotional experience.” “A close relationship with someone that encourages mutual feeling develops sensitivity, consideration and delicacy in a person…”

Thirdly, ‘game-love’ does not derive from the principle of ‘undisputed’, possession, and teaches people to give only that part of their ‘self’ which is not a burden to the other, and which helps the other person to lead a brighter life. This would teach people, in Meisel-Hess's opinion, a ‘great wisdom’ in that they can only give the whole self when there exists feelings that are irrevocable and of ‘solemn’ depth. At the moment we are too inclined, after ‘the first kiss’, to encroach on the whole personality of the other person, to bind absolutely the other's heart before there is any call for this. We have to remember that only a ‘great love’ gives these ‘rights’.

‘Game-love’ or ‘erotic friendship’ has yet another advantage–it is an armour against the murderous arrows of Eros. It teaches people to withstand the burden of love and passion that enslaves and crushes the individual. According to Meisel-Hess, it encourages, in the way that no other form of love does, the self-preservation of the individual.

There is no room in such a relationship for that awful kind of development which could be called ‘the violent assault’ on another person's ‘self. ‘Game-love’ does not involve the great ‘fall’, the loss of one's personality in the waves of passion. Contemporary humanity lives under ‘the sinister sign’ of passion that always tries to overwhelm the other ‘I’, the other person. In the novel Lassvitsa the girl from Mars makes this reply to the man who professes love for her: “If I were inspired to play the game of feelings I would fall under the violent power of passion, I would lose my freedom and would have to go with you to earth. Your earth is perhaps bigger and more luxurious, but I would rather die in this harsh atmosphere. Your hearts are like your air: they are heavy…”

Our time is exceptional in that it has no ‘art of love’. People are absolutely unable to develop light and carefree relationships. People do not recognise the value of ‘erotic friendships’. Love is either a tragedy that tears the soul apart or it is a vulgar vaudeville. We have to lead mankind from this blind-alley. We have to teach people to experience bright and beautiful emotions that burden no one. Only by passing through the school of erotic friendship is man's psyche capable of feeling a ‘great love’ that is completely free of any dark aspect. Any emotional experience (that is not just the coarse physical act) enriches rather than impoverishes the soul. “A rich and healthy human heart, capable of experiencing love is not”, says Meisel-Hess, “a sandwich to be gradually eaten.” Love is a force which multiplies as you use it up. “To love the more intensely, the more often and the more self-assuredly is the passionate way of every great heart.” Love is in itself a great creative force: it develops and enriches the psyche of the person who experiences love and of the person to whom love is given.

“Without love humanity feels itself fobbed, unfortunate and beggarly. There is no doubt that love will become the cult of mankind in the future. And even now in order to struggle to live, to work, and to create man needs to feel ‘sure’ of himself, he needs to feel ‘accepted’. The man who feels himself loved also feels himself to be accepted and this makes him more joyful at being alive.”

But the recognition of the ‘I’, the self, is not achieved, and the desire to escape the ever-present spiritual loneliness is not fulfilled by simply satisfying physical hunger. “Only the feeling of being in complete harmony with the loved one will satisfy a person. Only ‘great love’ gives full satisfaction. The crisis is more acute when social barriers restrict the potential for loving that is in the human soul–when the human psyche has had few experiences of friendship and togetherness.”

The task of ‘erotic friendship’ is to prepare and educate this potential for loving so that man is ready for ‘great love’.

‘Game-love’ is of course only a deputy and substitute for ‘great love’. Some people will say it is not enough. If that's what they think, replies Meisel-Hess, let them look at what passes for love at the present time, at the prostitution ‘dressed’ up as great feeling. What incredible falsehood, what a stack of lies are accumulating on this subject! One example that springs to mind–a man and his fiancée are in each other's arms but the strict morality cries: “You must wait”. The fiance visits a prostitute, who doesn't want to sleep with him, but has to. The girl friend wants the man but has to wait until the priest gives the word. It would be much more natural and more moral if two people who wanted each other were to seek fulfilment in each other instead of condemning a third person to the service of their flesh.

Apart from its roots in the socio-economic structure, prostitution is determined by something psychological that is deeply rooted in the human soul–the desire to overflow with ‘erotic inspiration’ without having to lose freedom and give the future as payment, without having to place the entire ‘I’, the entire self, at the feet of the partner who is really a stranger. You have to accommodate such a natural drive. You can't cast the marriage bridle over every unguarded lover. ‘Game-love’ is the answer that people have been looking for. “If we are sincere, if we dispense with the sexual lie and the hypocrisy of our morality, there is no reason to doubt that mankind at a higher level of cultural development might find this kind of answer, if certain social reforms had been achieved.” (Meisel-Hess emphasises that these reforms are a necessary pre-condition for all her suggestions about a different morality) “… there would be nothing wrong in ‘erotic ecstasy’ throwing two people into each other's arms… ‘heaven’ and ‘hell’ have got nothing to do with it.”

Finally, the exact limits of ‘erotic friendship’ are very vague and undefined. It is quite possible that people coming together on the grounds of slight contact and attraction will find each other, and from the ‘game’ will grow the treasure of ‘great love’. The question remains of creating the objective conditions for this to happen. What are Meisel-Hess's conclusions and practical demands?

Society must above all learn to accept all forms of personal relationships however unusual they may seem, provided they comply with two conditions. Provided that they do not affect the physical health of the human race and provided they are not determined by the economic factor. The monogamous union based on ‘great love’ still remains the ideal. But this is not a permanent or set relationship. The more complicated the individual psyche the more inevitable are the changes. “A succession of monogamous relationships” is the basic structure of personal relationships. But side by side there are a whole range of possible forms of ‘erotic friendship’ between the sexes.

The second demand is the acceptance in practice and not only in words that maternity is ‘sacred’. Society must arrange all forms and kinds of ‘aid-stations’ for women, that will give them moral and material support during this very important period of their lives.

Lastly, it is essential to take a look at the moral equipment which a girl setting out on life's journey is given, otherwise women will be afraid of and crushed by freer relationships.

The entire present-day education of a woman is directed to confining her life to emotions of love. And so we get these ‘broken hearts’, these images of women drooping from the first strong wind. We must open up the wide gates to a many-sided life. We must steel a woman's heart and armour her will. It is time to teach woman to treat love as a step, as a way of finding her true ‘I’, her true self, and not as her whole existence. Let her learn to come through an emotional conflict as a man does, with a stronger spirit and not with broken wings. Goethe's motto was “Be able at any moment to do away with the past and accept life as if it began today.” There is already hope, the new type of woman is emerging–the ‘bachelor woman’ for whom love is not the only thing in life. She doesn't let the waves of life have absolute control over her emotional experience, a seasoned helmswoman is at the wheel of the boat. Her spirit has been forged in the battle of life. The ‘bachelor woman’ re-paraphrases the philistine exclamation ‘She has a past!’. ‘She has a past’… How cruel can fate be!

There may not be many of these women for a long time yet, and a new sexual order, the child of a more perfect social structure, won't begin immediately. The long sexual crisis won't end and give way tomorrow to the morality of the future. But the path has been found and the forbidden door is wide open and beckoning in the distance. Meisel-Hess's book gives us ‘Ariadne's thread’ to the complicated labyrinth of sexual relationships and involved psychological dramas. We should use the valuable points that she makes, throw out some of her suggestions, rid others of irrelevancies and of slight inaccuracies. We should bring her conclusions in line with the basic tasks of the rising class. We should try to find in the problems of, and the attitudes to, sexual relationships, and in the psychology of love, the embryo of a new, developing and inevitably victorious ‘proletarian culture’.

Notes

[1]. This article was written as a book review of The Sexual Crisis, by the German writer Meisel-Hess. It is a reminder that Kollontai's ideas on sexual relations and women's liberation were part of a more general ferment of ideas on these questions in Western Europe at the beginning of this century. The essay reflects some of the psychological and scientific thinking of sixty years ago, which now appears more dated than the social and political thinking of the same period.

[2]. What Meisel-Hess says about the distortion of the male personality in prostitution is the key to another fact that has never before been discussed. A man is not used to having to think about a woman's psychological and emotional experience. This means not only that he is unable to ‘hear’ a woman's soul, but with surprising naivety he ignores her physical experience during the sexual act. The dissatisfaction that women feel because of this is known only to doctors; it frequently causes illness. It is surprising that Meisel-Hess in talking about the selfishness of the male personality is silent on this point, which throws light on many a domestic conflict. When Maupassant dared to touch on this question in his novel A Life (The History of One Life) most men greeted his revelation with naive bewilderment.

[3]. Aspasia was a Greek courtesan of 440 B.C. She was renowned for her wisdom as well as her beauty, and was the mistress of Pericles, an Athenian statesman. He left his wife for Aspasia, whose brilliance made her house a centre of Athenian literary and philosophical life.

[4]. Haetaera–a Greek courtesan. Greek courtesans at one time were highly respected (see note on Aspasia above) and took part in public life much more than wives did.

[5]. Grizetka: taken from the French word ‘grisette’–a young and ‘coquettish’ working girl.

The International Proletariat and War (1912)

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Alexandra Kollontai was invited to Stockholm by the Swedish League of Socialist Youth and the left wing of the Swedish Social-Democratic Party to address a meeting held to mark May Day. The meeting was held outdoors, in a large field at Gardet, before an audience of thousands. The famous philologist, Doctor Hannes Skjold, interpreted Kollantai's speech into Swedish, and it was his interpretation that was no doubt used as the basis of the text published in the Swedish press.

Today is our great day, the day when the solidarity of the international proletariat is being expressed throughout the world by mass demonstrations. And is this not a sign of growing solidarity that I, a foreigner from distant Russia, can stand here today and, speaking in German, which is neither my native tongue nor yours, pass on to you greetings from the Russian proletariat.

The Russian proletariat, together with the proletariat of the whole world, protests against all wars. It is a well-known fact that the proletariat knows no national frontiers. It recognises only two 'nations' in the civilised world: the exploiters and the exploited.

The capitalists always say: 'We must arm ourselves because we are threatened by war!' And they point to their sacred symbols: militarism on land, militarism on the high seas, and militarism in the air. They summon the spectre of war in order to put it between themselves and the red spectre. They call for war in order to free themselves from the spectre of social revolution.

But the International answers them with one united call: 'Down with war!' The workers know that behind the threat of war there stands the capitalist state that wants to burden the people with new taxes, there stands the war industry that wants to increase its profits. We still remember the scandal that broke out a few years ago in France when the French capitalists deceived the German minister of war into placing with them a new order for military weapons. They had spread the rumour that the French Ministry of War had ordered new armaments, new cannon, new machine-guns. And the German minister of war, who did not wish to be outdone by the French, immediately placed a similar order with the French capitalists. Only later was it discovered that these rumours were pure bluff!

In France the capitalists say to the proletariat: 'Come with us to the Sahara and occupy it. There, in the desert, you will find that which you lack at home.' And here, in Sweden, the Swedish capitalists repeat the old time-worn menace: 'Don't forget the threat from Russia – we must arm ourselves!'...

And even if tsarism, if the Russian capitalists, did indeed venture to attack Sweden, we nonetheless still exist! We, the proletariat! Did we not survive the crisis in Morocco? [1] And who was it then who impeded the threatened outbreak of war? Yes, the international proletariat, which threw out the challenge to the German and French governments, the German and French capitalists: 'Not one step further! We stand here, and if the capitalists dare to wage war, then the red spectre will turn into social revolution, and you yourselves will then be responsible!'

Yes, social revolution! May Day is an international holiday that is celebrated in every country... May Day is the preparation for social revolution, a trial mobilisation of the forces of the working class. And the workers of the world are united, they say: 'We are ready for battle!'

Social revolution is inevitable. Let the bourgeoisie, the capitalists, talk of socialism putting down roots in the existing system! Nothing of the kind can happen. How can one talk of 'putting down roots' when every year in London 200 thousand people die in slums and workhouses? Can there be any question of 'putting down roots' when in Paris 500 thousand people are permanently without work?

It is also important to take into account the significant events that have taken place over recent years, the strikes and lock-outs, and above all, the growing militancy of the proletariat! As little as ten years ago we could scarcely have imagined the events of recent years.

It all began with the Russian revolution of 1905. Unfortunately, reaction in Russia was too strong, and the revolution was suppressed. But then the red spectre moved to Sweden, and there was a general strike which, despite all the catastrophes involved, despite the poverty, signified moral victory for the Swedish proletariat. The whole International was then able for the first time to appreciate the true significance of such a mass strike.

This was followed by strikes in France and England. Never before in history had there been a strike on such a scale as that in England, where one million people walked out from work en masse in order to defend the demands of their class.

Thus we can see how the strength of the proletariat is growing from year to year. And if the bourgeoisie talks of war, then we answer with the thousands of voices of the organised workers: 'We do not want war! We demand peace! Down with war! Long live the social revolution!'

Footnotes

1. This is reference to the so-called Agadir crisis in Morocco in 1911, when a German gunboat entered a French port, causing a further deterioration in relations between the two countries and bringing them to the brink of war. The Moroccan crises seriously affected international relations on the eve of the First World War; they constituted a trial of strength between the two imperialist blocs. Lenin numbered the Moroccan crises among the 'chief crises in the international policy of the great powers after 1870-71' (V.I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 39, p. 686).

Women’s Day (1913)

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The article 'Women's Day' by Alexandra Kollontai was published in the newspaper Pravda one week before the first-ever celebration in Russia of the Day of International Solidarity among the Female Proletariat on 23 February (8 March), 1913. In St Petersburg this day was marked by a call for a campaign against women workers' lack of economic and political rights, for the unity of the working class, and for the awakening of self-consciousness among women workers.

What is 'Women's Day'? Is it really necessary? Is it not a concession to the women of the bourgeois class, to the feminists and suffragettes? Is it not harmful to the unity of the workers' movement?

Such questions can still be heard in Russia, though they are no longer heard abroad. Life itself has already supplied a clear and eloquent answer.

'Women's Day' is a link in the long, solid chain of the women's proletarian movement. The organised army of working women grows with every year. Twenty years ago the trade unions contained only small groups of working women scattered here and there among the ranks of the workers party... Now English trade unions have over 292 thousand women members; in Germany around 200 thousand are in the trade union movement and 150 thousand in the workers party, and in Austria there are 47 thousand in the trade unions and almost 20 thousand in the party. Everywhere – in Italy, Hungary, Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Switzerland – the women of the working class are organising themselves. The women's socialist army has almost a million members. A powerful force! A force that the powers of this world must reckon with when it is a question of the cost of living, maternity insurance, child labour and legislation to protect female labour.

There was a time when working men thought that they alone must bear on their shoulders the brunt of the struggle against capital, that they alone must deal with the 'old world' without the help of their womenfolk. However, as working-class women entered the ranks of those who sell their labour, forced onto the labour market by need, by the fact that husband or father is unemployed, working men became aware that to leave women behind in the ranks of the 'non-class-conscious' was to damage their cause and hold it back. The greater the number of conscious fighters, the greater the chances of success. What level of consciousness is possessed by a woman who sits by the stove, who has no rights in society, the state or the family? She has no 'ideas' of her own! Everything is done as ordered by the father or husband...

The backwardness and lack of rights suffered by women, their subjection and indifference, are of no benefit to the working class, and indeed are directly harmful to it. But how is the woman worker to be drawn into the movement, how is she to be awoken?

Social-Democracy abroad did not find the correct solution immediately. Workers' organisations were open to women workers, but only a few entered. Why? Because the working class at first did not realise that the woman worker is the most legally and socially deprived member of that class, that she has been browbeaten, intimidated, persecuted down the centuries, and that in order to stimulate her mind and heart, a special approach is needed, words understandable to her as a woman. The workers did not immediately appreciate that in this world of lack of rights and exploitation, the woman is oppressed not only as a seller of her labour, but also as a mother, as a woman... However. when the workers' socialist party understood this, it boldly took up the defence of women on both counts as a hired worker and as a woman, a mother.

Socialists in every country began to demand special protection for female labour, insurance for mother and child, political rights for women and the defence of womens interests.

The more clearly the workers party perceived this second objective vis-a-vis women workers, the more willingly women joined the party, the more they appreciated that the party is their true champion, that the working class is struggling also for their urgent and exclusively female needs. Working women themselves, organised and conscious, have done a great deal to elucidate this objective. Now the main burden of the work to attract more working women into the socialist movement lies with the women. The parties in every country have their own special women's committees, secretariats and bureaus. These women's committees conduct work among the still largely non-politically conscious female population, arouse the consciousness of working women and organise them. They also examine those questions and demands that affect women most closely: protection and provision for expectant and nursing mothers, the legislative regulation of female labour, the campaign against prostitution and infant mortality, the demand for political rights for women, the improvement of housing, the campaign against the rising cost of living, etc.

Thus, as members of the party, women workers are fighting for the common class cause, while at the same time outlining and putting forward those needs and demands that most nearly affect themselves as women, housewives and mothers. The party supports these demands and fights for them... The requirements of working women are part and parcel of the common workers' cause!

On 'Women's Day' the organised demonstrate against their lack of rights.

But, some will say, why this singling out of women workers? Why special 'Women's Days', special leaflets for working women, meetings and conferences of working-class women? Is this not, in the final analysis, a concession to the feminists and bourgeois suffragettes?

Only those who do not understand the radical difference between the movement of socialist women and bourgeois suffragettes can think this way.

What is the aim of the feminists? Their aim is to achieve the same advantages, the same power, the same rights within capitalist society as those possessed now by their husbands, fathers and brothers. What is the aim of the women workers? Their aim is to abolish all privileges deriving from birth or wealth. For the woman worker it is a matter of indifference who is the 'master' a man or a woman. Together with the whole of her class, she can ease her position as a worker.

Feminists demand equal rights always and everywhere. Women workers reply: we demand rights for every citizen, man and woman, but we are not prepared to forget that we are not only workers and citizens, but also mothers! And as mothers, as women who give birth to the future, we demand special concern for ourselves and our children, special protection from the state and society.

The feminists are striving to acquire political rights. However, here too our paths separate.

For bourgeois women, political rights are simply a means allowing them to make their way more conveniently and more securely in a world founded on the exploitation of the working people. For women workers, political rights are a step along the rocky and difficult path that leads to the desired kingdom of labour.

The paths pursued by women workers and bourgeois suffragettes have long since separated. There is too great a difference between the objectives that life has put before them. There is too great a contradiction between the interests of the woman worker and the lady proprietress, between the servant and her mistress... There are not and cannot be any points of contact, conciliation or convergence between them. Therefore working men should not fear separate Women's Days, nor special conferences of women workers, nor their special press.

Every special, distinct form of work among the women of the working class is simply a means of arousing the consciousness of the woman worker and drawing her into the ranks of those fighting for a better future... Women's Days and the slow, meticulous work undertaken to arouse the self-consciousness of the woman worker are serving the cause not of the division but of the unification of the working class.

Let a joyous sense of serving the common class cause and of fighting simultaneously for their own female emancipation inspire women workers to join in the celebration of Women's Day.

The War and Our Immediate Tasks (1914)

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When the workers' International last met in Basle in 1912 [1] in order to raise its voice in protest against the threat of a world war, which might have broken out as a result of the events in the Balkans, everyone was filled with confident hope. World war seemed impossible.

While solidarity and the brotherhood of peoples unites the workers of every nation, while there exists that unity of objectives that marked the Basle Congress and draws together the proletariat of states both large and small, the working class has no need to fear Landsknechte and the bloody wars that accompany them. Then the old imperialist-capitalist world would not dare to provoke a war, for should war break out, the 'red spectre' would appear on the scene to terrify bourgeois society.

This was what we, socialists, believed as recently as two years ago. But now world war has become a fact, with all its horrors, suffering and barbarity. These have exceeded anything that even the most grotesque fantasy could have imagined. World war broke out at the very moment when an international congress was to be held in Vienna. [2] This congress was to discuss yet again the important question of how socialists in every country could avert war, and how the organised working class was to avoid falling into the trap of the imperialists-capitalists. Until only very recently, until the start of the war, it seemed completely impossible that the clear Marxist world outlook of the Social-Democrats could be infected with bourgeois chauvinism. One might have thought that the materialist understanding of history and the clear perception of class contradictions possessed by Social-Democrats would serve as a scientific compass guiding the workers along the correct path, even during a hurricane of chauvinism.

However, amidst all these considerations, Social-Democracy overlooked one important factor: it underestimated the moral influence of the old bourgeois world on the mood of the populace. It failed to take sufficiently into account the present, well-prepared, treacherous policy being pursued by the supporters of the class interests of imperialism. It turns out that the governments of the bourgeois states understood popular psychology better than the very representatives of the democratic and working-class masses!

The national feelings artificially stimulated by the capitalists and junkers of every country in the world with the help of the church and the press, and which are also preached in the schools, at home and in society, would appear to be more deeply entrenched among the people than the internationalists realised. The imperialist-capitalist world skilfully manipulates people's national sentiments in order to drive its own national population into the ready-prepared lethal trap of war. And when irrational and blind chauvinism proved insufficient to provoke a militarist mood among the people, the authorities had recourse to other methods in order to fool the people – including the proletariat – and attract it onto its side so that it would take part in a bloody war. All the capitalist states are now assuming the disguise of an attractive idealism in order to justify their rapacious imperialist policy.

The Germans, it would seem, are raising the sword not in order to eliminate their rivals on the world market, but in order to overthrow Russian tsarism!... The English and the French, so we are told, are merely seeking to avert the threat to the world presented by the German police state and German militarism! And the Russians, if you please, are sending their sons into the battlefield not in order to satisfy their pan-Slavism, but in order to liberate Galicia and Serbia, and also in order to save the republican system in France and democracy in Belgium! Thus tsarism is fighting for republicanism, and the Junkers in Prussia are sacrificing the blood of their sons in order to 'liberate Russia from the yoke of absolutism'. This is an amusing caricature which, in other circumstances, would reduce us to laughter, but which now, amidst blood and tears, is turning into a major historical catastrophe.

People talk of 'the right of each people to self-defence'. Each state naturally tries to present itself as having begun the war in order to preserve and defend its culture, and not in order to fill the purses of the capitalists.

Culture! Yes, culture is indeed man's most precious possession. But is it not war that threatens the very existence of culture? Is it not because of war that magnificent old forests (the forests just outside Paris, for example, which constitute one of its most attractive features) are ruthlessly destroyed? Is it not war that destroys the best historical monuments and works of art? Finally, are there any 'cultural values' which are worth the cost of hundreds of thousands, even millions, of human lives?

People talk of culture, but is it not war that gives rise to the most horrific barbarity? The slaughter of the sons of the people, of the children of the proletariat, grows with every day. The human mind is incapable of grasping the sum total of all the misery, deprivation and suffering of the people. The basest, most bestial instincts rise to the surface. Militarism and the inhuman cruelty and blind discipline to which it gives birth rule the world. No one gives any thought any more to men's most valuable possession-life itself. And this is called 'defence of culture'!

What will be the outcome of this dreadful blood-letting? Will the workers derive any benefit from the war, even in the case of victory in just one country? Even if it were possible to ensure the payment of war reparations by the defeated states whose countries lie in ruins, part of this money would immediately go into the pockets of the capitalists, while the rest would have to be used to rebuild the shattered economy. Want and misery will reign supreme everywhere after this world war, even in those countries that emerge the victors. Everywhere there will be an increase in the number of people unfit for work: invalids, the sick, the mentally deranged and orphans. Worst of all, however, war will subsequently affect to some degree or other the development of the productive forces of all the belligerent countries.

Disaster and bankruptcy, debt and unemployment will reduce the purchasing power of the people, and this will have a paralysing effect on the normal development of the forces of production. This is, for us, the heaviest blow of all: our hope for the rapid realisation of our dream concerning the future of mankind is closely bound up with the continuing unimpeded development of all the productive forces. Any delay in this development means that our best hopes are postponed to some unspecified date in the distant future.

However, apart from all the horrors of war and mass murder, apart from the disruption of the national economy and the lowering of the cultural level, war has a particularly unfavourable effect upon the position of the working class and its objectives insofar as the whole of mankind will be divided (albeit for a short time) not into classes, according to the basic tenet of the Social-Democrats, but into nations. This reduces the impact of one of the most powerful weapons that the proletariat is called upon to wield, namely the solidarity of the workers' International.

Nonetheless, this dreadful war has already taught us a great deal. It has provided us with several painful lessons which we must fully recognise in order to benefit from them in the future.

The war has shown us that the workers' party made a great mistake in underestimating the danger of militarism and offering too weak a resistance to its influence. The principled position of the Social-Democratic parties on the question of how the workers are to behave in case of war was too ill-defined, too imprecise. The resolutions adopted by the International worked to the benefit of nationalist trends. Now, however, when German Social-Democracy has allowed itself to be fooled by the Prussian Junker state and is pursuing a mistaken tactic in support of war, [3] it has become clear that it will be the duty of the future International to state its position on this issue clearly and precisely and to determine upon a firm, clearly defined revolutionary tactic as regards the threat of war. There can be no doubt that, as soon as this dreadful war is over, all the workers' parties will have the task of mounting a campaign against militarism. This task will continue to face us for many years to come. However, the ways and means to be used by Social-Democracy to defeat the spirit of militarism will become clear only with time.

In any case we are wholly convinced that the struggle against militarism is at the same time a struggle for our ideals: all wars impede the further development of the productive forces, weaken the sense of the solidarity of the international proletariat and encourage the spread of chauvinism, and thus they delay the great day when working class will finally be liberated. However a systematic struggle against militarism is a task for the future, this does not mean that socialists should be passive towards war today. Today also we can and should intervene in the bloody events taking place in the world and make our voices heard in favour of the most rapid possible peace under the slogan: 'An end to cannibalistic mass murder?' We Social-Democrats have no interest in and draw no benefit from the fact that ever more hundreds of thousands of our brothers are sacrificing their lives for the glory of their bourgeois-capitalist homelands. We need these lives in order to create that army which will fight imperialism and capitalism.

Thus our immediate task is to unite all our forces in order to achieve the quickest possible peace, and our task for the future is to wage a relentless struggle against militarism and strengthen the spirit of international solidarity among the workers. In the face of the bloodthirsty chauvinist atmosphere now reigning throughout the world, socialists from every country must redouble their efforts and confidently proclaim: 'Down with war! Down with militarism! Down with blind chauvinism! May those international forces which will bring final victory to the working class flourish and triumph!'

Footnotes

1. This is reference to the Extraordinary International Socialist Congress of the Second International, convened in Basle on 24-25 November, 1912. The congress was called in order to consider ways of opposing the approaching threat of world imperialist war, and was attended by 555 delegates. The congress adopted a manifesto opposing war. The leaders of the Second International, who had voted for the adoption of the manifesto, subsequently betrayed it after the First World War began and supported their own imperialist governments.

2. The Vienna congress of the Second International was to take place in the summer of 1914. This congress was seen as particularly significant as the date when it was to be held coincided with the 50th anniversary of the founding of the First International, and the 25th anniversary of the Second International. The congress agenda was to include the most important issues relating to the position of the working class and its struggle against imperialism, the problems of war and militarism in the context of the tragic international tension that existed in the middle of 1914. The outbreak of war prevented the socialists from holding the Vienna congress.

A Giant Mind, a Giant Will (1914)

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There are individuals – a mere handful in the history of mankind – who, while themselves being the product of an imminent catastrophic change, leave their mark upon an entire epoch. Vladimir Ilyich Lenin is one such giant mind, one such giant will...

However mighty such giants of history may be, the universal-general principle that they symbolise and embody dissolves all the narrowly individual. The ordinary measuring rod of the qualities, failings and passions characteristic of the people of that age is not applicable to them. It is not a question of the personal characteristics of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin but what he symbolises... He has gathered to himself like a magnet everything in the revolution that is expressive of will, power, ruthless destruction and constructive persistence. Everyone who values what the workers' revolution brings with it in its cleansing whirlwind cannot but value and cherish its symbol, its embodiment – Vladimir Ilyich Lenin.

THE VOICE OF LENIN

The imperialist war of 1914. The Second International was unfaithful to the behests of Marx and betrayed the interests of the working class. The leading force of the Second International – German Social-Democracy – revealed its opportunist essence. It reached out its hand to its own ruling bourgeoisie and consented to total class peace.

I myself witnessed and lived through that day of shame when the German Social-Democrats renounced revolutionary class struggle. I was in the Reichstag on 4 August, 1914, and I saw with my own eyes the whole vile spectacle of the collapse of the leaders of German Social-Democracy, their vote in favour of the military budget and their promise to support the government of Bethmann-Hollweg.

The poisonous air of imperialist war had clouded minds. The hypnotic effect of compromise and opportunism even infected certain Russian political emigres. They hurried back to Russia repentant of their political sins and ready to serve their tsarist homeland, defending the policy of Nicholas II and his minions.

I experienced horror and despair. It seemed that everything was lost. The atmosphere was so suffocating, so devoid of even a glimmer of light, that a wall seemed to have closed in around me and cut off any way forward. With the help of Liebknecht I managed to get out of Germany to Stockholm. I still believed that it was possible to revitalise the Second International in opposition to the carnage of world war, but neither I nor anyone else knew what our policy should be and on what it should be based. We were like people lost in a forest.

In that moment of total confusion and the collapse of the Second International, when the bourgeois capitalist parties were rejoicing over their victory and praising class unity, there rang out the mighty voice of Lenin. Alone against the whole world, he pitilessly analysed and laid bare the essence of imperialist war and, more importantly, clearly indicated the ways and means of transforming this war into civil war and revolution. He who desires peace must declare war against opportunism and break with compromise, with his own bourgeoisie.

A few editions of the central press organ Sotsial-Demokrat [1] arrived in Stockholm from Switzerland, and they contained Lenin's directive concerning the war and our tasks. This was one of the most significant moments of my life. Lenin's articles dissolved the wall against which I had been beating my head in vain. It felt as if I were emerging out of a deep, dark well into the sunlight, and could see my way forward. That way was clearly marked. All I had to do was to follow Vladimir Ilyich in the ranks of the revolutionary-working class. Only much later did we learn that the Bureau of the Central Committee in Russia was already acting in accord with Lenin's directive.

In those days it seemed to me that Lenin stood above the whole of mankind and that his extraordinarily powerful mind could perceive that which was hidden from us all. It was then that I understood his moral and spiritual fearlessness, a fearlessness that knew no bounds. The lower sank the opportunists, Kautsky and his closest associates, the larger towered the fearless image of a man who, amidst all bloody chaos, clearly pointed the way.

In October, 1914, I wrote my first letter to Vladimir Ilyich. [2] In the reply which received through a Russian comrade I was ordered to start work immediately and to get in touch with those socialists in Scandinavia who would assist in carrying out Lenin's policy on the continuing struggle of the working class. From that moment onwards I worked under the direct guidance of Vladimir Ilyich.

At the same time both I and comrade Shlyapnikov were given the task of arranging permanent contact in Scandinavia between Lenin and the Bureau of the Central Committee in Russia. This contact was established and it operated until the Swedish Conservative government of Hammarskjöld decided to close down the 'Bolshevik centre'. I was arrested and imprisoned in Kungsholmen, and then expelled from Sweden. [3] With the help of Norwegian friends I was able to move to Norway, staying at a little place called Holmenkollen, just outside Oslo. From a little red house above a fjord my requests went out to Vladimir Ilyich, and here I received the pamphlets and articles I had ordered. Here in this house I opened the letters from Vladimir Ilyich, which he sent to me using my friends' addresses. [4] In this same little red house in Holmenkollen we drew up the resolution to be put forward by the Norwegian left, which supported the Zimmerwald left and was approved by Vladimir Ilyich.

When I thought about Vladimir Ilyich in those years, he seemed to me to be not merely a man but the embodiment of some natural-cosmic force pushing aside the socio-economic crust that had formed over thousands of years of human history. A plan was maturing and taking shape that would bring about a stupendous change in social relations and lead to the reconstruction of society on new principles.

The imperialist war continued, but thanks to Lenin cracks were beginning to appear in the social structure of society... The Second International had been shattered to pieces, but already fresh new forces were beginning to gather around Lenin, and when, in 1915 and 1916, Vladimir Ilyich gave me the task of drawing the best, revolutionary-minded socialist youth away from the self-besmirched Second International and grouping it around the Zimmerwald left, this task proved much easier than I thought. [5]

Twice I had to cross the Atlantic Ocean in order to rally together, from Boston to San Francisco and from Philadelphia to Seattle, the forces necessary to struggle against the imperialist war and support the platform of the Zimmerwald left.

Footnotes

1. Sotsial-Demokrat - an illegal newspaper and the main press organ of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party, published from February, 1908, to December, 1913, and again from November, 1914, to January, 1917. During the war, the newspaper restarted publication with No. 33, which came out on 1 November, 1914. Its lead article 'The War and Russian Social-Democracy', was written by Lenin and was the manifesto of the Central Committee of the RSDLP. This is the article referred to here by Kollontai.

2. The correspondence between Lenin and Kollontai began in the first months of the war. The earliest surviving letters from Kollontai to Lenin are dated October-November, 1914. Lenin was very pleased that Kollontai shared the views of the Bolsheviks.

3. At the end of November, 1914, the Swedish government expelled Kollontai 'permanently' from Sweden. The reason given was her participation in the campaign organised by the left wing of Swedish Social-Democracy to reveal the imperialist nature of the war. On 28 November, 1914, in a letter to Lenin, Kollontai explained the reason for her expulsion from Sweden as follows: 'Officially, my arrest and expulsion are the result of my article published in the anti-militarist Swedish "youth" magazine and entitled "On the War and Our Tasks". However, it would seem that the real reason was my speech on the same theme delivered at a closed party meeting. Anyway, I delivered the speech on Monday, and by Friday was arrested, dragged from jail to jail (Stockholm and Malmö) and then sent under police escort to Copenhagen.'

4. The correspondence between Lenin and Kollontai can be found in the Complete Works of V. I. Lenin, Vol. 49 (Puss. ed.), which contains 21 letters from Lenin to Kollontai, and also in the Central Party Archives of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism, which contain over 30 letters from Kollontai to Lenin and Krupskaya.

Who Needs the War? (1915)

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“HEROES”

The war had not yet ended, indeed its end was still not in sight, but the number of cripples was multiplying: the armless, the legless, the blind, the deaf, the mutilated... They had set off for the bloody world slaughter-house young, strong, healthy. Their life still lay ahead of them. Only a few months, weeks, even days later, they were brought back to the infirmaries half dead, crippled...

“Heroes,” say those who started a European war, who sent one people out against another, the worker from one country out against his fellow worker from another. At least now they have won an award! They will be able to walk around wearing their medals! People will respect them!

However, in real life things are different. The “hero” comes home to his native village or town, and when he arrives he cannot believe his eyes: in place of “respect” and joy he finds waiting for him fresh sufferings and disillusionment. His village has been reduced to poverty and starvation. The menfolk were dragged off to war, the livestock requisitioned... Taxes must be paid, and there is no one to do the work. The women have been run off their feet. They are haggard and starved, worn out with weeping. Cripple-heroes wander about the village, some with one medal, some with two. And the only “respect” the hero gets is to hear his own family reproach him as a parasite who eats the bread of others. And the bread is rationed!

The “hero” who returns to the town fares no better. He is met with “respect', his mother weeps from both grief and joy: her darling son is still alive, her ageing mother's eyes have beheld him once again. His wife smiles... For a day or two they will fuss around him. And then…

Since when do working people have the time, the leisure, to look after an invalid? Each has his own affairs, his own worries. Moreover, times are difficult. Not a day passes but the cost of living rises. War!... The children are ailing; war is always accompanied by epidemics, infection. The wife is trying to do a thousand things at once. She must work for herself and for the “bread-winner”.

And the tsar’s pension?

How much is that? It would hardly pay for one boot for the one leg remaining!

Officers, wounded generals, will, of course, receive their pensions “according to rank”, but who is interested in the ordinary private, the former workers, peasant or artisan? Who cares about his fate? Power in the state is not in the hands of the people, but in the hands of the landowners and industrialists, the lords and masters. The state finances controlled not by those “hero-soldiers” who die in the hundreds of thousands and millions in the war, but by those same lords: the landowners, industrialists and state officials-the servants of the tsar.

At first, while the memory is still fresh and the cannon are still sounding at the front, the “hero-soldiers” will be remembered. Various societies, charitable organizations and the Red Cross will come to their aid with miserly handouts...First one year passes, then another. Peace comes, and people take up once more their former daily round. What will become of our “heroes”?

Wounded colonels and generals will ride about in their cars; they took care of themselves during the war, hoarded up their cash, stuffed their pockets with the soldiers” rations...And the “hero-soldiers”, maimed with their medals? What will their fate be?

Will they really have to go and join the beggars on the church porch?...

It is not a pleasant fate that awaits the hero and saviour of his fatherland, even if he wears ten medals on his breast...The tsarist government will not concern itself about him, will not give him a thought… The hearts of the landowners and industrialists, the hearts of the masters, will not grieve over the injured… What does it matter to them? It is not their brother who is suffering, wandering about the country cursing his fate… This is not a “gentleman” but one of the “lower orders”. And the “lower orders”-the workers, the peasant, the artisan—were born precisely in order to serve their “lords and masters”, to shed their blood for them, and as their reward to die of hunger under some fence…

While the people themselves do not speak out on behalf of the “heroes”, while the people themselves do not take power into their own hands, while the people themselves do not control the state finances, the cripple-heroes will be unable to improve their lot.

WHAT WERE THEY FIGHTING FOR?

Ask any soldiers, be he russian or German, what were they fighting for? For what did they shed the blood of their brothers, the workers and peasants of their neighbouring country? For what did they cripple people? They will not tell you, they will not answer, because they themselves do not really know.

Perhaps they were fighting on behalf of the Serbs, or perhaps it was the Germans who attacked Russia. There was talk of land. At first the Russian peasant-soldiers thought: “We”re going to take the land away from the Germans.”

However, they soon realized that the war was not about land!... What was it about then? There are very few who know, who understand. It is not only the Russians who are fighting “in the dark” without really understanding for what they are knifing, bayoneting, and crippling people. The German, English and French soldiers also have as little idea of the real reason for the war. Ask any one of them-each will cite you a different reason.

The German people were told: “Russia has attacked us. Russian Cossacks are marching on Berlin. We must defend our fatherland. At the same time we will go and liberate Russia from the toils of bureaucracy, from the arbitrariness and lawlessness of the tsar”s officials. We are going to die for the “liberty” of the Russian people! The Russian people themselves are weak and cannot deal with their “internal enemies”, with venal ministers and the rapacious oppressor-landowners. Let”s help them! We will open up for the Russian people the road to popular liberty, to rights and freedom.”

This was the seductive song that the Kaiser and his staff, the German landowners and industrialists, sang to the German people. The people did not understand; they believed. In millions of issues the capitalist newspapers spread lies about the war, governments introduced wartime censorship, did not allow one word of the ruth to be printed, and threw the best friends of the working class into jail. The people were fooled, as the Russian soldiers were fooled when they were assured that it was for “land” that they were marching into Galicia…

In France, the government, the generals, ministers, bankers and industrialists, found another explanation of the war for their people. It was time to take back from the Germans the territory of Alsace and Lorraine, which they had conquered in 1870. “Citizens of glorious republican France!... You live in a free country, you have won all political rights for yourselves at home… But next door, in neighbouring Germany, the people are groaning under the yoke of the Kaiser!... Let us save the German people! We will fight until we have chased the Kaiser out of Germany and have established a republic for the Germans!”

And noble France decided to “liberate” the German people and put an end to the Kaiser. Not a bad cause! Who needs kaisers and tsars? However, if you look a little closer you see that there is something rather odd: the people were living in peace, the Kaiser and the Tsar were friends and paid visits to each other. The capitalists of various countries worked together to set up factories and trading companies, together robed the colonies in Asia and Africa, profited from the production of cannon and armored vehicles. And suddenly all the tsars and all the capitalists of the various countries have apparently been seized by a noble passion: let us go and “liberate” our neighbour! Let us introduce rights and justice, equality and prosperity among our neighbours!

The Germans set off to save Russia from the toils of tsarism, and and the French set out to liberate the Germans from the power of the Kaiser…

However, on looking a little closer you see that the kaisers and tsars are still safe and sound, still on their thrones with their power intact. The capitalists waxed rich thanks to the war. They “earned” about 20-40 kopecks for every rouble”s worth of supplies for the army, and these supplies are worth hundreds and thousands of millions of roubles. And hundreds of thousands and millions of those very citizens about which the “great powers” were suddenly so concerned have strewn their own land and foreign lands with their bones. Is it the “liberation” of a foreign people that is the cause of war? Is there anyone who still believes in such fairy tales?

Let us take another example: the English apparently only came into the war later on in order, on the one hand, to defend Belgium, and on the other to defeat and destroy the German “military machine”—militarism. This is how it is presented in words. But how does the English monarchy heave in fact? First of all, England loses no opportunity to seize German colonies, German land. And, of course, she does not enquire or ask the population under whose dominion they wish to remain—under German or under English. Belgium is Belgium, but meanwhile one must take for oneself other lands and peoples… What do the Germans need them for?!

The same goes for the struggle against the military machine. The English do not like the “German militarists”, curse the Prussians and express their indignation: the Germans have killed the spirit of freedom among their own people, who have become a trained, obedient herd.

The criticism is fierce. Much of it is true. The problem is that words and practice do not coincide. In practice, the English government, while cursing the “German-Prussians”, is trying to learn from them and to introduce in its own country a “German-style militarism”. From the beginning of the war a struggle has been going on in England between the people and the government: the English government decided to introduce in England the same militarism for which it went to war against Germany, is attempting to introduce universal compulsory military service in place of the paid volunteer system which previously existed in England.

Now the English millionaires and predators have succeeded in breaking the resistance and have begun to introduce compulsory military service. Once again it turns out not to be true; the English government decided to “liberate” a foreign country from the evil of “militarism”, and to impose the very same evil upon its own people! However, this is not all!

The example given by Germany was so much to the taste of the English government that it decided to do what other countries had done and introduce a “military system” in manufacture: to mobilise the workers, subordinate them to the military authorities, remove from them the right to strike and defend their interests, and to bind them to the state… And this genuine “military slavery” of the workers has been introduced not only in Germany but in all the belligerent countries- in France, in Germany and in Russia. Work for a pittance, put up with every kind of restriction and insult—if you don”t you”ll be sent to the front to face the bullets of the “enemy”.

The English workers are putting up a bold and stubborn fight against this new injustice, against this new attack by the capitalists against the workers; they are fighting against a new form of slavery and defending their rights… However the English government is not retreating… It likes the example set by Germany, finds “Prussian militarism” to its taste!

This is how matters stand in fact: the very reason, the very “evil” for which war was declared against a neighboring country is introduced and reinforced at home!... The Germans went to “liberate” the Russian people, and at home during the war introduced the same tsarist tyranny!... The French drew the sword in the name of “freedom” for the Germans, and instead invented forms of oppression such as France had not known for years!... One only has to look around more carefully to notice that these are not the reasons that caused the (European) powers to go to war with each other, that the reason why one country went to war against its neighbour is not the one put before the people. The war has other causes, other purposes, other reasons.

WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE WAR?

There are those who say: Perhaps we do not know the reasons for the war, but as for who is responsible—that is obvious! And the one who is responsible should be punished. But who is responsible? Ask a Russian and he will say: Germany! She was the first to declare war, and therefore she is the instigator.” Ask a German and he will say : “That”s not true! Lies! We Germans did not want war, we prolonged negotiations. But the Russian government was the first to declare mobilisation. That means that the instigator is Russia!” “Not true,” shouts Russia”s “allies”. “The Russian government declared mobilization in response to an ultimatum, to the demand sent to Serbia by the Austrian government. The instigator is Austria!” But Austria points to Russia, with England at her back.

Read any of those orange, white, red, blue, grey or yellow government books about the war, with their collections of letters, telegrams and government “notes (demands), and remember how, over the last few decades, the great powers now at war with each other competed with each other in robbing China, Persia, Turkey, the lands of Africa and others, and then one thing will be clear to you: for many months, even years, before the war, the governments of all these countries were striving to outwit one another, conducted diplomatic negotiations while secretly preparing for war.

They pretended to be “bosom friends”, but in fact had only one thing in view: to prove more skilful in outwitting the other—the English the Germans, the Germans the Russians, the Russians the Austrians… And at the same time each government was also deceiving its own people. They spent years preparing for war and spent vast amounts of their nation”s wealth on these preparations. What were the financial resources of the nation used for in all the capitalist countries? For schools? For hospitals? For worker insurance? For cheap housing for the poor? To improve land or roads? To meet the numerous needs of the people? Nothing of the kind!

The wealth of the nation went on military expenditure, on preparations for bloody conflict were made simultaneously by the German and the Russian, the English and the Belgian governments. And now they pretend to be orphans! The people, the politically conscious working people, were well aware before the war where the national wealth was going, knew that taxes were collected so that the tsars and kaisers, the English and French capitalists, would have the wherewithal to build a navy and machine guns… The people knew that in Russia half of this money went to line the pockets of the “builders”. Why should we now forget who prepared the war? Why should we think that the culprits are the German workers and peasants, and not our own useless, selfish government? No!

If we are looking for the culprit, then we must say directly and honestly: the governments of all the belligerent powers are equally responsible for this present war. Responsibility for the war lies with the capitalists, bankers and landowners, together with their patrons and friends the tsars, kings, kaisers and their ministers and diplomats. They all constitute one criminal band. It is not the interests of the people that they watch over, but their own interests. War does not benefit the people, but their own pockets. They brought on this bloody disaster with their “foreign policy”. As for the people—get out there and die!... “Save the motherland” which they themselves betrayed, bringing on disaster.

Die “for the glory of the fatherland”, forgetting all the injustices, insults and humiliations… Forget that even before the war began you understood that no good would come of government policy. Do not dare remember that only yesterday you seethed with indignation when an officer struck a private, that you cursed the people”s lack of rights in their own country… Now it is war!... Only yesterday you would have laughed if someone had told you that the manufacturer-oppressor is your “brother”, and the German worker, as deprived as you are, is your “worst enemy”. Only yesterday you would have given short shrift to any “counsellor” who presumed to recommend that you sacrifice your life for a landowner, factory-owner or some wealthy boss.

But today it”s war, and you bayonet, stab, cripple and kill the “enemy”, a worker or peasant as ill-fated as you yourself… You sacrifice your own life and destroy that of a comrade from another country to the benefit of your common enemy—the millionaire. Such is the will of those who are truly responsible for the carnage of world war, the will of the capitalist class governments, the servants and friends of capital!

THE HOMELAND IN DANGER!

But what should one do? One cannot, after all, refuse to fight when one”s country has been attacked, and when one”s homeland is in danger. Let those who were ready to die “for the homeland” ask themselves honestly and in all conscience: What homeland does the worker have, what homeland do the dispossessed have? Do they have a homeland? If they did, would there be the yearly flow of emigrants from every country into alien lands, the dispossessed and unemployed leaving their native lands, believing, hoping that, perhaps, this “alien land” will prove a more loving step-mother than their own mother country? Would there be, in Russia itself, hundreds of thousands of hungry and penniless “migrants”?

The general has a homeland, and so does the landowner, the merchant, the manufacturer and all those who carry a fat wallet in their pocket. To these, the wealthy with the bulging purses, the homeland gives rights and privileges and the state authorities concern themselves about their fate. But what does the “motherland” give to the worker, be he Russian, German or French? The struggle for his daily bread, the struggle against poverty and lack of rights, oppression at the hands of the master, landowner and landlord, insults, grief, illness and humiliation… Not infrequently prison! In Russia penal servitude and exile… This is what the modern homeland gives to its children, to those who create its wealth with their own hands, to those who purchase its military honour with their lives…

For the poor, the motherland is not a mother but a step-mother… Nonetheless there are many who says: perhaps our mother does not indulge us, her loyal children who water her land with the sweat of our brow, but we love our land! We will defend our people from attack by foreign enemies, we will save the faith of our fathers from enemies of another creed!... But is modern warfare, warfare among all the major European powers, a war conducted between enemies of different creeds or races? Look more closely. Who is fighting whom—Orthodox against Catholic or Catholic against Lutheran? Christians against Mohammedans? No! This war has mixed everyone together. The Orthodox Russian shoots at the Orthodox Bulgarian, the French Catholic kills the German Catholic, The Mohammedan helps the Christian to aim at a brother Mohammedan, Jew kills Jew, and Pole kills Pole…

The war is being waged not among peoples of different faiths, not among different peoples with different faiths, not among different peoples with different customs, languages and traditions, but among states, among large capitalist powers. Each such power has swallowed up more than one people, taken more than one piece of land from its neighbours… How many peoples and nations can you find in Russia!

The same is true of Austria. Nor does Germany lag behind: It once seized a piece of Poland, took Holstein from the Danes and won Alsace from France. And England, the “ruler of the waves”? How many peoples has she brought under her imperial sway—Indians and Negroes, Australians and islanders… The big powers have drawn a “frontier” around themselves, driven the most diverse races and people across that frontier and declared: “There is your homeland! Obey our laws in peace-time, and if there is war it is your duty to die for this homeland we imposed upon you!... The “great powers” who are now warring amongst themselves is each an oppressor of numerous peoples and nations. Russia oppresses Jews, Ukrainians, Poles, Finns and many others. Germany oppresses Poles, Danes, etc.

England and France oppress tens and hundreds of millions in their colonies. War is being waged not in the name of freedom for the people, not in the name of one”s right to one”s native language, not for the survival of institutions beneficial to the working class. No, war is being waged in the name of the “right” of the great powers to oppress as many possible alien peoples and to rob as many possible colonies. The war is being waged by predators in order to divide the spoils.

A grotesque picture emerges: on the order of the great powers, people of one nation, one language, one faith, kill and cripple each other, trample over the land… The Russian Ukrainian peasant aims his gun at the Ukrainian peasant from Austria; the worker from Russian Poland points his machine-gun at Polish workers from Germany… Forty-five years ago, Alsatians gave their lives for the glory of “La Belle France”. Now they are defending their “homeland” under banners that carry the German eagle… And who knows? If victory goes to the “allies”, perhaps the Alsatians will have to die in the next war for a French “homeland”!

And if one thinks of all the soldiers that England and France have brought from their colonies—Africans, Indians… For what “homeland” are they dying? Their homeland is thousands of miles away. But what is left of that homeland since the Europeans invaded it, since the “great powers” subdued it with fire and sword? They have no homeland anymore, and now they must die for the glory of the bourgeoisie of the nation that oppresses them. However, it is not only the nations that have been conquered and subdued by the capitalist states who are without a homeland; so also are the “true sons” of Russia, Germany and England if they are merely the “offspring of the common folk”. What kind of homeland is it if tens of millions are hired slaves working day and night for a handful of capitalists? What kind of homeland is it if these tens of millions of workers have nothing to lose but their chains? What kind of homeland is it when it is not the people themselves who conduct the affairs of the homeland, enact laws, supervise the national economy and control the national budget, but a handful of masters, of wealthy exploiters?

Before defending and dying for one”s country, would it not instead of marching out against the external German foe, would it not be more sensible to deal with the internal enemy, i.e. to expel all those tyrants and oppressors of the Russian people who have, by their dangerous and selfish policies, caused the people to be massacred? Would it not be more sensible if the German people, instead of setting out to “liberate” Russia from “tsarism”, were to settle accounts with their own Kaiser, with their own capitalists and landowners? Would not the French be better advised to “purge” their native land of enemies nearer to home rather than directing their cannon against the German people?

There was a time when the workers and peasants, in defending their “homeland”, were defending their native tongue from foreign oppression, defending their freedom against feudal lords and tsars. Now, however, the class of capitalists has gathered into its own hands all wealth and all power even in the most liberal countries, while in Russia the people are oppressed by the aristocracy—the feudal landowners together with the capitalists. The capitalists of the whole world are now united in alliances which plunder and oppress the workers in many countries. The capitalists set the workers of one country against the workers of another country in order to strengthen their hold on workers throughout the world. The capitalists wage war in order to share out the spoils and weaken the workers by division.

Thus those who speak about the present war in terms of the defence of freedom and the homeland are lying. There is only one way to defend freedom and right, to defend the cause of the working class in this war- agreement among the workers of every country and their common struggle against the capitalists in the name of a socialist society.

“IF THEY BEAT US THINGS WILL BE EVEN WORSE”

Why was the German proletariat silent in the July Days? (1915)

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Many people still cannot understand how or why it could be that the German proletarians were suddenly transformed from class fighters into an obedient herd going with heads bowed to certain death. For many people it is still a mystery why these masses – and we are talking of the broad masses and not the leaders – did nothing to defend their previous positions of principle when the guns began to roar in Europe, but gave up their worker fortresses to the class enemy without a struggle. Any protest, any opposition might have been suppressed from the very start, but why did discontent not seethe and boil among the people, leading to spontaneous demonstrations and mass resistance? Was not the education of the workers of Germany guided by a political party which, in its theoretical schooling, served as the model for the proletariat of the whole world? Does this mean that socialist education does not yield the fruit we are entitled to expect?

Thus query the sceptics. Others, including certain Russian social-chauvinists, germanophiles, are ready to see this as an example of the 'political awareness' of the German workers: the masses realised in time that it was a question of the further unimpeded development of the productive forces of Germany, which closely affects the success of the workers' movement, and decided, in the 'national interest', not to hinder the valiant work of German arms.

However, both those who in pain and confusion criticise the German working masses, and those who hasten to their defence are both alike slandering the masses. They are looking only at the visible result and overlooking the fundamental, internal cause of the silence and inactivity of the masses in the historic days of July and August. The inactivity of the masses at that critical moment came as a surprise only to those whose knowledge of the German workers' movement is based on the impressive figures quoted in its annual reports, on its 'workers palaces' and the growing number of workers who are deputies in local and central government. For those who were familiar with the 'everyday life' of the German movement, this silence and inactivity on the part of the broad masses was not unexpected. However, it is not the masses who are to blame. The cause goes far deeper and is to be found in the nature, the spirit of the German workers' movement over recent years.

If the working masses are to be able not only to understand the political events taking place, but also actively respond to them without waiting to be told by their leaders, the proletariat must be accustomed to public action, must have faith in its own forces, must have that which is called 'revolutionary experience'. However, this was precisely the kind of experience that was avoided in Germany. The party resembled a teacher of the old school: on the one hand it developed class thinking, but on the other it did all it could to restrain and brake any manifestation of revolutionary will, of mass activity... The workers were taught how, in theory, to recognise and understand the significance and benefit of revolutionary struggle. Their heads were filled with historical examples, with facts... However, that the workers should be given the opportunity to measure their strength against that of their class enemies, temper their spirit and will by experiencing the vagaries and sacrifices of mass action and revolutionary struggle, was something that their 'sober-minded' leader-guardians did not wish to permit.

Take the sphere of trade union struggle. The dizzy successes achieved by German industry over the previous 20 years had created an atmosphere conducive to the pursuit of compromise tactics. In order to avoid open conflict, which is often damaging for the capitalist and always fraught with consequences, the employers willingly tossed sops to the workers, and the trade union centres eagerly seized them and entered into talks with the bosses to find a 'peaceful compromise'. Is it not characteristic of the situation that, while the absolute number of conflicts is rising, the relative number of conflicts that result in a strike is decreasing. Many see in this proof that the power and importance of trade union organisations are increasing. The masses can stay inactive, the masses may confidently entrust their interests to their centres - these centres know how to find a way out of every conflict, know how to influence the boss!...

However, if one considers that the majority of the conflicts resolved without the participation of the mass of the workers, without strike action, end with a compromise, and, moreover, a compromise in favour of capital rather than in favour of labour, one is obliged to take a different view of this phenomenon...

How often have the workers and their leaders clashed on this very issue! One has only to recall the strike by the Hamburg iron and steel workers, which was sabotaged by their own centres.

In assessing similar phenomena with regard to the activity of English trade unions (in particular up to the wave of mass strikes in 1911-1912), revolutionary Marxists always pointed to the danger such opportunist tactics present for the revolutionary working-class movement. However, few of those looking on from outside noticed that, in their methods of solving conflicts by 'peaceful means', the German trade unions outdid even their English teachers.

Not only the trade unions, however, 'sinned' in the sense of lowering the activity of the broad working-class masses. The political party also trod the same path. One would have thought that a party which bases its tactics on the principle of the revolutionary conquest of political power should strive to use every opportunity for political struggle in order to develop and test the revolutionary energy of the masses and accustom them to mass action.

In practice, however, particularly over recent years, the centres of the party movement have been concerned to do just the opposite... This was pointed out quite categorically by the left opposition elements within the party, but their voices were drowned by the recognised authorities, by the representatives of the upper echelons. Whether it was the struggle against the rising cost of living or the question of achieving rights for workers in the Prussian Landtag, the party sought legal methods of struggle wherever possible. If it was suggested that the struggle might be taken outside closed meetings and given a more active, more revolutionary character, the centres threw up their hands in fear.

'Experiment? God forbid !... We are still not strong enough. We still do not have enough party workers. Defeat would lead to enormous losses in the next elections.'

'Nur immer langsam voran!' The morale of the masses crumbled; the masses grew accustomed to passivity; the revolutionary will of the masses stagnated; the initiative of the masses was not developed, and they never developed the habit of responding actively to events without waiting for the order from their leader.

Is it surprising, therefore, that in July 1914, at a moment when history demanded that it be uncompromising and capable of revolutionary action, the German proletariat, taught to respect only 'peaceful', legal methods of struggle, proved incapable of an independent, active response to events? The masses trustingly awaited the word 'from above', but those above, pointing to the inactivity of the masses, shrugged their shoulders helplessly and jumped to the conclusion that the masses, clearly, were for war!

They did not seek to verify this conclusion either by a referendum (a measure that the much-vaunted organisation of the party by no means renders impossible), or by a call for decisive revolutionary opposition to the plans of the class authorities. The upper echelons, the centres, did not appeal to the militancy of the workers, did not turn to party democracy for support in determining their tactics on an issue that was not only a question of life and death for hundreds of thousands, for millions of their comrades, but also a question of vital importance for the whole of the workers' International.

The leadership, leaving the masses to their own fate, simply lowered the revolutionary banner without resistance or battle... How many conscious workers were thrown into confusion by the behaviour of the leadership! Accustomed to follow their centres obediently, without criticism, the workers cast aside or smothered the doubts that tormented them.

'Our elected representatives are voting for war, Vorwärts advises us not to give way to our emotions and not to do anything rash that would serve as a pretext for excesses... Clearly they, our elected representatives, see and know that which escapes our understanding?' And the workers, those who worked among the masses, went to their battle posts, went to certain death, convinced that their leaders knew for what they were to sacrifice their lives...

Would such an abnormal, damaging phenomenon have been possible if the masses had been taught to respond actively and independently to events, if the party had not carefully extinguished every spontaneous protest, every manifestation of popular implacability? If the masses remained silent at a moment of momentous historical importance, the blame lies entirely with those who, in their deference to peaceful means, to legal methods of struggle, in their hatred of all that is revolutionary, principled and uncompromising, had for years brought up the workers in the spirit of 'peaceful growth', had for years soothed the energetic, creative upsurges of class rebelliousness.

Illegal appeals, manifestoes, unauthorised meetings in workshops, on streets and squares, the revolutionary call: 'Onto the streets in the battle against war!' – all these means of self-defence, all these methods that emerge spontaneously in the upsurge of revolutionary fervour, lay, during the days of July, beyond the reach of a working class brought up in the framework of strict legality and unquestioning subordination to its own leadership. The approaching menace of world war was not to be averted by the customary demonstrations supervised by the police or theoretical discussions of the causes and the significance of war. The 'god of war' would give way only before the 'red spectre', aroused into energetic action...

However, the habit of using only legal methods, only 'permissible', peaceful means of self-defence, bound the German proletariat hand and foot and tossed it thus bound under the wheels of the chariot of war.

This lesson will not go unheeded by the proletariat of the world. This bloody age, this age that reveals all the ills hidden within individual, socialist parties, clearly shows that the theory of 'adaptation' by the workers' movement to the capitalist system of its own country, the theory of 'peaceful struggle' for class supremacy, is one of the greatest dangers facing the international, revolutionary-class liberation movement of the workers.

Let those who condemn the German workers for lack of action, and those who see in this inaction the proof of their 'political maturity' remember that the masses will be able to find their voice in moments of historical importance only when the proletarian vanguard, the socialist parties in every country, having thrown off the benumbing shakles of social-reformism, boldly advance every means, every way, every method of struggle prompted by revolutionary creativity...

The Third International (1915)

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Note:— Alexandra Kollontai has just arrived in this country from war-torn Europe and is now touring the nation under the direction of the German Federation of the national Socialist Party. In this article she gives some of her ideas on the reorganization of the international forces of Socialism.

When in the distant future some historian shall picture the bloody year of horror, and describe the shattering crisis in the labor movement and the division and dissolution of the Socialist International, he will be compelled to declare: “In the depths, in spite of all the wavering of faith and pessimism, in spite of the despair and ruling distrust of one another, there arose during this time the fresh and vital germ of a new international of labor, that international that has fulfilled the great work of releasing the proletariat from the yoke of capitalism.”

The Third International is no utopia, no “baseless vision” of incorrigible optimism. The elements from which it has to be built are already in our midst and have been called into life by the existing crisis. The new international of labor is made up of such men as Karl Liebknecht, the members of the Russian Duma languishing in Siberia, of the ever-growing “left” of the German and Russian Social Democratic Parties that have remained true to the principles of the class struggle and Socialism.

The New Elements.

The Third International of labor includes the brave Italian comrades who have protested to the last against the murder of the people. In the new international are the few French Socialist and unions and the numerous English party members of the International Labour Party and the British Socialist Party, who have fought for the fundamental principles of the working class, who have raised their protest against the war and who will have nothing to do with “civil peace.” The new, coming International is composed of those workers who have met the compulsory “civil peace” with strikes and uprisings.

But the real, the firm basis of the new International must be formed of the Socialist youth. Youth, the bearer of the future — youth, that cares so little for the past and expects everything from the coming life and the future. Youth, whose heart is not contaminated with the petty bourgeois mentality and whose mind can not be misled by the ideology of a bygone age. The fresh, brave, revolutionary, sacrificing youth of labor, that presses forward, ever forward.

All Children of Age.

It is no accident that in all the decisive historical moments, it was just the “great” and the “old” men who sacrificed the ideals of the future to the past, to ancient, outgrown principles. A person may be ever so great as a thinker and fighter, he still is and must remain only the child of his age. And every age has its own ideology and its own progressive tasks. When our “great men,” leaders, laid the cornerstones of the Second International, the principle of the “defense of the fatherland” was a progressive and democratic principle, closely bound up with the struggle of the third estate to establish the modern capitalist state. “Defense of the fatherland” belongs to the time of the defense of democracy against the last attacks of feudalism, when to stand for the national state was to create the indispensable foundation for the class movement of the proletariat.

It is to be wondered at that it is just the “old comrades,” the “great men” whose services to the movement remain invaluable that look upon the “defense of the fatherland” as the highest duty of the proletariat, and that appear to overlook the fact that the maintenance of the class solidarity of the proletariat of the world has now supplanted this old duty? The anarchist Kropotkin and the Marxist Plekhanov, the orthodox Kautsky and the wavering Vandervelde, Adler, and Vaillant, all can join hands, all are agreed upon the fatal, false, and absolute principle: first “fatherland,” then the party...

Hope Is In Youth.

It lies in the hands of the youth of labor to put an end to this false idea and to attack with fresh courage the new tasks of the labor movement.

It is the youth of labor that must weld together the shattered links of the International. But while the new International corresponds to the new conditions of life and conducts an effective and vital battle against the enemy, this new and third International must have three cornerstones as its foundation. The first cornerstone must be the organic organized unity of the labor International. No purely formal, no purely external alliance of national parties can constitute the center of the world proletariat. Its task must be to replace jingoism and narrow patriotism with the feeling of international solidarity and supplant allegiance to the fatherland with allegiance to class. What have laborers to defend in a capitalistic state? Their outlawry? Their exploitation? Their fetters? The watchword of the new International must be: No war of defense in the conflict of capitalistic states but an aggressive war of conquest of the working class against the entire capitalist world.

Revolutionary Tactics.

The second cornerstone must be the revolutionary tactics and methods of fighting of the organized proletariat. We stand on the eve of tremendous, unavoidable, revolutionary struggles. The capitalist method of production has reached its zenith; private property and national boundaries stand in the road of its further development. Conditions are ripe to call into life the last decisive battle. The second great task of the new International must be to equip this proletariat of all nations for this decisive struggle.

There remains the third cornerstone: the decisive and relentless battle to the bitter end against war between nations and peoples and against the domination of militarism. War between nations and peoples robs the proletariat of its strongest and only irresistible weapon — class solidarity. War weakens the class feeling and brings with it “civil peace,” the highest aspiration of the capitalist world. Therefore it is the first duty of the youth of labor to use every energy to meet every threat of war between nations with the only effective reply — to call the “red terror” into life.

It is the power of youth to take up all these splendid tasks. The building of the new International depends upon them. Make way for the Socialist youth, the bearers of the future! In all reverence we bare our heads to the veterans of the movement, but it is only through the anti-reform, anti-military, revolution-minded and internationally organized youth of labor that a new, strong, creative International of labor can be erected.

† Alexandra Kollontai was in America for about 5 months, lecturing steadily throughout the course of her stay. She returned to Europe on Feb. 17, 1916.

Preface to the Book Society and Motherhood (1915)

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Kollontai began work on her book Society and Motherhood long before the outbreak of the First World War, after the Social-Democratic faction in the Third State Duma requested her to write a section on maternity insurance to be included in draft legislation on labour insurance. By the beginning of 1914 the work was completed and given to the St Petersburg publishing house Zhizn i Znaniye (Life and Knowledge), run by the Bolshevik historian and writer, Vladimir Dmitriyevich Bonch-Bruyevich. It was published in 1916. The book is almost 650 pages long and is divided into two sections. The first section deals with the main issues involved: the reasons for state maternity insurance, the causes of the falling birth-rate, the effects of the living conditions of the working class and of female labour on infant mortality, the types and forms of maternity insurance. In a voluminous appendix, the author quotes the maternity insurance laws of 14 countries, the resolutions adopted on this subject at conferences of women socialists, a wide range of statistical material, and a large bibliography which includes reference sources in six European languages.

Among the numerous problems raised by contemporary reality there is probably none more important for mankind, none more vital and urgent than the problem of motherhood created by the large-scale capitalist economic system. The problem of protecting and providing for the mother and young child is one that faces social politicians, knocks relentlessly at the door of the statesman, engages the health and hygiene specialists, concerns the social statistician, haunts the representative of the working class and weighs down on the shoulders of tens of millions of mothers compelled to earn their own living.

Side by side with the problem of sex and marriage, enveloped in the poetical language of the psychological suffering, insoluble difficulties and unsatisfied needs of noble souls, there is always to be found the majestic and tragic figure of motherhood wearily carrying her heavy burden. Neo-malthusians, social-reformers and philanthropists have all hastened to provide their own particular solution to this thorny problem, and all sing the praises of their own method of restoring paradise lost to mothers and babies.

Meanwhile the number of children's corpses grows and grows, and the unruly birth rate, instead of 'sensibly' rising to the level that would meet the requirements of the state, reveals an unpleasant tendency to steady decline. The prosperity of national industry and the development of the national economy depend upon a constant supply of fresh labour; the military might of the nation is ensured by the continual increase in the able-bodied male population. What should be done if the population growth not only diminishes with every decade but, as is the case in France, repeatedly drops below replacement level?

Disturbed by these worrying symptoms, the state authorities in one country after another are joining the ranks of the defenders of young children and are turning to a principle alien in spirit to the modern order – the principle of state maternity insurance, a principle in sharp contradiction with the present social structure as the latter undermines the basis of marriage and violates the fundamental concepts of private-family rights and relationships.

However, if, in the name of 'higher' considerations of state and under the pressure of necessity, the state authorities have been compelled to advance and implement a measure so at odds with the prevailing spirit of the representatives of the bourgeois world, at the other end of the social scale, among the working class, the principle of providing for and protecting mother and child is welcomed with enthusiasm and sympathy.

The demand that the social collective (the community) provide maternity insurance and child protection was born of the immediate and vital needs of the class of hired workers. Of all the strata of society, this class is the one which most requires that a solution be found to the painful conflict between compulsory professional labour by women and their duties as representatives of their sex, as mothers. Following a powerful class instinct rather than a clearly understood idea, the working class strove to find a way of resolving this conflict.

It was only feeling its way forward, and did not immediately choose the right path, but nonetheless it was without doubt the organised section of the working class that called for the defence of motherhood when the representatives of other classes were still denying the existence of the very problem, and when the measures suggested to solve it were looked upon as childish utopianism. As early as the first congress of the International in the late 1860s, the socialists raised the question of the protection of women workers as mothers and representatives of their sex. Since then the organised representatives of the working class have constantly returned to this question. The measures originally proposed by the workers were, it is true, somewhat inconsistent and contradictory, and did not correspond to the basic tendencies within the workers' movement. However, as the close link between the working-class movement and the trend of increasing female professional labour became clearer, the basic demands of male and female workers on this issue were gradually defined.

The demands at present being put forward by socialists for the protection of and provision for mother and child are fully in accord with the overall tasks of the socialist movement. The evolution of social relations is clearly demonstrating that in this area the dominant trend is towards the transfer to the social collective (community) of those tasks and duties that hitherto were considered to be the inalienable functions of the members of individual families.

Thus it has come about that, approaching this issue from different points of view and basing themselves on different reasons, both the state authorities on the one hand and the socialist parties on the other have arrived at one and the same conclusion, namely the need for state protection and provision for motherhood. The difference of opinion that now exists concerns not the recognition of the principle of maternity insurance, as was the case until fairly recently, but rather the application of this socio-political measure, its scope and implementation. Even in those countries that have already taken the first steps towards providing maternity insurance, the state authorities are seeking to limit themselves to the minimum, making concession after concession to a disapproving bourgeois world. The representatives of the working class, on the other hand, are demanding radical measures and are subjecting to merciless criticism the inadequate reforms introduced by the present governments, who are attempting to defend the mother and child with one arm, while upholding with the other the very system of exploited hired labour which leads to the destruction of both.

The question of protecting and providing for motherhood via state insurance is one that arose only recently. Moreover, one of the most characteristic features of this social measure is that, here, practice preceded theory. The first step to protect the mother by legislation was taken in Switzerland in 1878, when an eight-week maternity leave for the working mother was made compulsory. State maternity insurance first began in Germany when, in 1883, a special clause on assistance for nursing mothers was included in the law on health insurance. Neither of these measures was dictated primarily by humanitarian considerations or the interests of working mothers. They were both prompted by the same phenomena, which for the first time were causing concern among state authorities: the horrific level of infant mortality in industrial areas (it had reached 65 per cent in the industrial districts of Germany by the 1870s), and the growing shortage of army recruits.

However, while the state authorities were taking the first practical steps towards protection and provision for mother and child, they, together with the representatives of the bourgeois world, were drowning with their cries of disapproval the first apostles of the concept of comprehensive maternity insurance, such visionary philanthropists as Jules Simon, Felix Poussineau, the famous French gynaecologist Adolphe Pinard, the theoreticians Louis Frank in Belgium and Paulina Schiff in Italy, Ellen Key in Sweden and, later, Ruth Bré in Germany, all of whom advanced this idea in the name of 'humanity' and 'justice', in the name of the health and viability of the nation, in the name of the reassertion of the oldest of women's rights – the right to motherhood. While giving way to necessity, the state authorities attempted for some time to preserve outward decorum and to give the impression that the practical recognition of the principle of maternity insurance in no way contradicted the inviolability of the private family unit. Thus governments constantly emphasised that provision for nursing mothers is not a maternity payment, but simply a payment made during enforced unemployment.

Despite their inconsistency, the state authorities are being compelled in practice to move further and further along the road of state protection and provision for mothers. Whereas, only some twenty years ago, the idea of state maternity insurance was looked upon as utopianism, now such insurance is a practical reality included among the urgent socio-political tasks facing any 'far-sighted' government.

All those measures to protect and provide for mother and child which are now being implemented by the authorities with extreme caution and circumspection are, of course, very far from adequate. They are, as yet, nothing more than the first uncertain steps on the long and difficult path that leads to the realisation of the ideal: the transfer of the task of caring for the new generation, so precious to mankind, from the shoulders of private, individual parents to the whole community. What has been done so far in this area is nothing more than the proclamation and recognition of the principle – but this itself is of major importance and brings with it many implications.

Over the last ten years, i.e., in the first decade of the 20th century, an important step forward has been taken on the question of maternity insurance. In recent years this issue has not only been raised at workers' congresses, but has also come to the attention of the broad public and aroused interest among public hygiene experts and physicians, statisticians and social politicians. In a number of countries it has remained constantly on the parliamentary agenda. It provoked heated debate in the German Reichstag (the 1910-1911 session), while the French Assembly and Senate have discussed the question several times during recent years (1908-1913), and the English Parliament touched upon it during the debate of the national insurance bill (1909 and 1913).

It has been debated in the Italian parliament (1905-1910), in the Swiss Federal Assembly (1906-1911), the Austrian parliament (1909-1913), in the Norwegian Storting (1909-1911), in the national parliaments of Sweden, Finland Rumania and Serbia, and at the Third State Duma in Russia during the elaboration of legislation on health insurance (1909-1912). The result has been the introduction of state insurance for nursing mothers in eight European states (Italy, France, Norway, Switzerland, Russia, Rumania, England, and Serbia-Bosnia-Herzegovina) and Australia, and also the extension of insurance legislation covering working mothers in those countries that had already introduced this form of social insurance (Germany, Austria, Hungary and Luxembourg).

Nonetheless, despite the indisputable signs of growing interest in the question of providing for mother and child, this task, which is of the utmost importance for the state, is still receiving too little attention even in countries which are leading the way in terms of social legislation. The state authorities are doing all they can to limit themselves to reforms in the narrow sphere of direct protection for nursing mothers, leaving the working mother to spend the rest of her life subjected to precisely those deleterious living and working conditions which render normal motherhood impossible. What is more, the question of provision and protection for mother and child is an aspect of social policy which cannot be arbitrarily separated off from other, closely related reforms affecting the labour and living conditions of the working class. Will the mother and child gain any significant benefit from the introduction of relatively comprehensive protection if the working woman is subjected for the rest of the time to unrestricted exploitation by capital, if her working day is so long as to sap her strength, and the whole of the working class exists permanently on the edge of starvation?

If the problem of protection and provision for mother and child is to receive a solution that is in any way satisfactory, this can only be achieved by the simultaneous introduction of a complex system of radical financial and economic reforms, which all state authorities are so reluctant to accept. The ruling circles prefer to stretch out their protecting arm to the woman of the working class only at the moment when she is providing the state with a new member, while for the rest of the time it leaves her in the grip of merciless exploitation by capital. This same mistake is repeated by the social-reformers when they suggest the implementation of isolated solutions to the problem of motherhood, rejecting all those fundamental demands advanced by the organised working class in behalf of the working woman both as a member of the working class and as the bearer of the future, as a mother.

Protection and provision for mother and child constitute an integral part of the total network of social reforms indicated by the working class, and this is the chief merit of those measures to protect mothers proposed by the Social-Democrats. These measures make up, as it were, consecutive rungs in the ladder which leads to the ideal-aim that beckons us to follow in pursuit – the comprehensive solution of the problem of motherhood. This problem is closely bound up with basic class objectives and cannot be solved if the ultimate aim of that class is not realised. However, it is precisely because the issue of maternity insurance constitutes an integral part of the socialist programme and is inseparable from it, it is precisely because this problem affects as no other the interests of the working class, that one cannot but be surprised that socialist thought has done so little as regards the theoretical elaboration of the question of provision for mothers and protection for young children. There is no issue of social policy so scantily represented in socialist literature as this fundametal and complex issue of motherhood, so important for the future.

Practice has here, once again, outstripped theory, and the very demands made by the socialists in the sphere of protection and provision for mother and child are still in the process of taking shape. There is as yet no work imbued with the spirit of socialism which provides a serious and in any way comprehensive analysis of this section of the working-class programme and examines to what extent the practical measures and demands put forward correspond to the aims of the class and the interests of the movement, and this despite the fact that such a question merits more serious attention on the part of those who represent the class that is most affected by it. Does not this issue touch upon the most fundamental essentials of modern society? Does not directly affect the fate of the family?

Does it not alter the very nature of marital relations? Does it not constitute an important element in the foundations of the proposed future social structure? Is it not time to correlate the demand for comprehensive maternity insurance with the basic objectives of the working class, to clearly recognise the position occupied by this part of the socialist programme in the total majestic plan of social transformation? Socialist literature still does not provide a clear, theoretically substantiated answer to the following important question: which of the existing forms of maternity insurance most corresponds to the interests of the working class and comes closest to meeting its basic objectives?

Is the spread of that form of maternity provision which comprises insurance for expectant and nursing mothers within the health insurance system – the form adopted by the government in Germany and taken as a model by many other governments – in fact desirable from the point of view of the workers? Should it not rather serve merely as a transitional stage in the move towards a more complete, a more comprehensive system of maternity provision which, in view of the scale of the task itself, should become part ofa social insurance system founded upon a different principle?

The answers to these questions depend on the way maternity insurance is to be defined and the attitude to the function of child-bearing. There exist three different points of view on this subject.

If one adopts the point of view of the German legislators and equates giving birth with a pathological phenomenon, an illness resulting in enforced unemployment, against which the woman is insured, then the fact that maternity insurance and health insurance are treated as one appears logical. But does this identification meet the interests of the working class? And can any comprehensive maternity provisions be brought within the narrow, already clearly defined framework of health insurance? The very legislators who introduced this identification are compelled, even given the present modest scale of maternity insurance, to go beyond the confines of health insurance and append supplementary paragraphs on working mothers. Unwilling to recognise maternity insurance as an independent branch of social insurance, the legislators are opting for a middle path and converting maternity provision into a function of the health insurance system that is conceptually distinct from ordinary sickness benefit.

However, there is another view of maternity provision supported mainly by the Romance countries: maternity is viewed as a particular social function, and the assistance given to the working mother is treated as a reward for the service that the mother is performing for the state. Such a point of view results in the formulation of a different principle of maternity insurance that is not connected with illness and enforced unemployment, and which makes it possible to separate off maternity provision as a special and independent branch of insurance. Is this viewpoint acceptable for the working class? Does it meet the interests of the movement. This is another question to which no direct answer is to be found in socialist literature.

Finally there is the third view of maternity provision as one of the means of lightening the burden of motherhood for the woman worker, as a transitional stage on the way to a situation in which concern for the new generation will cease to lie with individuals and will be handed over to society. That this last view comes closest to meeting the interests of the working class can be seen from the fact that it most fully corresponds both to the ideal of the future relationship between the sexes and to the mutual obligations of the community and the individual which are to underlie a social system built upon a different labour principle. In formulating the social measures which are designed to protect motherhood, the organised working class must proceed on the basis of this ultimate ideal-aim, which promises fully to resolve the problem of motherhood. This fundamental proposal and ideal must also serve as the criterion when Social-Democracy is choosing between different systems of maternity insurance.

However, in order to choose correctly between these forms of maternity provision, one must carefully examine the third of the points of view cited above in order to judge to what extent it does, in fact, correspond to the general plan for the future development of society and to those socialist ideals that follow therefrom.

That view of maternity insurance which sees it as a measure to lighten the burden of motherhood for the working-class woman and, at the same time, as a measure encouraging the transfer of concern for the new generation from private individuals (parents) to the community, is acceptable only if one admits that the present form of the family will inevitably collapse and disintegrate in the course of the future historical evolution of society. While the family was strong, stable, viable, while the woman lived and worked exclusively within the family, the question of protecting and providing for motherhood could never arise.

The problem of motherhood is an offspring of large-scale capitalist production, as are a number of other urgent social ills which together compose the social question facing modern society. The problem of maternity came into existence together with the labour problem, has existed since the women of the deprived strata of society have been compelled to tear the child from the breast and take their labour to the labour market.

The tremendous evolution of economic relations that, over the last hundred years, has overturned all the foundations of previous socio-economic relations, has directly affected the organisation of the family and caused its previous forms to disintegrate. The family as it has come down to us was based on specific economic principles. It rested on production relations which at that time bound the members of one family more firmly than could even the closest blood ties. In the days when the family was an economic unit, the smallest economic unity of the community, and moreover nbt merely a consumer but also a producer, a creative unit, the family (gens) was able, thanks to its joint use of what was then the major tool of production – land – to produce all that was necessary for its members; care for the young, their material support, upbringing and training were part of its natural and inalienable obligations. In order to flourish (both economically and socially), the family required new members, a constant inflow of fresh labour. It is not at all surprising that responsibility for the new generation then lay with the family, and that the family alone carried the full burden of the support and upbringing of the younger generation.

Today, however, when the family as a specific social unit has no production functions within the bourgeois order, with its widespread division of labour and individualistic principle of production, there are no longer any positive arguments that can justify leaving all responsibility for the new generation with this private unit.

The family of tribal life, the family as a productive unit providing its members with all the essentials of life, has passed into history. Now not only the fathers but increasingly the mothers also are working not within and for the family, but outside the family, on and for the market, serving with their labour not their blood relatives but strangers who are consumers on the commodity market. Now the constant inflow of fresh labour, necessary to ensure the further development of the productive forces, is no longer needed by the family, by a self-enclosed, small, private unit, but by the whole of the social collective.

Logically it would appear that responsibility for the new generation should lie with that economic unit, with that social collective which has need of that generation for its own future existence. Once the family has actually ceased to exist as an economic unit, once it has ceased to require an influx of fresh labour, once the adult receives what he needs to live not from the family but from the wider community, the care of young children and the mothers who give birth to them should also be the responsibility of this community. Such an argument, however, is acceptable only to a society that is genuinely concerned to care for the interests of the entire 'whole' entrusted to it... Present state authorities on the other hand, who serve only the interests of the monopolists, seek to make use of the ready-made labour force while freeing themselves of all responsibility for the life of the children and mothers, preferring to impose on the individual private family those obligations which it once bore at another, earlier stage in human economic development. Such an inappropriate and contradictory state of affairs could only arise historically, but history is called upon to correct this unreasonable situation by gradually increasing communal concern over the fate of children and their mothers.

The thoughtlessness and indifference shown by modern society towards this important question of the fate of mothers and children will appear as gross negligence to future generations. Today we are in no way surprised that the state assumes responsibility for the sick, the handicapped, the insane, that it builds schools and universities and maintains public libraries and museums. On the contrary, we would be amazed if the public authorities suddenly declared that the upbringing and education of young people was a matter not for the state but for the family, pointing to the fact that once, in tribal life, all the knowledge a man acquired he acquired within the self-contained family unit. The people of the future will be no less amazed at the present common assertion that concern for the fate of mother and child is not an obligation of the community.

If the state finds it to its benefit to assume responsibility for the upbringing and education of youth, surely it should view it as even more important to save the hundreds of thousands (and in Russia more than a million) children who perish as a result of inadequate protection and the total lack of provision for motherhood. These hundreds of thousands of children are, after all, not only future producers, but also the future tax-payers so desired by' the state and, moreover, also possible recruits!

The attempt to preserve the former obligations of the family on the basis of its outmoded form has the most regrettable consequences highly damaging to the interests of the whole of society: it leads to the deliberate lowering of the birth rate and increases infant mortality. [1] With the full weight of responsibility for children lying on the individual family, those families that belong to the most deprived section of the populaton find children such an intolerable burden, find that they bring such worry, difficulty and sorrow, that a neo-Malthusian approach seems the only solution. If the worker has managed, by overcoming enormous difficulties, to attain a certain level of economic security and cultural development, then the only way he can safeguard this precious achievement on getting married is to remain childless. On the other hand, the lack of provision for motherhood, the lack of the necessary protection of the interests of the mother, leave the woman entirely in the power of those production relations which destroy both her and her child.

The lack of provision for millions of mothers, and the lack of concern for young children on the part of society, are the cause of the present bitter conflict over the incompatibility of female professional labour and motherhood, a conflict which lies at the heart of the whole problem of motherhood. This conflict has only two possible solutions: 1) either the woman must be returned to the home and forbidden any participation in national economic life or 2) such social measures, including comprehensive maternity insurance and provision for young children, must be implemented as will enable the woman to fulfil her natural calling without abandoning her professional obligations, without losing her economic independence, and without withdrawingfrom active participation in the struggle for the ideals of her class.

As the wheel of history cannot be turned back at will, the first I solution must be discarded. Even if it proved possible forcibly to remove women from all the spheres of economic life in which her labour is now widely and regularly used, these measures would still be incapable of preventing the further disintegration of the family. Thus a woman with a child who was returned to the dying family hearth would have even less provision against the deprivation, care and sorrow caused by the burden of numerous children than she has in the present set of transitory circumstances.

There therefore remains only the second solution advanced by the organised working class. This solution means that the question of insurance must be approached from the point of view of lightening the burden of motherhood for working-class women by gradually increasing social concern for the fate of young children and providing comprehensive protection of the interests of the mothers themselves. Basing oneself on the general pattern of the future historical development of social relations, one cannot but conclude that maternity insurance must be viewed not as mere assistance rendered necessary by temporary unemployment and inseparable from health insurance, nor as a reward paid to mothers for the service they have rendered to the state, but as a step forward in the process of transferring care of the next generation into the hands of the community, as one of the measures leading to female emancipation.

Such an approach to the question of maternity insurance follows from the very principle underlying the socialist movement, and fully corresponds to that new morality in the sphere of relationships between the sexes that is gradually taking shape among the working class in the very course of the class struggle.

Statistics from every country show one and the same picture: the age at which people, even from the working class, are entering into marriage is constantly rising. Previously, workers married at the age of 20-22 years; now they marry at the age of 27-29 years. Low wages on the one hand and increasing cultural requirements on the other do not permit the worker to assume all the responsibilities of married life at an early age. However, neither the heart nor physiological needs take into account the size of the weekly wage... The rusult 'irregular relationships' and, as the novelists call it, 'free love'; and this free cohabitation leads to free motherhood, the full burden of which falls upon the woman.

Free motherhood, the 'right to be a mother', fine words, and what woman's heart does not respond to this natural requirement? However, in the present circumstances, 'free motherhood' is a harsh right which not only does not liberate the woman, but is the source of endless shame, humiliation, and dependence, the cause of crime and death... Is it then surprising that in such abnormal circumstances the woman does all she can to bind to her the man who is the father of her child in order to transfer to his shoulders the expense of providing for the child? For his part, the man concedes, i.e. agrees to the legislation of their relationship, often not so much out of love for the woman and child, but out of a sense of duty. If there had been no 'consequences', those who had come together freely would separate on friendly terms to go their different ways, but the child exists, and the 'guilty' man considers it his duty to lead the woman down the aisle in order to share the burden of family care.

How often is it that the ceremony of marriage, even among the working class, is a funeral service said over the corpse of dead feelings... Is it then surprising that fear of the consequences obliges the workers to be wary as regards relations between lovers, and to have recourse more and more frequently to neo-Malthusian practices.

The problem is also not solved when the man, having refused to marry, agrees to pay child maintenance to the woman who has had his child. Economic dependence is always felt to be oppressive, burdensome and humiliating. It is particularly burdensome for a working woman accustomed from her youth to economic independence, even from her parents. This work-based economic independence gradually moulds the woman into a fellow comrade, an active and conscious member of her class. The fact of receiving 'financial support' from a comrade-in-arms is so unpleasant, so bitter, that it may completely warp the most sincere and friendly of relations, while at the same time it reinforces the material dependence of the woman on the man and violate s the principle of the equality of all the members of one and the same class.

How different would be the relations between the sexes in the working class if the question of 'consequences' was not the determining factor in deciding whether to marry, and if it did not join by force in a situation where the whole value of the relationship is based on inner freedom. However, there is only one way to free marriage of the calculations that have become a part of it and which have nothing to do with love, but result from the pressures imposed by the family as it now exists, and that is to advance the principle of general and comprehensive provision for motherhood.

If every working woman was guaranteed the possibility of giving birth to her child in healthy conditions, with the appropriate care for herself and her child, the possibility of looking after the child during the first weeks of its life, the possibility of feeding him herself without the risk of loss of pay, this would constitute the first step to the designated end. If, in addition, the state and the community would undertake to build refuges for expectant and nursing women, to provide medical consultations for mother and child, and to supply high-quality milk and a layette, if there was a broad network of creches, nursery schools and children's centres where the working mother could leave her child with a quiet mind, this would be the second step towards the designated end.

If social legislation attached due importance to the protection of female labour, established a short working day, break periods for nursing mothers and a shortened day for young girls, took steps to replace harmful production methods with techniques less injurious to female physiology, prohibited a number of dangerous labour practices, etc., this would be the third step towards the designated end.

Finally, if the community - i.e. the state - would guarantee to mothers during pregnancy, birth and the cursing period material assistance sufficient to meet the needs of both her and the child, this would be the fourth and most important step forward.

The working class now faces the following task: to achieve everywhere the implementation of those reforms and social measures which would not only take from the shoulders of women burdened with professional labour the main load of motherhood, but would also guarantee the necessary care for the new-born child, thus saving this young life, that has barely started on its way, from the jaws of premature death. The problem of motherhood is closely linked to the fate of the working class, and both its sexes, women and men, have an interest in its solution. Only if the whole of society implements the principle of rationally providing for the mother and protecting the child can relations between the sexes among the working class be cleansed of that bourgeois grime which now besmirches them. Only this will facilitate the emergence of the new morality and the new relations between men and women required by the movement: the increase in comradeship between the two sexes with their total economic independence the one from the other.

From whichever angle one approaches the question of maternity insurance, from a point of view limited strictly to considerations of state, from a class point of view or from the point of view of the interests of mankind as a whole, the conclusion remains one and the same: maternity insurance is a social policy issue requiring immediate attention and must be further developed and improved.

The more completely and comprehensively this problem is solved within the framework of modern production relations, the shorter will be the path to the new 'era' of human history...

Footnotes

1. 'The principle of laying the economic burden of the upbringing of children upon the private households responsible for bringing them physically into the world,' says Doctor Schmidt, 'is so unreasonable, such a mad idea ... that our descendants will be totally unable to understand the outlook of an age to which this principle appeared normal and self-evident.' Dr. Kaspar Schmidt, 'Die Mutterschafts-ver-sicherung als Grundlage einer mutterrechtlich-polygamischen Sexualordnung' in Politisch-Antropologische Revue, No. 5, 1906, S. 283.

The Statue of Liberty (1916)

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Which of us in our childhood did not gaze in awe at the mighty Statue of Liberty, its burning torch lighting the entrance to an international port, to a New World that still retained all its alluring, fairy-tale strangeness for the European? Which of us in our childhood was not struck by its grandeur as it soared above the New York skyscraper skyline? How pitifully small and insignificant did the huge ocean-going ships appear in these pictures as they scurried at the feet of proud and victorious Freedom!...

As our Norwegian steamer Bergensfjord slowly and carefully picked its way among the business-like scurry of ships from all the great nations of the world, we naive Europeans eagerly strained our eyes to catch a glimpse of her, the Statue of Liberty promised us [from childhood].

Then, on my first visit to America a year ago, the Statue of Liberty was hidden by a thick autumn fog which shrouded from our naively searching eyes that symbol which once caused the hearts of our European fathers and grandfathers to beat with triumphant happiness and exultation.

For me, the Statue of Liberty remained shrouded, mysterious, beckoning, the powerful image of our imagination. I saw it for the first time four and a half months later, after my whirlwind tour of the United States... By then America had already ceased to be for me the promised land of possibility. During those four and a half months I had seen politicians insistently preaching in favour of militarism and the bitter struggle waged by labour against unrestrained American capital, the power wielded by the American police and the omnipotence of the trust kings, the corruption of American courts, the servility of the American capitalist press ... and the 'freedom' of the independent church... Now I had a clear picture of what America is really like, a clear picture of the 'land of freedom', of the New World discovered by Columbus and still enticing the European!

It was then, standing on board the steamer bearing me back to the Old World, that I first saw the Statue of Liberty. It was a clear, cold day in early spring. Slowly, as if unwilling to leave the safety of the port for the stormy unknown of the open sea, the same Bergensfjord sailed past the 'eighth wonder of the world', past the statue whose picture is known to all.

Now it was not hidden by fog, now the sun illuminated every line of this bronze image. And still I refused to believe my eyes. Is that the Statue of Liberty? So tiny, lost in the noise of the harbour and framed against the soaring skyscrapers of the Wall Street banks. Was this powerless, tiny figure shrinking before the all-powerful gigantic skyscrapers, those guardians of financial deals, the Statue of Liberty we had pictured to ourselves?

Perhaps it is the insolence of the politicians and the kings of capital, curtailing day by day the freedoms won by the blood of the forefathers of the modern Uncle Sam, that is forcing the Statue of Liberty to shrink, to curl up in dismay and shame? When you are at the mercy of the ocean, when you look ahead to fantastic adventures that seem to come straight from a medieval tale ... then you are inevitably inclined to the mystic, ready to believe in a great miracle, in fairy tales...

The outlines of the city, the huge, twisting, relentlessly upward-thrusting lines of the New York skyscrapers, begin to blur. The Statue of Liberty has long since become a scarcely visible dot. It has disappeared. A little while longer, and America will lose reality for us, will become one of the images of the succession of life's memories.

It was then that I realised that the New World, the Statue of Liberty, is simply an old and forgotten legend, a fairy tale of precapitalist times which can only be recounted from the reminiscences of our grandfathers.

For our grandfathers and great-grandfathers the New World was truly the land of freedom. Here, whatever they had been in ageing Europe, they felt themselves to be the sons and equal citizens of a free country. Here they could pray to their God according to their own beloved rites. Here they could still believe that a man could forge his own happiness, wealth and destiny, with his own hands. Here the fairy of success still freely beckoned to unsettled lands and fruitful plains, to barren mountains concealing gold.

Back in old Europe, feudalism had still not receded before the onslaught of the privileged trading aristocracy of the bourgeoisie, the air was still redolent with incense, society was still dominated by the inequality of social strata and classes, and men were still oppressed by ugly, age-old prejudices. Is it any wonder that our grandfathers and great-grandfathers stretched out their hands rapturously to the shores of the New World and fell down before the green-bronze Statue of Liberty?

But how distant that all is now! The tales of American freedom have become mere legend!

The Statue of Liberty has been suppressed. The skyscrapers have robbed her of her halo, and now it is no longer she who soars above the bay of this international city, no longer she who lights the way into the international port, into the New World. Millions of lights from the windows of the fifty-storey skyscraper office-blocks eclipse the light of the goddess of Liberty. The grey giants look out derisively over the narrow New York streets which, jammed with businessmen and their clerks, thread their way far below like canyon streams between cliff walls. And it is these solid walls of stone, the safe refuge of the kings of American capital, which now more completely express the 'spirit' that reigns over the continent of Columbus than the pitiful, shrunken, green statue that seems to be embarrassed.

I saw the statue a second time only recently, this time lit up by the rays of the early morning sun. And, strange to relate! – this time the passengers did not gaze out in search of the Statue of Liberty. It was as if the hard and bloody year that had just passed had taught its lesson to Europeans who had once so easily believed in a happiness to be found across the ocean. It was not the Statue of Liberty they were looking for, but the steamer carrying the American authorities and representatives of the emigration bureau who sorted out the passengers and dispatched the majority of the 3rd-class, and perhaps also some of us, the 2nd-class passengers, to the infamous 'Island of Tears'.

And, indeed, the steamer did pull up alongside our floating home... The long procession of 3rd-class passengers must undergo a humiliating interrogation and a number of unpleasant formalities, and must then wait upon a barren island until kind friends come to their assistance. It might even happen that 3rd-class, and sometimes even 2nd-class passengers are unceremoniously taken off to an American jail until their identity is confirmed.

However, God forbid that anything of the kind should happen to 1st-class passengers! Could a 1st-class passenger, carrying in his pocket cheques for a Wall Street bank, be an unwelcome foreigner in the great republic? The red carpet is put down for the 1st-class passenger, and for him the Statue of Liberty makes her dim torch blaze anew. This colleague of the modern kings of the free republic will receive everything that the Statue of Liberty once promised to every newcomer to the New World.

But how dimly that same statue lights the way to that New World for those who were only able to buy a 3rd-class ticket...

And one feels ashamed for the Statue of Liberty, and regrets those sweet moments of expectation a year ago when we, naive Europeans, strained our eyes to see in the autumn mist that statue we remembered from children's illustrations which taught us to love the 'New World', to love a land built by the people themselves, to love political liberty!

Do Internationalists Want a Split? (1916)

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SINCE the Zimmerwald Conference of the international-spirited socialists has taken place, the patriotic-minded socialists try to make out that the revolutionary internationalist wants nothing else than to annihilate the work of the socialists for these 50 years, wants to split the working class movement.

That the officials of the parties of the belligerent countries, after having proclaimed the "civil peace" with their class governments and endorsed the war, disapprove the aims of the Zimmerwald Conference is quite apprehensible and logical. But it appears that the poison of nationalism and opportunism has corrupted even the officials of the neutral countries. The executives of the socialist parties in Denmark, Switzerland and Holland not only disapprove the Zimmerwald Conference, but point out that their party never "dreamt" of sending official delegates to a conference that believes in the necessity of a strong class conscious international, that rejects the "civil peace" policy and condemns the alliance with the capitalist government, pursuing an imperialistic war.

By disavowing the Zimmerwald Conference and its purpose, the officials of the European parties are disavowing the very principles of the Socialist movement of scientific Marxism, they are disavowing the foundation on which both Internationals were built up. International solidarity and revolutionary class struggle.

The Socialists gathered at Zimmerwald had no intention "to split" or harm the movement. Their purpose was, and is, quite an opposite one: by working for peace, by fighting war, by calling the proletarians of all countries to unite on the old battlefield of the class struggle they want to revive the International, to call into life the greatest and indomitable force, international class solidarity.

The social patriots, the officials of the different parties, the opportunists who cry against the revolutionary internationalists and assert that they are harming the movement by bringing into it disharmony and ununity, seem to forget that "the split" of the Second International is a fact, a hard fact that has to be acknowledged.

This split was caused by the war, but the line of division has been drawn not by the rebellious internationalist, but by well experienced official governmental diplomats. On one side we have the combined patriotic Socialists that endorsed the allies, on the other, those of the central powers. Each of them are assuring the working class. Scheideman and David in Germany, Plechanoff and Alexinsky in Russia, Guedes and Vandervelde in Belgium and France, that the victory of their own imperialist government will end autocracy militarism, navalism, will establish freedom and democracy for Europe, will help the victory of socialism!

The path of class struggle is foresaken the "civil peace," this logical result of the opportunistic tendencies in the European movement of the last ten or fifteen years, is declared as the highest wisdom of socialist tactics. Just now, the officials of the parties in Germany, France, Austria, Belgium and the social patriots in the other countries accuse one another for the tactic of endorsing their own governments, but one can easily imagine that when this war is over, the social patriots of the belligerent countries will forgive one another, that Vandervelde will try and rehabilitate Scheideman, that Plechanoff will give his forgiveness to the German social patriots and that the Germans will try and forget the sins of the "treacherous" English....Did they not all commit the same crime? Have they not altogether betrayed their class and proved unfaithful to the principles of internationalism?

This general amnesty would help the officials of the parties to call into life the Old International based on nationalism and opportunism. And as soon as a new imperialistic war would start, the old history, the split, the break-down of the international working class movement would begin anew.

...Is that what the working class desires? Is that the lesson which the suffering and the tortures of this terrifying war have taught the Socialists?....

The war has done a great deal of mischief, but this war can mean a step forward in the working class movement if the right lesson is taken out of contemporary events. This war has put clearly and plainly before the working class of the world the following question: What have the proletarians to choose upon an outbreak of an imperialistic war (and at this stage of capitalistic development, there can't be any other war!) – the defense of the capitalistic-imperialistic fatherland or the defense of their own class interests and of the international solidarity of the working class of the world?

The comrades who assembled in Zimmerwald thought it necessary to leave no misunderstanding on this point. The working class movement can achieve its final purpose – the conquest of the means of production and the establishment of the working class dictatorship – only by a practically international class struggle. Nationalism and internationalism are principles that are opposed to one another. You can't be a "good Monarchist" and at the same time a good Republican, just as you can't be an internationalist and a nationalist at the same time. The proletarians have to make the choice.

But this war has taught us that the nationalistic policy, endorsed by the social patriots, is a failure. A new line has to be pointed out, to be drawn.

The Zimmerwald conference took the first step to draw this line; it was the first attempt to rebuild the international on the sound basis of anti-militarism (no voting for war credits) internationalism (instead of a formal representation of the national party bodies in the International Socialist Bureau) and revolutionary mass-action (instead of parlimentarism "pure and simple").

The comrades who stand with the Zimmerwald conference, don't work for a split of the Socialist movement, but they want to prepare the basis for a class conscious international that will be strong enough to fight the imperialistic policy of their own capitalistic states and that will take up here and now the task of "preparedness" for the final revolutionary battle.

The internationalists don't want to break up the working class organizations, they simply decide to spend all their force and energy to win the masses for the principles of the Third International. They hope that when the next International Congress takes place the working class will be strong and enlightened enough to put the question to the Socialist patriotic officials of all countries; what have you done with our confidence? Can you bear the responsibility of your treacherous acts?

The internationalists hope that in the new international there will be no place for opportunists and patriots, who in the most decisive moment desert the class movement and defend the interests of their national capitalists.

Now, when the question of endorsing the Zimmerwald conference is discussed in the locals of the American party it is for the American proletarians to decide; where they have to stand. Will they cling to the nationalists and opportunistic tendencies of the Second International or will they help, rebuild the working class movement on the sound basis of rebellious spirit and international class solidarity?

Working Woman and Mother (1916)

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Mashenka the factory director’s wife

Mashenka is the factory director’s wife. Mashenka is expecting a baby. Although everyone in the factory director’s house is a little bit anxious, there is a festive atmosphere. This is not surprising, for Mashenka is going to present her husband with an heir. There will be someone to whom he can leave all his wealth – the wealth created by the hands of working men and women. The doctor has ordered them to look after Mashenka very carefully. Don’t let her get tired, don’t let her lift anything heavy. Let her eat just what she fancies. Fruit? Give her some fruit. Caviare? Give her caviare.

The important thing is that Mashenka should not feel worried or distressed in any way. Then the baby will be born strong and healthy; the birth will be easy and Mashenka will keep her bloom. That is how they talk in the factory director’s family. That is the accepted way of handling an expectant mother, in families where the purses are stuffed with gold and credit notes. They take good care of Mashenka the lady.

Do not tire yourself, Mashenka, do not try and move the armchair. That is what they say to Mashenka the lady.

The humbugs and hypocrites of the bourgeoisie maintain that the expectant mother is sacred to them. But is that really in fact the case?

Mashenka the laundress

In the same house as the factory director’s wife, but in the back part in a corner behind a printed calico curtain, huddles another Mashenka. She does the laundry and the housework. Mashenka is eight months pregnant. But she would open her eyes wide in surprise if they said to her, “Mashenka, you must not: carry heavy things, you must look after yourself, for your own sake, for the child’s sake and for the sake of humanity. You are expecting a baby and that means your condition is, in the eyes of society ‘sacred’.” Masha would take this either as uncalled-for interference or as a cruel joke. Where have you seen a woman of the working class given special treatment because she is pregnant? Masha and the hundreds of thousands of other women of the propertyless classes who are forced to sell their working hands know that the owners have no mercy when they see women in need; and they have no other alternative, however exhausted they may be, but to go out to work.

“An expectant mother must have. above all, undisturbed sleep, good food, fresh air and not too much physical strain.” That is what the doctor says. Masha the laundress and the hundreds and thousands of women workers, the slaves of capital, would laugh in his face. A minimum of physical strain? Fresh air? Wholesome food and enough of it? Undisturbed sleep? What working woman knows these blessings? They are only for Mashenka the lady, and for the wives of the factory owners.

Early in the morning before the darkness has given way to dawn and while Mashenka the lady is still having sweet dreams, Mashenka the laundress gets up from her narrow bed and goes into the damp, dark laundry. She is greeted by the fusty smell of dirty linen; she slips around on the wet floor; yesterday’s puddles still have not dried. It is not of her own free will that Masha slaves away in the laundry, she is driven by that tireless overseer – need. Masha’s husband is a worker. and his pay packet is so small two people could not possibly keep alive on it. And so in silence, gritting her teeth, she stands over the tub until the very last possible day, right up until the birth. Do not be mistaken into thinking that Masha the laundress has “iron health” as the ladies like to say when they are talking about working women. Masha’s legs are heavy with swollen veins, through standing at the tub for such long periods, She can walk only slowly and with difficulty. There are bags under her eyes. her arms are puffed up and she has had no proper sleep for a long time.

The baskets of wet linen are often so heavy that Masha has to lean against the wall to prevent herself from falling. Her head swims and everything becomes dark in front of her eyes. It often feels as if there is a huge rotten tooth lodged at the back of her spine, and that her legs are made of lead. If only she could lie down for an hour ... have some rest . . . but working women are not allowed to do such things. Such pamperings are not for them. For, after all, they are not ladies. Masha puts up with her hard lot in silence. The only “sacred” women are those expectant mothers who are not driven by that relentless taskmaster, need.

Masha the maid

Mashenka the lady needs another servant. The master and mistress take in a lass from the country. Mashenka the lady likes the girl’s ringing laughter and the plait that reaches down below her knee, and the way the girl flies around the house like a bird on the wing and tries to please everyone. A gem of a girl. They pay her three rubles a month and she does enough work for three people. The lady is full of praise.

Then the factory director begins to glance at the girl. His attentions grow. The girl does not see the danger; she is inexperienced, unsophisticated. The master gets very kind and loving. The doctor has advised him not to make any demands on his lady-wife. Quiet, he says, is the best medicine. The factory director is willing to let her give birth in peace, as long as he does not have to suffer. The maid is also called Masha. Things can easily be arranged; the girl is ignorant. stupid. It is not difficult to frighten her, She can be scared into anything. And so Masha gets pregnant. She stops laughing and begins to look haggard. Anxiety gnaws at her heart day and night.

Masha the lady finds out. She throws a scene. The girl is given twenty-four hours to pack her bags. Masha wanders the streets. She has no friends, nowhere to go. Who is going to employ “that kind of a girl” in any “honest” house? Masha wanders without work, without bread, without help. She passes a river. She looks at the dark waves and turns away shivering. The cold and gloomy river terrifies her, but at the same time seems to beckon.

Masha the dye-worker

There is confusion in the factory’s dye department; a woman worker has been carried out looking as if she is dead. What has happened to her? Was she poisoned by the steam? Could she no longer bear the fumes? She is no newcomer. It is high time she got used to the factory poison.

“It is absolutely nothing,” says the doctor. “Can’t you see? She is pregnant. Pregnant women are likely to behave in all sorts of strange ways. There is no need to give in to them.”

So they send the woman back to work. She stumbles like a drunkard through the workshop back to her place. Her legs are numb and refuse to obey her. It is no joke working ten hours a day, day after day, amidst the toxic stench, the steam and the damaging fumes. And there is no rest for the working mother. even when the ten hours are over. At home there is her old blind mother waiting for her dinner, and her husband returns from his factory tired and hungry. She has to feed them all and look after them all. She is the first to get up in the mornings, she’s on her legs from sunrise. and she is the last to get to sleep. And then to crown it they have introduced overtime. Things are going well at the factory; the owner is raking in the profits with both hands. He only gives a few extra kopeks for overtime, but if you object, you know the way to the gates. There are, heaven be praised, enough unemployed in the world. Masha tries to get leave, by applying to the director himself.

“I am having my baby soon. I must get everything ready. My children are tiny and there is the housework; and then I have my old mother to look after.”

But he will not listen. He is rude to her and humiliates her in front of the other workers. “If I started giving every pregnant woman time off, it would be simpler to close the factory. If you didn’t sleep with men you wouldn’t get pregnant.”

So Masha the dye-worker has to labour on until the last minute. That is how much bourgeois society esteems motherhood.

Childbirth

For the household of Masha the lady the birth is a big event. It is almost a holiday. The house is a flurry of doctors, midwives and nurses. The mother lies in a clean, soft bed. There are flowers on the tables. Her husband is by her side; letters and telegrams are delivered. A priest gives thanksgiving prayers. The baby is born healthy and strong. That is not surprising. They have taken such care and made such a fuss of Masha.

Masha the laundress is also in labour. Behind the calico curtain, in the corner of a room full of other people. Masha is in pain. She tries to stifle her moaning, burying her head in the pillow. The neighbours are all working people and it would not do to deprive them of their sleep. Towards morning the midwife arrives. She washes and tucks up the baby and then hurries off to another birth. Mashenka is now alone in the room. She looks at the baby. What a thin little mite. Skinny and wrinkled. Its eyes seem to reproach the mother for having given birth at all. Mashenka looks at him and cries silently so as not to disturb the others.

Masha the maid gives birth to her child under a fence in a suburban backstreet. She enquired at a maternity home, but it was full. She knocked at another but they would not accept her, saying she needed various bits of paper with signatures. She gives birth; she walks on. She walks and staggers. She wraps the baby in a scarf. Where can she go? There is nowhere to go. She remembers the dark river, terrifying and yet fascinating. In the morning the policeman drags a body out of the river. That is how bourgeois society respects motherhood.

The baby of Masha the dye� worker is stillborn. It has not managed to survive the nine months. The steam the mother inhales at the factory has poisoned the child while it was in the womb. The birth was difficult. Masha herself was lucky to come through alive. But by the evening of the following day she is already up and about, getting things straight, washing and doing the cooking. How can it be otherwise? Who else will look after Masha’s home and organise the household? Who would see that the children were fed? Masha the lady can lie in bed for nine days on doctor’s orders, for she has a whole establishment of servants to dance round her. If Masha the dye-worker develops a serious illness from going to work so soon after the birth and cripples herself as a result, that is just too bad.

There is no one to look after the working mother. No one to lift the heavy burdens from the shoulders of these tired women. Motherhood, they say, is sacred. But that is only true in the case of Masha the lady.

The cross of motherhood

For Masha the lady, motherhood is a joyful occasion. In a bright, tidy nursery the factory owner’s heir grows up under the eye of various nannies and the supervision of a doctor. If Masha the lady has too little milk of her own or does not want to spoil her figure, a wet-nurse can be found. Masha the lady amuses herself with the baby and then goes out visiting, goes shopping, or to the theatre, or to a ball. There is someone at hand to look after the baby. Motherhood is amusing. It is entertainment for Masha the lady.

For the other Mashas, the working women – the dyers, weavers, laundresses and the other hundreds and thousands of working-class women – motherhood is a cross. The factory siren calls the woman to work but her child is fretting and crying. How can she leave it? Who will look after it? She pours the milk into a bottle and gives the child to the old woman next door or leaves her young daughter in charge. She goes off to work, but she never stops worrying about the child. The little girl. well-intentioned but ignorant, might try feeding her brother porridge or bits of bread.

Masha the lady’s baby looks better every day. Like white sugar or a firm rosy apple; so strong and healthy. The children of the factory worker, the laundress and the craft-worker grow thinner with every day. At nights the baby curls up small and cries. The doctor comes and scolds the mother for not breast-feeding the child or for not feeding it properly. “And you call yourself a mother. Now you have only yourself to blame if the baby dies.” The hundreds and thousands of working mothers do not try to explain themselves. They stand with bent heads, furtively wiping away the tears. Could they tell the doctor of the difficulties they face? Would he believe them? Would he understand?

They die like flies

Children are dying. The children of working men and women die like flies. One million graves. One million sorrowing mothers. But whose children die? When death goes harvesting spring flowers, whose children fall to the scythe? As one would imagine. death gathers the poorest harvest amongst the wealthy families where the children live in warmth and comfort and are suckled on the milk of their mother or wet-nurse. In the families of royalty, only six or seven of every hundred new-born children die. In the workers’ families, from thirty to forty-five die. In all countries where the capitalists control the economy and the workers sell their labour power and live in poverty, the percentage of babies to die in early childhood is very high. In Russia the figures are higher than anywhere else.

Here are the comparative figures for the number of children that survive early childhood: Norway 93%. Switzerland 89%. England 88%. Finland 88%. France 86%. Austria 80%. Germany 80%. Russia 72%. But there are several provinces in Russia, especially those with many factories, where 54% of children die at birth. In the areas of the big cities where the rich live, child mortality is only 8-9%; in working�class areas the figure is 30-31%. Why do the children of the proletariat die in such numbers? To grow healthy and strong ayoung child needs fresh air, warmth, sun, cleanliness and careful attention. It needs to be breast-fed; its mother’s milk is its natural food and will help it grow and grow strong. How many children of working-class families have all the things we have listed?

Death makes a firm place for itself in the homes of working-class families because such families are poor, their homes are over-crowded and damp, and the sunlight does not reach the basement; because where there are too many people, it is usually dirty: and because the working-class mother does not have the opportunity to care for her children properly. Science has established that artificial feeding is the worst enemy of the child: five times more children fed on cow’s milk and fifteen times more children fed with other foods die than those who are breast-fed. But how is the woman who works outside the home, at the factory or in a workshop to breast-feed her child? She is lucky if the money stretches to buying cow’s milk; that does not happen all the time. And what sort of milk do the tradesmen sell to working mothers anyway? Chalk mixed with water. Consequently, 60% of the babies that die, die from diseases of the stomach. Many others die from what the doctors like to call “the inability to live”: the mother worn out by her hard physical labour gives birth prematurely. or the child is poisoned by the factory fumes while still in the womb. How can the woman of the working class possibly fulfil her maternal obligations?

Work and maternity

There was a time not so long ago, a time that our grandmothers remember, when women were only involved in work at home: in housework and domestic crafts. The women of the non-property-owning classes were not idle, of course. The work around the house was hard. They had to cook, sew, wash, weave, keep the linen white and work in the kitchen garden and in the fields. But this work did not tear the women away from the cradle; there were no factory walls separating her from her children. However poor the woman was, her child was in her arms. Times have changed. Factories have been set up; workshops have been opened. Poverty has driven women out of the home; the factory has pulled them in with its iron claws. When the factory gates slam behind her, a woman has to say farewell to maternity, for the factory has no mercy on the pregnant woman or the young mother.

When a woman works day in day out over a sewing machine, she develops a disease of the ovaries. When she works at a weaving or spinning factory, a rubber or china works or a lead or chemical plant, she and her baby are in danger of being poisoned by noxious fumes and by contact with harmful substances. When a woman works with lead or mercury. she becomes infertile or her children are stillborn. When she works at a cigarette or tobacco factory, the nicotine in her milk may poison her child. Pregnant women can also maim or kill their children by carrying heavy loads, standing for long hours at a bench or counter, or hurrying up and downstairs at the whim of the lady of the house. There is no dangerous and harmful work from which working women are barred. There is no type of industry which does not employ pregnant women or nursing mothers. Given the conditions in which working women live their work in production is the grave of maternity.

Is there a solution to the problem?

If children are to be stillborn. born crippled or born to die like flies. is there any point in the working woman becoming pregnant? Are all the trials of childbirth worthwhile if the working woman has to abandon her children to the winds of chance when they are still so tiny? However much she wants to bring her child up properly, she does not have the time to look after it and care for it. Since this is the case, is it not better simply to avoid maternity?

Many working women are beginning to think twice about having children. They have not got the strength to bear the cross. Is there a solution to the problem? Do working women have to deprive themselves of the last joy that is left them in life? Life has hurt her, poverty gives her no piece, and the factory drains her strength; does this mean that the working woman must give up the right to the joys of having children? Give up without a fight? Without trying to win the right nature has given every living creature and every dumb animal? Is there an alternative? Of course there is, but not every working woman is yet aware of it.

What is the alternative?

Imagine a society, a people, a community, where there are no longer Mashenka ladies and Mashenka laundresses. Where there are no parasites and no hired workers. Where all people do the same amount of work and society in return looks after them and helps them in life. Just as now the Mashenka ladies are taken care of by their relatives, those who need more attention – the woman and children – will be taken care of by society, which is like one large, friendly family. When Mashenka, who is now neither a lady nor a servant but simply a citizen, becomes pregnant, she does not have to worry about what will happen to her and her child. Society, that big happy family, will look after everything.

A special home with a garden and flowers will be ready to welcome her. It will be so designed that every pregnant woman who has just given birth can live there joyfully in health and comfort. The doctors in this society-family are concerned not just about preserving the health of the mother and child but about relieving the woman of the pain of childbirth. Science is making progress in this field, and can help the doctor here. When the child is strong enough, the mother returns to her normal life and takes up again the work that she does for the benefit of the large family-society. She does not have to worry about her child. Society is there to help her. Children will grow up in the kindergarten, the children’s colony, the creche and the school under the care of experience nurses. When the mother wants to be with her children, she only has to say the word; and when she has no time, she knows they are in good hands. Maternity is longer a cross. Only its joyful aspects remain; only the great happiness of being a mother, which at the moment only the Mashenka ladies enjoy.

But such a society, surely, is only to be found in fairy tales? Could such a society ever exist? the science of economics and the history of society and the state show that such a society must and will come into being. However hard the rich capitalists, factory-owners, landowners and men of property fight, the fairy-tale will come true. The working class all over the world is fighting to make this dream come true. And although society is as yet far form being one happy family, although there are still many struggles and sacrifices ahead, it is at the same time true that the working class in other countries has made great gains. Working men and women are trying to lighten the cross of motherhood by getting laws passed by taking other measures.

How can the law help?

The first thing that can be done and the first thing that working men and women are doing in every country is to see that the law defends the working mother. Since poverty and insecurity are forcing women to take up work, and since the number of women out working is increasing every year, the very least that can be done is to make sure that hired labour does not become the “grave of maternity.” The law must intervene to help women to combine work and maternity.

Men and women workers everywhere are demanding a complete ban on night work for women and young people, an eight-hour day for all workers, and a ban on the employment of children under sixteen years of age. They are demanding that young girls and boys over sixteen years of age be allowed to work only half the day. This is important, especially from the point of view of the future mother, since between the years of sixteen and eighteen the girl is growing and developing into a woman. If her strength is undermined during these years her chance of healthy motherhood are lost forever.

The law should state categorically that working conditions and the whole work situation must not threaten a woman’s health; harmful methods of production should be replaced by safe methods or completely done away with; heavy work with weights or foot-propelled machines etc. should be mechanised; workrooms should be kept clean and there should be no extremes of temperature; toilets, washrooms and dining rooms should be provided, etc. These demands can be won – they have already been encountered in the model factories- but the factory-owners do not usually like to fork out the money. All adjustments and improvements are expensive, and human life is so cheap.

A law to the effect that women should sit wherever possible is very important. It is also important that substantial and not merely nominal fines are levied against factory owners who infringe the law. The job of seeing that th law is carried out should be entrusted not only to the factory inspectors but also to representatives elected by the workers.

Maternity protection

The law must protect the mother. Even now, Russian law (Article 126: “conditions in industry”) gives working women in large factories the right to four weeks’ leave at childbirth. This, of course, is not enough. In Germany, France and Switzerland, for example, the mother has the right to eight weeks’ leave without losing her job. This, however, is not enough either. The workers’ party demands for women a break of sixteen weeks: eight before and eight after the birth. The law should also stipulate that the mother has the right to time off during the working day to feed her child. This demand has already become law in Italy and Spain. The law must require that creches be built and other adequately heated rooms be provided by the factories and workshops, where babies can be breast-fed.

Maternity insurance

However, it is not sufficient for the law to protect the mother merely by seeing that she does not have to work during the period of childbirth. It is essential that society guarantees the material well-being of the woman during pregnancy. It would not be much of a “rest” for the woman if she were simply prevented from earning her daily bread for sixteen weeks. That would be dooming the woman to certain death. The law must therefore not only protect the woman at work but must also initiate, at state expense, a scheme of maternity benefits.

Such security or maternity insurance has already been intro�duced in fourteen countries: Germany, Austria, Hungary, Luxembourg. England, Australia, Italy, France, Norway, Serbia, Rumania, Bosnia, Herzegovina and Russia. In eleven countries, including Russia, the work�ing woman insures herself at an insurance bureau, paying weekly con�tributions. In return the bureau pays out benefits money (the amount varies from country to country, but nowhere exceeds the full wage) and also provides the assistance of a doctor and midwife. in Italy the working woman pay her dues and receives help from special maternity bureaux. Further contributions are paid by the owner of the factory where she works, and by the state. Even in this case, however. the working woman has to shoulder the main financial burden.

In France and Australia the working woman does not have to take out any kind of insurance policy. Any woman, married or unmarried, is entitled to receive help from the state if she needs it. In France she received benefits over a period of eight weeks (twenty to fifty kopeks a day, sometimes more), besides help from a doctor and a midwife. In Australia she is given a lump sum worth fifty rubles. In France a system of “substitute housekeepers” has also been organised. Towards the end of a woman’s pregnancy, a friend or neighbour who has attended the free courses on the care of pregnant women and young children comes in to help. She continues to make daily visits until the mother is well enough to get up and about again: she tidies the house, cooks dinner, looks after the baby and is paid for this work by the bureau.

In France, Switzerland, Germany and Rumania the mother also receives benefits from the insurance bureau during the period she is breast-feeding her children. The first steps have thus been made towards providing security for mothers.

What are the workers demanding?

Akk that is being done at the moment is, of course, too little. The working class is trying to see that society takes upon itself the difficulties of childbirth. The working class wants to ensure that the law and the state shoulder the most pressing worries of the working woman – her material and financial worries. Although the working class realises that only a new society, the large and friendly family mentioned earlier, will take upon itself the full care of the mother and child, it is possible even now to ease the life of the working-class mother. Much has already been won. But we have to struggle on. If we work together we shall win even more.

The workers’ party in every country demands that there should be maternity insurance schemes that cover all women irrespective of the nature of their job, no matter whether a woman is a servant, a factory worker, a craftswoman or a poor peasant woman. Benefits must be provided before and after birth, for a period of sixteen weeks. A woman should continue receiving benefits if the doctor finds that she has not sufficiently recovered or that the child is not sufficiently strong. The woman must receive the full benefit even if the child dies or the birth is premature. Benefits must be one and a half times higher than the woman’s normal wage; when a woman has no job she should receive one and a half times the average wages of women in that are.

It should also be written into the law – and this is very important – that benefits be no lower than one rube a day for large towns and seventy-five kopeks a day for small towns and villages. Otherwise, if a woman’s wage were thirty kopeks, she would receive only forty-five kopeks. And can a mother and child be expected to live properly on forty-five kopeks a day? Can a mother get everything she needs for life and health with forty-five kopeks? The mother should also be drawing benefits from the bureau for the entire period she is breast-feeding her child, and for not less than nine months. The size of the benefit should be about one half the normal wage.

Benefits should thus be paid out both before and after birth, and should be paid directly into the hands of the mother or some person authorised by her. The right to receive benefits must be established without any of the conditions which are in force at the moment. According to our Russian law, for example, a woman must have been a member of the bureau for three months in order to be eligible. A woman must be guaranteed the free services of a doctor and midwife and the help of a “substitute housewife” as organised in France and to some extent in Germany and England.

Responsibility for ensuring that the law is observed and that the woman in childbirth receives everything to which she is entitled must lie with delegates elected from among the working women. Pregnant and nursing mothers must have the legal right to receive free milk and, where necessary, clothes for the new baby at the expense of the town or village. The workers’ party also demands that the town, zemstvo or insurance bureau build creches for young children at each factory. The money of this should be supplied by the factory owner, the town or the zemstvo. These creches must be organised so that each nursing mother can easily visit and feed her baby in the breaks from work that the law allows. The creche must be run not by philanthropic ladies but by the working mothers themselves.

The town, zemstvo or insurance bureau must, at its own expense, also build a sufficient number of: (i) Maternity homes. (ii) Homes for pregnant and nursing mothers who are alone and have no work (these already exist in France, Germany and Hungary). (iii) Free medical consultations for mothers and young children, so that the doctor can observe the course of pregnancy, give advice and instruct the mother in child-care. (iv) Clinics for sick children such as have been built by the Women’s Labour League in England. (v) Kindergartens where a mother can leave her young children – the two to five year olds – while she is at work. At the moment the mother returns from work tired and exhausted, needing peace and quiet; and immediately she has to start work again coping with her hungry, unwashed and untidy children. It makes all the difference for the mother to call for and collect her children well-fed, clean and happily full of news, and to have her older ones, who have been taught to help at the kindergarten and are proud of their know-how, giving a hand around the house. (vi) Entrance-free courses on child-care for young girls and mothers. (vii) Free breakfasts and dinners for pregnant and nursing women, a service which has already been started in France.

These measures must not be stamped with the bitter label of “philanthropy.” Every member of society – and that means every working woman and every citizen, male and female – has the right to demand that the state and community concern itself with the welfare of all. Why do people form a state, if not for this purpose? At the moment there is no government anywhere in the world that cares for its children. Working men and women in all countries are fighting for a society and government that will really become a big happy family, where all children will be equal and the family will care equally for all. Then maternity will be a different experience, and death will cease to gather such an abundant harvest among the new-born.

What must every working woman do?

How are all these demands to be won? What action must be taken? Every working-class woman, every woman who reads this pamphlet, must throw off her indifference and begin to support the working-class movement, which is fighting for these demands and is shaping the old world into a better future where mothers will no longer weep bitter tears and where the cross of maternity will become a great joy and a great pride. We must say to ourselves, “There is strength in unity”; the more of us working women join the working-class movement, the greater will be our strength and the quicker we will get what we want. Our happiness and the life and future of our children are at stake.

Our Memorial to the Fighters for Freedom (1917)

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There are memorable days in the life of mankind which run like a golden thread of popular celebration down the centuries. There are days which are equal to centuries in the history of humanity, and which proclaim that, however cruelly the people may be oppressed by violence and arbitrary rule, the hour will come when a mighty, triumphant, indestructible force, the spirit of the fraternal unity of the workers in close alliance with the revolutionary will of the deprived masses – will overthrow the old, outworn order through a powerful upsurge of popular wrath, through the onslaught of democracy stirred into heroic rebellion.

Today is the day when we are burying the heroic victims of the Russian revolution; today is a solemn day of joy and of mourning. [1] Today the eyes of the oppressed and deprived of the whole world are turned towards Russia, to this city where the heroic resolution of the workers and the downtrodden Russian peasantry has thrown off the yoke of tsarist autocracy.

Today, as we bury the heroic victims of the revolution who gave their lives to win for the people the greatest right of all-the right to freedom-we are not only singing songs of fraternal sorrow over the graves of these heroes, but also a hymn of victory over the grave of tsarist autocracy with all its crimes and bloodshed, its obscurantism, its cruel indifference to the sufferings of the working people, its serfdom, its abuse of the common soldiers, its corrupt tsarist officials, its prisons, its Siberian exile, its whips, gallows, arbitrary violence and oppression.

And therefore the spring air is filled not only with songs of mourning for those who have fallen in the struggle for freedom, but also with the millions of voices of an exultant choir proclaiming the victory of the revolution, the conquest by the people of that freedom which alone makes it possible to wage the struggle for bread, for peace, for the consolidation of the power of proletarian democracy today, and socialism tomorrow.

Historical conditions, objective external forces, prepared the way over the years for the inevitable collapse of the old power, the inevitable dawn of 1st March, the victory of the new Russia; for decades a mortal struggle had been waged between the industrial capitalists and the landowning aristocracy of tsarist Russia. The imperialist world war aggravated the contradictions between Russia old and new, but it was only thanks to the appearance of a living, active, militant force that the great Russian revolution could take place. This living force was the mass onslaught of the working class and a peasantry dressed in soldiers' greatcoats and armed with guns.

Today, as we bury the heroes of the revolution, the proletariat throughout the world is celebrating the triumph of that doctrine the doctrine of scientific socialism-which enabled the Russian socialists to predict the inevitability and imminence of the Russian revolution, and to organise the forces of the proletariat along the straight and proper road. Today, when we are burying not only those who died for freedom, but also tsarist autocracy, revolutionary socialists, those who adhered resolutely to the decisions taken by international workers' congresses, can also celebrate their victory. Their tactic, their strategy of work and struggle, has emerged triumphant. Not the slogan of'class peace' during the predatory, expansionist war among the capitalist states, but the slogan of class war, of civil war, that was defended and implemented with such heavy losses by the left wing of Russian Social-Democracy, has brought Russia to the great revolution and given Russian democracy the victory over the 'internal enemy'.

The Russian revolution is also a new triumph for that tactic, the tactic of mass action by workers' democracy in its highest form of revolutionary uprising by the organised masses, which should serve as the basis of the tactic of the new, the Third International, the International which will complete the great cause begun by those who fell during the Russian revolution.

Our comrades in other countries, those who march arm in arm with Liebknecht in Germany, MacLean in England, Haglund in Sweden, will be with us in spirit, following the funeral procession with the same feelings of grief for the fallen and the same exultation at the victory of freedom with which millions of Russian soldiers and workers will today accompany their comrades-in-arms on their last journey. Our grief is their grief, but also our victory is the victory of workers' democracy throughout the world!

In saying farewell to the heroes who fell in the name of freedom, we will depart today from their graves imbued with firm resolution: the first step, the hardest step of the revolution, has been taken. Tsarist autocracy, a decaying corpse upon a throne, has been committed to the earth.

Today sees the completion of the first stage of the revolution, the stage which consists of the destruction of the old.

Now, comrades, let us hasten back to work! We must hurry, we must create the new! We must build a new, democratic, free Russia!... Do not delay, comrades!

Today we are burying our hero-comrades, but tomorrow we must begin to build them a majestic and indestructible monument. This monument is democratic, republican Russia and, victoriously completing the task of the liberation of the working class, a strong, stalwart, well-organised revolutionary Social-Democratic Labour Party.

Footnotes

Our Tasks (1917)

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A serious task of great responsibility now faces the working men and women of our country. We must build the new Russia, a Russia in which the working people, office workers, servants, day workers, needlewomen and those who are simply the wives of working men, will have a better and brighter life than they had during the accursed reign of bloody Nicholas.

However, the task of winning and consolidating state power for the proletariat and the small peasant, of introducing and implementing such legislation as will limit the appetites of capitalist exploiters and defend the interests of workers, is not the only task now facing the working men and women of Russia. The proletariat of Russia now occupies a special position vis-a-vis the working men and women of other countries.

The great Russian revolution has placed us, Russian working men and women, in the front ranks of those fighting for the world-wide workers' cause, for the interests of all workers.

We are able to speak, write and act more freely than the working women and men of other countries.

How, then, can we not use this freedom, won for us by the blood of our comrades, to concentrate our forces, the forces of the women of the working class, without delay in order to conduct a tireless, insistent mass struggle to achieve the quickest possible end to world war?

Our women comrades, the working women of other countries, are waiting for us to take this step.

War is now the most dreadful evil hanging over us. While the war continues we cannot build the new Russia, cannot resolve the problem of bread, of food, cannot halt the rising cost of living. While, with every hour that passes, the war continues to kill and cripple our children and husbands, we, the women of the working class, cannot know peace!...

If our first task is to help our comrades build the new, democratic Russia, our second task, no less urgent, and closer to our hearts, is to rouse working women to declare war on war.

And this means: firstly, not only to ourselves understand that this is not our war, that it is being waged in the name of the pecuniary interests of the wealthy bosses, bankers and manufacturers, but also to constantly explain this to our working comrades both women and men.

Secondly, it means uniting the forces of working women and men around that party which not only defends the interests of the Russian proletariat, but is also fighting to ensure that proletarian blood is not shed for the glory of capitalists.

Comrade women workers! We can no longer resign ourselves to war and rising prices! We must fight. Join our ranks, the ranks of the Social-Democratic Labour Party! However, it is not enough to join the party. If we really want to hasten peace, then working men and women must fight to ensure that state power is transferred from the hands of big capitalists-the ones really responsible for all our woes, all the blood being shed on battlefields-to the hands of our representatives, the Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies.

In the struggle against war and rising prices, in the struggle to secure power in Russia for the dispossessed, for the working people, in the struggle for a new order and new laws, much depends on us, the women workers. The days are passed when the success of the workers' cause depended only on the organisation of the men. Now, as a result of this war, there has been a sharp change in the position of working-class women. Female labour can now be found everywhere. War has forced women to take jobs that before they would never have thought of. Whereas in 1912 there were only 45 women for every 100 men working in factories, now it is not uncommon to find 100 women for every 75 men.

The success of the workers cause, the success of the workers' struggle for a better life – for a shorter working day, for higher pay, for health insurance, unemployment pay, old-age pensions, etc. – the success of their struggle to defend the work of our children, to obtain better schools, now depends not only on the consciousness and organisation of the men, but also on the number of women workers entering the ranks of the organised working class. The more of us enter the ranks of the organised fighters for our common workers' cause and needs, the sooner we will win concessions from the capitalist extortionists.

All our strength, all our hope, lies in organisation!

Now our slogan must be: comrade women workers! Do not stand in isolation. Isolated, we are but straws that any boss can bend to his will, but organised we are a mighty force that no one can break.

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!

Our ranks united, we will aim at rapidly putting an end to bloody war among the nations; we will oppose all who have forgotten the great working-class precept of unity, of solidarity among the workers of every country.

It is only in revolutionary struggle against the capitalists of every country, and only in union with the working women and men of the whole world, that we will achieve a new and brighter future-the socialist brotherhood of the workers.

Lenin at Smolny (1917)

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If I were asked what was the greatest, the most memorable moment of my life, I would answer without any hesitation: it was when Soviet power was proclaimed.

Nothing could compare to the pride and joy that filled us as we heard pronounced from the tribune of the Second Congress of Soviets at Smolny the simple and impressive words of the historic resolution:

"All power has passed to the Soviets of Workers', Soldiers and Peasants' Deputies!"

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was unforgettable at that moment! He proclaimed the famous first decrees of Soviet power – the Decree on Peace and the Decree on Land. His penetrating, energetic and thoughtful gaze was fixed on the future – he saw that which we could not yet see: these decrees translated into reality, the future which we still had to attain.

It was amazing and unforgettable, this inspired concentration of Vladimir Ilyich as he stood on the platform of the presidium of the first Soviet legislative assembly as the Bolsheviks, in the first few hours after taking power, began socialist construction, the construction of a new world.

...Vladimir Ilyich arrived at Smolny on the night of 25 October (7 November). He arrived from Lesnoye where, on the instructions of the party, he had been hiding from Kerensky's bloodhounds.

The following day, Lenin set off openly to attend the conference of the Petrograd Soviet.

Some comrades tried to restrain Lenin, to prevent him from taking the risk of appearing openly in the Soviet. Those who lived through these moments will never forget this tense anxiety on Lenin's behalf.

But the days of underground life were over. Lenin refused to listen to the words of precaution. He did not even try to persuade us otherwise, but hurried into the White Hall where the Soviet was in conference.

Lenin understood better than we did the mood of the proletarian masses in the towns and villages, the mood of the soldiers at the front. He knew that they were waiting for him, waiting for his decisive speech.

And there was Lenin, at the door of the conference hall.

A whisper of voices rippled through the room: 'Lenin!' For a long time the enthusiastic applause of the deputies prevented him from speaking.

Lenin made an extraordinarily powerful speech that literally electrified the will of the Soviet's deputies.

On coming out of the conference hall, Lenin turned to us with gentle irony:

'You see how the deputies responded. And still you were uncertain.' And he shook his head reproachfully, glancing sideways at his zealous bodyguards, his eyes gleaming. Lenin had taken direct leadership of the uprising into his own hands.

I remember the room at Smolny whose windows looked out onto the river Neva. It was a dark, October evening, and a blustery wind blew fitfully from the river. An electric bulb shed its dim light over a small square table, around which were gathered the members of the Central Committee elected at the Sixth Party Congress. Someone brought a few glasses of hot tea.

Lenin was here, among us, and we were cheerful and certain of our victory. Lenin was calm, resolute. His instructions, his movements, had that clarity and force that one finds in a very experienced captain guiding his ship through a storm. And this storm was like no other – the storm of the great socialist revolution...

Soon afterwards we heard the volley fired by the Avrora.

It was my happiness and great honour to work with Lenin in the first Soviet government as People's Commissar for State Welfare.

During the first weeks of its existence, the Council of People's Commissars met at Smolny, on the second floor, in the corner room known as 'Lenin's study'.

The conditions in which the Sovnarkom held its meetings were extremely Spartan, even more than Spartan, so that it was difficult to work. Lenin's table was pushed up against the wall, and an electric bulb hung just above it. We, the members of the Sovnarkom, sat around Vladimir Ilyich, some of us behind him. Nearer to the windows stood the table of N. P. Gorbunov, the Sovnarkom secretary who took the minutes of the meetings. Every time Lenin gave the floor to someone, or made a comment to Gorbunov, he had to turn round. Yet no one thought of moving the table into a more convenient position. Everyone was busy with important matters, and no one had time to think of his own convenience!

Let me give one example that vividly illustrates the life-style of the Sovnarkom members, and of Lenin himself, in those hectic days.

The incident I am about to describe occurred shortly after the closing session of the Second Congress of Soviets. Some Swedish comrades from Stockholm had sent Vladimir Ilyich and myself (I had worked in Sweden during my political exile) some Dutch cheeses in memory of times past. This present could not have been better timed. I remember how, once, after a fierce political debate with Socialist-Revolutionaries at a meeting, I suddenly felt faint.

'Are you ill, Comrade Kollontai?' asked one of the Red Guards, holding me up.

'No,' I answered.' I am just hungry.'

The Red Guard immediately offered me a rouble 'to buy a bit of bread', and when I refused, he found out my address, brought the bread himself and left without leaving his name.

Thus I confess that I was happy to be able to offer some cheese to Vladimir Ilyich. The head of government was as undernourished as we were.

Just before a Sovnarkom meeting I showed the round, red Dutch cheeses to Vladimir Ilyich. He was immediately concerned that we should have our share.

'They must be divided up among you all. And don't forget Gorbunov. Will you see to it, please.'

Lenin went into his study, and I spread out a newspaper on the table in the adjoining room, found a knife and began to cut up the cheese to give the comrades for supper.

However, my presence was required at the Sovnarkom meeting. I went, leaving the knife and the cheese on the table. As was often the case in those days, the meeting went on until late at night, and I forgot about the cheese. When I returned, the cheese was no longer there. The knife and the newspaper were still on the table, but no cheese, not even a crumb... The guard at the door had changed many times during the day. The portions of cheese had been taken by the guards on duty as part of their rations, and it was not surprising that in the course of the day it had been distributed among their comrades.

I went into Lenin's study where he and Gorbunov were checking the minutes. (This was standard practice with Lenin, and every day we learned from him to be most thorough and accurate in our work.)

'What has happened?' asked Lenin. I told him, and he burst out laughing.

'Well, was the cheese good?' he asked with a frank smile. 'You didn't taste it? That's a pity. However, it doesn't really matter: if we don't eat it, others will.'

Lenin's eyes shone with a warm, gentle smile, an unforgettable expression which seemed to say: Well, if the People's Commissars didn't get any cheese for supper, at least the soldiers or the workers did - and quite right too!

And Lenin went back to the minutes, to the current business of the Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars.

The great man continued his enormous task of creating the first Soviet state in the world, a task that constitutes an immortal page in the history of mankind.

Why the Bolsheviks Must Win (1917)

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A great and long-awaited event which we Marxists always believed to be inevitable, but which we nonetheless viewed rather as a dream or an ideal of the future rather than as an imminent reality, has at last occurred. [October Revolution]

The Russian proletariat, supported by armed soldiers - and they too are the sons of proletarians or peasants - have seized state power. For the first time in the history of man a state is headed not by the representatives of capital, of the bourgeoisie, but by the vanguard of the fighting proletariat - the left wing of Russian Social-Democracy, the Bolsheviks.

As far back as the February revolution, in Russia, the Bolsheviks realised the inevitability of a clash between the working class, supported by an exhausted peasantry and soldiers wearied to death of war, and the Russian bourgeoisie.

All that the February revolution of 1917 achieved was the overthrow of tsarism and the introduction of those commonly accepted political rights and freedoms recognised by any liberal-bourgeois government (freedom of association and the press, the right to coalition and alliance). The old, bureaucratic, bourgeois spirit that reigned over life in Russia remained unchanged. The former officials remained in all the ministries, the former laws and regulations continued to operate throughout the land, and the only difference was that the former monarchists became the faithful servants first of Milyukov and Guchkov, and then of Kerensky and Tereshchenko.

The major capitalists and industrialists in Russia thought that after the February revolution the danger was past, and that after the overthrow of the tsarist regime, capitalists in Russia would have full freedom of action in order to create in Russia a purely capitalist republic similar to the one in Northern America, where all state power is firmly in the hands of capitalist magnates. Only this summer the Russian bourgeoisie celebrated its victory, and sought by every kind of political intrigue and deceit (and in particular by the formation of a coalition government) to strengthen its position and weaken that of the socialists. It sought to buy over wavering social-patriots such as Tsereteli, Chernov and Avksentyev by promising them a share in government.

At that time there existed in Russia only one party which, from the very beginning of the February revolution, adopted a negative attitude towards the bourgeois-imperialist policies of the Cadets and social-patriots – and that was the Bolshevik Party. As far back as April the Bolsheviks put forward the slogan: “All power to the Soviets!” and repeatedly emphasised that it was essential to end the war. However, the war could only be ended by revolution and the overthrow of the bourgeois-capitalist government. Therefore, anyone who wanted to fight for peace had, at the same time, to fight to seize power. The more resolutely the Bolsheviks supported these slogans, the more savagely they were attacked by their political opponents, by the Cadets and their lackeys from the socialist party – the social-patriots. But the Bolsheviks calmly continued their work, fulfilling their great historical mission.

The Bolsheviks not only found themselves in opposition, flaying the social-patriots and ceaselessly criticising and exposing the harmful essence of imperialism both within and without Russia, but they also sought energetically and persistently to create a basis for the development of a revolutionary workers' movement that would be supported by the popular masses and would not hesitate before open and armed insurrection.

In Petrograd, Moscow and throughout Russia large trade unions were formed with 100 to 200 thousand members (metal workers, textile workers, wood workers, etc.). Then under the leadership of the Bolsheviks, workers' and soldiers' clubs were set up with their own libraries, study courses, cheap canteens, etc. At the same time, the first steps were taken to organise a union of socialist youth, whose membership reached 50 thousand. The Bolsheviks also did a great deal of work among the soldiers at the front in order to strengthen the spirit of internationalism there also. Millions of copies of pamphlets and brochures were distributed which openly set out the problem of war as understood by socialist-internationalists. Bolshevik-led meetings, congresses and conferences were also called for the same purpose.

However, if the Bolsheviks prepared the way for the October Revolution by means of active propaganda and organisational work, it must not be forgotten that it was the objective conditions themselves which created the ground for this second revolution.

The February revolution could remove none of the factors which caused it, namely war, rising prices, famine and privation. At the same time, the Russian bourgeoisie calmly continued their rule.

In July the reactionary trend in the policy of the bourgeoisie (the Cadets) was becoming increasingly obvious. The workers press was banned, Bolsheviks were arrested, and the death penalty was reintroduced for soldiers.

Then came the notorious plot between General Kornilov and the Cadet leaders. From September onwards there were signs of an approaching and increasingly bitter struggle between revolutionary democracy and the liberal bourgeoisie. Now the question was: to whom should republican Russia belong – to the capitalists, or to the workers and poor peasants? The soldiers, weary to death of war, were inclining more and more towards the Bolsheviks, while the Kerensky government was increasingly aggressive...

The dictatorship of the bourgeois parties, or the struggle for the dictatorship of the proletariat – that was the question facing the Second Congress of Soviets of Workers and Soldiers' Deputies which met in Petrograd on 25 October (old style).

The people came out victorious without either a hard struggle or much bloodshed. The Soviets of Workers took power into their hands. Not one soldier, not one sailor, not one worker supported the government of Kerensky. Only individual groups from the bourgeois camp supported the government. The Congress of Soviets declared: that which we have waited for so long has happened - state power is in the hands of revolutionary democracy, i.e. in the hands of the workers, the poor peasants, the soldiers and sailors! As was to be expected, the first step taken by a truly socialist government was the proclamation of the Decree on Peace.

The People's Commissars immediately set about implementing the programme of the working class. A new spirit emerged. All the old bureaucratic methods and customs were swept away. Self-administration and the principle of election came into operation throughout the country for all posts, including those in the armed forces (even commanders are elected and appointed by the soldiers). All of this is now characteristic of life in Russia.

The new socialist government, the government of workers and peasants, is now taking energetic measures to restore the national economy, finances and industry, which have been totally destroyed. However, even more could have been achieved if it had not been for the bourgeoisie, which looked with hatred and anger at the rule of the 'mob' and did all it could to impede the new work of creation. One example of this is the notorious 'sabotage' by state employees in all the ministries, in state institutions, and even in schools and hospitals. Teachers, doctors, journalists, the whole of the intelligentsia, opposed the workers, the socialist state. As soon as a People's Commissar took office, all state employees immediately, like experienced strikers, stopped work, leaving ministries and other institutions empty. Many schools and hospitals had to be closed as a result of strikes among the teaching and medical staff.

The elderly and orphans were thrown out of the refuges where they had found shelter because the staff refused to accent money to support these institutions from a 'socialist Bolshevik government'!...

Often, when the staff left the ministries, they took with them not only all the documents, but also the keys of the safes and all the money.

Is it therefore surprising that the socialist government, faced with such an unprecedented boycott and sabotage, affecting so adversely innocent members of society, adopted rigorous measures against Cadets and liberals?

However, despite all these difficulties, the Bolshevik government continued its constructive work. Radical social reforms were implemented. Concern was shown for the poorest and most deprived members of the population. Particular care was shown towards those injured during the war. A campaign was mounted against unemployment. Reforms were also carried through in the administration of justice. Severe measures were taken against speculation. Particular attention was paid to school education, and efforts were made to deal with the housing crisis.

It is not at all surprising, therefore, if such policies defending the interests of the masses provoke different reactions to the socialist government among different sections of society. On the one hand, the socialist government faces the hatred, slander and anger of the whole bourgeois class, while, on the other hand, it arouses admiration, genuine devotion and resolute support amongst the workers, soldiers and peasants.

Revolutionary democracy clearly understands and feels that the Bolshevik government is the only correct organ of power for new, democratic Russia. Either Russia will become a bourgeois-capitalist republic (should the Cadets come to power), or under the leadership of the proletariat, it will develop as a purely democratic republic and will gradually create new forms for the national economy and social relations.

Following the October Revolution in Russia, the slogan 'the dictatorship of the proletariat' is no longer a utopia but a reality which all the bourgeois classes in other countries must reckon with. The Russian revolution marked only the beginning of the great struggle to liberate the proletariat from the yoke of capitalism. It is of vital importance for the proletariat of every country that the Bolsheviks should emerge from this struggle victorious. This victory will also deal a lethal blow to world imperialism.

The First Steps Towards the Protection of Motherhood (1918)

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The idea of establishing a Department for the Protection of Mother and Child arose in the heat of the October battles. The basic principles underlying the work of the department, and the related statutes on social provision for mothers and expectant mothers were drafted at the first conference of women workers [1] immediately following the October Revolution.

The conference was summoned at my suggestion as a member of the Central Committee, and we set up a lead group of women Bolsheviks at the editorial board of the magazine Rabotnitsa (Woman Worker). [2] This first conference of the representatives of women industrial workers to be held in Russia had the task of binding together the female working masses who had spontaneously inclined towards the revolution, supporting the Soviets and the Bolsheviks. The conference was attended by more than 500 women delegates from the factories and plants of Petrograd. There were also some delegates from Moscow, Ivanovo-Voznesensk, Tula and Kaluga.

The preparations for the conference were marked by lively enthusiasm, and evoked interest and eager response among the awakening masses of women workers who already had their own team of workers grouped around the magazine Rabotnitsa and its heart – Klavdia Nikolayeva and Konkordia Samoilova.

At the conference the main demands of Bolshevik women workers were put forward and adopted. Prominent among these demands was the question of protection and provision for motherhood. In a modest building somewhere on Bolotnaya St., in the very midst of the October revolution, when the approaches to Petrograd had still not been completely cleared of the troops of the Provisional Government, when something akin to a self-appointed government of Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries was still sitting in the City Duma in Petrograd, women workers were engaged in business-like and enthusiastic discussions on the measures that should be immediately introduced by the Soviet government in order to protect working mothers and their babies.

On 6 November, 1917, I delivered a speech on the protection of motherhood in my capacity as a member of the party Central Committee and secretary of the lead group of women workers. My theses were taken as the basis for discussion. The women workers attending the conference listened to my report with great interest and took an active part in the discussions and the elaboration of the theses. These theses were then passed on 'as guidelines' to the People's Commissariat for State Welfare and the People's Commissariat for Labour, which then included the Department of Social Security.

If the legislation on protection and provision for motherhood now in force is compared with the theses adopted at the first conference of women workers, it is clear that it was precisely the aspirations expressed at the conference that served as the basis for Soviet legislation in this area.

It should therefore be noted that the initiative on the issue of protection and provision for mother and child came from the working women themselves. At that time, very few working women actively participated in the Soviets. But from the very first days of Soviet power, working women were able to contribute constructively to the work of the Soviets as regards lightening the burden of motherhood for women.

The measures to protect and provide for motherhood were carried through in the first months of Soviet government by two People's Commissariats: the People's Commissariat for State Welfare and the People's Commissariat for Labour. The latter drew up a series of statutes in the field of social legislation. The People's Commissariat for carried through the measures designed to mothers.

The first concern of the People's Commissariat for State Welfare was to maintain and rebuild the huge children's homes in Petrograd and Moscow, in order to convert these 'angel factories' into homes for mother and child.

The People's Commissariat also took control of all the existing creches, consultation centres and children's homes (very few in number) that had been founded before the revolution by charitable organisations.

In order to take possession of these institutions and run them in accord with Soviet policy, the People's Commissariat for State Welfare first had to form a section of social investigation whose members included a large number of women workers from factories and plants. Its first task was to investigate all institutions whose work was connected with the protection of mother and child, and to deal with the open sabotage by their staff and administrators.

In December, 1917, that is, six weeks after power had been transferred into the hands of the proletariat, it became clear that the People's Commissariat required a special centre to supervise the work being done in the sphere of protection for mother and child if it was to cope with the increasing demand and workload.

On 31 December, 1917, the People's Commissariat issued a decree on the creation of a board whose task was to set up a Department for the Protection of Mother and Child. Doctor Korolyov was appointed head of the department, while the chairman of the board was the People's Commissar for State Welfare.

The Soviet government is the first government in the world to officially and legally recognise maternity as one of the social functions of women and, basing itself on the fact that in a republic of working people women will always have this particular labour obligation towards society (i.e., the obligation to bear and bring up children - Tr.), it has approached the problem of providing for motherhood from this new point of view.

During the first months of Soviet power, the People's Commissariat concentrated on the organisation and reorganisation of those institutions which could help lighten the burden of motherhood and combat the high infant mortality rate.

With the decree issued on 20 January, 1918, the People's Commissariat for State Welfare began to set in order and reorganise lying-in hospitals. The decree ordered that all lying-in hospitals and all centres, clinics and institutes of gynaecology and midwifery be transferred to the Department for the Protection of Mother and Child.

The decree also ordered that medical services for expectant mothers be organised on the basis of three new principles: 1) that medical assistance be available to all needy mothers, i.e., that the doors of lying-in hospitals be opened precisely to the poorest section of the female population - workers, peasants and office workers; 2) that doctors be paid a state salary so as to abolish the advantages enjoyed by more prosperous women able to pay the doctor for his services, thereby ending the inequality between poor and prosperous expectant and nursing mothers; 3) that expectant and nursing mothers, particularly the poor, be protected against a view which saw them as 'sacrifices to science' on whom unskilled midwives and young students gained practice.

No one, noted the decree, has the right to view, a woman fulfilling her sacred but painful civic duty of motherhood as a 'sacrifice to science'. The decree also replaced one-year midwifery courses with two-year courses, and the trainee midwives were permitted to assist at deliveries only in the second year.

The next step taken by the board for the protection of mother and child was to bring together in one state organisation all the institutions caring for mother and child in the pre- and post-natal periods, and all institutions involved in child care, from children's homes to village creches. A decree issued by the People's Commissariat on 31 January, 1918, instructed the Department for the Protection of Mother and Child to create a network of institutions which would bring up for the Soviet Republic spiritually and physically strong and healthy citizens. This same decree also ordered the creation of a model Palace of Motherhood and the conversion of all the lying-in hospitals and children's homes in Moscow and Petrograd into one general institution to be known as 'The Moscow Children's Institute' and 'The Petrograd Children's Institute'. Children's homes were renamed young children's palaces.

The increasing scope of the activity undertaken by the Department for the Protection of Mother and Child, and the enthusiastic response this activity elicited among working women obliged the People's Commissariat to broaden the composition of the board for the protection of motherhood to include men and women representatives of the trade unions, health insurance, the Petrograd district Soviets and the editorial board of the magazine Rabotnitsa.

By a decree issued on 31 January, the board was reorganised into a commission whose activity was to pursue three basic aims: 1) protection of the child, i.e. the reduction of infant mortality; 2) the upbringing of the child in an atmosphere corresponding to the broad concept of the socialist family (the organisation of mother and baby homes, laying the basis for social upbringing from the very first days of the child's life; 3) the creation of a healthy environment in which the child can develop both physically and spiritually.

In January, 1918, before the decree was published, the Department for the Protection of Mother and Child set about organising a Palace of Mother and Child Protection, which was to comprise: a Young Children's Palace (a former children's home) and a Palace of Motherhood (a former clinical institute of midwifery and gynaecology in Petrograd). According to the plans drawn up by the Commission for the Protection of Mother and Child and the Department, the Palace of Mother and Child Protection was to include a museum devoted to the protection of mother and child (an idea which was to be brilliantly executed later by V. P. Lebedeva in the form of an exhibition on the protection of mother and child), exemplary creches, consultation centres, a baby food dispensary, a child fostering centre... The former Nikolayevsky Institute, which was found to be eminently suitable for the purpose, was chosen to house the new Palace...

Footnotes

1. This is a reference to the conference of Petrograd women workers, which was held on 12-15 November, 1917. This was the first non-party workers' conference convened on the initiative of a Bolshevik organisation. The conference discussed the issue of the Constituent Assembly, the activity of the city self-administration, the tasks facing the women's movement and the situation in the provinces.

V.I. Lenin and the First Congress of Women Workers (1918)

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Vladimir Ilyich was the one who initiated the involvement of broad masses of women from the cities and villages in the building of a socialist state.

The Soviet Union occupies a unique position in the world in this respect. No comparable phenomenon can be found in any other state.

In every country of the world women waged and are waging their own struggle for their rights, and face powerful resistance and curt rejection on the part of their own bourgeois governments. In many countries women fought heroically for their rights, but they were nonetheless unable to achieve anywhere else those rights enjoyed by every woman in every Soviet republic.

The uniqueness of the Soviet Union lies in the fact that it is not the women themselves who demand from the government the right to work, to education, and to the protection of motherhood, but the government which itself draws the women into every sphere of labour, including those to which they have absolutely no access in the majority of bourgeois countries, and simultaneously protects the interests of women as mothers. All of this is written into the Soviet Constitution, and it is without parallel anywhere in the world.

...The first congress of women workers began the great work conducted by the party among the millions of women of the USSR. Vladimir Ilyich was present at this congress...

From the very first days of the October Revolution, Soviet power accorded women full rights; however, not all women were as yet able to avail themselves of them. Among the women there were those who, as a result of their lack of class consciousness, were deceived by the opponents of Soviet power.

Vladimir Ilyich (once) said (and I clearly remember his words):

'If even the most resolute and courageous fighter on the civil war front returns home and has to listen day after day to the grumbles and complaints of his wife and face in her, as a result of her lack of political consciousness, an opponent to the continuing struggle for Soviet power, the will of even a valiant warrior hardened in battle may weaken, and he who did not surrender to counter-revolution may surrender to his wife and come under her harmful influence.

'Therefore,' said Vladimir Ilyich,'we must mould the female working masses into a solid bulwark of Soviet power against counter-revolution. Each woman must understand that, in fighting for Soviet power, she is fighting for her own rights and for those of her children.

In the autumn of 1918, the party sent a group of active Bolsheviks to various parts of the country in order to conduct work among the women. I was sent by Sverdlov to Orekhovo-Zuyevo, Kineshma, Ivanovo and other places. i remember how one woman textile worker called Anuchkina invited me home. She offered me a cup of tea; there was no bread, no sugar, but a great deal of enthusiasm. During our conversation, comrade Anuchkina expressed the opinion that it was now time to convene a congress of working and peasant women. I liked the idea, and put it before the party Central Committee when I returned to Moscow.

Vladimir Ilyich fully approved of this idea and gave it his support.

'Of course,' he said, 'there should be no separate women's organisations, but the appropriate apparatus should be set up within the party which would assume responsibility for raising the level of consciousness among the female population, and which would teach women how to use their rights in order to build the Soviet state, that is, in order to build a better future. Women must be drawn into local Soviets in both the towns and the villages, they must be given practical tasks and knowledge. Particular attention must also be given to the development of those institutions which lighten the burden of motherhood for women actively engaged in working for the state in the Soviets and factories.

These ideas and tasks set forth by Vladimir Ilyich formed the basis of the work done at the first congress of women workers, held on 16-21 November, 1918.

The lead group of women Bolsheviks, which included Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya, Inessa Armand, myself and some others - altogether the group had 2(r25 members-drew up reports and resolutions on various issues.

I was given the job of preparing a report and resolution on methods of work among women and on the organisation of the appropriate apparatus within the party, that is, the creation of women's sections. This resolution was approved at our congress, and formed the basis of a decade of work by these women's sections in the party. It was also adopted at the Second International Conference of Women Communists in 1921 50 as a guideline for all the parties that are members of the Comintern.

At the time the congress was convened, not everyone appreciated its importance and significance. I remember that there was opposition from Rykov, Zinoviev and others. However, Vladimir Ilyich declared that the congress was necessary. He always inquired how we were progressing and whether women were responding to our call.

The preparatory work for our first congress was not easy. The postal service was operating badly and we received no reply from party committees to our appeal to send women delegates. On the basis of rough calculations, we estimated that about 300 would come. In fact the number was 1,147. By that time we had been given premises in the 3rd House of Soviets (Sadovo-Karetnaya St. in Moscow). However, we had laid on food for only three-five hundred people. That night I received telephone calls from Podchufarova and Baranova, who told me:'The delegates have arrived, but discontent is growing-there is no bread, no sugar, no tea.'

There is a report on the congress in the magazine Kommunistka, No. 11, 1923 ('How We Convened the First All-Russia Congress of Working and Peasant Women').

Vladimir Ilyich followed events and Nadezhda Konstantinovna, who was a member of the presidium, gave him an account of its work each day. She told Lenin that the delegates included a number of poor peasant women in sheepskin jackets who spoke against the kulaks, and that there were many good speakers. Vladimir Ilyich told her he would go and see them.

Vladimir Ilyich arrived unexpectedly during a speech given by comrade Soboleva. We wanted to interrupt her, but Vladimir Ilyich insisted that she finish her speech. However, everyone had, of course, stopped listening to her.

On 19 November, Vladimir Ilyich made his historic speech that became the basis of our work. The congress adopted proposals on methods of work, on the protection of mothers and young children, and many others.

Vladimir Ilyich believed that women should be given the possibility of working in the state apparatus while simultaneously being able to be mothers. Women are a valuable creative force, but they also have the right and duty to be mothers. Motherhood is a major social obligation. Our Soviet state is implementing to the full these basic propositions put forward by Vladimir Ilyich.

Not only the women of the Soviet Union, but women throughout the world should know that Vladimir Ilyich laid the foundations of female emancipation. 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.

Nowhere in the world, nowhere in history is there such a thinker and statesman who has done so much for the emancipation of women as Vladimir Ilyich.

Decree on Child Welfare (1918)

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Two million young lives were yearly dwindling in Russia because of the darkness of the oppressed people, because of apathy of the class state. Two million suffering mothers were saturating yearly the Russian earth with tears and were covering with their blistered hands the early graves of the innocent victims of the hideous social order. The human thought, which had for centuries sought a path, has at last reached the bright epoch of workers' reforms, which will safeguard the mother for the child and the child for the mother. Bright samples capitalist moral – homes for orphans filled above their capacity, having a colossal mortality rate and a hideous form of nursing the infants, which form was an insult to the sacred feelings of a helpless laboring mother and which made the mother-citizen a dull nursing animal – all these horrors of a nightmare have fortunately, sunk in the dark mist of the past since the victory of the workers and the peasants. A morning, bright and pure for the children themselves has come.

You, working women, laboring mother-citizens, with your responsive hearts, – you brave builders of the new social life, – you ideal pedagogues, children's physicians and nurses, – all of you are called by the new Soviet Russia to contribute your minds and feelings to the building of the great structure of social welfare of the future generations. All the small and large institutions of the Commissariat of Social Welfare which serve the children, – all of them from the day of publication of this decree, mould into one state organization and are transformed to the supervision of the Department for safeguarded mothers and children, so as to create an inseparable chain together with the Institutions for the care of pregnant women, for the purpose of bringing up mentally and physically strong citizens. The Petrograd Home with all the auxillary branches, becomes part of the "Palace for Safeguarding Motherhood and Infancy", as one of its departments and is named "The Palace of Infancy". The Moscow Home becomes part of the Moscow Institute of Motherhood and is named "The Moscow Institute of Infancy".

For the purpose of precipitating the realization of the necessary reforms for the safeguarding childhood in Russia, at the Department for Safeguarding Motherhood and Infancy a Committee is being organized. It is to be composed of representatives of the Soviet of Workers' Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies, of Workers' organizations and of specialists, interested in the question of social welfare of the infants. The following principles are to be the Committee's guiding principles:

1. Safeguarding the mother for the child: the best drop of milk for the child – is the milk from its mother's breast.

2. Bring up the child in an atmosphere of a widely developed Socialist family.

3 To create for the child conditions, which would lay a foundation for the development of its physical and mental strength and for, bright understanding of life.

People's Commissaire: A Kollontay.
Member of the Collegium, supervising the Department for Safeguarding Motherhood and Infancy: N. Korcleff.
Sect'y: Zvetkoff.
January 31, 1918.

New Woman (1918)

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from The New Morality and the Working Class

Part One

What – the new woman? Does she really exist? Is she not the product of the creative fancy of modern writers of fiction, in search of sensational novelties? Look around you, look sharply, reflect, and you will convince yourself: the new woman is certainly there – she exists.

You already know her, you are already accustomed to meeting her in life, and indeed on all rungs of the social ladder, from the woman worker up to the young women adepts of the sciences, from the modest woman clerk to the most famous representative of the liberal arts. What is most amazing about all this is that although you meet the new woman in life with ever increasing frequency, it is only in most recent years that you have had an opportunity to find her facial features more frequently again in the heroines of literary works. Life in the last decades, under the heavy hammer blows of vital necessity, has forged a woman with a new psychological sense, new needs, and a new temper. But literature still portrayed the woman of the past, still created the decrepit, self-sublimating former type.

What shining images of the nascent "new woman" was offered by the reality of Russian life in the '70's and '80's! But the poets and novelists passed them by. They neither perceived nor heard them, nor did they comprehend them or distinguish among them. Turgenev almost brought them to life with his delicate brush, but even in his novels the images are dimmer, poorer than the reality. Only in his poetry, in poems in prose that are dedicated to the Russian girl, did Turgenev bare his head reverently before the deeply affecting images of those who had dared to cross the hallowed threshold.

A long train of "nameless" ones follows the women militants, namely, those who are listed in the annals of history. They were destroyed like bees in the destroyed beehive. The rocky path to the holy, longed for, and awaited future is strewn with their corpses. Their number grew, increased year to year. But the novelists and the poets passed them by, thickly blindfolded. The poet's eye, as though it were absolutely oriented upon the traditional view of woman, was not able to grasp this novum, to appropriate it and stamp it upon his memory. Literature, in perfecting itself, developing by seeking utterly new paths, new colors and worlds, stubbornly continued to produce the betrayed, abandoned, suffering creatures, revengeful wives, bewitching predators, will-less "misunderstood natures," pure, colorless, charming girls.

Flaubert wrote Madame Bovary at a time when George Sand, so shining a herald of the new woman awakening to life, lived near him in flesh and blood, suffering and asserting her human and feminine "ego" alike.

Tolstoy immersed himself in the feminine psyche, enslaved through the centuries by fate, of an Anna Karenina. He admired a charming, harmless Kitti, toyed with the temperamental "wifie" nature of a Natasha Rostov at a time when a pitiless reality tied the hands of an ever growing, steadily increasing number of female human beings. Even the greatest talents of the nineteenth century did not feel the necessity to replace the glamor of the womanliness of their heroines by characteristics pointing to the new woman. It is only in the last ten to fifteen years that this type, newly awakened to life, has not gone unnoticed – and, of course, only by the most modern writers and especially by women novelists – as a result of which they had no choice but to assert their claim to recognition in their most recent works. Now, this type no longer presents a sensational novelty. You meet it not only in a "pioneering" novel that tries to solve one of the pressing, complicated problems of our times, as an exemplary case, but you run across it also in the modest, unpretentious narrative.

It goes without saying that the type of the "new woman" varies from country to country, that membership in this or that social stratum gives it its particular stamp, that the psychological expression of the heroine, her strivings, her life-goals, can exhibit a significant divergence from each other. But no matter how different these new heroines may be, we perceive in them something that is common to all of them, something "species-like," so to speak, which immediately enables us to distinguish them from the women of the past. The latter viewed the world differently, expressed themselves differently towards life. It requires no special historical or literary knowledge to discern the countenance of the new woman from the mass of women of the past. We cannot always give an account of what this novum consists of, or pinpoint wherein the difference actually lies. One thing, however, is clear: somewhere in the realm of the subconscious a criterion has been formed in us with the aid of which we can classify and determine the feminine types.

Who, then, are these new women? They are not the pure, "nice" girls whose romance culminates in a highly successful marriage, they are not wives who suffer from the infidelities of their husbands, or who themselves have committed adultery. Nor are they old maids who bemoan the unhappy love of their youth, just as little as they are "priestesses of love," the victims of wretched living conditions or of their own depraved natures. No, it is a wholly new "fifth" type of heroine, hitherto unknown, heroines with independent demands on life, heroines who assert their personality, heroines who protest against the universal servitude of woman in the State, the family, society, who fight for their rights as representatives of their sex. Single women are the ones who more and more determine this type.

The "single woman": in the most recent past the original type of woman was the "spouse," the wife who was the shadow of the husband, a supplement, an appendage. The single woman has ceased to play this subordinate role and to be no more than the reflex of the man. She has a singular inner world, full of general human interests, she is independent inwardly and self-reliant outwardly. Twenty years ago, a statement of this kind would have said nothing either to the mind or to the heart. The girl, the mother, the "blue stocking" (not viewed in her problematic aspects), the beloved, or the salon-lioness of the stripe of Elena Kurakina (Tolstoy, War and Peace), all these personages exemplified an understandable, traditional staple of fiction. But for the single woman there was no place either in literature or life. If women emerged in history with features that recalled contemporary heroines, they were viewed as random deviations from the norm, as psychological phenomena.

But life does not stand still, the wheel of history, which turns at an ever faster tempo, compels even persons of the one and same generation to form new concepts, to enrich their lexicon with new material. The single woman, of which our grandmothers and even our mothers had no idea whatsoever, exists. She is a real, living phenomenon.

Single women. They are the million figures, wrapped in drab clothing, who pour out of the working-class quarters in an endless train on their way to work sites and factories, who set out for the circular railways and the tramcars in that hour before daybreak in which dawn still battles with the darkness of night. Single women. They are those tens of thousands of young, already fading, women who settle down in the big cities in lonely roomcages and increase the statistic of "independent" households. They are girls and women who ceaselessly wage the grim struggle for existence, who spend their days sitting on the office chair, who bang away at telegraph apparatuses, who stand behind counters. Single women: they are the girls with fresh hearts and minds, full of bold fantasies and plans who pack the temples of science and art, who crowd the sidewalks, searching with vigorous and virile steps for cheap lessons and casual clerical jobs. We see single women seated at a worktable preparing a laboratory experiment, burrowing through archival material, rushing off to hospital patients, drafting a political speech.

How dissimilar are these images to the heroines of the recent past! To the bewitching, touching women of Turgenev, Chekhov, to the heroines of Zola, Maupassant, the impersonal, good-hearted feminine types of German and English literature, even of the '80's and of the beginning of the '90's. Life creates the new women – literature reflects them.

A succession of heroines of the new type pass in review before us in an endless motley train. The woman writer Mathilde[1] pushes her way forward through the thick, prickly thorny undergrowth of the present reality, clearing a path with a calm, proud, determined gait. The thorns of life tear at her hands and feet till the blood flows, lacerate her breast. But there is no wincing in this face, becoming stonelike and as hard as steel as a result of life's cares and torments, even though the bitter lines around the mouth dig deeper, even though the glance, proud and unbowed, beams with bold brilliance.

A new suffering: a beam of joy – a guest who alights rarely on working-class circles – darts by without affecting her. Mathilde stands on the mountain, proud, unshakeable, wrapped in her gray shawl. A statue of sadness. But her gaze is fixed upon the unknown – she sees "the future," she believes in it. Mathilde, steeled by earlier skirmishes with life, comes to the city. Freshness, youth, health ooze from her. So she knocked on the factory gate and entered the work site. The brick monster has swallowed another victim. But Mathilde is not afraid of life. Confident and proud, she steps over the snares that fate mockingly sets for her, the lonely, meditative girl, the dirt and vulgarities of life do not besmirch her. Mathilde bears her clear, pure human "ego" though life with an unshakable naivete.

She is only a lonely, poor factory girl, but she is proud of what she is, she is proud of her inner strength, proud of the fact that she is absolutely self-reliant. Then the first inclination – tender and radiant as youth itself – the first joys of motherhood. The first sensation of loving dependency, a timid rebellion against the loss of freedom. Then again, the wave of a new, torrid passion. The pangs, torments of love, longing, hurt, disappointment and then again loneliness. But we are not in the presence of a bowed "lost" girl, of a pathetic, depressed creature – no, before us stands a proud, lonely mother – a human being turning in upon herself. Mathilde's personality grows and strengthens itself, and every new suffering, every new page of life merely shows her strong, unshakeable "ego" in bolder relief.

Compared to her the dreamy Tatiana, the girl from Riasan,[2] treads softly in bare feet, burnt and chapped by sun and storm. She goes around with people as homeless and as shelterless as herself. "A piece of copper on a rubbish heap of old rust-eaten iron." Today she busies herself in Maikopa at the time of the hay harvest, and tomorrow she wanders to the Don with a troop of agreeable comrades. These people go whither they scent the possibility of earning wages.

Tatiana goes along with them. Free as the wind, lonely as the grass on the steppes. She is dear to nobody. No one will protect her. Eye to eye, breast to breast, she wages an unbroken, tireless struggle against fate. And pitiless fate ruffles her, it shows her no tenderness, it has only hardness for single women like Tatiana and Mathilde. But Tatiana does not bow under the blows of life's scourge, for a long time she does not bow and deeply hidden in her soul she bears her earthly dream, the dream that is shown to her by a clear, unruffled summer night – the future. Thus she goes through the world and seeks her happiness. But, as if to mock her, happiness only draws farther and farther away from Tatiana. The dreamy-tender girl from Riasan gleans only the crumbs of a fugitive happiness.

A passerby stirs her soul, she weeps, is inflamed and gives herself to him. Simply and straightforwardly she wrests for life her small earthly joys to which such single women – and understandably so – migrant women workers precisely give themselves. But she does not want to bind her life to the passerby: "That's not for me – no, I don't like that! Yes, if only you were a peasant! But this way, it makes no sense! That might do for an hour, but not for a whole life!"

And she goes forth, gently smiling at him in farewell, she goes forth in search of the happiness of which she dreams, she goes forth lost in her own thoughts, as though she were alone in the world, and as though everything willed to be created anew by her.

Thus Mathilde and Tatiana go thither, they break through the undergrowth of life and with their breasts and hands they clear the path to the longed-for future. But, behind them, the new women of other social strata press forward, full of zeal to reach the newly laid-out path. They, too, are torn and wounded by the branches of the prickly thorn bushes; their feet, unused to walking on sharp stones, are also sore, and their footsteps are also left behind in red streaks of blood. But there is no such thing as standing still: thick, impenetrable undergrowth over and over again closes off the new path, but the path nevertheless widens more and more. Woe to those who succumb to weakness! Woe to the enfeebled! Woe to those who look backward into the ever vanishing past! They will be pushed off the path by the serried ranks of those who are pressing forward.

And, with bowed heads, the weary sink down on the edge of the new path and look back on the gray castle of their former slavery.

In the serried ranks of those who seek a new path, we look for, we discern heroic women – physiognomies of all nations, of all social strata. In front of them all gleam the beauteous features of the actress Magda,[3] this artist so proud of her maidenly and human dignity with the bold motto of the new woman: "I am I – and what I am, I became oil my own ability." Magda has broken with the traditions of a provincial bourgeois family and has challenged bourgeois morality to its face. But, proud, the "sinner" remains under her parents' roof, in the "homeland." Magda knows the worth of her personality and staunchly defends her right to be herself. To rise above her sins is more to her than the pharisaical purity in which the bourgeois world lives.

The bold, clever, passionate Olga [4] sets out determinedly on the new path. She breaks away from a patriarchial Jewish family, overcomes one obstacle after another, and plunges into the hurly-burly of life in a big European city. She is accepted in an elect circle of intellectuals, "the cream of society," and the life of this center of culture and capitalism gaily unfolds before her. The struggle for existence, the struggle against the unemployment plaguing intellectuals, the struggle for self-assertion as human being and as woman! Olga lives, as do thousands of intellectual young women in the big urban cultural centers – alone in the struggle for existence. Olga does not fear life and boldly demands from fate her quota of personal happiness. The man whom Olga loves is at once near and far. Their life-paths cross from time to time.

Building a common life together does not correspond to the interests of either. Love merely grazes her rich store of experience. Passion wanes – thereupon love also dies. They go their separate ways. And again we do not behold a young woman, weak, suffering, bowed, but a human being who bravely drains the cup in which the wine is mixed with poison. Olga is stronger than the one chosen by her. In the hours of unhappiness, even of love's sorrow, he hastens to Olga as to his only, sincere friend. In the tangled, rich experiences and struggle for existence, love's romance, for Olga, is only an introductory "episode." In the multitude of the new women, the woman doctor Laucorojelo, [5] the typical single woman, strides with sure step, her beautiful head held high. Science and the practice of medicine constitute the substance of her life.

The clinical wards are at once her temple and her home. She fights for recognition and respect among her male colleagues; gently but unyieldingly she rejects all attempts to win her over to marriage. She needs to be free and alone for her beloved activity, without which she cannot live. She is severe in dress, she apportions her time strictly, she struggles to acquire a practice and experiences the triumph of self-love with the victory over her male colleagues as diagnostician. The image of the "emancipated woman" as cold already begins to come across to the reader. Then, as if by accident, we glimpse another scene and, for the first time, we see the woman doctor from a wholly different aspect. It's the holiday season and with her "friend" – likewise a doctor – she is seeking recreation in the country.

Here she is woman – here the femine "ego" gets the upper hand. Her clothes are now light and colorful, her smile gladsome. She makes no secret of her "bond," and when she does not live together with the friend in Paris, this happens only because it is more "convenient" to both of them – the colleagues – this way.

The passionate Theresa,[6] all fire, all zeal, rushes by the great woman doctor! She is an Austrian socialist, a fiery agitator. She has served time in prison. She plunges into Party work with her whole heart and soul. But when she, too, is overwhelmed by the waves of passion, she does not deny the radiant smile of life, she does not hide hypocritically behind the faded mantle of womanly virtue – no, she reaches out her hands to the chosen one, she remains for several weeks away from the scene of her activity, in order to drink the joys of love from the goblet and to convince herself how deep it is. And when she drains it to the dregs, she casts it away without regret, without bitterness. And she goes back to her work. For Theresa, as for the majority of her male comrades, love is only a stage, only a brief respite on life's path. The aim of her life, its content, is the Party, the idea, agitation and propaganda work.

Another of the new women, Agnes Petrovna,[7] one of the first Russian heroines of the type of the single woman, chooses her path with calm circumspection. She is a writer, an editorial secretary, but she is "above all a working human being." When Agnes is working, when any thought, any idea, takes hold of her, nothing else and nobody exists for her. "I cannot separate myself from it, and for this I need freedom and I will not sacrifice my freedom for any kind of love whatsoever." But when Agnes comes home and changes her working clothes for a comfortable house dress, then it gives her joy to acknowledge herself unreservedly as woman and to try her feminine charm on men. She seeks neither the substance nor the goal of life in love, but only chat which most men also seek for in it: "Diversion, poetry, light." But she herself does not recognize any power over herself, over her "ego," on the part of the beloved man.

"To belong to a man like an object, to give him one's whole will, one's whole heart, one's whole understanding, and to gear the employment of all one's energies exclusively to his well-being – and to do this with full consciousness and joyfully – all that can probably make a woman happy. But why all this for only one person? ...If one must forget oneself, then I would rather do it not just for one person alone, by preparing a good noon meal and a restful slumber for him; if such be the case I will grant all that also to such-and-such other unhappy ones..."

And when Miatlev attempts to interfere with her freedom, when he dares to place his love between her and her work, her writing activity, Agnes considers the bond dissolved and they come to a parting of the ways.

Slowly with a tinge of insecurity, Agnes is followed by a less sharply sketched portrait of another single woman: Vera Nikodimovna.[8] Vera has been raised in the traditions of the old generation with a touch of modernism. She has "a past," and this past, which ended in "an awful, awful, banal way," has left a dark mark on her soul. It is not only the "physiological" that drives the reflective and almost frigid Vera into men's embraces. "Nobody knows how little one's feeling is involved in this, how little it all has to do with wantonness," she confesses to her young lady friend. Something different stands behind it. What was it exactly? The longing for motherhood! Perhaps the search for a kindred, understanding soul, this dangerous angel remains fastened to the soberly reflective single women. Ever since her confession Vera is surrounded by men who adore her. But – instincts inherited from grandmothers ward off the approaches of men whom she lures with hopes. Being a temptress becomes her specialty. But in contrast to the grandmothers, unmoved, she holds onto her freedom and, besides being a drawing-room flirt, Vera Nikodimova is a working, thinking woman-human being.

The sadly smiling image of consumptive Mery [9] floats by. Behind her comes the diminutive, courageous fighter Talia, [10] who looks for work in her clattering, worn-out shoes. Behind them rings the repulsive laughter of the intellectually impoverished, shallow Annette, [11] who in this novel and in her way is a parody of the single woman. Robust-naive Anna, Sanschar's heroine, [12] presses forward along the new path. Mira, Lydia, and Nelly [13] stride forth, arm in arm. Each one has something quite special, holy, not only womanliness. We find this vanity, this ambition, even with the seemingly vapid Lydia. But as soon as love is kindled, as soon as the feminine nature demands its rights, all these young women cross the forbidden threshold without the former sentimental fear of themselves.

But later the polytonal symphony of life, in which love is only an introductory melody, again tears them away. The music hall artiste glides by, dodging the sharp stones, with her finesse of soul that enchants our eyes, as though she was formed out of soft aquarelle tones. She has left her husband with her illusions shattered, a wounded heart; she has thrown down the gauntlet to the world to which she belonged. Her life now belongs to art, which she practices in mime dances and pantomime that she herself composes. It is a nomadic, wearylng, strenuous life. She seeks no adventure – she wards them off: her heart has been too deeply wounded. Freedom, independence, solitude are the substance of her personal desires.

But when Rene, after a tiring long day's work, sits at the fireplace in her lovely flat, it is as though the hollow-eyed melancholy of loneliness creeps into her room and sets himself behind her chair.

"I am used to being alone," she writes in her diary, "but today I feel so forsaken. Am I then not independent, not free? And terribly lonely?" Does not this question have the ring of the woman of the past who is used to hearing familiar, beloved voices, to being the object of indispensable words and acts of tenderness?

And when passion suddenly invades Rene on her paths, she allows herself to succumb to the advancing waves and to be borne away by them. But passion does not blind her, it does not becloud her analytical mind.

"Only my senses are attacked," she establishes with melancholy regret. "Only my senses are intoxicated." Rene sobers up. The new love does not give her what she had been seeking. In the embrace of the beloved she is as lonesome as before. And "la Vagabonde" flees, she fades from her love, she flees because this love is so unlike the refined demands she makes on love.

Rene's farewell letter to her abandoned friend is a document of the contemporary woman touching on the soul's new claims and demands on life. Benette's[14] heroine steps forth behind her. She is a writer, a single woman. Ecstasy and adoration drive her into the arms of a great musician, but the experience only helps her to find and strengthen her own identity, to prove her writing talent, and to take a more sober, more reflective, and more conscious stance towards life. And when, later, a new love approaches, she does not flee from it, like the heroines of earlier English novels who, beshamed, viewed themselves as dishonored, fallen creatures. Rather, she goes towards the new love, smiling.

The restless, temperamental Maya's impetuously pushes forward. She has an ironical disposition. To her, all experiences are but stages on the way to herself – to the shaping of her personality: struggle with her relatives for independence, separation from the first husband, a brief romance with an Oriental hero, a second marriage, full of refined psychological details. Thereupon, a bitter struggle is waged in Maya's soul between the old and the new femininity; there is another separation, again a new seeking until Maya finally finds the man who exhibits respect for her inner "voice," this symbol of personality, who recognizes her importance and knows how to create an inwardly free love bond about which Maya has dreamt all her life.

Maya's life harbors a profusion of psychological complications and experiences. But all that from which a woman of the old stamp would have broken long ago (the infidelity of the beloved man, the break with two men) serves Maya only as education, allows her to arrive at self-understanding all the more surely. Unconsciously, she follows Goethe's counsel: "to begin one's life anew every day, as though it were just beginning ..." "My stronger, more courageous will, which nothing could break, saved me – my unconscious will to self-preservation. It led me through life like a guardian angel," says Maya of herself.[15]

Nevertheless there are still enough episodes in Maya's life that recall the old breed. The new, independent, inwardly free woman constantly struggles with the atavistic inclination to be the "shadow of the husband," his echo. How familiar in her is the naive conscientious effort to arrange herself inwardly so as to accord with the taste of her husband whom she loves, to perfect herself fully in keeping with the ideal that her chosen one had formed of her. As though she had no worth of her own, as though her personality was to be appraised only according to the relation men had towards her. This atavistic trait in women is so strong that even so splendid, brilliant, bewitching a personality as George Sand could be tempted to wish to forsake the world for the sake of a rapturous Musset and then, later, to renounce the flight to the stellar world of artistic creation for the sake of sober politics. But the strong personality of George Sand drew a line against such experiments. The moment came when George Sand sensed that she was about to lose her identity, that by such adjustment the woman in her – Aurore Dudevant – was directing George Sand, the bold, rebellious, passionate dreamer, to destruction and stifling her.

Then George Sand tore the former bonds with no regrets. And when once such a decision was born in her soul, nothing could hold her back, no power, not even her own passion was able to break the will of this great human being with the bewitching, tender-receptive, feminine soul.

When Aurore Dudevant leaves her estate on a gloomy autumn day for a last brief farewell with her lover, even though the decision to break with him is already ripened and formalized – we need have no concern over George Sand – we feel that this encounter cannot have the force to change her decision, it is nothing else but the last gift of a dissolving passion which George Sand flings to the weeping Aurore. The stage is surpassed, the experience is closed, and that is all.

Meisel-Hess's Maya, naturally, is not of the same stature of George Sand, she is much weaker. But in her, too, a limit is set to her adaptation to the beloved. Her atavistic inclination to self-denial, to self-alienation and dissolution in love, collides with her already developed, distinct human personality. Maya also understands how to straighten herself out in a given moment and she goes forth in order to save her "voice."

How difficult it is for today's woman to cast aside this capacity, internalized in the course of centuries, of millenniums, with which she tried to assimilate herself to the man whom fate seemed to have singled out to be her lord and master. How difficult she will find it to convince herself that woman must reckon self-renunciation as a sin, even a renunciation for the sake of the beloved and for the sake of the power of love.

The cold, reflective, ambitious Uta [16] steps impressively alongside Maya. Uta is an actress, her whole life is a continuous display and adornment of her own "ego" which to her stands far higher than anything else in the world. It is as though art, too, is dear to her only as a further means for the unfoldment and revelation of her strong personality, only more fully and in a many-faceted way. It shows the natural reaction against the centuries – long self-abasement of woman and her submissive renunciation of the right to be a personality with a characteristic value of her own. Strong, passionate ambition, cold reasoning, extraordinary selfishness and a striking talent for the stage get the upper hand in her and drive Uta into a dark corner. Calmly, she passes up personal happiness, Klodt's boundless devotion.

She appreciates his love, because she loves to glimpse her splendor reflected therein, as in a mirror. When Klodt, confused by Uta's glamor, tormented by her cold indifference, betrays her before her eyes, she weeps. But it is not the woman in her that is offended. Rather it is the artist who is exposed to all admiring gazes, whose particular worshipper has dared to go over to her rival, to the hated Fronchini. It is not outraged love that weeps in her, but wounded egotism. Uta remains true to herself up to the end of the novel – she carries her spiritual coldness and her adoration of her own "ego" through life.

But, in Uta, is it not the absence of that "holy flame" which makes "great" artists, which makes the frivolous, temperamental "wifie" Fronchini carry off the victory over the clever, cultivated Uta, who is much more developed and even "important," in her art, but devoid of temperament?

The artist Tania,[17] spoiled by life, shines forth in the multitude. Although Tania is a married woman, one cannot but include her in the type of "single woman," as with Maya, even though she was formally married three times. It is in keeping with her inner physiognomy. For instance, does not Tania, although she lives together with her lawful spouse under the same roof, remain free and independent as before and as a human being, "herself"? She frowns when her husband introduces her to his friends without mentioning her own name. Each of them lives in a world of his own, she in the world of art, he in the world of his professorship, of science. They are good friends, comrades, strong bonds unite them, but as good friends they do not curtail one another's freedom.

Tania's blind, physiological passion for the handsome "manikin" Stark invades this pure atmosphere. In Stark, naturally, Tania does not love the intellectual physiognomy, not his soul, but the "eternal masculine" with which he drew her like a magnet at their first meeting. She flits by his soul, just as up to now men have flitted by the souls even of passionately loved women, stretching their arms in defensive helplessness when the "adored" Anna, Manya, or Lisa, amid tears, utter the familiar reproach: "But your soul, your soul, that you don't give ..." Tania's attitude towards Stark altogether bears the stamp of the male. We feel that she, as a personality, is both clearer and stronger, as well as richer than he. Tania is too much a human being, too little "wifie" for naked passion to be able to satisfy her. She herself admits that her passion for Stark does not enrich her soul, but impoverishes it, dries it out. It is characteristic that Tania suffers less from the consciousness of her infidelity to her husband than from the tormenting realization that comes to her in moments when she yields to amorous rapture, of the irreconcilability of such love with planful, enduring work without which she cannot live.

Passion consumes her energies, her time and makes free, creative work impossible. Thus, Tania begins to lose herself and that which to her is the dearest thing in life. Tania goes back to her husband but not because "duty" enjoins it, and even less out of pity, but out of love for herself, in order to save her identity and her personality.[18]

She can lose herself with Stark. She goes back and is with child by Stark. She goes back, but not because the passion is already extinct. Where is the heroine of the novels of the good old times who would have possessed so much bravery as to act like Tania?

Tania faces the choice which in her time was faced by one of the first heroines of the psychologically new type of woman – Ibsen's Ellida. Since the "man from the sea" demands that she follow him, and her husband accords her full freedom of choice – Ellida remains with her husband. She remains in the consciousness that, thereby, she is saving her inner freedom, whereas she would forfeit it if she were to go off with the "man from the sea." Ellida has understood that she was threatened by the most terrible captivity imaginable for a woman – the captivity of passion, a power that he held over her feminine heart.

The psychically stoic, the spiritually strong Josepha[19] modestly clears her path and proffers a helping hand to those on the edges of the path beset by the still protruding, prickly branches of the thorny bushes of life. She helps the women of bourgeois society beat a path to economic independence, she shows them the way to the professions. The sensitive, cautious Christa Ruland[20] gropes hesitantly along the path. We have here a bewitching, portrayal of a grown woman who with big, wide-opened eyes peers questioningly into the world in which she seeks the new rights for woman, and, at the same time, first begins to become conscious of herself. Her motto is: "I – and I and you – are you, we are one only in love."

The heroine of Juschkevitsch's novel, Elena,[21] hiding the tragedy of her soul, the tormenting, strange world-weariness which is not comprehensible even to her, presses forward on the margin of the path to the "new rights." She is not single and not even one of the "new women" in the actual sense of the word. In her psyche, the traits of the new and the old type have entangled and formed a complicated knot. The eternal feminine is clear and strong in her, but her mind, her human "ego," fills the tender feminine soul with grave questions. She is sacrificing, affectionate, full of feminine contradictions and even of slavish mendacities, but her rebellious, endlessly seeking, questioning mind makes out of Elena a figure of a new kind. Juschkevitsch has presented her in soft tones and treated the character so circumspectly, so affectionately as though fearful of breaking with a word this sensitive, fragile feminine soul whose tragic situation finally destroys her.

We distinguish Renate Fuchs[22] in the multitude of the new women, this "rebellious soul" who succeeds in preserving her spiritual purity while she goes through shame, dishonor, and dirt. A lofty calm is spread over her countenance and in her virginal hands she holds the little child, the "new man" of the future. Alongside her steps Greni Allena's heroine[23] proudly guiding by the hand her little daughter, the child of her love from a union which demonstratively had avoided the legal form. The chemist Maria[24] sets foot into her laboratory with officious gestures – her smile is radiant; she has found life's harmony. The prostituted Mylada[25] with head held high bears her "holy mission" through the filth of life which has robbed her of her eyesight.

The social-revolutionary Anna Siemenovna,[26] while concealing herself behind the mask of the coquettish "wifie," deliberately strides through her own passion beginning to end. Leaving the world's prejudices far behind, the emancipated student English-woman Fanny[27] glides along with soaring steps and carries her fragrant clothes unhurried through life's thorny underbrush. Another familiar face beams at us, that of the woman student from the far north – Anna Mahr[28] ...Thus do the different heroines of Björnson, ronas Lie (The Commandant's Daughters), Jakobsen, Löffler torment themselves on the new path. Jenny,[29] the heroine of the Norwegian woman novelist Undset, enters upon the new path full of restlessness, and always as though she was harking to voices in her soul reminiscent of the woman of the past. Like Nagrodskaya's Tania, she leaves the father of her still unborn child so that motherhood may not strengthen the love that has begun to be burdensome to her. Now she presses forward on the new path, with increasing boldness, but a voice of the past lives in her, reawakens forgotten feelings, conceptions, and ideas. Jenny pauses in her forward march and looks back – and thereupon she falls to pieces ...

But ever new figures of awakening, "rebellious," seeking women press forward beyond her.

The tender, bewitching silhouette of Francoise Houdon,[30] with her comradely love for Christophe and her passion for another, with her flaming temperament, full of insatiable artistic ambition, with an iron will and a fragile, tender soul. On the same line with her steps the unvarnished, living type of the working woman Cecile,[31] holdling her soul in balance unconscious of the fact that the new truth stamps itself in her calm "arrival." The suffragette Julia France,[32] Marie Antin,[33] the refugee from Russia, the Jewish girl who clears herself a path to American citizenship, to a secure position [34], and all the heroines of Rikarda Huch, Gabriele Reiner, Sarah Grande, Nemfz Word Krandiewskaia, the symptomatic Baborinin of the salon novelist Marcel Prevost.[35]

There are many of them and they cannot all be listed in this brief sketch. But precisely the fact that there is such a profusion of these new women, who daily appear on the scene in ever new and larger numbers so that their tainted likeness is found even in the boulevard-literature of a Verbitzkaia, proves that life creates and shapes these new types of women without let-up.

This new woman brings with her something alien, that at times repels us because of its newness as a breed, so to speak. We peer at it closely, looking for the familiar, agreeable traits of which our mothers and grandmothers were the bearers. But the type who stands before us has broken with the past and harbors within herself a whole world of new feelings, experiences, and demands. Doubt rises in us, we are almost disappointed. Where is the engaging feminine submissiveness and softness of yore? Where is the customary ability of the woman to adjust herself in marriage, to give herself, even vis-a-vis the insignificant husband and to accord him primacy in life?

Before us stands woman as personality, before us stands a human being possessing a characteristic value, with her own individuality, who asserts herself – in short, the woman who has broken the rusted fetters of her sex.

Part Two

WHAT actually are these characterological peculiarities, these new feelings and traits in the feminine psyche that allow us to assign a woman to the class of "single women," according to her inner physiognomy?

Dominance of feeling was the most typical trait peculiar to the woman of the past, and this predominance of feeling at once signified woman's ornament and defect. The sharpening of the economic contradictions in the present, which has drawn woman into the active struggle for existence, makes it imperative that she conquer her feelings, requires that she not only learn to take the protean, social obstacles, but that she also strengthen, through the exercise of her will, her eminently passive, easily yielding spirit, inclined to slackness.

Women have to accomplish a much greater educational mission than men in order for them to be granted the newly fought for rights from life. Gloomy thoughts, grievous cares oppress Josefa in Ilse Frapan's novel, Work. Her frail shoulders can hardly bear life's heavy burden. She would like, just once, to be allowed to have herself a good cry, to air all her grievances before someone, as women did formerly; she would like to surrender to her suffering. But the work assigned to her in the clinic according to a strictly laid-out schedule will not wait. She dares not let herself be put off or obstructed from this task by housework or by mending the children's clothes. Josefa must so control herself that her personal life remains hidden as if behind a rail and she arrives at the clinic unfailingly at the stroke of the bell.

Mathilde sees her child die, her joy, everything that was left to her from rapturous love. But her trained fingers work and do not tear the threads of life despite its misery.

Present-day conditions demand from every woman who exercises a trade, a profession, a work of any kind outside the home, so much self-discipline, so much will power, in order to combat her feelings, as was to be found only as an exception to the rule with the woman of the past.

Jealousy, mistrust, the senseless "female revenge," are not these the typical peculiarities of the woman of the past? Jealousy, which lay at the bottom of practically all the tragedies of the feminine soul! Obviously, jealousy also emerged as a tragedy of the male soul. But for his Othello, Shakespeare does not choose a disciplined, civilized Englishman, or an intelligent, refined Venetian, but a Moor ruled by passions.

Women's strong dependency on feeling has misled them to expressing their hatred of rivals in the most hideous forms, and has led them to the borders of woman's busiest, most slavish characteristics. If the heroine has not always exactly poured sulphuric acid over her rival, most probably she overwhelmed her with the poison of her slander.

The new women do not want exclusive possession when they love. Since they demand respect for the freedom of their own feelings, they also learn to accord this respect to others. Characteristic of this is the attitude of the heroine towards the rival as portrayed in a string of contemporary novels. We come upon a tactful, circumspect attitude towards the other woman rather than sulphuric acid and defamatory attacks. Maya and the first wife of her chosen one, in the Voice, not only are free from any mutual hatred, but even find a common language and in many things they show more of a closer bond between themselves than with the man to whom the hearts of both belong.

Maya weeps over the offenses that he inflicts on the soul of her rival, when this common "he" treats her as legal property, as an object belonging to him without the heart-warming tendernesses, without the traditional kisses. Maya is offended for "the woman." Maya is able to feel beyond a narrow individualism; in Maya we already have a preview of the feeling of collectivity, of comradeship in love, utterly alien to the old type.

Is not the attitude of the same Maya towards the unnecessary, senseless infidelity of her second husband also characteristic? She catches him red-handed, but Maya doesn't swoon or create a scandal. She leaves the scene forthwith and hastens to the tiny bed of her husband's children by his first wife. These sleeping tots scare away the sadness from her soul. She goes back to her home, grown lonely.

It feels chilly. Maya starts a fire, wraps herself in her shawl and forces herself to read an interesting book. Thus does she swiftly escape herself, thus does she find the necessary balance.

Irina, in the novel by Kredo (In the Fog of Life), not only achieves a reconciliation with Victor's former lady friend, but demands a solicitous attitude towards the sensibility of her rival. In return, Victor, when he learns about Irina's past, asks in the tone of the offended "little man": "What number am I on your list? I want to know ...Were they many?" Victor is a progressive-minded person, a writer, but in him, too, the "animal" is stronger than in the nonentity Irina whose personality is interesting only to the extent that she, too, reaches out for the new truth of life.

In the new woman, the human being increasingly conquers the jealous "wifie."

The far higher demands made on the man, to which Ellen Kay also refers in her writings, are to be viewed as a second typical trait of the contemporary woman. The woman of the past had been raised by her lord and master to adopt a negligent attitude towards herself, to accept a petty, wretched existence as a natural fate. But she puts up with men's condescending smile over her feminine frailities and afflictions without demanding attention for that which she thinks, for that which she experiences. Do not men still express astonishment when their attention is drawn to the fact that hardly one of them ever lent an ear to his wife, even during the minutes of the most intimate experiences? This boundless, inconsiderate attitude to the feminine "ego" was also the cause of family tragedies, formerly.

The experienced Don Juans not only understood how to take a woman's body, but they also ruled her soul, in that most of them acted out the comedy "of understanding," exhibiting a tender-solicitous attention to their unimportant "ego," which her own husband inconsiderately and indifferently passed by. But Don Juans came and went, and the lawful spouse remained and in the course of centuries the woman adjusted herself to this life, reduced her claims and demands, and oriented her conception of happiness on the gratification of the external, of what was objectively tangible.

"He" gave her rings and earrings, "he" brought her flowers and candies, ergo he loved her.

But when he became despotic and coarse, when he made demands and laid down prohibitions, this was precisely within his rights, the rights of the master of her heart!

The contemporary woman is demanding, she seeks for and enjoins esteem for her personality, her sensibility. She demands respect for her "ego." She does not endure despotism. When her oriental master forbids Maya to sing at concerts, and when he hears about the transgression of his prohibition and decides "as punishment" not to write to her for two whole weeks, he kills her feeling for him by so doing. He wanted to "punish" her who had, after all, freely given him her heart!

This insistence upon inner freedom recalls an old legend of women of the earliest times. "Thy will has been done, but thou has lost thy wife in me" – Rosamunde hurls these words at her royal consort when he forces her to drink from the skull of her murdered father. And this is no empty threat because she kills the man whom, up to then, she has passionately loved.

The modern woman can forgive much to which the woman of the past would have found very difficult to reconcile herself: the husband's inability to provide for her material maintenance, lack of attention of an external kind, even infidelity, but she never forgets or forgives the non-esteem of her spiritual "ego," of her sensibility.

When the friend has "no ear" for this, for the new woman, her association with him loses half of its worth.

When Christa Ruland's beloved, in answer to her question of what he thinks about women, at first is evasive and then comes out with banal platitudes, Christa involuntarily feels estranged. How could he, who won her soul with his solicitous attitude, prove so deaf to Christa's intellectual "ego" by not instinctively understanding how important it was to hear his opinion of women's intellectual importance? Christa does not forgive him for this, just as no new woman would forgive this infidelity of men which they believe, or fancy, surely to possess.

The same woman whom the husband loves for the sake of her bold flight, because of her psychic independence, he seeks to secure for himself by extinguishing the "holy light" in her with the help of which she has sought her path, by trying to reduce her to an object of his pleasure, of his enjoyment. Christa notices with astonishment how the same Frank, who had vigorously tried to draw her into the sphere of his own intellectual interests, who dreamt of political propaganda tours together, begins to detach himself from her and to close himself off from her in his own intellectual world. There is no more talk, naturally, of taking trips together.

And even in the minutes in which Christa eagerly follows his intellectual pursuits the only thing to which he responds is to the woman in her and this all the more captivatingly the more cultivated and thoroughly intellectualized she is. It is as though her intellectuality, with her capacity to rise with him to his non-mundane realm of ideas, only sharpens his sexual appetence for her. Christa leaves him as though she were "stealing away."

The new woman forgives an affront to the "wifie" in her, but she never forgets the least inattentiveness vis-a-vis her personality. With Vera Nikodimovna it is a question of the same demands on the intellectual personality of the chosen one. According to Vera the mind, even an "excellent" one, plays a subordinate role in woman: "The main thing with her is the moral foundation. And, in fact, when we educate ourselves and read, this moral foundation remains stationary almost without development. And how unhappy we are, then! Men then, in most cases, do not understand what there is about them that displeases and repels us..."

The demand set forth by women that the man should love and appreciate not so much the impersonal-feminine, but rather that which presents their spiritual substance, their individual "ego," grew naturally on the basis of self-knowledge as personality. "I curse my female body; because of it you do not notice that there is still something else in me – something more valuable" – that is the cry that is heard through the whole novel of Nadjescha Sanschar (Anna's Notes). And heroines of all nationalities repeat this protest in this or that form. Even the simple soul of Gorki's Tatiana protests against an attitude that brands her as a single instrument of pleasure.

"He could have had me ... But I don't want to, I can't, that way, without heart, like a cat ...What kind of people are you ... so coarse..."

The sharper the personality of the woman is stamped, the more consciously does she feel herself as a "human being," the more sharply does she understand the offense that lies in the fact that the man, with a psychology blunted in the course of centuries, was not able to see in the desired woman the awakening human being, the personality.

These increased demands on the men are the warrant for the fact that so many heroines of modern novels hurry from one enjoyment to another, from one love to another in the wearying search for their ideal: harmony between passion and spiritual kinship, the reconciliation of love and freedom, comradeship with mutual independence.

"There's nothing I long for so passionately as to find a man from whom I would no longer desire to leave, from whom I would not want to go away," exclaims Maya the restless seeker. And the "Vagabond" leaves her friend only because there dwells within her the inextinguishable ideal of a still greater, still more perfect community of love. Present-day reality disenchants all the ingenuous seekers of a harmonious, total love. They tear the bonds of love without regret and resume the search for their ideal. And thereby they forget that what they want to find now, at best, can exist as a life-possibility only in the distant future among people with a new psychic structure, among people who have organically internalized the idea that comradeship and freedom must occupy first place also in love-relationships.

The woman of the old type had been altogether ignorant of how to appreciate personal independence. What would she have done with it anyway? What can be more pathetic, helpless, than an abandoned wife or beloved when she belongs to the old type? With the departure or death of her husband the wife not only lost her material maintenance, but her one and only moral support collapsed. Unaccustomed to an eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation with life, the woman of the past feared being alone and was ready to free herself at the first opportunity from that independence which she had found so unpleasant and unnecessary.

The contemporary, new woman not only has no fear of independence, but she learns to appreciate it, increasingly, to the degree that her interests go beyond the narrow circle of the family, of the home, and of love. For Vera Nikodimovna there can be nothing more terrible than material dependency on a man: "Oh, how unhappy I would be if I were dependent on a man, and if I had to hunt for one to become my husband and therefore be under the obligation to keep me! Oh, how wretched I would be!" she says to her friend.

To have a "husband," a proprietor of and ruler of her soul-the thought terrifies Vera no less than the thought of prison must terrify the prisoner who has finally escaped to freedom. "I would never give myself to this slavery ..."

"Are you married?"

"No, I'm not married, but I have had my romance and my passion."

The woman of the present feels in marriage a fetter, even when no outer, formal bond exists. The psyche of the old human being that still lives in us creates fetters of a moral nature incomparably stronger than the outer ones. All the more stubbornly does the new heroine flee all that which could bind her to the ruler of her heart even externally. It was material dependency on men, complete helplessness in life, above all, that drove the woman of the past to structure her relations to the man in such a way as to ensure their indissolubility. Only then did she feel out of danger. The new woman, who is forced independently to bear life's burden, assumes either a rejecting, or even an indifferent, attitude towards the form of a firm bond. She is altogether in no hurry to determine her love-relationships through a form. In reply to a question as to the nature of Rene's relationship to her friend (La Vagabonde), whether it has a bourgeois marriage in view or whether it is a transient love affair, Rene merely shrugs her shoulders and blurts out:

"Us? Put simply – we are studying each other."

"And, what about the future?"

"Oh, Margot, I don't like the future!"

Mathilde is in no hurry whatsoever to bind herself to Saljoka, even though she has a child by him, just as she is in no hurry to formalize her union with the clerk Dominikus. And, if Erneste had not gone away, Mathilde, despite her ardent feelings for him, in all probability would have been satisfied with her free union and not fought for her right of formal possession. Reason suggested to her, the aging woman, marriage to him, just as it suggested marriage to him, the aging bachelor. Gorki's Tatiana shows just as little inclination to hasten to bind her fate to that of another. She looks around in the world for a suitable man, according to her ideal. But she does not grant the right of possession even to those upon whom she voluntarily bestows her charms. "It might be all right for an hour, but for life... ?"

Every woman who exercises a profession, who serves any cause, an idea, needs independence and personal freedom. Rosa, in Vita Somnium Breve, does not interfere with the freedom of her beloved Michael, she leaves him his lawful wife, his family; for years she contents herself with brief, radiant encounters with her friend and beloved. But for the fact that she has elevated to the status of being the substance of her life not her love, but her art, her paintings, does not that "touching renunciation" also live in her? "I'm alone," thinks Rosa, "and nevertheless not alone with my pictures, my thoughts, my creations."

Up to now, the main content of a woman's life was directed upon the experience of love. Love, even for a life overladen with material superfluousness, was still the most beautiful ornament. Conversely, the absence of love made a woman's life colorless, empty, poor. No outer blessing, no honorific distinction could replace the loss of love's happiness in a woman, not even the joys of motherhood![36]

When the heart was empty, life also seemed empty. It was thus that the women of the past distinguished themselves from the men. With men, their active life still proceeded side by side with their emotional life, and while the heroine pined away with longing for "him," "he," the husband, waged the struggle with fate somewhere in a world which the woman neither grasped nor understood. How many psychological plays are based on the fact that the woman waited, longingly, for "him," for the moment when he would return from his professional absence, from office or work. But, upon his return, instead of occupying himself exclusively with "her" he hurriedly wolfed down his food in order to rush to a meeting, or took his papers out of his briefcase and eagerly plunged into his reading.

His wife observed this with absolute incomprehension, her soul seething with reproaches. After all, she could have gladly set aside the blouse she had begun to knit. She could also, for his sake, have left the dishes piled in the kitchen sink, and even put the children to bed early so that, finally, both could be alone, so that for once he could forget the tiresome things: business, work, politics, the office. Women of all social strata suffered from this incomprehension of their husband and his interests which lay in an alien world, far beyond the borders of the domestic nest. This incomprehension of the male psyche was met with all women: with the wife of the professor and the wife of the civil servant alike, of the writer, or of the shop assistant.

The wife's offended exclamation, "So, already you're off again to your horrible meetings!" often accompanies the husband today, regardless of whether he is a worker or a stock-broker.

But, to the same degree as the woman is being increasingly drawn into the vortex of social life, as she proves herself as an active tiny wheel in the mechanism of the economy, so her own horizon, the walls of her own home, which separated her from the world, collapse, and unconsciously she internalizes its interests which, formerly, were alien and incomprehensible, and she makes them her own. Love ceases to form the only substance of her life; furthermore, it is alloted the subordinate role it plays with most men. To be sure, for, too, there come periods in her life when love – love, the passion – holds her soul prisoner, when her mind, her heart, and thereby all other interests are eclipsed and thrust into the background. At such times can experience the crassest dramas, she can enjoy and suffer like the woman of the past. But the state of being in love, passion, love are but transient periods in her life. Its true content is the "holy" that serves: the social idea, science, creativity. At her work, her ideal is for her, for, in most cases, more important, more valuable, holier than all the joys of the heart, all the delights of passion.

Her new relation to work, which we do not find among the heroines of the good old days, also stems from this fact. Benette's heroine has just had her first passionate-blissful conversation with the man she loves. But when he tells her he wants to call on her next morning, very early, the beloved, the blissful woman, notwithstanding, interrupts him almost horrifiedly, "But please not before breakfast!"

"'Not before breakfast'? Why?"

"He was astonished. But in the course of these five years I had grown accustomed to being my own master. My taste, my habits had crystallized, I had created my own arrangement for my life. I never receive anybody before breakfast and I have so much work staring me in the face precisely in the morning. Should I really favor this man as a conqueror, and ruin my morning. A dull anxiety for my freedom, my independence, burgeoned in me." Are these not wholly new traits in the woman in love? A woman who voluntarily dismisses the longed-for encounter with the beloved with its promise of joy, only because she is used to doing her writing in the morning, only because she is pained at the thought of these lost hours taken from work. Could the hours of love, that are devoted to the beloved, ever be considered lost for the woman of the old type?

Tania, in Nagodskaia's novel, torments herself during her honeymoon with Stark in the consciousness of her holiday. Self-reproachfully, she looks at the canvas with the unfinished painting.

"I have promised today to myself and I will ask Stark not to come," she resolves. But Stark (in earlier novels this role would fall to the heroine) is irritated by this and protests.

"A whole day without you," he says in a childish-peevish tone. "I won't disturb you in the least, I'll sit quietly. I'm beginning to become jealous of your art," he says further, "it's too formidable a rival." For this once Tania gives in, but the consciousness that she must neglect her work, keep her model waiting, and be unable to go to the professor, gnaws at her. There is no completeness, no peace in her lovemaking when her love must suffer for its sake.

"Today I am working," she writes triumphantly in her diary, "I work greedily! – I work with joy and have been unable to tear myself away from it since early morning." The diary entry of the balance of the day occurs in bright, high-spirited tones. We feel how a human being has broken the spell of gloom-engendering passions and again found herself. At work, 'with the palette in hand! Tania is awakened from her dream and suddenly sees that, beyond her and Stark, beyond her narrow atmosphere, generative only of the ecstasies of passion, there exists a great, variegated world, full of joys, beauty, and suffering. Suddenly she remembers her friend Weber, recognizing his utter loneliness. Such are the feelings of a human being who returns home after long absence. Do you find a woman of the old type who would have breathed such a sigh of relief, with almost a tinge of maleness, when upon leaving behind the haze of passion she returns to her neglected work in order, anew, to feel the worth of her own being, as a personality?

Agnes Petrovna (One of Them) travels through Italy with her beloved Miatlev, and is rocked to sleep by the gentle lapping of the waves of the Venetian lagoons. Stars, night, gondola ride, love – and suddenly Agnes asks a surprise question: "Can you live this way for long?"

"For an eternity!" he answers. She shudders. Before her lay a life full of kisses, whispering waves, and starry harmony – and it terrifies her.

"Why live then? I'm a woman like all the others," Agnes meditates further, "I'm young and even beautiful, why can't I adjust myself to the idea that for a woman love is everything? But just the thought of an eternity of giving myself to such a pastime drives me out of my mind."

And the same Agnes – immediately she returns to St. Petersburg – jealously draws a line between her work, her writing, against the tyranny of love. In the evening they are a twosome. Then Agnes is suddenly lively, high spirited, "her eyes beamed as she embraced him with a wholly special tenderness and cuddled up to him with a childlike affection, like a kitten ..." Naturally, Miatlev was about to melt with expectations. But then Agnes bends to his ear and whispers the wholly unexpected confession :

"Beloved, darling! Go home now – I simply must write now, otherwise my thoughts will vanish ..." The beam in her eyes obviously had nothing to do with him but with the thoughts that suddenly sprouted in Agnes Petrovna's little head ...

For the woman of the past, the infidelity or the loss of her beloved was the worst possible disaster, in imagination and in fact. But for the heroine of our day what is truly disastrous is the loss of her identity, the renunciation of her own "ego" for the sake of the beloved, for the protection of love's happiness. not only rejects the outer fetters, she protests "against love's prison itself," she is fearful of the fetters that love, with the stunted psychology peculiar to our time, lays upon lovers. The woman who was habituated to be absolutely consumed in love, even, assumes an anxious stance towards love. She is constantly fearful that the power of feeling might awaken the slumbering atavistic inclination in her to become the shadow of the husband, might tempt her to surrender her identity, and to abandon her work, her profession, her life-tasks.

This is not a struggle for the "right to love," this is a protest against moral imprisonment, even that of the outwardly freest feeling. This is the rebellion of the women of our age of transition who have not yet learned how to harmonize inner freedom and independence with the all-consuming passion of love.

Whereas the woman of the past, relinquishing love, buried herself in her lightless gray world in order to live in it as a joyless creature, who has liberated herself from love's servitude, stretches to her full height, proudly and joyfully. "The mental servitude is at an end," rejoices Kredo's heroine after she has convinced herself that the intoxication of passion is past. "No more sorrow, no more excitation, no more fear, she is free, her heart no longer suffers, since Victor whom she has loved has disappeared from her soul, somehow as though unnoticed." And how greatly Irina rejoices because "she feels strength and energy again, which had constantly been depleted in her when she made an effort to draw capital out of the fullness of an alien soul. Such a suppression of her own energies constantly debased her inwardly, and the awakening of these energies therefore brought her joy..."

Liberation from the imprisonment of alien thoughts, liberation from pangs and sorrows, these "sharp and mordant offsprings of kisses," to be oneself anew, to find oneself! What a jubilation for a woman who is a personality and what an incomprehensible, utterly unknown feeling for the woman of the past!

A significant transformation had to be effected in the psychic image of woman, her mental life had to develop itself strongly, she had to gather a rich store of intellectual values so that she would not be bankrupt at the moment she ceased to pay her tribute to the man. But precisely for the reason that woman's life is not exhausted in love, for the reason that a great store of ideas and interests is found in her, which make out of her "a human being," we learn to apply a new criterion in the appraisal of woman's moral personality. For centuries, the dignity of the heroine was not measured according to her general human characteristics, not according to her intellectual abilities, nor even according to psychological characteristics, but rather exclusively according to her store of feminine virtues which the property-based bourgeois morality demanded of her. "Sexual purity," sexual virtuousness, were the moral physiognomies of the woman. One who had sinned against the sexual moral code was never forgiven. And the romance writers carefully protected the heroines beloved by them from "falling" and allowed only the non-loved to "sin" as the male heroes sinned, without, of course, having to pay with their moral worth as retribution.

The heroines of contemporary novels in most cases transgress the limits of the usual sexual code of virtues, and regardless of this fact, neither the author nor the reader considers these heroines as "depraved types." We find pleasure in Sudermann's bold Madga, although this young woman has been guilty of a series of "falls." We are touched by the dimension of the humanity of Hauptmann's Mathilde, even though a whole sequence of nonmarital associations has passed by us, and even though she has borne children from the different chosen ones of her heart.[37]

Even Vinnitschenko's Dara does not lose her human worth as the result of the unnecessary action of purchased love.

Do not most men act thus and do we not, nevertheless, continue to "respect" them?

A forward movement, imperceptible even to ourselves, has been effected in our psychology in respect to the formation of a new morality. What fifty years ago was considered as a permanent blot on a woman's or girl's reputation, we now view as a phenomenon requiring neither justification nor forgiveness. In her time George Sand had to break a lance for the right of a woman to leave her lawful spouse in order to go to the freely chosen beloved. In pharisaic England, and not very long ago, Grant Allan had to take the unwed mother under his wing.

But the old moralistic criterion proves unavailing to the degree that woman stands on her own feet, that she ceases to be dependent on the father or on the husband, that she stands side by side with the husband and participates in the social struggle.

The gradual accumulation of woman's valuable and general human characteristics teaches us to appreciate in her not the representative of sex, but the human being, the personality. And the earlier evaluation of the woman as "wifie," to whom the husband guaranteed a legal maintenance, withers away by itself.

Life first taught us to apply this standard only to "great souls": "free" artists, talents, actresses, women writers were forgiven for their violations of the generally recognized sexual morality.

"But why should only the 'great souls' set forth this demand?" rightly asks Bebel. "Why not also the others, who are not great souls?"

"If Goethe and George Sand – we cite only these two although many have acted similarly – dared to live according to the promptings of the heart, if Goethe's love-experiences fill volumes, which are devoured with worshipful rapture by his readers of both sexes, why condemn others for what in Goethe and George Sand imbue us with enthusiasm and delight?"[38]

We are pleased to laugh over the hypocrites who refused to shake the hand of a Sarah Bernhardt because of her immorality, or over the indignant citizens who would have so liked to pull a Magda down from the stage. But when it is a question of "not-great souls," we ourselves often waver and temporarily do not know how we should comport ourselves towards the free, unmarried woman! But if, in fact, we were to think of applying to these heroines the moral standard of former centuries, then we must turn away from the most beautiful, most human-feminine personages that modern literature has created. Whereas, at the time when women of the old type, raised in the adoration of irreproachable Madonnas, made an effort to preserve their purity, to make a secret of their feelings and to hide them, it is one of the characteristic traits of that she does not hide her natural physical drives, which signifies not only an act of self-assertion as a personality, but also as a representative of her sex. The "rebellion" of women against a one-sided, sexual morality is one of the most sharply delineated traits of the new heroine.

This is also natural. In the life of women, the bearers of the future, physiology, in contradiction to the hypocritical views imposed on them, plays an incomparably greater role than with men. Freedom of feeling, freedom in the choice of the beloved, of the possible father of "her" child. The struggle against the fetish of the "double standard" – this is the program that the contemporary heroine tacitly wages in life – from Renate Fuchs up to Hauptmann's Mathilde.

A typical trait of the woman of the past was her renunciation of the power of the flesh, the mask of "immaculateness" which she wore even in marriage. Woman does not deny her "feminine nature," she does not turn aside from life and does not reject earthly joys which reality smilingly grants to each one coveting them.

Contemporary heroines become mothers without being married, they leave the husband or the beloved, their life can be rich in love-experiences and, notwithstanding, they will count themselves among "fallen creatures" as little as will the author or the modern reader. In the free, frank love-experiences of Mathilde, Olga, or Maya lies an ethic which, perhaps, is more perfect than the passive virtue of a Pushkinian Tatiana or the cowardly morality of a Turgenevian Lisa.

Thus does present herself to us: self-discipline instead of emotional rapture, the capacity to value her own freedom and independence rather than impersonal submissiveness, the assertion of her own individuality instead of the naive effort to internalize and reflect the alien image of the "beloved." The display of the right to family happiness instead of the hypocritical mask of virginity, finally the assignation of love-experiences to a subordinate place in life. Before us no longer stands the "wifie," the shadow of the husband – before us stands the personality, the woman as human being.

But who are they, these single new women? How has life created them? The single woman – she is a child of the large-scale capitalist economic system. The single woman is not a rare phenomenon. Rather, as a lawfully repeated, everyday phenomenon she was born simultaneously with the infernal dinning of the machines and the factory sirens calling to work.

Every great transformation still within the sphere of our memory in the conditions of production, and under the impact of the ever newer and newer victories of large-scale capitalist development, compels woman also the adapt herself to the environing reality in the struggle for existence. The woman in the process of formation stands in a relation of closest dependency to the historical stage of economic development which mankind is going through. With the change of economic conditions, with the evolution of the production relations, the inner physiognomy of woman also changes. The new woman could emerge as a type only with the growth in the number of women who were earning their own livelihood.

A half-century ago the participation of woman in industrial life was viewed as a deviation from the norm, as a disturbance of the natural order of things. Even radical minds, even socialists sought for ways of bringing back into the home. Today these long outdated and discarded views, at most, are repeated in the prejudices and musty standoffishness of desiccated reactionaries.

A half-century ago, civilized countries counted several tens of thousands, at most one hundred thousand, women in the ranks of the working population. Today the figure of working women already surpasses the male figure. Now civilized nations have available to them not a hundred thousand but millions of women workers. Millions of women, like men, press on the labor market, thousands of women conduct commercial firms, hundreds of thousands have a profession, serve science or art. According to statistics, there are more than sixty million working women in Europe and North America. A more grandiose march of the army of women workers has not yet been seen! And more than 50 per cent of this army are single women, that is to say, such who are totally dependent on their own abilities and who do not follow the old female custom of hanging on the coattails of the "breadwinner."

The production conditions which for many centuries had fettered woman to the home, to the spouse, the breadwinner, unexpectedly have torn away the rusty chains from her and thrust her, the weak, the unprepared sex, onto the newly opened thorny path which draws her into new snares of economic dependency – those woven of capitalism. Under the threat of being shelterless, of suffering hunger and privations, woman learned to stand alone without the support of the father or of the husband. Woman was forced to adjust herself swiftly to the altered conditions of existence. These shattering experiences put to a cruel test the moral axioms on which she had been raised by the grandmothers of the good old days. With astonishment, she was forced to recognize the uselessness of the whole moralistic baggage with which she had been saddled on life's path. The feminine virtues on which she had been raised for centuries: passivity, devotion, submissiveness, gentleness, poised to be fully superfluous, futile, and harmful. Harsh reality demands other characteristics from independent women: activity, resistance, determination, toughness, that is to say, characteristics which hitherto were viewed as the hallmark and privilege of men.

Robbed of the customary tutelage exercised over her by the family, woman, suddenly catapulted out of the warm nest onto the path of the struggle for existence and the class struggle, was forced to equip and arm herself with the physical characteristics possessed by the man, her comrade who is better fitted for the struggle for existence. In this hasty adjustment to the new conditions of existence, woman, quite indiscriminately, has often seized and appropriated "male rights" that upon closer scrutiny turned out to be "truths" only to the bourgeois class.

Present-day capitalist reality altogether bends its efforts, and in all possible ways, to make out of a type who stands incomparably closer to man than the of the past. This assimilation proves to be a natural and inescapable consequence of the inclusion of in the sphere of the economy and of social life. The capitalist world makes allowance only for women whom it succeeds in stripping of their feminine virtues and in adapting to a philosophy that hitherto belonged only to the fighter for existence, to the man.

There is no place in the ranks of those earning their own livelihood for the "unfit," that is to say, the women of the old type. Here, too, therefore, a "natural selection" among the women of the different social strata is discernible: only the stronger, more resistant disciplined natures arrive in the ranks of those "earning their own livelihood." The weak, inwardly passive, cling to the family hearth, and when the insecurity of existence tears them away from the protection of the family, to catapult them into the stream of life, supinely, they let themselves be driven by the turbid waves of legal or illegal prostitution: they enter into a marriage of convenience or they walk the streets. Those earning their own livelihood constitute a progressive army of women in which we come upon representatives of all the social strata. But the enormous majority in this army is not made up of Vera Nikodimovnas, proud of their independence, but of millions of Mathildes wrapped in grey shawls, millions of barefoot Tatianas whom poverty has driven along the new thorny path.

Those who still believe that the new "single woman" is a fruit of the heroic expenditure of energy of the strong, who assert themselves as individualities, should disabuse themselves of a gruesome error. It is not individual will, not the example of a bold Magda or a determined Renate, that created. The transformation of the feminine psyche, of its inner psychological and intellectual structure, is accomplished primarily and principally in the lower depths of society where under the scourge of hunger the adjustment of the working to the sharply changed conditions of existence proceeds. They, these Mathildes and Tatanias, solve no problems, they cling with all their might to the past, and only by forcibly bowing to the Lord of history, the forces of production, do they reluctantly set out on the new road.

Full of sadness, cursing, or in tender nostalgia, they long to go back to the home, to the familiar warming hearth, to the quiet, modest, family joys. Oh, if only they could again leave the path, if only they could again return to the past! But the ranks of women-comrades close ever more tightly, and the feminine stream is borne ever and ever farther away from the past. Naught else is left to them save to habituate themselves to the oppressive narrowness and to arm themselves for the struggle for their place, for their right to life. A consciousness of an independent personality in the women of the working class arises and is strengthened under the rule of the "dark satanic mills," and their faith in their own power grows accordingly.

The process of the accumulation of new moral and spiritual qualities in the working woman, which are indispensable for her as the representative of a definite class, proceeds consistently, inevitably, and irresistibly. But the most essential element in this process of the restructuring of woman's inner countenance affects not only individuals, but masses. The individual will drowns and disappears in the collective effort of millions of women of the working class to adjust to the new conditions of existence. Here, too, capitalism works on the broadest scale: by tearing women away from the home, by wresting them away from the cradle, it transforms the submissive, passive family creatures, the obedient slaves of the husband, into a respect-demanding army of fighters for their own and general rights, for their own and general interests. The personality of the woman steels itself, grows.

But woe to the working woman who believes in the power of individual personality existing apart from others. The armored car of capital will calmly crush her. Only the serried ranks of masses of rebels can push this armored car off the path. The feeling of belongingness, the feeling of comradeship arises and strengthens itself contemporaneously with the consciousness of her personality, of her rights. A feeling that develops only weakly with the new woman of other social strata. This is that fundamental feeling, that sphere of feelings and thoughts, which draws a sharp line between single women earning their own livelihood and her sexual comrades from the bourgeoisie, those two essentially different social classes. Regardless of any difference from the woman of the past, which is the characteristic common to both, and regardless of the fact that entrance into the ranks of the working population has transformed the inner countenance of the woman in the same direction (by developing independence, strengthening personalities, broadening the mental world), women of the different social strata are driven ever farther and farther apart.

Among those earning their own livelihood the class struggle is experienced incomparably more clearly than among the women of the earlier type who scarcely knew about the inevitability of the class struggle from hearsay. For the wage earner who has crossed the family threshold in order to experience on her own person the force of social conflicts, who is forced into an active participation in the class struggle, a clear, distinct class ideology acquires the importance of a weapon in the struggle for existence. Capitalist reality draws a sharp line of demarcation between Corky's Tatiana and Nagrodskaia's Tatiana, leading, moreover, to the fact that the proprietress of a workshop, ideologically, stands considerably farther from the worker than the "mistress," chat is, the master's wife, her "good neighbor" of old. It sharpens the feeling of the social conflict among wage earners. Only one thing remains common to the women of the new type: their unique difference from the woman of the past, those specific characteristics which are the hallmark of independent single women. The latter, like the former, go through a period of rebellion, the latter, like the former, fight for the assertion of their personality, the one consciously "on principle," the other fundamentally, collectively, under the pressure of the inevitable.

But whereas with the women of the working class, the struggle for the assertion of their rights, the strengthening of their personality, coincides with the interests of the class, the women of other social strata run into unexpected obstacles: the ideology of their class is hostile to the transformation of the feminine type. In the bourgeois milieu, woman's "rebellion" bears a far sharper character, its forms are set in bolder relief, and here the psychological dramas of are far sharper, more variegated, and more complicated. Such a sharp collision between the psychology of, now in the process of formation, and class ideology does not exist in the working class and is not even possible. The new type of woman, inwardly self-reliant, independent, and free, corresponds with the morality which the working class is elaborating precisely in the interests of its class. For the working class the accomplishment of its mission does not require that she be a handmaid of the husband, an impersonal domestic creature, endowed with passive, feminine traits. Rather, it requires a personality rising and rebelling against every kind of slavery, an active, conscious, equal member of the community, of the class.

The psychology of the new, independent, single woman, according to type, is reflected in the image of the rest of her contemporaries: the traits of women, who belong to the army of those earning their own livelihood, formed by life itself, by degrees also begin to be the hallmark of the others. It matters not that those who earn their own livelihood are still in the minority, that for each one of them two, even three, women of the old type emerge. Working women set the tone of life, and form the character in respect to the image of the of our time.

With her transvaluation of the moral and sexual standards, the new women shake the unshakeable pillars of the souls of all the women who have not yet embarked upon the new thorny path. The dogmas that keep a prisoner of her own world-view lose their power over their minds. Sienkievicz's Anelka dissolves before our eyes.

The influence of women earning their own livelihood spreads far beyond their own circle. With their criticism, they "poison" the minds of their contemporaries, they smash old idols, they raise the banner of revolt against those "truths" with which women have lived for generations. By liberating themselves, the new, single women, earning their own livelihood, also liberate the passive-backward spirit, as this has been molded down the centuries, of their contemporary sisters.

Although woman has invaded literature, she has not yet by far supplanted the heroines of the old spiritual order, just as little as the woman-human being type has supplanted the "wifie," the "echo of the husband." Notwithstanding, we note that the characteristics and psychological traits which the new single woman has introduced are found with ever greater frequency, also, in heroines of the old type. Women novelists, who least of all set about to give us the new type, adorn their heroines unwittingly with feelings and characteristics that were not at all peculiar to the heroines of past literary periods.

Present-day literature increasingly abounds in woman-personages of the transitional type, of heroines equipped with the traits of the old and alike. Moreover, a difficult process of transformation is taking place also among the woman-personages of the new type already involved in the change-effecting process: the new beginning is obstacled by the traditions and feelings of the past. The power of past centuries still weighs heavily even upon the new, free woman. Atavistic feelings interrupt and weaken the new experiences, outlived conceptions still hold the feminine mind thrusting towards freedom in their clutches.

The old and the new struggle in the souls of women, in permanent enmity. Contemporary heroines, therefore, must wage a struggle on two fronts: with the external world and with the inclinations of their grandmothers dwelling in the recesses of their beings.

"The new ideas are already born in us," says Hedwig Dohn, "but the old have not yet died out, the experiences of past generations still sit solidly in us, even though we already possess the intellect of, her will power."

The transformation of the feminine psyche, which is adjusted to the new conditions of its economic and social existence, will not be achieved without a strong, dramatic self-overcoming. Every step in this direction creates collisions which were utterly unknown to the heroines of the past. And these conflicts, which take place in the souls of women, by degrees begin to draw the attention of novelists, begin to serve as sources of artistic inspiration. Woman, by degrees, is being transformed from an object of tragedy of the male soul into the subject of an independent tragedy.

Footnotes

1. From Karl Hauptmann's novel Mathilde.

2. From Maxim Gorki's Notes of a Passerby.

3. Sudermann, Heimat.

4. Greta Meisel-Hess, Die Intellektuellen.

5. Collette Ivere, Princesses of Science.

6. Schnitzler, Der Wegins Freie.

7. T. Stschepkina-Küpernik, One of Them.

8. Potapenko, In the Fog.

9. Winnitschenko, On Life's Scale.

10. Ibid.

11. Ibid.

12. Sanschar, Anna's Notes.

13. Collette Villi, La Vagabonde.

14. Benette, Holy Love.

15. Grete Meisel-Hess, The Voice.

16. Heinrich Mann, On the Hunt for Love.

17. Nagrodskaya, The Anger of Dionysius.

18. Here the author should have written finis to his novel. The whole further romance with Stark is contrived. In the Tania accommodating herself to circumstances, renouncing her art, who has become nothing else but an object of pleasure for Stark, we no longer recognize the earlier, bold, coherent personality of Tania the human being. It is regrettable that the author so slanders his Tania.

19. Ilse Frapan, Work.

20. Hedwig Dohn, Christa Ruland.

21. Juschkevitsch, Secession From the Circle.

22. Jacob Wasserman, Renate Fuchs.

23. Greni Allena, The Who Dared.

24. Winnitschenko, On the Path of Life.

25. Else Jerusalem, The Holy Scarabus.

26. O. Runow, Struggle.

27. Bernard Shaw, Early Plays.

28. Gerhardt Haupmann, Lonely People.

29. Sigrid Undset, Jenny.

30. Romain Rolland, Jean Christophe.

31. Ibid.

32. G. Aterton, Julia France and Her Epoch.

33. Marie Antin, The Promised Land.

34. For example, Rosa, from Vita Sommium Breve.

35. Most of the authors mentioned are women. Many of their works possess no special artistic worth. Although in and for themselves they are not very talented works, nevertheless they give more with respect to the aim which they have set for themselves than do the artistically superior works of male authors. Most of the novels and short stories that have been written by women are autobiographical, which has the greatest interest for us. The more inartistic and unadorned the full life truth is given, the more fully and more truthfully is the psychology of presented, its pain, its seeking, its longing, its complications, the richer is the material for the study of. Since women writers no longer blindly follow male models, since they are now bravely baring the secrets of the feminine soul, which up to now were hidden even from artistic insight, and since women writers have begun to speak their own idiom – a wholly feminine idiom – their works, even though at times lacking in artistic beauty, will assume a special value and significance. They help us, finally, to recognize "the woman," the woman of the type newly being formed.

36. It is characteristic that the joy of motherhood was viewed as the surrogate of 's happiness. If she was not happy with marriage, she also had to renounce a free-love relationship outside the marriage bond; if she was widowed, maternal concerns and maternal joys remained as the last refuge. Motherhood was seldom seen as an aim in itself. Only with the aging did feelings for the preservation of the species, of the family, awaken and now become her life-goal, her idol which she adored, despotically demanding this adoration also from the other members of the family.

37. Mathilde's love-adventures do not prevent us from respecting this pure and coherent personality. At the same time, however, we cannot avoid a feeling of pity, mixed with aversion, towards her sister Martha, a worker like herself, who brings money home after her love-adventures. A whole chasm yawns between Mathilde's freedom and Martha's venality.

Women Workers Struggle For Their Rights (1919)

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Introduction by Sheila Rowbotham

Early years

Alexandra Kollontai was born in St. Petersburg in 1872, the daughter of a Russian general. She married an engineer, Vladimir Kollontai, but found herself moving away from him as she became increasingly interested in revolutionary ideas. Her early intellectual impetus towards radicalism was through the study of child psychology and educational theory – an interest which remained with her later. In this period, many young women from landowning and middle class families sought their emancipation through teaching, and Froebel’s educational methods and kindergartens became closely allied with radicalism. It seemed a natural and useful way to ‘go to the people’.

Terrorism as a strategy was proving increasingly ineffective. The 1896 textile strikes in St. Petersburg marked an important turning point. Organised labour was a more effective force for change than village communes. The Russian Social Democratic Party tried to recruit workers. The Social Democrats, who were at their strongest in Germany, believed that real democracy could not be fully realised without economic equality, and that this would only be possible when the means of production were controlled by society as a whole and not be private employers. Following Marx, they believed that the working class was the crucial agent of socialism. Their attitude to organising was marked by ethical humanitarian ideas which resembled the early Utopian socialists’.

In St. Petersburg, a group of young Social Democrats, including Lenin, was studying Marx. Some working women, like the tailoress Grigorgeva, were involved in the Social Democratic Party already, and women workers were coming into the revolutionary struggle through industrial action. In 1896 women textile workers downed tools with the men, and women cigar-makers destroyed machinery and resisted the police.

Kollontai was obviously affected by all these developments, for when she went to Zurich in 1898 it was to study political economy, and in her History of the Women’s Labour Movement [untranslated], she describes the militancy of the women in St. Petersburg in the mid 1890s.

Abroad, she began to learn about the socialist movement internationally. In Zurich she met Kautsky and Rosa Luxemburg, prominent in the German Social Democratic Movement, and in 1899 visited England and took a dim view of the Webbs. Within the Russian Party she was aligned to the group who were known as Mensheviks, round the old marxist thinker Plekhanov. She remained with the Mensheviks after Lenin and the Bolsheviks split in 1903, wanting a much tighter and more professionally organized party After the first split, new conflicts kept the groups apart. The Mensheviks said Lenin was foisting a harsh barrack room discipline onto socialism, the Bolsheviks saw Plekhanov as a ‘soft’ academic ready only Propaganda work. However, individuals maintained contact with one another and as events moved faster and faster in Russia, some of the Mensheviks began to drift towards working with the Bolsheviks because the latter appeared to be more decisive.

Preoccupation with these internal splits meant that when in early 1905 a huge crowd of workers carrying religious icons, led by a priest called father Gapon and full of faith in the Czar, tried to present a petition to the Czar and were fired upon, neither Mensheviks nor Bolsheviks could intervene. Strikes in protest followed ‘Bloody Sunday’, and were followed by peasant revolt and a mutiny on the Battleship Potemkin. The Czar compromised and agreed to call a Consultative Assembly (Duma). Although the workers were not represented, this was an important break with absolute rule. At the end of the year there was a general rising in Moscow which was defeated, and from then on the revolutionary impetus began to subside. The lesson was not lost It seemed clear to the Bolsheviks that spontaneous revolt led to defeat. The revolution required their conscious direction. By 1907 the Czar’s policy of compromise had been replaced by one of severe repression, and the revolutionary movement was once more forced underground.

In 1905, the newly formed Russian feminist movement planned a large meeting. The feminists wanted to bring all women together, but on a basis which obscured the class exploitation of working women. Though the Mensheviks supported this move, Kollontai was sufficiently close to the Bolsheviks to be in opposition. And in 1906, with some other women comrades, she started to organise a club for women workers. The women studied particular questions which would help them secure the reforms they wanted, and practised speaking until a group could speak on various topics. In an account which appeared in the Woman Worker [Footnote should read: I am referring here to an article by Georgia Pearce entitled, A Russian Exile, Alexandra Kollontai and the Russian Woman Worker, which appeared in the English newspaper, The Woman Worker, of May 1909. This newspaper is not to be confused with the Bolshevik paper of the same name, to which Kollontai refers in her footnote to p. 26.] in 1908 Kollontai wrote:-

During our preparations for these Congress speeches, and at the Women’s Council meetings, our dread of the police was very great We always had to find some quiet little room, and it an alarm was given, the women would throw a handkerchief over the face of the speaker and get her away quickly.

As a result of this organisation, 45 of the 700 women who assembled at the All-Russian Women’s Congress in 1908 were socialists. 30 of these 45 factory workers, some still scarcely able to read.

“They were all very frightened, yet did well, holding the field in all cases for at least fifteen to twenty minutes and astonishing the Congress...” -in 1907 she had to flee from Russia. Abroad she continued to take part in the women’s movement, attending the Congress at Stuttgart mentioned in this pamphlet. The regular sessions of the Congress were preceded by a convention of women from various countries to debate questions which related particularly to working class women. The most heated debate arose between the Austrian socialists and the rest over women’s suffrage. In Austria male workers were still disenfranchised and the Austrian women suggested waiting until the men could vote before pressing for women’s suffrage. Clara Zetkin and most of the other women were completely against this compromise. In the general Congress the main debate was over militarism and the war-the issue which was finally to crack the Second International.

In exile Kollontai became friendly with the ‘left’ social democrat Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg. It is possible that some of their ideas influenced her and brought her to a ‘left’ position within the Communist Party later. She lectured at a Russian marxist school in Italy – a kind of revolutionary free university, and started to study protective maternity provision because she had been asked to send a draft for a law by young social democrats in Russia to present to the Duma. This was finally published in 1915 as Society and Maternity. [untranslated]

In March 1911 she helped to organise the first International Women’s Day which is still celebrated. She was active in organising strikes in Paris and in the north of France in 1911, including one of housewives over high prices. Meanwhile, she was becoming increasingly critical of the cautious, bureaucratic old guard in German social democracy, who were more inclined to emphasise the long term inevitability of communism, than the short term need to do something about bringing it about. Her criticisms brought her still closer to the Bolsheviks. In 1913 she went to England again, and learned about women in the trade union movement. In 1916 she was in New York, and at Lenin’s request was collecting information about the American Socialist Party and the Socialist Labour Party, in the course of which she introduced Lenin to the writings of the socialist-syndicalist Daniel de Leon, who believed in industrial unionism – the working class organised into one big union to take over and run production.

The Revolution

When a general uprising and the overthrow of the Czarist regime were followed by the formation of the ‘Provisional Government’ in Russia, in February 1917, Kollontai returned home and became involved in revolutionary activity. She was amongst the people who greeted Lenin when he arrived back in Russia at the Finland Station. Lenin spoke to a meeting of the Bolsheviks the following day, denouncing the Mensheviks because they thought it was too early to speak of a socialist revolution in Russia. (They believed that after the ‘bourgeois revolution’ of February 1917 Russia would have to pass through a capitalist phase under bourgeois rule before there could be a socialist revolution.) Lenin praised the anti-militarism of Liebknecht, and announced that the “majority of the official Social Democracy have betrayed socialism,” [I.

Deutscher, Stalin: a Political Biography, p.149] so that the Bolsheviks should henceforth distinguish themselves by the name of Communists. Most of the Bolsheviks were shocked and stunned: only Alexandra Kollontai voted for Lenin’s unorthodox ‘April Theses’. Some Bolsheviks left the party altogether, others came round to Lenin’s position slowly. It was the radicals, those who wanted to carry through directly socialist measures, who very quickly supported Lenin. Kollontai was on the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party at the time of the Bolshevik revolution of November 1917, and became Minister for Social Welfare; shortly afterwards she became responsible for education.

Kollontai’s life reflected the political turns of the revolution, just as her fame since her death has fluctuated. Now honoured, now disgraced, now smothered in silence, now respected as a figurehead. Louise Bryant, an American journalist who wrote of a visit to Russia soon after the revolution in Six Red Months in Russia , praised Kollontai’s workers’ control methods in her Ministry. Kollontai herself moved gradually towards the position of the ‘Workers’ Opposition’ group. Her personal life as well as her political life was stormy. In her forties she fell in love with Dubenko, a man much younger than herself who had been with the Kronstadt sailors when they mutinied against the revolutionary government – a revolt which was harshly repressed by Trotsky.

With others she formulated the criticisms of the Bolshevik Party which appeared in the ‘Workers’ Opposition’ pamphlet. [Republished recently as a Solidarity pamphlet.] The ‘Workers’ Opposition’ group criticised centralisation and bureaucracy in general, but criticised particularly Trotsky’s scheme for control over the Trade unions. The ‘Workers’ Opposition’ wanted the trade unions to control industrial production, where Trotsky felt that the state should have control. The crux of the issue was the degree of autonomy which could be allowed to specific groups without fragmenting the already shaky revolutionary government, and leading to counter-revolution. In 1922 the supporters of the ‘Workers’ Opposition’ were condemned as a faction but not expelled from the Party.

The question raised by the ‘Workers’ Opposition’ of autonomous organisation was never resolved. By a terrible irony Stalin was able to use Trotsky’s own arguments against him later.

Kollontai’s influence in domestic politics was negligible from this point. She joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1923, and between 1923 and 1925 was in Norway, then in Mexico, Norway again from 1927 to 1930 and in Sweden from 1930 to 1945. In 1943 she was made an ambassador, and the following year was responsible for negotiating the Soviet-Finnish armistice. Although her photograph was issued by the Trotskyist Fourth International in America, along with the other members of the early Central Committee who had died in Stalin’s purges, over the caption ‘missing’, and it is possible that she was restrained in various ways, her survival was almost certainly due to the fact that she raised no more awkward questions, and because she was safely out of the way in a prestigious diplomatic position. She died at the age of eighty in 1952, two decades before interest in her ideas revived again in Europe.

The relevance of her ideas in the Russian revolution and now

The fortunes of her writings have been most curious. The vast majority have not been translated from the original Russian. Many of them sit dustily in the British Museum. Sylvia Pankhurst produced the ‘Workers’ Opposition’ pamphlet, no doubt to Lenin’s intense irritation. (She was one of the people he labelled as ‘infantile’ leftists.) This pamphlet has recently been reissued by ‘Solidarity’. Communism and the Family has long been out of print. But it was among the texts recommended by the Czech marxist rebels in 1968, and was republished recently by the somewhat heretical Australian Communist Party and in Britain is being republished by Pluto Press.

Interest in Kollontai has been slowly growing in Women’s Liberation in France and Germany as well as Britain, because her arguments with the left on the need for the separate organisation of women, her stress not only on political emancipation, and work, but also on the family and the pyschological effect of centuries of oppression on women’s consciousness, are very much our concerns as well. Her emphasis on control from below, her distrust of the absolute Party, her understanding of the complexities of the creation of a new culture and the connection between personal experience and political consciousness, are particularly relevant within the revolutionary movement as a whole, where we confront these questions now. Kollontai represents a current within marxism in relation to the liberation of women which has been submerged and which we need to rediscover and develop.

Kollontai’s influence on the early years of the revolution was crucial. As soon as they were in power, the Bolsheviks introduced very important changes in the position of women, not only at work but in every area of life. The Decree on Insurance in Case of Sickness, of December 1917, meant that an insurance fund was set up without deductions from wages. In January 1918 the Department for the Protection of Motherhood and Infancy was set up as the result of Kollontai’s earlier work. Within six months of the revolution, the church’s control of marriage was ended and within a year complete legal equality of rights was established. Marriage was simply a mutual agreement between two partners and was easily dissolved. These were very basic reforms, but they were extraordinary in the Russian context of severe oppression.

The First Congress of Peasant and Working Women was held on November 19th 1918. A special committee was set up to help women understand what their new rights were and how to use them. This for Kollontai was a real advance, and a vindication of her agitation for a separate women’s section within the Party which she had been advocating since 1906. A year after this pamphlet was published, it became evident that something more was needed because the oppression of women went so deep. The Working and Peasant Women’s Department (Genotdel) thus replaced the committee. This new department was not just to educate women in marxism, but to mobilise them for practical political activity. Even this did not mean that masculine attitudes of superiority dissolved easily. Jessica Smith in Women in Soviet Russia (1928) describes conflict between men and women workers in factories, and R.Schlesinger in Changing Attitudes in Soviet Russia records debates in which peasant women accuse the men in the Party of condescension and patronage. The ‘Genotdel’ became something of an embarassment, and it was dissolved in 1929 with the official explanation that an independent women’s movement was no longer necessary.

It is evident that in 1918, it was hard to envisage Stalinism and the consequences of socialism in one country, and that Kollontai, full of the enthusiasm of the revolution under-estimated the resilience of the old attitudes and culture both within the Party and without. She imagined that the old family and housework were on the point of withering away, because of the dramatic changes in the early years of the revolution. But the old family, which she describes in Communism and the Family as the family in which “the man was everything and the woman nothing,” showed a capacity to survive the upheavals of revolution, civil war and famine. The family emerged after the crisis and isolation of the Soviet Union and the horrors of the Second World War with a new strength as the symbol of security and retreat. Though women have achieved much greater equality at work and in education, at home the old division of labour continues and with it some of the old subordination.

For us now, the limitations on how far it was possible for Kollontai to go are as clear as the relevance of her ideas for our dilemmas. Many of her attempts to go beyond the ideas of Engels and Bebel were of necessity theoretical rather than practical. For example, factory women criticised her when she wanted the state to pay a third of the cost of alimony, saying it would encourage men to seduce women and leave. This was a natural enough fear when contraception was still not reliable or widespread. Kollontai’s belief in free relationships was inevitably problematic when it was still impossible for most women to control their families. The peasant women knew all too well that, as they put it, if you like tobogganing you have to be ready to pull your sledge up hill. This can still be true of. course, but it’s no longer inevitable.

Because ideas in women’s liberation come from our own lives, it forces us not to gloss over the complicated questions. It would be inconceivable for anyone now in women’s liberation to be as dismissive of the rights of children as Kollontai is in Communism and the Family, or to be so confident that ‘the state’, socialist or not, is a reliable parent. We are much more involved in the intricacy of particular families, and the specific way in which they contain us. Obviously too, her discussion about the family is in a post revolutionary situation. Our problem is how to organise round the oppression of women in the family in capitalism. Kollontai saw the modern family as a place of consumption and conditioning, as a means of maintaining the old culture within a new society. Following Margaret Benston’s The Political Economy of Women’s Liberation, [Published by New England Free Press.] some people m women s liberation have seen the family also as a form of production.

Kollontai’s argument for the separate organisation of women is based on the fact that women as mothers have special demands arising from their biologically distinct material situation. She stresses that the strategy we make has to be based on the actual circumstances, biological and social, of women in particular societies. She sees this as the crucial distinction between women who are socialists and the feminists. Feminism she defines not only in the straightforward sense of defending the position of women and seeking to improve it, but as the insistence on abstract equal rights without regard for the actual predicament of women. She thus identifies a characteristic of ‘equal rights’ feminism in the early Twentieth century.

She appears not to know about the Feminism which had appeared earlier in the Utopian Socialist movement – though she mentions individual women who took part in the First International. Ironically her criticism of the feminists was to be used against her later in the Soviet Union, because women in the east and peasant women were so remote from her ideas of liberation. It’s important to understand that feminism in women’s liberation now has assumed a different historical form and whether we are critical of this or not it is wrong to substitute feminism of the early twentieth century which Kollontai talks about for feminism in the 1970s.

However, Kollontai’s criticism of an abstract approach is still useful. For example, we have to be careful when thinking about protective legislation or about anti-discrimination bills to take existing class and sex interests into account for these are the context in which legislation operates. The idea of abstract equality when put into practice can often mean that the women in the weakest positions lose out.

Kollontai’s implacable hostility to feminism was becoming general among women who were socialists immediately before and after the First World War Rather earlier there had been a much more open and connected relationship between feminism and the left. Undoubtedly it was the recognition of the limitations of the suffrage movement, and the move rightwards of the suffragette leadership towards patriotism and imperialism in Britain, which produced the hostility. Almost certainly now as people dig below the surface they will find that the women who never became prominent had different sympathies, and an understanding of the need for change which went much wider than the vote. Kollontai reluctantly acknowledges the strength of the suffragettes, and the removal of women who were socialists from the mass of working women.

Ironically she shows that it was he suffrage movement, and the possibility that women could vote. which led the men in the socialist movement to see the importance of recruiting and involving women! The parallel with the effect of women’s liberation on the left groups is apparent. It is curious that at this stage Kollontai seems not to have known about the East London Federation of Suffragettes in which Sylvia Pankhurst was working. Their co-operative toy factory, the creche in the pub – ‘The Mothers Arms’ – and their agitation on a wide range of issues, from equal pay, to preventing the arrest of girls walking alone as prostitutes, would have interested her. It looks as though even with the International, and the impressive numbers of women organised, they had our difficulty in circulating information.

When Kollontai was writing this pamphlet the separate women’s groups were becoming absorbed within socialist organisations, as separate sections of political parties. She sees this as an advance taking them beyond propaganda work, and does not recognise that without an explicit socialist-feminist theory, and without the bargaining, power of an autonomous organisation, the specific oppression of women would be overlaid by the marxist analysis of the exploitation of the worker, and thus the autonomy of the women’s organisation transformed first into token independence and then closed down altogether.

Women’s liberation as a movement has raised again the whole question of the relationship of subordinate groups to dominant groups within revolutionary organisations. But our organisational reality is not hers. For the Bolsheviks, ‘the Party’ represented the highest organisational creation of the revolutionary movement. It embraced the most developed theory and practice existing at the time, it generalised and extended the particular experience not only of the working class but of every oppressed section of society. The legacy of Stalin, the dissolving of the monolithic Communist Party as the sole arbiter of correct strategy, the growth of numerous small revolutionary nuclei!, has meant that events have turned full circle. While Kollontai was writing the introduction to this pamphlet, negotiations were going on in Britain between various small marxist groups and the Russians to form the Communist Party. It seemed to Kollontai that there was a general movement towards a common position.

For us the situation is much less clear. There are no commonly held organisational ideas which can act as a means of establishing a unified strategy – not only between women’s liberation and the socialist groups, but within the left in general. Thus for instance Kollontai was able to assume that her statement that the women’s clubs were under the ideological influence of the Party would be generally acceptable. Now in women’s liberation it would have sinister and manipulative implications. However, we face the same important problem – how to organise effectively, and how to relate our movement to the specific oppression and exploitation of working class women. Kollontai describes the ‘geological shift’ which separated the ideas of organising in the Second International from the experience of the Russian Revolution. We are separated from the Communist Third International by a whole series of shifts and tremors, as well as a few earthquakes, and it is absurd to lift the ideas of 1918 in a fundamentalist way onto the dilemmas of 1971.

Nevertheless it is still appropriate that Kollontai’s pamphlet on the organisation of women workers should be translated for the Second Women’s Liberation Conference in Britain. We have grown and developed in the one and a half years since the Oxford Conference, not only here in Britain, but internationally. If we are to go further, an essential task will be the rediscovery of our own history – the history which has been obscured and neglected, just as the specific interests of women have been obscured and neglected, within the dominant ideology of capitalism, but also, sadly, within the male dominated revolutionary movement.*

Sheila Rowbotham October 1971

* If you want to find out more about Alexandra Kollontai, you could read an article by me in The Spokesman of June and July 1970, which was actually written in autumn 1969. It’s called ‘Women’s Liberation and Revolutionary Love’ and has a list of most of the material published in English by Kollontai, as well as books which contain information about her. See also the pamphlet, The Workers’ Opposition, published by Solidarity and Communism and the Family, which has just been reissued in Britain by Pluto Press with an introduction by Di Hatchett. (It is also available in Australia, published by the Communist Party with an introduction by Mavis Robertson.) A translation of Kollontai’s autobiography is due out soon. The following books were useful as a background for this introduction: A. Balabanov, My Life as a Rebel (1938); M. Drachkovitch (ed.), The Revolutionary Internationals (1966); I. Deutscher, Stalin, a Political Biography (1966); W. Kendall, The Revolutionary Movement in Britain (1969); N. Krupskaya, Memoirs of Lenin (1930) – plus work I did for the chapter on Russia in my book, Women: Resistance and Revolution, which is to be published in spring 1972.

In Place of a Foreword

In Place of a Foreword

This pamphlet I am publishing is not new. It is a reprint of my articles which were published before the war. But the question of organisation which was put at the Congress of Women Workers brings onto the agenda of our party work a means of agitation among the mass of working women in order to draw them into the Party and thus prepare new forces for the construction of Communist Russia.

Meanwhile we are suffering from an acute lack of material, which could help our party comrades who are involved now in the organisation of the commission for agitation and propaganda among women workers by giving them access to information about the history of the socialist movement of women workers and about how and what was done in the field of organisation of the women proletariat in other countries. The poverty of our party literature on this particular question obliges me to agree to the reprint in hurried format of my previous articles without being able to rework them. If I were to write again on these same facts I would evaluate many of them differently. The war and world revolution have brought essential changes in the character and form of all workers’ communist movements; ‘the ideal type’ of German party work, adapted exclusively to the period of peaceful parliamentary activity, has ceased to be a model for us.[1] The revolutionary struggle has generated new problems, new fighting methods of work. The war and the revolution have shaken what seemed to be the most stable foundations of life. And also, the position of woman has changed before our eyes.

Up until the war, the process whereby women were drawn into the people’s economy was carried out with considerably less speed than it has been for these last four and a half years of feverishly rapid development and the growth of female labour in all fields of industrial life. The old family, too, seemed firm and unshakeable; the Party had to fight against its way of life and traditions every time it wanted to bring the woman worker into the class struggle. The fact that housework was dying out and the transition to the state education of children, were regarded not as mature, living, practical problems of the present day, but as a ‘historical tendency’, as a lengthy process. The feelings of the women workers were strongest in the economic field – the inequality of men’s and women’s pay – and in the political field – the absence of voting rights and the inequality in citizenship.

This inequality, on economic and political grounds, together with the enslavement of the woman to her family and the running of the house, created a psychological division between men and women workers, and provided the soil from which grew those independent organisations of women workers which sprang up in all countries alongside the general workers’ socialist parties, in the form of societies or unions of women workers, clubs and so on. The more actively the socialist parties became engaged in the business of propaganda amongst women workers, the quicker these specialised organisations for women workers died out. [2]

But only a radical change in the whole existence of the working class woman, in the conditions of her home and family life, as she acquires equal status with men in civil law will wipe out once and for all the barrier which to this day prevents the woman worker letting her forces flow freely into the class struggle.

The war provided an impulse towards a radical break in the social position of women. It remains for the revolution to complete this task. The war drove the ‘wet-nurse’ to the front; ninety women out of a hundred were forced to provide for themselves and their children. The problem was becoming acute: what to do with the children of all those millions of women who had to spend the greater part of their day in preparing military supplies – grenades, shrapnel and bullets? It was in this way that the question had to be posed – not as a theoretical problem and not as something desirable in the remote future, but as a practical measure: state security for maternity and childhood. The capitalist class governments were forced to worry about the fate of the ‘soldier children’ and unwillingly, and half-heartedly, they brought about a situation in which the care of children is the responsibility of the state.

The departure of bridegrooms and fianc�s to the war, and the woman’s fear for the fate of her loved one, provided a natural reason for the increased number of babies born outside marriage. And once again the bourgeois capitalist state was forced, under the pressure of war, to inflict upon itself a blow, to encroach upon one of its most sacred rights – on the prerogative of legal marriage. It was forced for the sake of the soldiers’ well being to make equal under the law both legal and extra-marital mothers and children. Germany, France and England were eventually forced to this revolutionary act.

The war not only disrupted the sanctity and stability of the indissoluble church marriage, but also encroached on yet another of the foundations of the family-housework. Rising prices, queues which exhausted the housewife, the system of delaying stocktaking until supplies had run out-all this led to a situation in which the women themselves hastened to do away with the domestic hearth, preferring to use communal facilities.

The work of destroying the social slavery of women as it was then, was carried through by the great workers’ revolution. Women workers and peasants participated in the great liberating struggle on an equal footing with men. The former specialisations of the female sex collapsed as the social structure rocked on its twin pillars, private property and class government. The great fire of the world uprising of the proletariat called woman from her baking tins into the arena of the barricades, the fight for freedom. Woman ceased to feel secure in her own home, alongside her familiar flagstones, drinking troughs and cradles, when all around bullets were whistling and, amazed, she heard the cry of the worker fighters:- ‘To arms, comrades! All of you who cherish your freedom, who have grown to hate the chains of slavery and deprivation of civil rights! To arms, workers, to arms, women workers! ...’

The revolution accustomed women workers to great mass movements, to the struggle for the realisation of communism. The revolution in Russia won full political equality and equality of citizenship for women. The revolution fulfilled the demands of women workers from all countries: equal pay for equal work. The revolution made it impossible for women ever again to be tied to their families.[3] The revolution also abolished the previous forms of workers’ movements, which had been shaped by the age of peaceful parliamentary rule. We are cut off from the period of the Second International [4] not only by four years, but a whole geological shift in the field of social and economic relations.

And from this point of view, many of the articles printed here are out of date. But the main issue is not out of date. It is still very much alive. That fundamental theme which I have tried to make the main thread running through these articles-namely, the necessity of special work among the women proletariat, separate within the party framework, and the setting up in the Party of a special party machine – a commission, bureau or group – for this purpose.

However profound are the changes which have been accomplished be-fore our eyes in the life and economic structure of our country, brought about by the war and the revolution, however far Soviet Russia has marched forward along the road to communism, the legacy of the capitalist order has still not been eradicated; the conditions of life, the working class family’s way of life, the traditions which hold captive the mind of woman, the servitude of housework – all these have still not died away. And in so far as all the factors which prevented a working class woman from taking an active part in the liberating movement of the proletariat before the war are still operative, in so far as even now the Party still has to take into account both the political backwardness of women, and the bondage of the woman worker to her family, so the necessity of intensive work among the women proletariat, with the help of a party machine set up specifically for this purpose, remains as pressing as ever.

The setting up of a commission for agitation and propaganda among women workers in the centre and in the provinces will undoubtedly speed up this work. There was a time when the thought of specialised work within the Party, which I had been advocating since 1906, met with opposition even among my own comrades. But now, after the decision carried by the All Russian Congress of Women Workers and approved by the Party, it only remains for us to get down to its practical implementation. Our Party does not allow a separate women’s movement or any independent unions or societies of women workers, but it has never denied the efficacy of a division of labour within the Party and the setting up of such special party machines as would promise to increase the number of its members or deepen its influence among the masses.

At the moment Soviet Russia is in need of many new fresh forces both for the struggle with the enemy[5] and for the construction of the communist society. To create, to educate these forces from the many millions of the female working population – such are the tasks of the party commission for agitation and propaganda among women workers.

I would hope that this pamphlet might serve as some guidance for those of my comrades who intend to devote themselves to work among the female proletariat in particular. I hope that they will get from it the certainty that in taking upon themselves this difficult and sometimes thankless work, they are serving not the idea of the ‘specialisation’ of women, not a narrowly feminine business, but the whole task of building a united, strong, world-wide workers’ party which before our very eyes is achieving the bright new world of international communism.

A. Kollontai
Moscow 1st December 1918

1. The Socialist Movement of Women Workers in Different Countries

1. The Socialist Movement of Women Workers in Different Countries

One might think that there could be no clearer or more well-defined notion than that of a ‘women’s socialist movement’. But meanwhile it arouses so much indignation and we hear so often the exclamations and questions:- What is a women workers’ movement? What are its tasks, its aims? Why can’t it merge with the general movement of the working class, why can’t it be dissolved in the general movement, since the Social Democrats deny the existence of an independent women’s question? Isn’t it a hangover from bourgeois feminism?

Questions like these are being asked not only in Russia. They are repeated in almost all countries, they can be heard in all languages. But most curious of all, it is where the women workers’ movement is least developed, where organised women workers are least numerous m the Party and in the unions, that one hears loudest and most assured the voices of those who deny the necessity of technically separated work among the women proletariat And in their simplistic way. they cut through the whole tangled knot of the women’s problem and the general social question.

The women workers’ movement literally grew out of the womb of capitalist reality. But for a long time it advanced tentatively, seeking is way hesitating in its choice of methods. The women workers movement takes extremely motley and varied forms. These forms vary from country to country they are adapted to the conditions of the particular place, and to the character of the workers’ movement. But gradually, especially in countries where social democracy has been strong, definite party machines have arisen to serve the women’s socialist movement.

To-day it would be difficult to find a socialist who would quarrel with the necessity for widespread organisation of the female proletariat. Social democrats in all countries pride themselves on the numbers of their ‘women’s army’ and, in weighing up the chances of success in the class struggle, take into account this rapidly growing force. Consequently, if there is disagreement it is not about the essence of the question, but merely about methods and means of agitation and work among the female half of the working class. However in all countries the vital victory in this argument goes to the defenders of the German way of working-the fusion of the male and female halves of the working class in the party organisation, while retaining the separation and autonomy of agitation among the women of the working class.

The women’s socialist movement is still very young: it has only been in existence for some twenty years.

It is true that before, workers’ organisations, unions and parties had counted women among their members. But once they had become members of a party or trade union organisation, the women workers did not defend those areas which affect women most closely of all. This was the situation in Germany up to the middle of the twenties,[7] in England up to the twentieth century and in Russia until the 1905 revolution. The exploration of problems which affected women workers as women, and the defence of their interests as mothers and housewives, was left without any struggle in the hands of the feminists of the bourgeois camp.

The middle of the nineties may be considered a turning-point. At the Congress of the Social Democratic Party at Gotha[8] in 1896, and at the insistence of Clara Zetkin, the foundations were laid for special separate, autonomous agitational work among women. In the same year, at the London International Socialist Congress there took place the first private meeting of thirty socialist women, delegates to the International Congress from England, Germany America, Holland, Belgium and Poland. This conference marked the beginning of a modest attempt to bring to life a women’s socialist movement in other countries as well.[9]

This private meeting was above all concerned to examine the question of the relationship between bourgeois feminism and the socialist women’s movement. It acknowledged the necessity of drawing a clear distinction between them, and noted the desirability of special socialist agitation among women workers in order to draw them into the ranks of the general class party.

Two decades have passed since the time of that first international meeting of socialist women. In those years capitalism has managed to subject to its rule not only new branches of industry but also new countries. Female labour in industry has established itself more firmly with every year, acquiring considerable social importance in the life of the people’s economy. But since they lacked unity among themselves, were not involved in organisations, and were not linked by obligations to their male colleagues, women workers did indeed appear as dangerous rivals, undermining the progress of the organised struggle of the workers. In those years the organisation of women workers became an urgent and vital question. But in tackling the problem of the organisation of the female half of the proletariat and adapting themselves to the conditions of the surrounding social reality, each country solved the problem in its own way.

This explains the variety of organisational methods. Women workers joined general, mixed unions, organised themselves into separate women’s trade unions, founded their clubs, and societies for self-education, or, finally, formed a special women’s collective within the party, which undertook the responsibility for agitational and organisational work among women. It is this last type of work which offers the most convenient and efficient way of involving women workers in the class struggle. [One cannot but remark that the trade unions, too, were eventually convinced of the good sense, even on purely economic grounds, of forming their own ‘women’s agitational committees’ for carrying out work among women workers. Thus, for example, from 1895 onwards the General Commission of German Trade Unions included a central commission for agitational work amongst women.]

By 1907 the women workers’ movement had already assumed such dimensions that it became possible to call the first International Women’s Conference in Stuttgart in connection with the general International Socialist Congress. The women socialists not only exchanged information on what they had achieved in their own countries, but resolved to continue working along the same lines, to promote by all possible means the future growth and development of the women workers movement. After some disagreement, they accepted a motion introduced by the German women socialists concerning the setting up of a separate International Women’s Bureau, which would strengthen the links between women workers’ organisations in all countries.

The central organ of the international women workers movement recognised the newspaper Gleichheit (Equality) published by the German Party.

The Stuttgart Conference consolidated that share of independence which was necessary for further fruitful work among the women proletariat. It emerged quite clearly that although the women proletarian movement is an inseparable part of the general workers’ movement, it nevertheless has certain original features of its own, due to the particular conditions of existence of the woman worker and the particular social and political position of woman in modern society. Although the objectives of agitation which is aimed specifically at women correspond to those of the workers’ movement at large and although they constitute one part of an overall objective, yet because they are concerned most immediately with the women’s interests they can be best achieved through the initiative of the female representatives of the working class.

Although socialists admit that the question of women forms an integral part of the total social problem of our time, although they maintain that the woman worker is above all a member of a class kept in servitude and deprived of civil rights, and, in striving for her own liberation, must before everything else fight for the liberation of her entire class, they also, alongside this basic principle, concede another, additional proposition. A woman worker is not only a member of the working class, but at the same time she is a representative of one entire half of the human race. As opposed to the feminists, the socialists, demanding equal rights for women in state and society, do not shut their eyes to the fact that the woman’s responsibilities towards the social collective society, will always be somewhat different to men’s.

The woman is not only an independent worker and citizen – at the same time she is a mother, a bearer of the future. This gives rise to a whole series of special demands, in areas such as women’s labour protection, security for maternity and early childhood, help with the problems of children’s upbringing, reforms in house-keeping and so on. [Although the interests of the working class as a whole are bound up with bringing about political equality for women workers, their actual lack of rights, however, even in countries where male workers possess political rights, imposes on the women particularly unpleasant conditions.

Joining together in a special collective gives women workers an opportunity to influence their comrades within the Party, to inspire and urge them on to the struggle for political rights for working class women, gaining for women those rights which they themselves possess.]

In addition to this, in the majority of countries the woman worker finds herself, both in society and in the state, in an exclusively helpless position. Women workers are pariahs even among the modern slaves of capital, and this outlawing of women gives rise to an inequality in the conditions of living between man and woman even in the working class itself. Whether in politics, in the family, in relations between the sexes (prostitution, double morality), or in the work situation, the woman is always allotted ‘second place’, her lack of rights is underlined by her life itself.

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. From this the conclusion is clear, that one can arouse woman’s sleeping brain, and bring to life her will, only by means of a special approach to her, only by using specialised methods of work among women.

The peculiarity of these methods consists in the fact that while not breaking off general links between the general workers’ and women workers’ movement, while welding both wings into one in the process of struggle, bringing them together under the banner of general class tasks and demands, they nevertheless provide for a separate structure for agitation specifically designed to cater for the working class women. Separation has a double aim-on the one hand, these intra-party collectives (commissions, women workers’ bureaux and so on) must carry out special agitational work adapted to the level of the questions women want to have answered; their task is to recruit members among the mass of women who have a low level of consciousness to educate women workers’ consciousness, to raise it to the level of the rest of the party members’, to move women into the arena of revolutionary struggle. On the other hand these collectives give women workers the possibility of putting forward and defending in practical ways those interests which touch women most of all: motherhood, protection of children the rate set for children’s and women’s labour, the struggle against prostitution reforms in housekeeping and so on.

It follows that the formation of groups of women workers within the Party on the one hand lightens the task of attracting into the movement the broad masses of less aware women, those with whom one has to speak a different language than with men; and on the other hand, it is an opportunity to concentrate the party’s attention on the special requirements of the women proletariat.

This was the conclusion that the western comrades gradually arrived at. This way of working with women has been adopted by almost all parties.[10] In Austria from 1908, in England from 1906. in the United States from 1908 m the Scandinavian countries, in Belgium and Holland from the beginning of the twentieth century, in Switzerland, in Finland and in France-special collectives of women socialists exist everywhere, carrying on agitational work with women workers and focussing the attention of the workers’ party on that part of the socialist programme which affects working class women’s interests most closely.

Thanks to this way of working, the women workers’ movement is growing both in depth and in breadth. The number of organised women workers grows every year, in fact it even grows relatively more quickly than the number of men who have been drawn back into the movement. In Germany, for example, in 1907 the Party hardly contained 10,500 women workers, in 1908 there were already 29,458 of them, in 1909 – 62,259, in 1910 – 82,846, in 1911 – 107,000 in 1912 – 130,000, in 1913 – 150,000. In other words, in six years the number of women in the Party has increased fifteen times, and the number of men has not even doubled. In 1907 there were about 600,000 in the Party, and in 1913 - 830,000.

A very short time ago, at the first International Conference of Women Socialists at Stuttgart, in 1907, the organised army of women workers was expressed in such modest figures that the majority of countries did not even cite it.

At that time England took first place in organised numbers, with her 15,0000 women workers as members of trade unions. In Germany then, the unions counted 120,000. In Austria the unions contained about 42,000 women workers; m Hungary about 15,000. In the Party[11] the degree of organisation of women was considerably lower. At that tune the country which could pride itself on the greatest number of social democrats was little Finland, who had managed to bring into the movement more than 18,000 women workers.

A different and more cheerful picture was given by the accounts presented by delegates at the Second International Women’s Socialist Conference in Copenhagen, in August 1910.

Only three years had passed since the first women’s conference, but what growth there had been in the army of women workers now actively taking part in the movement! In England the number of women workers organised into unions had already passed the 200,000 mark; in Germany count 131,000 women workers in unions and 82,645 members of the Party; in Austria the Party already contained about 7,000 women members. Other countries too showed considerable progress in the movement.

As evidence for the level of organisation of women workers we give the following data for the last years before the war;

There is no information given here about a number of countries – Belgium, Spain, Denmark, Sweden. Furthermore much of the information given here is out of date, since the women workers’ movement began to make particularly quick progress in the most recent years. For this reason one can affirm without exaggeration that in Europe alone the number of organised women workers is over one million.

The basis for these organisational successes is undoubtedly an objective economic factor; the rapid growth of female industrial labour, which is particularly noticeable in countries with a relatively young, intensive, capitalist economy.[13] But, alongside this objective factor, an important role was also played by the conscious active influence of the party on the masses of women and by the specialised, systematic work which, especially in the years just before the war, was carried on energetically and thoughtfully by the party organisations of all countries.

To get a fuller idea of the agitational methods of the women’s socialist movement we should examine the history of this movement in somewhat greater detail. In this instance Germany is the most characteristic country; the others repeat, with small modifications, the experience of the German socialist movement and borrow from them the basic model for their work with the women proletariat.

If England as early as the beginning of the nineteenth century was the cradle of trade union movements of women workers (the women weavers of Lancashire joined the weavers’ trade union as early as 1824), if in the seventies, on the initiative of Patterson,[14] a first attempt was made to unite the separate women’s trade unions in the ‘League for the Protection of Women’s Labour’ (later the ‘League of Women’s Trade Unions-Trade Union League’) and, in this way, link and concentrate the movement, if the English women workers were the first to go to the defence of their violated economic interests, nevertheless it was German Social Democracy that carried within its womb the party political movement of women workers.

However significant were the successes of the trade union organisation ,of women workers in England, this movement bore a narrowly economic character. [15] On the general social tasks of the liberation of women, on the vital interests of women workers as women, as mothers, there was no discussion in either the mixed, or the separate women’s unions. Not only in England, but also in other countries – in Germany, France, America, women workers took part in the trade union movement only for the sake of very immediate practical gains in the field of labour. All general-social questions, affecting the interests of women, were discussed and brought forward only by the growing feminist movement.

The feminists for their part altered the demands of the women workers and presented them to the world in a distorted form, in the guise of bare, lifeless formulae of absolute equality of rights between men and women in all fields of life and in all areas. And even now the women workers’ movement in England still bears the imprint of this duality: whereas on economic grounds the woman worker, as a conscious comrade, fights for the interests of her class, in the sphere of social and political ideals the less conscious woman worker still hangs onto the skirts of the Suffragettes and is ready to uphold the principle of the equality of women, albeit to the detriment of her class interests. [16]

The women workers’ movement in Germany was of a completely different character. It is true that in the sixties and seventies the organisation of women workers also concentrated, mainly, on unions, but the rapid increase in female labour, with the quickening tempo of capitalist development in Germany, forced the young German Socialist Party to take up a definite position in relation to the question of women.

Two points of view were in conflict within the workers’ organisations: some looked upon women’s professional labour as an abnormal deviation from the ‘natural social order’, and hoped to force women back into the house by means of prohibitive laws: others accepted this phenomena as an inevitable stage, leading woman to her final liberation-in her capacity both as a seller of her labour and as a woman.

In this context a decisive role was played by Bebel’s book, Woman and Socialism, which first came out in 1879. This book cast a bright light on the complicated problem of woman, and opened up new horizons to the Social Democrats. It established a close link between the question of women and the general class aim of the workers, but at the same time also drew attention to the needs and demands peculiar to women, the distinctive things that characterise woman as a representative of her sex. This acknowledgement of the special position of woman in modern society made it necessary, without sinning against the unity of the Party, to delineate a certain area of work with the women proletariat.

The first attempts to bring to life women socialist organisations in Germany took place towards the middle of the eighties. On the initiative of an ex-feminist, who had gone over to the Social Democrats, Guillaume-Schack, societies for self-education or women workers’ clubs were set up in Berlin. But the eighties in Germany were a dark period when a law discriminating against socialists was in force. The police powers mercilessly destroyed these innocent organisations, whose creation had cost so much effort. The special decree of 1887 finally wiped from the face of the earth the first beginnings of women’s socialist societies.

With the defeat of the law against socialists, the workers’ movement in Germany immediately stood on firm ground; the women workers’ movement was also revived. The trade unions not only gave access to women, but chose a woman as their president for the General Commission of Trade Unions. The Social Democratic Party, for its part, at the Erfurt Congress decided to take up a completely definite position with regard to the question of women. [In both previous socialist programmes, those of Erfurt and Gotha, the Party’s attitude to the question of women was still ill-defined. The demands affecting women were limited to general desires for the protection of female labour and the recognition of full political rights for adults, without, however, emphasising that this last demand applied to women too.]

The Erfurt programme of 1891 not only emphasises the demand for political rights for all citizens without distinction according to sex, but in point five expresses a particular demand, in the interests of women: “the abolition of all laws which place women in less favourable conditions of existence than men with regard to political or civil rights.” [17] This was an important admission. The Social Democratic Party in this way took upon itself the defence of the interests of the women of the working class, in the widest sense of the word. Already it was not only a question of improving women’s working conditions, but also of her liberation as a citizen, as a person.

Consistent with this new aim, it was necessary for the Party to modify the party rules, so as to leave open a place for women in party work. A resolution had already been passed at the Congress at Halle, in 1890, concerning women chairmen at congresses, which allowed these women chairmen to be elected at special women’s meetings. [At the Berlin Congress of 1892, however, the socialist women themselves opposed this resolution and, arguing that ‘women demand equality, not privilege’, insisted that the decision be recalled. A typical case, demonstrating the way in which the ‘equal rights’ principle of the ‘equal rights’ feminists influenced even the women socialists in that period of the formation of the women workers’ movement.

However, as early as the 1894 Congress, at the insistence of Zetkin, Auer, Singer and others the resolution was put forward again. “Experience has shown,” said Zetkin, “what an error it was to reject this resolution. The fact of the matter is that women are without rights and with all the will in the world cannot participate in the general party organisation. But apart from that, among the masses, women are considerably more backward than men, in general assemblies they cannot stand up for themselves, and this leads to dissatisfaction and bewilderment.” From Proceedings of the Party Congress at Frankfurt am Main, 1894, p.174.]

At the Berlin Congress the Berlin women’s organisation introduced an amendment whereby the title, ‘Male Confidential Agent’, be replaced simply by ‘Confidential Agent’,(18) which would give women access to this post. [See Proceedings of the Party Congress at Berlin, 1894, p. 145.] Another women’s organisation, from Mannheim, asked that agitational work with women should be extended. But the most decisive step, with regard to the method chosen by the Party for work with women workers, was taken at the congress at Gotha in 1896. The question raised by Clara Zetkin about agitation with women workers’ set up the basis for specialised, technically separate party work with women.

Drawing a boundary line between the conceptions of equality held by the bourgeois camp and by the socialist women, Zetkin nevertheless insisted, in her classically worded resolution, that agitation among women should concentrate, beyond the general aims of the Party, on a whole range of purely ‘women’s questions’: protection at work, insurance for childbirth, security for children, education of children, political education of women, political equality of women, and so on. In the resolution it was suggested that they start publishing literature, pamphlets and leaflets especially for women.

In addition to this historic resolution, which shaped the relations of the Party to the women workers’ movement and its problems, at the same congress another three resolutions were passed, each supplementing the others; and which undoubtedly defined the Party’s new course in the matter of the organisation of women workers.

The Berlin group’s resolution suggested intensifying agitational work with women in order to draw them into unions, in view of the fact that the law forbade women to enter the Party openly. The second proposal referred to the organisational sphere: it insisted on the introduction of special posts of ‘female confidential agents’ in the Party, who would be responsible for systematic agitational work with women in order to raise their class consciousness and to draw them into the Party. The third resolution proposed that several women’s meetings should immediately be held in order to elect female confidential agents.

The Gotha Congress officially inaugurated intra-party work for the organisation of women, and systemised agitation with the female proletariat.

The projected line of work developed steadfastly. Subsequent congresses merely introduced partial modifications to the issue of the organisation of women workers and agitational work among them; in general terms the Party kept to the plan of work as it had been outlined at Gotha. It is true that an insuperable obstacle stood in the way of development of a women’s socialist movement in Germany – the law forbidding the open entry of women into the Party. In places where there was no local law preventing women from taking part in general movements, for example in Baden, Wurtenburg, Saxony, Hessen, a few small states and free towns – Bremen, Lubeck, Hamburg – there the women workers openly joined the Party. In other places they joined together beneath the flag of ‘societies for the self-education of women workers’ or came together round a ‘confidential agent’ in free, unstructured groups. Nevertheless, thanks to the system of ‘confidential agents’, the special chairmanship of women at congresses, and the existence of the women’s paper Gleichheit (Equality), the women’s socialist movement, while developing partly outside the boundaries of the Party, was closely linked to the general movement and always remained under the influence of the Social Democrats.

The review of the party rules in Mainz in 1900, in which the system of male ‘confidential agents’ was replaced by local committees, did not lead to any alterations in the system of the organisation of the female proletariat. At the 1902 Congress in Munich a resolution was put forward leaving in force the special ‘female confidential agents’, to whom was entrusted the work of the organisation of women workers and carrying on socialist agitational work with them. At the Mainz Congress, too, the post of ‘central female confidential agent’ for the whole of Germany was confirmed. The movement had managed to grow in strength so much since the time of the Gotha Conference that as early as 1900 in Mainz, it became possible to hold the first German Socialist Women’s Conference.

Since that time these conferences have taken place periodically in Germany every two years: in Mainz 1900, in Munich 1902 in Bremen 1904, in Mannheim 1906, in Nuremburg 1908, and in Jena 1911. The women workers’ conferences arose as a natural answer to the growing demands which their lives called for. The question of voting rights for women in the Reichstag and in local Landtags could no longer be put off, nor could the ailing, complicated problem of maternity. Also lined up were the questions of pre-school education for children, of protection for children’s and women’s labour, reforms of the schools, reforms of housekeeping, organisations for domestic servants, the rates set for the labour of domestic workers, security for nursing mothers and babies, the struggle against infant mortality and so on.

All these questions involved women workers very closely; they grew directly out of their lives, and they gave birth to new demands. The conferences of women socialists examined, discussed, and worked out these demands, and in this way forced the Party, too, to examine with greater care and thought the special needs and aspirations of women workers. In this way, the women’s conferences turned into kinds of special commissions which prepared material for the general workers’ congresses on special questions, those which were relevant to women. The result was some kind of division of labour within the Party, from which the general movement undoubtedly gained a great deal.

It is usual to consider the separation of the women’s socialist movement in Germany as arising exclusively from political tactics, and the existence of the law forbidding women from becoming members of political, organisations. This idea is mistaken. It is true that in its time the law about unions and organisations forced the women’s socialist movement to seek refuge in extra-party ‘societies for the self-education of women workers’. But later, when the number of politically conscious women workers had in-creased, the Party found a means of getting round the watchful eye of the law and, in so far as the unity of the movement required it, had. women join organisations in the capacity of ‘voluntary donors’ to the Party, and then these donations were repeated periodically, serving as the membership fee. Yet the system of ‘female confidential agents’, special women’s meetings, a separate women’s bureau with its own organ, Gleichheit, women’s conferences and so on, remained in force.

Finally, when in 1908 the Prussian law about unions and organisations had ceased to function, and the women workers were thus able to take part in the political movement of the Social Democrats, nothing stood in the way of the abolition of the special work among women. But what did the Party do? Did it renounce its previous methods of work with women of the proletariat?

On the contrary. At the Nuremburg Congress of 1908, after a radical review of the party rules, the women’s socialist movement was allowed to have as much technical autonomy as was possible without damaging the unity of the class movement.

The Party considered it the duty of women workers to enter the Party as equal members, but settled on a lower membership fee for women since they received a lower rate of pay for their work. And although the system of female confidential agents was repealed, the party rules demanded that on each committee there should be a special representation of women workers. depending on the number of women members in a given district. In any case there had to be at least one person on the committee elected by women, who was to be responsible for agitational work and the organisation of women workers. On the central committee of the Party there was also a special representation for women workers. The Women’s Bureau of the Party was not abolished, the women worker’s paper, Gleichheit, not only continued to be published, but alongside this central organ of women workers there grew up a whole range of local or trade union publications, devoted to the interests and demands of women workers. The party rules also left in force the separate meetings for women workers (courses, discussion evenings), and also, where they were needed, the ‘societies for self education’, and, finally, the separate women’s conferences.

In this way, the changes in the law about unions and organisations did not change the type and character of party work in Germany. On the contrary, the ‘division of labour’ in the Party with regard to agitational work among women, in the years immediately before the war, left greater scope for the development and elucidation among the female proletariat of special women’s demands. It is sufficient to mention just the ‘Women’s Day’, and the agitational work for women’s voting rights which was done around this new method of arousing the interest of women workers in politics, educating them in revolutionary protest on the grounds of women workers’ lack of civil rights.

The women’s wing of the German workers’ party developed each year wider and more many-sided activities. The Party is indebted to women workers and their initiative for a whole range of actions: on the problems of the cost of living, insurance for maternity, extension of voting rights in communal self-government. The women workers took upon themselves an enormous part of the work at the time of the elections in the Reichstag ii January 1912, they played an active part in the election of members of the Sickness Benefit Fund; they carried out tireless agitation to draw women workers into the Party, they held meetings, they organised so-called discuss ion evenings for women everywhere and specialised educational courses etc. In 1912 the Women’s Bureau organised 66 agitation trips across Germany during the year, not counting agitational work carried on by women worker; in the provinces. They held 22 open women’s meetings, over and above the regular discussion evenings and courses. In 646 District Committees (out of 4,827) women had their own special representation before the war. Gleichheit printed an edition of 107,000 copies. During that year the number of members rose to 22½ thousand!

As well as agitational work at the meetings, there was widespread special agitational work carried out among the ‘wives of workers’ at home, which produced splendid results. The special ‘Commissions for the Care of Children’ were replenished with women. There were 125 of these commissions before the war and their activities were being extended all the time.

In this way German social democracy, independently of whatever external reasons may have existed, adhered to the principle of special, separate work among the female proletariat, based on the principle of ‘division of labour’ within the Party.

Finding itself in the same situation as the German party, and not having the legal right to get women workers to join political organisations, the Austrian Social Democrats found their own way of solving the problem of how to get women into the workers’ movement.

They organised a special ‘Women’s General State Committee’, which officially stood outside the Party, but was linked to it ideologically. However, as early as the Second Conference of Women Workers in 1903 the agenda contained an item on ‘women’s role in the political struggle’. In spite of the fact that the conference supported the desirability of wider political propaganda among women workers, in spite of the decision taken to form local women’s committees for this purpose, women’s involvement in politics progressed feebly and with difficulty. In this sense, the grand movement of Austrian workers for the reform of the voting laws in 1905 acted as a spur. Women were drawn into the struggle, and into the general strike.

The Women’s General State Committee found it necessary after that to introduce, both into the party committee and into the commission of trade unions, the project of organised work among women workers along the lines of the German movement. The Party Congress of 1907 came out in favour of a special agitational section within the Party, and from the third women’s conference in 1908 onwards, systematic, separate work was carried on among the female proletariat in Austria on the same lines as in Germany. Even the repeal in 1910 of the law which had hindered the entry of women into political organisations did not bring about any changes in this field.

In England the special task of agitation among women workers was taken up by the Women’s Labour League within the Labour Party [19] whilst in the British Social Democratic Party there had existed since 1906 a special Women’s Committee for this purpose. In 1908 the American Socialist Party also set up a special, separate women’s committee, and from that time on the organisation of women workers in America has achieved considerable success In Switzerland the Union of Women Workers, founded by Clara Zetkin, comprising about fifteen sections, up until the war took upon itself all the work of socialist propaganda among women workers. The same type of intra-party women’s collective-committees, bureaux, secretariats can be found in Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Holland.

In France there has also been in recent years an attempt to bring to life a similar women’s party organisation. Alongside this method of organising women workers in various countries-the United States, England, Holland, Sweden – there still exist special organisations, whose official status is outside the Party, although they too come under the ideological leadership of the Social Democrats. The clubs, societies for the self-education of women workers, enlightenment unions and so on also belong to this type of organisation. The goal of these societies conies down to either ‘preparing the ground’, to carrying on propaganda among the most backward, ignorant masses, or to deepening the theoretical knowledge of women workers, preparing young socialist forces for the role of the leadership of the movement.

We, in Russia, from 1905 have also made attempts to create an organisation of this type. The first attempt took place in the spring of 1906 and consisted in opening ‘women workers’ clubs’ without preliminary permission in some parts of Petrograd.[20] The breaking up of the first Duma[21] interrupted the activity of these clubs.

The second attempt took place in the autumn of 1907. The Social Democrats initiated a Society for the Self-Education of Women Workers, which set itself the task of attracting the broad masses of women with a low level of consciousness into the movement, getting them into unions, and involving them in the Party.

The Czarist regime did not give these attempts any chance to put down roots. In 1909 the workers’ movement was again forced underground. But the social democratic women workers came to the first All-Russian Women’s Congress in 1908, called by the bourgeois equal rights movement. The social democrat women workers were represented by their own separate class group, numbering forty-five women. Having passed their own independent resolutions on all questions, the women workers finally walked out of this ‘ladies’ congress.

Later, in 1913, the Social Democratic Party decided to hold a Woman’s Day and in Russia this was seen as a symptom of the fact that the Russian working class too was gradually coming to realise the necessity of carrying on special work in the women’s proletariat. Simple efficiency dictates this kind of division of labour. The position of women workers in modern society, the special responsibilities, borne by women as mothers and housekeepers, mean that a special type of agitation adapted to the women proletariat is necessary. [The ‘Woman’s Day’ was held by the Party in the following three years: in 1913, in 1914 and in historical 1917 on the 25th of February, the day of the beginning of the great revolution. In the spring of 1917, in Petrograd, the Bolsheviks began to publish the paper. Woman Worker, and the Mensheviks published The Voice of the Woman Worker. The war put a stop to both papers. For more details of the women workers’ movement in Russia see my article in the collection: The Communist Party and the Organisation of Women Workers.]

In the final analysis the general class workers’ movement stands to gain from such a division, i.e. separate agitation among women workers, since the greater concern for the interests and needs of women increases the popularity of the party among women workers and encourages women to join in general party organisation. In this way the special party machine, working for the female half of the working class, not only does not damage the unity of the movement, but, on the contrary, increases the numbers, strength and significance of the workers’ party, extending by this means the framework of its social-creative work even as regards solving the complicated and confused ‘women’s question’.

2. Forms of Organisation of Women Workers in the West

2. Forms of Organisation of Women Workers in the West

The forms which have been adopted by the female proletarian movement in various countries are so variegated and idiosyncratic that it is difficult to describe them in a short and cursory outline. The variety of these forms is due, in the main, to the distinctive peculiarities of the social-political and economic conditions of each country; it also depends in part on the conscious part of the working class and the women workers’ movement. We must not lose sight of the fact that the female proletarian movement in almost all countries is still in its formative period and therefore depends to a considerable degree on the atmosphere of “sympathy” or “indifference” which it meets among its class comrades who have already progressed a lone way along the road of the struggle for the better future.

The female proletarian movement is manifested in the following most typical forms. First of all trade unions, which fall into two groups – mixed, that is consisting of men and women, and purely women’s unions. The first type is the older and the most widespread. As early as 1824 the Lancashire women weavers entered the trade union organisation of weavers, and al-though women did not even have equal rights with men (for a long time they could take no part in the direction of the English trade unions, they could not be elected for union posts, and so on), all the same their participation in the economic struggle had an enormous educative significance and prepared the ground for the later socialist women’s movement.

The trade union organisations of the second type, that is women only, nourished mainly on the soil of male workers’ hostile attitudes towards the rivalry of female labour, and at the same time were nurtured by the emancipation movement of the women of the bourgeois classes. As early as the seventies Mrs. Patterson organised the League for the Protection of Women’s Labour, which for a long time worked in conjunction with the bourgeois equal rights campaign and only later was transformed into a league of women’s trade unions; in later years the League joined the general trade union organisation of workers and is gradually freeing itself from the influence of the feminists.

Trade union organisations confined to women are found in almost all countries (United States, France, Sweden, Denmark, Germany and so on) although gradually and inevitably they are forced out by trade unions of the mixed type. 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.

As the proletarian, on the basis of his own experience, becomes imbued with the realisation of this unity and allows women workers access to his organisations, and more than that – takes special steps to enlist them-then it will no longer make any sense to have separate trade unions for women. [But whereas the organisational division of the unions into male and female harms the unity of the movement in the economic field, on the other hand the separation off of agitational work aimed at the female proletariat is desirable even within the ranks of the trade union organisations. As practice in other countries has shown, this is the only reliable method of enlisting the support of the more recalcitrant of the unions’ female members.]

If they remained up until now, it is either in those trades where only women are employed, or it has been under the indirect influence of bourgeois feminism, which is always harmful to those fighting for class unity.

The second form which the women’s proletarian movement can adopt is the socialist organisations, pursuing political and general class goals. This form too of women workers’ movement falls into two groups: firstly, independent organisations of women workers, societies for self-education, clubs for women workers, enlightenment societies, and so on, which, existing out-side the Party, nevertheless work in close collaboration with it, and are under its ideological leadership. Some organisations of this type, like the ‘educational societies for women and girls of the working class’, which until 1908 were so widespread in Germany, or the Women’s Socialist Society of New York, or women workers’ clubs in Sweden, see their aims as carrying out propaganda mainly among the most ignorant and backward masses, thereby recruiting new members for the Party. Others, like the Socialist Women’s Clubs of Holland, bring together women workers who are already politically conscious, but give them a deeper theoretical and practical preparation for general party work. Both these types of organisations, which are dying out, are inefficient and do not respond to the revolutionary shift which is bringing together and rallying the proletariat of both sexes.

The second type of socialist women’s organisations consists of those which are divisions of the party itself, that is, existing not outside but within it as special organs – commissions, committees, bureaux or secretariats, to whom the Party entrusts the special task of serving the women proletariat. This is the vital and acceptable type. Extensive and many-sided activities have fallen to the lot of these special collectives, activities which are especially varied in Germany.

The basic ‘loosening of the soil’ for the socialist harvest also belongs here, as does the preparation of young forces for the role of future ‘women leaders’, and the publishing of a women’s party journal, and the concern about the fate of the children of the working class (for example the Commission for the Defence of Children in Germany, or the English committees, concerned with the fate of schoolchildren, the ‘hot dinners’, summer colonies, and so on), and finally, the organisation of special political actions related to voting rights for women, such as took place 1908-9 in Prussia a propos of the electoral reforms. The women’s bureaux, commissions’ and secretariats also undertake the responsibility for the organisation of women’s meetings, special courses, the calling of women’s socialist conferences, the publication of brochures and pamphlets, in brief, the broadly based work of agitation and propaganda among the women proletariat.

In the present time there is practically no country in which the Party would not assign work with women to a special branch of its activity. The necessity of this separation is felt by socialists all over the world and is dictated by simple efficiency. The exclusive position of women in modern society not only gives rise to special demands on the part of the women proletariat (security for maternity and childhood, gaining civil and political equality of rights, reforms in housekeeping, and so on), but it also necessitates significant modifications in the method of agitation and propaganda among the female half of the working class. It goes without saying that this does not destroy the unity of the movement. On the contrary, thanks to the efforts of social democracy and its leadership, the women’s proletarian movement, like a fresh stream pouring its waters into a mighty river, fuses with it and raises its level.

In the present time world social democracy no longer contests the necessity and desirability of special work with women. But for a long time the ‘fear of feminism’ forced not only socialists, but also socialist women, to shun any such division of labour.

Though it emerged in theory and in principle as a supporter of women’s rights, and also took practical steps to defend the interests of women workers, social democracy, nevertheless, for many years made no efforts, nor employed any means to arouse the drowsy, submissive masses of women... if the organised workers did win better conditions of work and life for the women workers, then they did this not with the participation of the woman worker herself, but on her behalf... and this was their main mistake.

Only separate individuals, such as Louisa Otta in Germany, who in 1848 addressed the ‘brotherly union’ of workers and indicated the necessity of involving women, too, in the workers’ organisations, or the ex-worker Henrietta Law, the only woman member in the general council of the First International, who attempted to organise woman workers in England, showed any initiative in this respect. But their attempts were defeated as much by the indifference of their own comrades as by external obstacles of a political character. In addition to this there was that hostile attitude towards the rivalry of female labour, which for a long -time held sway among the male proletariat, and which forced many trade unions to close their doors to women. This hostility, this mistaken and narrow-minded conception of their interests has not completely disappeared even now – one still comes across echoes of it in England, in the Scandinavian countries, in France and even in Germany; sound notions of the unity of the movement, corresponding to the real interests of the working class as a whole, are only gradually making headway.

But, of course, it is only a small thing to open up working organisations to women; to awaken women’s consciousness, to give scope to its activity, new methods and a new approach to the masses of women were needed. Germany was the first to progress along these lines. August Bebel’s book, Woman and Socialism – the gospel of every woman socialist – did much to assess the question and elucidate it correctly. Having established that the ‘woman question’ depended on the solution of general socialist problems of our times, it nevertheless noted the specific peculiarities of the position of women in capitalist society, which of themselves define the necessity of separate work with the female proletariat.

It is usually thought that the separation of the women’s movement in Germany was made necessary by external reasons, enforced by the existence of laws which forbade women access to political organisations. This conception is radically wrong. One must not forget that after 1892 the restricting paragraph only referred to women’s participation in political organisations. Access to trade union organisations was, consequently, perfectly free. Moreover in the nineties in Germany it was precisely in the trade unions that separate, special, agitational work among the female proletariat was being carried out, preparing the ground for socialist propaganda among women workers. To cite this ill-starred paragraph of the German Imperial Laws is also inappropriate because, when the time was ripe and the interests of the Party demanded it, means were found to get round the embarrassing paragraph as well as everything else.

Finally when the law forbidding women to take part in political organisations was repealed, there was no longer, in 1908, any valid external reason for dividing the proletariat according to sex. The organisation became general but the necessity of special work with women was by no means made superfluous. At the Nuremburg Conference in 1908, when they were working out new party rules, the German Social Democrats recognised the necessity of retaining special work with women, separate women’s meetings, women’s own local and central representation, the women’s central newspaper, women’s conferences, and so on.

Two essential moments – economic and political – in the history of the workers’ movement defined the necessity for separate work with the female proletariat. As the number of women workers grew, as they represented more intensified competition on the labour market, the question of trade union organisations for women workers became vital and acute. In the name of the interests of the trade union movement, in the name of the successes of the struggle of the proletariat, it was necessary to ‘render harmless’ these scattered dispersed, and unconscious elements, which appeared as a serious hindrance to the movement; in other words, women too had to be drawn into the trade union struggle. In 1895 the General Commission of Trade Unions of Germany founded a Women’s Agitation Commission, sought out new methods of approaching the female masses and carried out special agitation and propaganda among women workers. And throughout the nineties Gleichheit appeared as the spokeswoman for a woman’s movement which was predominantly trade union-economic and not political.

The second moment which determined the necessity for separate work among women, within the framework of the Social Democratic Party, was the political moment. In a whole range of countries over the last ten years the question of electoral reform, of the further democratisation of the state system, had become more and more urgent and acute. Under this influence, there was a noticeable change in the attitude of the political workers’ organisation to the women workers’ movement. While theoretically acknowledging the advantage of attracting the female proletarian elements into the political struggle, the Party had not felt in this the same sense of urgency as had encouraged the trade unions to look for new ways and methods, which would provide a way into the mind and heart of the woman worker.

In the nineties not one workers’ party throughout the world had manifested its activity in the field of organisation of the female proletariat. Although at the Party Congress at Gotha, in 1896, at the insistence of a group of women Social Democrats it had confirmed the post of ‘female confidential agent’ who would undertake responsibility for all work among the female proletariat, the German Party, when it drew up its new party rules in Mainz in 1900, forgot to include this point... but all it took was for the question of electoral reform in the German Landtags to come onto the ‘agenda’, and their attitude to the women workers’ movement changed.

The Party’s indifference to this question had deep and vital roots in the following: while women were deprived of political rights, the involvement of women in the party cadres had incomparably less significance for the immediate successes of the Social Democrats, than energetic work among the male proletariat. Agitation among women workers was somehow intangible – it was work, not for the “present” [22], but only for the remote future. The question of radical reform of the electoral system brought women too into the circle of the political fight. Getting women workers, these possible future voters, into party life acquired a topical interest... The women’s socialist movement in Germany began to make rapid progress from the beginning of the twentieth century, since from then on it met with full sympathy from part of the Party; that is precisely the moment when the struggle for electoral reform was flaring up in the country.

We observe the same picture in other countries. In England the indifference of the socialist parties towards the women workers’ movement can be explained by the success of the Suffragettes among women workers. For a long time the Suffragettes were the only active spokeswomen for the political demands of women. But the revival of the question of the radical reform of the whole system of representation in England also generated an interest in the women workers’ movement. In 1906 the Women’s Labour League was formed,[23] presenting itself as the women’s wing of the Labour Party, and setting itself the aim firstly of uniting all the forces of the female proletariat, and then gaining the equality of political rights for women. In 1909 the Social Democratic Party of England set up a separate committee for carrying out special propaganda among women: members of the Party, predominantly women, raised the campaign for universal franchise, to counterbalance the demands the Suffragettes were making for electoral qualification.(24)

The struggle for electoral reform in Austria, in spite of the removal from the agenda of the fifth article of the electoral rules, acted as a spur to the revival of party propaganda among women and led to the definite and systematic organisation of this special branch of party work.

In Belgium the beginning of the women’s socialist movement dates from the time of the struggle for electoral reform.

In the United States, where many ‘urgent class problems’ flared up before the workers and where the movement constantly stumbled against obstacles which were connected with the flaws in the worn out system of bourgeois parliamentarianism, the drawing of women workers into active political struggle was dictated by the interests of the Party. In 1908 the Socialist Party of America organised a women’s committee for agitation and propaganda among women workers. On the other hand, in countries such as France or Switzerland, where questions of further democratisation of the state system were not being raised, the women’s socialist movement was only weakly developed.

In conclusion, one cannot help noting that in every country (except Germany) the majority of women’s cells (commissions, bureaux, and so on) within the party structure are of very recent origin, having crystallised during the five or six years immediately before the war. The progress made during these last years in drawing women workers into the party is all the more striking and the Women Workers’ Conference in Copenhagen was a bright testimony of this. There is no doubt that with the help that the work among the female proletariat is now receiving from the Social Democrats, the involvement of the women workers in the class struggle will go forward at an even faster rate...

The participation of women workers in a general proletarian movement has ceased to be ‘a luxury’, and has become a basic necessity for the success of the revolutionary struggle.

Notes

Editors’ Notes

1. Kollontai is referring here to the First World War and the changes brought about in the international socialist movement by the war and the Russian revolution. Before the First World War, all the socialist parties were organised in the Second International. In 1918, when this pamphlet was published, negotiations for affiliation to the Third International were underway. This Third Communist International (the Comintern) was initiated by the Bolsheviks after the revolution, and European socialists at this time had to choose between two distinct forms of organising. Those who continued their affiliation to the Second International were committed to socialism by reform, while those who joined the Third International were committed to socialism through revolution.

It is important to remember that at the time of the Russian revolution, Marxists assumed that revolution in Europe would follow very quickly, and that socialism in Russia would not come about in isolation.

2. By “independent organisations of women workers” she means organisations outside the socialist parties. The “special organisations” to which she refers are these same organisations, not the separate women’s sections within the parties. This is made clear later in the pamphlet.

3. See Sheila’s introduction, p.vi, on Kollontai’s underestimation of the resilience of old attitudes and culture.

4. See note 1 above.

5. i.e., the White Russians and the foreign interventionist troops (including troops sent by England, which were used both to fight against the Red Army and to train the White Russian forces).

6. The Social Democratic Party was the name for the marxist party before the Third International. After the formation of the Third International, it was called the Communist Party. See Sheila’s introduction, pp.iii/iv.

7. i.e., the 1820s.

8. Before 1917, Germany was the centre of marxism, with by far the largest marxist party, the Social Democratic Party. The founders of social democracy in Germany, Bebel and Leibknecht, and leading members of the German S.D.P. like Kautsky, Luxemburg Zetkin and others, were known internationally.

9. Rosa Luxemburg and Clara Zetkin were among the women delegates from abroad who attended this conference, which was organised by the British section of the Second International. Numerous British organisations sent delegates-the Fabian Society, the Independent Labour Party, the Social Democratic Federation, Hammersmith Socialist Society, Oxford District Socialist Union, the Labour Church Union, Trades and Labour Councils and Trade Unions were all represented. (Information from Report of the Proceedings of the International Socialist and Trade Union Congress held in London 1896. British Museum.)

10. When Kollontai talks about “the parties” in Europe, she seems to be referring in the British context to both the marxist party – i.e. the Social Democratic Federation founded by Hyndman, called the Social Democratic Party from October 1907 (which joined with other marxists in forming the British Socialist Party in May 1912) – and the non-marxist Labour Party.

11. This concept of “the Party,” which in the context of other European countries is used to indicate the Social Democratic Party of that country, is used rather loosely in the British context. See note 12 below.

12. The Women’s Labour League was founded by members of the Independent Labour Party in 1906, and affiliated to the Labour Party in the same year. After the General Election of 1906, when it won 29 seats in Parliament, the Labour Party was recognised for the first time as a party of national importance.

The women had helped to build the movement from its very commencement; they had full recognition in the Party of their citizenship and their right and duty to take part in public work. Yet, owing largely to the fact that the Party is composed in the main of trade unionists, men were coming by hundreds and thousands into the ranks, and the wives and sweethearts were being left outside. If the new Party was not to be a purely masculine affair, we saw that a special effort must be made to reach the women and enlist their support. We do not want to organise ourselves separately from the men, but we have found that the best way to co-operate with them is to educate ourselves; to teach ourselves to discuss and understand and take responsibility in our own meetings, and thus to increase our power and at the same time our powers for the right. We are affiliated nationally to the Labour Party, and our local Leagues work with the local Labour councillors. We have about half a hundred branches now.

Object of the League: To form an organisation of women to work for Independent Labour Representation in connection with the Labour Party, and to obtain direct Labour Representation of women in Parliament and on all local bodies. (Margaret Macdonald, founder member of the Women’s Labour League, writing in Women Workers, Souvenir Pamphlet of Women’s Labour Day, July 1909. London School of Economics Library.)

It is interesting that where for other countries figures for trade union membership are followed by those for membership of the national Social Democratic Party, for England they are followed by figures for membership of the women’s section of the Labour Party, rather than for the Social Democratic Party’s women’s section.

It seems likely that Kollontai’s knowledge of events and organisations in England was somewhat sketchy, and that she was not clear about the distinction which existed at that time between the British Labour Party, and the marxist Social Democratic Party of Britain and other countries. In fact, as the Social Democratic parties grew more revisionist and less openly marxist-notably the German S.D.P. – the distinction between them and the British Labour Party became a fine one. Notice also that she refers to the Social Democratic Party in Britain, when after 1912 it had become the British Socialist Party, and that her second account of dates of the foundation of the Women’s Committee of the Social Democratic Federation is incorrect. Sheila points out in her introduction that Kollontai appeared to know nothing of the activities of the East London Federation of Suffragettes.

13. In the early stages of the industrial revolution, women went into the factories, but many were still employed doing outwork at home or in domestic service. At the end of the nineteenth century and beginning of the twentieth century, technological change, the growth of light industry and the growth of a mass market were beginning to change the structure of women’s work again. This is the period during which women became unionised in significant numbers for the first time.

14. Mrs. Emma Patterson was the first secretary of the National Society for Women’s Suffrage in 1871. She set up the Women’s Provident and Protective Labour League in 1874, deliberately avoiding the use of ‘trade union’ in the title out of deference to the middle class well-wishers who at that time were prominent in the organisation (though from the first, trade unionists were involved). The League helped set up women s trade unions in the 1870s, most of which were short-lived (though one, the Union of Working Women in Bristol, survived until the 1890s, and tried to convince the T.U.C. of the importance of organising women. Later it became the Trade Union League, with an overwhelmingly working class composition.

15. By “a narrowly economic character,” Kollontai means that the English trade unionists limited themselves to economic demands at work, without connecting these to the general oppression of women in society.

16. Before the First World War, many working women backed the suffragette demand for the vote ‘on equal terms with men’, even though the terms on which men had the vote embodied property qualifications which disqualified many working men from voting, and would have disqualified most working women, since they had even less money and property than the men. By 1914, however, some of the suffragettes, notably the East London Federation of Suffragettes, were calling for universal man-hood and womanhood suffrage, without property qualifications of any kind.

17. Controversy over the ‘Woman Question’ had been going on for some time. Though Engels and Bebel supported women’s rights, many German party members thought that women weren’t ready for rights, and refused to include women’s liberation on the party programme. In later years, Clara Zetkin continued the struggle in Germany for the recognition of the importance of working with and for women.

18. “Confidential Agent” – a party post.

19. See note 12 on the foundation of the Women’s Labour League.

20. The Women’s Committee of the Social Democratic Party was founded in the spring of 1905 “for the purpose of educating women in socialism and other matters appertaining to it... We have started Women’s Circles in many parts, which are conducted in a strictly business-like manner, so that when the members know enough of socialism they join the local branch of the S.D.P. and are well acquainted with the business methods of the branch.” (Quoted from the Introduction by Clara Hendin to Some Words to Socialist Women by Mrs. Montefiore. 1907. Marx Memorial Library.)

21. The Duma was the Consultative Assembly, conceded by the Czar in 1905.

22. The Russian word used for ‘present’ in the text can also mean ‘real’. (Tr.)

23. See notes 12 and 19 above. Kollontai’s date for the formation of the Social Democratic Party’s Women’s Committee is wrong here.

24. The suffragettes were not in fact making demands for electoral (property) qualifications. They were demanding the vote ‘on equal terms with men’; and while before the war this amounted to accepting the imposition of property qualifications, most of the suffragettes made it clear that they demanded the vote on these terms as better than nothing, and did not specifically support the principle of property qualifications. See note 16 above.

p.2 Footnote should read: I am referring here to an article by Georgia Pearce entitled .4 Russian Exile, Alexandra Kollontai and the Russian Woman Worker, which appeared in the English newspaper, The Woman Worker, of May 1909. This newspaper is not to be confused with the Bolshevik paper of the same name, to which Kollontai refers in her footnote to p. 26 (cf. erratum below).

p. 18 For “In England the number of women workers organised into unions had already passed the 20,000 mark;” read “In England the number of women workers organised into unions had already passed the 200,000 mark;”

p.24 Insert after “On the central committee of the Party there was also a Special rep-” the words “resentation for women workers. The Women’s Bureau of the Party was not.”

p.26 Footnote should read:

The ‘Woman’s Day’ was held by the Party in the following three years: in 1913, in 1914 and in historical 1917 on the 25th of February, the day of the beginning of the great revolution. In the spring of 1917, in Petrograd, the Bolsheviks began to publish the paper. Woman Worker, and the Mensheviks published The Voice of the Woman Worker. The war put a stop to both papers. For more details of the women workers’ movement in Russia see my article in the collection: The Communist Party and the Organisation of Women Workers.

p.28 Footnote should read:

But whereas the organisational division of the unions into male and female harms the unity of the movement in the economic field, on the other hand the separation off of agitatory work aimed at the female proletariat is desirable even within the ranks of the trade union organisations. As practice in other countries has shown, this is the only reliable method of enlisting the support of the more recalcitrant of the unions’ female members.

p.32 For “... and where the movement constantly stumbled against obstacles which were not connected with the flaws in the worn out system of bourgeois parliamentarianism,” read “. . . and where the movement constantly stumbled against obstacles which were connected with the flaws in the worn out system of bourgeois parliamentarianism,.”

p.34 In note 14 insert “in 1874” after “She set up the Women’s Provident and Protective Labour League.”

What Are We Fighting For? (1919)

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This is a question that disturbs many, the question that faces the Red Army and the workers, and troubles the peasants. Did not the Communist-Bolsheviks, two years ago, summon us in the name of peace ? Why does war continue ? Why are we being mobilised yet again and sent to the front?

In order to answer this question one must understand what is happening all around us, the events that are taking place. As soon as the workers and peasants took power into their hands in October, 1917, they honestly and openly offered peace to all the peoples. However, the workers in the other countries were still too weak, and the predatory capitalists were still strong enough to continue the war. In March, 1918, the Soviet government, desirous of peace, signed the disadvantageous and onerous Brest Peace Treaty with Germany in order to return the ploughman to the field, the worker to his lathe, in order to save the lives of its free citizens.

However, the imperialist predators are not afraid of blood, and place no value on human life. They needed war, and therefore the bourgeoisie of every country mounted repeated attacks upon Soviet Russia and the Soviet Ukraine from outside, while inside the country they encouraged kulak action against the workers and peasants. A new battle front took shape-not Russians against Germans or Ukrainians against the allies, but 'Reds' against 'Whites', i.e. the working people against the bourgeoisie.

What else could the people do? Should they say: We are against war, we are for peace, and therefore, if the Kolchaks, Denikins and Krasnovs attack us, we will not take up arms?! Let American, or German or Russian capital rule over us once more and introduce amongst us the system that suits it best-it's all the same to us?!

Of course, not one rationally-minded Red Army soldier, worker or peasant would say anything of the kind.

The peasant soon realises: if Skoropadsky returns, together with the priests and the landowners, it will be farewell to land and freedom! Once more it will be doff your cap before the village policeman and starve to death while the landowners barns burst with golden grain!

The worker would understand that the return to power of the bourgeoisie would mean a return to lack of rights, to the exploitation of labour, the abolition of the 8-hour working day and unemployment benefit, that it would lead to the expulsion of the working people from their light and healthy flats to be chased back into damp cellars. It would mean a return to the slavery of hired labour.

The Red Army soldier would remember the prison-like regime of the tsarist barracks, blows by officers, insult and abuse from commanders of the old order, rotten meat for dinner, theft by military superintendents, and his hands would seek instinctively for his protecting rifle.

All the working people taken as a whole cannot fail to understand that now the question is whether the peasants and workers are to be the masters of Russia and the Ukraine, or whether the priests, landowners and capitalists are to return and hang once more like a millstone around the neck of the people.

This is not war, but the working people rising up in defence of their rights, freedom and very life!

We are fighting not in order to annex new lands or enslave or plunder another people, but in order to safeguard ourselves from the capitalist predators. We are fighting in order to secure for the peasant and his children the possibility of peacefully farming the land, in order to give the worker the possibility not only of working at a factory or plant, but of himself participating in the organisation of production, himself distributing the national wealth in such a way that each gets his just due, rather than one man getting it all simply because he is a capitalist and takes for himself the lion's share of the national wealth.

We are fighting in order to defend the right of the workers and peasants to run their own homeland. We are fighting in order to protect the people against the possible return of famine and rising prices. We are fighting in order to create one, united, international fraternal republic of workers and peasants, destroy private-property owners and the predatory rich, and thus put an end to war once and for all.

Our war – the war of the Reds against the Whites – is the revolt of the oppressed against those who are responsible for bloodshed. Our cry is and will remain 'War on war! Long live peaceful productive labour on behalf of all working people!'

Bulletin of the Kharkov Soviet
and the Provincial Executive Committee
of the Soviets of Workers',
Peasants' and Red Army Deputies,
7 May, 1919

History of the movement of Women workers in Russia (1919)

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What year could be said to mark the beginning of the working women's movement in Russia? In its essential nature, the movement of women workers is inseparably linked with the entire proletarian movement as one indivisible whole. The woman worker, as a member of the proletarian class, as someone selling her labour, also rose in revolt with the workers every time they opposed the violation of their human rights, participated together and on an equal footing with the workers in all worker uprisings, in all the factory revolts so hated by tsarism.

For this reason, the beginning of the movement of women workers in Russia coincides with the first signs of the awakening of class self-consciousness among the Russian proletariat, and with its first attempts, by means of combined pressure, strikes and walk-outs, to achieve more tolerable, less humiliating and miserly conditions of existence.

Women workers took active part in the worker revolts at the Krenholm factory in 1872 and at the Lazeryev textile factory in Moscow in 1874. They were involved in the strike in 1878 at the New Cotton-Spinning Plant in Petrograd and led the weavers' strike in the famous workers' demonstration in Orekhovo-Zuyevo, during which factory buildings were wrecked. As a result, the tsarist government was compelled to hurry through its legislation prohibiting night work for women and children, which came into force on 3 June, 1885.

It is indicative that the spontaneous wave of strikes that shook proletarian Russia in the 1870's and the early 1880's affected mainly the textile industry, in which the majority of the work force is made up of cheap female labour. The disturbances of the 1870's and early 1880's occurred for purely economic reasons, provoked by unemployment and the continuing crisis in the cotton industry. However, is it not remarkable that this downtrodden 'factory girl', without rights, oppressed by labour beyond her strength and politically ignorant, despised even by the female half of the urban petty bourgeoisie and held at arm's length by peasant women who clung tenaciously to old traditions, should be in the front ranks of those fighting for the rights of the working class, for the emancipation of women? The harsh conditions of life itself compelled the factory girl to oppose openly the power of the bosses and the enslavement of capital. However, in fighting for the rights and interests of her class, the woman worker was unwittingly also preparing the way for the emancipation of women from those chains that still weighed upon them in particular and created inequality of status and conditions among men and women workers, even within the framework of one single working class.

During the new and intensified wave of worker disturbances in the mid- and the late 1890's, working women were once again invariably active participants in worker revolts. The April revolt at the Yaroslavl factory in 1895 received vigorous support from the women weavers. Nor were women workers less active than their male comrades during the economic strikes of 1894-1895 in St Petersburg. When, in the summer of 1896, St Petersburg became the scene of the historic strike by textile workers, the women weavers courageously and unanimously walked out of the workshops together with the men weavers. What difference does it make that at home hungry children are waiting for their working mother? What difference does it make that this strike brings with it the threat of dismissal, of exile or prison? The common class cause is more important, more sacred than maternal feelings, concern for the family, for personal and family well-being!

At a time of disturbances and strikes the woman worker, oppressed, timid, without rights, straightens up to her full height and becomes equal as a fighter and comrade. This transformation takes place unconsciously, spontaneously, but it is important and significant. It is the path along which the workers' movement is leading the woman worker to liberation, not only as one who sells her labour, but also as a woman, a wife, a mother and a housewife.

At the end of the 1890's and the beginning of the 20th century there were a number of disturbances and strikes at factories employing mainly women: at tobacco-processing factories (Shanshai), at spinning and weaving mills (Maxwell) in Petrograd, etc. The working-class movement in Russia is gaining strength, organising itself, taking shape. So also is class resistance among the female proletariat.

Nonetheless, until the momentous year of the first Russian revolution the movement was basically economic in nature. Political slogans had to be concealed or advanced in disguised form. A healthy class instinct prompts the woman worker to support strikes, and not infrequently the women themselves organise and carry through 'factory revolts'. However, no sooner had the wave of bitter strike struggle passed, no sooner had the workers returned to work, victorious or defeated, than the women were once again isolated from one another, still unconscious of the need for organisation, for constant comradely contact. In those years it was still exceptional to find a woman worker in the illegal party organisations.

The broad objectives of the socialist workers' party had still not seized hold of the working woman, and she remained unresponsive to universal political slogans. The life led by six million proletarian women in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century was still too dark, too unenlightened, and their existence too much in the grip of hunger, deprivation and humiliation. A 12-hour, or at best an 11-hour working day, a starvation wage of 12-15 roubles a month, accommodation in overcrowded barracks, the absence of any form of assistance from the state or society in case of illness, pregnancy or unemployment, the impossibility of organising self-help as the tsarist government savagely persecuted any attempts at organisation by the workers – these were the conditions surrounding the woman worker.

Her back was bent by the intolerable burden of oppression, and her soul, terrified by the spectre of poverty and starvation, refused to believe in a brighter future and the possibility of fighting to cast off the yoke of tsarism and capital.

At the beginning of the 20th century, women workers avoided politics and revolutionary struggle. The socialist movement in Russia can, it is true, take pride in an abundance of charming and heroic women who, by their energetic work and selflessness, helped to consolidate the underground movement and prepared the way for the revolutionary explosion that occurred in the years that followed. However none of these women, from the first women socialists such as Sofia Bardina or the Leshern sisters, full of charm and inner beauty, to the iron-willed Sofia Perovskaya, were representatives of the female proletariat.

In the majority of cases these were the young girls to which Turgenev dedicated his prose poem 'The Threshold', girls from a wealthy, aristocratic background who left their parental homes, broke with their prosperous past and 'went to the people' to spread revolutionary propaganda and fight against social injustice, striving to redeem the 'sins of their fathers'. Even much later, in the 1890's and the beginning of the 20th century, when Marxism had already put down deep roots in the Russian workers' movement, the number of women workers involved in the movement was very small. The active women members of the underground organisations in those years were not women workers but women from the intelligentsia - students, teachers, medical assistants and writers. It was rare to find a 'factory girl' at an illegal meeting.

Nor did the women workers attend the Sunday evening classes held just outside the city limits of Petrograd, which were then the only legal method of spreading, under the innocent guise of geography or arithmetic, the ideas of Marxism and scientific socialism among the broad working masses. Working women still fought shy of life, avoided combat ... still believed that their lot was the oven, the wash-tub and the cradle.

THE FIRST REVOLUTION OF 1905

The picture changes radically from the moment when the red spectre of revolution first overshadowed Russia with its fiery wings. The revolutionary year of 1905 sent deep shock waves through the working masses. The Russian worker sensed his strength for the first time, for the first time realised that he was bearing on his shoulders the whole national wealth. The Russian proletarian woman worker, the unfailing collaborator in all the political demonstrations of the proletariat in the revolutionary years of 1905-1906, was also awoken from her slumbers. She was to be found everywhere. If we wanted to relate the facts of the mass participation of women in the movement of the time, enumerate all the active manifestations of protest and struggle by women workers, recall all the selfless actions undertaken by proletarian women, their loyalty to the ideals of socialism, then we would have to reconstruct scene by scene the entire history of the Russian revolution of 1905.

Many still remember those years full of romanticism. The image of the woman worker, still 'incomplete', but already stirring into life, with her searching, hope-filled eyes turned on the speaker at crowded meetings charged with infectious enthusiasm, lives once again in the memory. The faces of women, filled with concentrated energy and unshakable resolution, can be seen among the serried ranks of the workers' procession on the memorial on the memorable 9 January, bloody Sunday. A sun, unusually bright for St Petersburg, illuminates this purposeful, solemn and silent procession, highlighting the women's faces, so numerous among the crowd. The penalty for naive illusions and childish trustfulness strikes the women; the woman worker, young girl, working wife, is a common figure among the mass victims of that January day. The slogan 'General Strike' that flies from workshop to workshop is picked up by these women, yesterday still lacking class consciousness, and compels some of them to be the first to walk out.

The women workers in the provinces did not lag behind their comrades in the capital. In the October days, exhausted by work and their harsh existence on the edge of starvation, women leave the factories and, in the name of the common cause, courageously deprive their children of their last piece of bread... With simple, moving words the woman worker appeals to her male comrades, suggesting that they too leave their work; she keeps up the spirits of those on strike, breathing energy into those who waver... The woman worker struggled tirelessly, protested courageously, sacrificed herself heroically for the common cause, and the more active she became, the more rapidly was the process of her mental awakening achieved. The woman worker began to take note of the world around her, of the injustices stemming from the capitalist system.

She became more painfully and acutely aware of the bitterness of all her sufferings and sorrows. Alongside common proletarian demands one can hear ever more distinctly the voices of the women of the working class recalling the needs and requirements of women workers. At the time of the elections to the Shidlovsky commission in March, 1905, the refusal to admit women as worker delegates provoked murmurs of discontent among women: the sufferings and sacrifices that they had only recently passed through had brought the men and women of the working class closer together, put them on an equal footing. It appeared particularly unjust at that moment to turn to the woman fighter and citizen and underline her age-old lack of rights.

When the Shidlovsky commission refused to recognise the woman chosen as one of the seven delegates from the Sampsoniyevsky textile works, the indignant women workers representing several textile works decided to present to the commission the following protest declaration: 'Women deputies representing women workers are not allowed onto the commission under your chairmanship. We believe such a decision to be unjust. Women workers predominate in the factories and mills of St Petersburg. The number of women employed in spinning and weaving mills is increasing every year because the men are moving to factories that offer better pay. We, the women workers, bear a heavier burden of work. Because of our helplessness and lack of rights, we are kept down more by our comrades, and paid less.

When this commission was announced, our hearts filled with hope; at last the time is coming - we thought - when the woman worker in St Petersburg will be able to speak out to the whole of Russia in the name of all her sister workers about the oppression, wrongs and humiliations of which the male worker can know nothing. And then, when we had already chosen our deputies, we were informed that only men can be deputies. However, we hope that this is not your final decision...

The refusal to allow women workers the right of representation and their expulsion from political life constituted a blatant injustice for all that section of the female population that had carried on.its shoulders the burden of the liberation struggle. Women workers repeatedly attended pre-election meetings during the election campaigns for the First and Second Dumas, and noisily protested against a law that deprived them of any voice in a matter so important as the election of a representative to the Russian parliament. There were instances, for example in Moscow, when women workers came to meetings of electors, broke up the meeting and protested against the way the elections were being conducted.

That women workers were no longer indifferent to their lack of rights is also shown by the fact that, of the 40,000 signatures on petitions addressed to the First and Second State Dumas demanding that electoral rights be extended to women also, a large majority were those of women workers. The collection of signatures was organised by the Alliance for Female Equality and other bourgeois women's organisations, and was conducted at plants and factories. The fact that women workers willingly signed petitions drawn up by bourgeois women also reveals that the political consciousness of women workers was only just awakening, that they were taking their first, hesitant steps, still stopping half-way.

The women workers were becoming aware of their deprivation and lack of political rights, but were still unable to link this fact with the common struggle of their own class, were unable to find the correct path that would lead proletarian women to their full and comprehensive emancipation. The woman worker still naively accepted the hand held out to her by bourgeois feminists. The suffragettes turned to the working women, hoping to draw them onto their side, get their support and organise them into purely feminine, supposedly non-class, but essentially bourgeois alliances. However, a healthy class instinct and a deep mistrust of the 'fine ladies' saved women workers from being attracted to feminism and prevented any long or stable fraternisation with bourgeois suffragettes.

The years 1905 and 1906 were marked by a particularly large number of women's meetings eagerly attended by women workers. The women workers listened carefully to the voice of the bourgeois suffragettes, but what was offered to them did not satisfy the urgent needs of those enslaved to capital, and did not evoke any whole-hearted response. The women of the working class were exhausted by the burden of intolerable working conditions, hunger and the material insecurity of their families; their immediate demands were: a shorter working day, higher pay, a more humane attitude on the part of the factory administration, less police surveillance, more freedom of action. All these demands were alien to bourgeois feminism. The suffragettes approached the women workers with narrowly feminine causes and aspirations.

They did not and could not understand the class nature of the emerging women workers' movement. They were particularly disappointed by the domestic servants. On the initiative of the bourgeois feminists, the first meetings of domestic servants were held in St Petersburg and Moscow in 1905. The domestic servants eagerly responded to this call to 'organise' and turned up at the early meetings in large numbers. However, when the Alliance for Female Equality tried to organise them to its own taste, i.e. to set up an idyllic, mixed alliance between lady employers and domestic employees, the domestic servants turned away from the suffragettes and, to the disappointment of the bourgeois ladies, 'hastened to join their own class party, organising their own special trade unions'.

Such is the state of affairs in Moscow, Vladimir, Penza, Kharkov and a number of other cities. The same fate befell attempts by another political women's organisation even more to the right, the Women's Progressive Party, which attempted to organise domestic employees under the watchful eye of their mistresses. The domestic servants' movement overflowed the boundaries predetermined for it by the feminists. Look at the newspapers from 1905 and you will see that they abound in reports of direct action by domestic servants, even in the most remote regions of Russia. This action took the form either of mass strike action, or of street demonstrations. The strikes involved cooks, laundresses and maids; there were strikes according to profession, and strikes that united all 'domestic servants'.

This protest by domestic employees spread like an infection from place to place. The demands made by the domestic servants were usually limited to an 8-hour working day, a minimum wage, more tolerable living conditions (a separate room), polite treatment by the employer, etc.

This political awakening of women was, moreover, not limited to the urban poor. For the first time in Russia, the Russian peasant woman also raised her voice persistently and resolutely. The end of 1904 and the whole of 1905 is a period of continuous 'petticoat rebellions', sparked off by the war against Japan. All the horrors and deprivations, all the social and economic ills that stemmed from this ill-fated war, weighed down on the peasant woman, wife and mother.

The conscription of reserves placed a double burden of work and worry on her already overloaded shoulders, and forced her, hitherto dependent and fearful of everything that lay beyond the circle of her domestic interests, to meet face to face previously unsuspected hostile forces, and to become consciously aware of all her humiliation and deprivation, drain to the last drop the whole bitter cup of unmerited wrongs... Illiterate, downtrodden peasant women left their homes and villages for the first time and hurried into town to wear down the steps of government offices in the attempt to obtain some news of their husbands, sons, and fathers, to petition for financial assistance and defend their interests...

The total lack of rights that was the peasant's lot, the lies and injustice of the existing social order, stood in all their naked ugliness before the bewildered peasant woman... She returned from town sober and hardened, bearing in her heart an inexhaustible supply of bitterness, hatred and anger... In the summer of 1905 a whole series of 'petticoat rebellions' broke out in the south. Filled with anger and with a boldness surprising for women, the peasant women attacked military and police headquarters where the army recruits were stationed, seized their menfolk and took them home. Armed with rakes, pitchforks and brooms, peasant women drove the armed guards from the villages. They are protesting in their own way against the intolerable burden of war.

They are, of course, arrested, tried and given severe punishments, but the 'petticoat rebellions' continue. In this protest, defence of peasant interests and of purely 'female' interests are so closely interwoven that there are no grounds for dividing them and classing the 'petticoat rebellions' as part of the 'feminist movement'.

Following the 'political demonstrations' by the peasant women there come a series of 'petticoat rebellions' on economic grounds. This is the period of universal peasant unrest and agricultural strikes. The 'petticoats' sometimes initiated these disturbances, drawing the men after them. There were cases when, having failed to involve the men, the women marched to the manors by themselves to present their demands and ultimata. Arming themselves with whatever came to hand, they went ahead of the men to meet the punitive detachments. The downtrodden peasant woman, oppressed for centuries, suddenly became one of the central figures in the political drama. During the whole revolutionary period the peasant women, standing always united with their menfolk, guarded and defended peasant interests, and with amazing tact and sensitivity referred to their special, women's needs only when that did not endanger the common peasant cause.

This did not mean that the peasant women were indifferent to their needs as women, that they ignored them. On the contrary, the mass emergence of peasant women onto the political arena, their mass participation in the common struggle, reinforced and developed their feminine self awareness. By November, 1905, the peasant women of the Voronezh province sent two of their own deputies to the peasant congress with instructions from the women's gathering to demand 'political rights' and 'freedom' for women on an equal basis with men. [1]

The female peasant population of the Caucasus defended their rights with particular vigour. The Guria peasant women at village meetings in the Kutaisi province adopted resolutions demanding political equality with men. At rural and urban meetings held to discuss the introduction of Zemstvos in Transcaucasia, the deputies representing the local population included Georgian women who insisted upon their rights as women.

While demanding political equality, the peasant women naturally always raised their voices in defence of their economic interests; the question of 'allotments' of land, concerned the peasant woman as much as it did the peasant man. In some regions, peasant women who had enthusiastically supported the idea of expropriating private land, cooled in their support for this measure when the question arose as to whether the women would be included in the count to determine the size of the land allotment. 'If the land is taken from the landowners and given only to the men,' the women argued anxiously, 'then we will face real slavery. At present we can at least earn a few kopecks on our own account, whereas if that were to happen, we will simply be working for the men.' However, the fears of the peasant women proved to be completely unfounded; simple economic calculation obliged the peasantry to insist that land also be given to the women. The agrarian interests of the male and female sections of the peasantry were so closely interwoven that the men, in fighting to abolish the existing agricultural bondage for themselves, inevitably defended at the same time the economic interests of their womenfolk.

However, in fighting for the economic and political interests of the peasantry as a whole, the peasant woman also learned how to fight for her own specific needs and requirements as a woman. The same held true for the woman worker; with her unfailing participation in the whole liberation movement she, even more than the peasant woman, prepared public opinion to accept the principle of female equality. The idea of civic equality for women, now implemented in Soviet Russia, was spread through society not by the heroic efforts of individual women with forceful personalities, not by the struggle of the bourgeois feminists, but by the spontaneous pressure of broad masses of working and peasant women, who had been roused into life by the thunder of the first Russian revolution in 1905.

In 1909, in my book The Social Basis of the Women's Question, I said, arguing against the bourgeois feminists, against whom the whole of my book is directed: 'If the peasant woman does succeed in achieving in the near future an improvement in her domestic, economic and legal position, this will naturally be thanks only to the combined, united efforts of peasant democracy directed at obtaining the fulfilment of those peasant demands which, in one form or another, continue to be heard in the peasant milieu. Attempts by the feminists to "clear the way for women", are here irrelevant... If the peasant woman does free herself from the present agrarian bondage, she will receive more than all the feminist organisations put together could give her.'

These words, written ten years ago, have now been fully vindicated. The Great October Revolution has not only fulfilled the basic, urgent demand of the peasantry of both sexes that the land be transferred into the hands of those who work it, but has also raised the peasant woman to the honourable position of a free citizen equal in every respect, and now enslaved only by old methods of agricultural work and by still persisting family traditions and mores.

That of which the working and peasant women could only dream in the days of the first Russian revolution in 1905 has been translated into reality by the Great October Revolution of 1917.

Woman in Russia has achieved political equality. However she owes this achievement not to co-operation with bourgeois suffragettes, but to a joint, united struggle with her comrade workers in the ranks of her own working class.

International Women’s Day (1920)

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Communism and the Family (1920)

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Women’s role in production: its effect upon the family

Will the family continue to exist under communism? Will the family remain in the same form? These questions are troubling many women of the working class and worrying their menfolk as well. Life is changing before our very eyes; old habits and customs are dying out, and the whole life of the proletarian family is developing in a way that is new and unfamiliar and, in the eyes of some, “bizarre”. No wonder that working women are beginning to think these questions over. Another fact that invites attention is that divorce has been made easier in Soviet Russia. The decree of the Council of People’s Commissars issued on 18 December 1917 means that divorce is, no longer a luxury that only the rich can afford; henceforth, a working woman will not have to petition for months or even for years to secure the right to live separately from a husband who beats her and makes her life a misery with his drunkenness and uncouth behaviour. Divorce by mutual agreement now takes no more than a week or two to obtain. Women who are unhappy in their married life welcome this easy divorce. But others, particularly those who are used to looking upon their husband as “breadwinners”, are frightened. They have not yet understood that a woman must accustom herself to seek and find support in the collective and in society, and not from the individual man.

There is no point in not facing up to the truth: the old family in which the man was everything and the woman nothing, the typical family where the woman had no will of her own, no time of her own and no money of her own, is changing before our very eyes. But there is no need for alarm. It is only our ignorance that leads us to think that the things we are used to can never change. Nothing could be less true than the saying “as it was, so it shall be”. We have only to read how people lived in the past to see that everything is subject to change and that no customs, political organisations or moral principles are fixed and inviolable. In the course of history, the structure of the family has changed many times; it was once quite different from the family of today.

There was a time when the kinship family was considered the norm: the mother headed a family consisting of her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, who lived and worked together. At another period the patriarchal family was the rule. In this case it was the father whose will was law for all the other members of the family: even today such families may be found among the peasantry in the Russian villages. Here the morals and customs of family life are not those of the urban proletariat. In the countryside, they observe norms which the worker has long forgotten. The structure of the family and the customs of family life also vary from nation to nation. Among some peoples such as the Turks. Arabs and Persians, a man is allowed to have several wives.

There have been and there still are tribes where the woman may have several husbands. We are used to the fact that a young girl is expected to remain a virgin until marriage; however, there are tribes where it is a matter of pride to have had many lovers and where the women decorate their arms and legs with the corresponding number of bracelets. Many practices which might astonish us and which might even seem immoral are considered by other peoples to be quite normal and they, in their turn, consider our laws and customs “sinful”.

There is, therefore, no reason to be frightened of the fact that the family is in the process of change, and that outdated and unnecessary things are being discarded and new relations between men and women developing our job is to decide which aspects of our family system are outdated and to determine what relations, between the men and women of the working and peasant classes and which rights and duties would best harmonise with the conditions of life in the new workers’ Russia. That which is in be With the new life should be maintained, while all that is old and outdated and derives from the cursed epoch of servitude and domination, of landed proprietors and capitalists, should be swept aside together with the exploiting class itself and the other enemies of the proletariat and the poor.

The type of family to which the urban and rural proletariat has grown accustomed is one of these, legacies of the past. There was a time when the isolated, firmly-knit family, based on a church wedding, was equally necessary to all its members. If there had been no family, who would have fed, clothed and brought up the children? Who would have given them advice? In days gone by, to be an orphan was one of the worst fates imaginable. In the family of old, the husband earns and orts his wife and children. The wife for her part is occupied with housekeeping and with bringing up the children as best she can. But over the last hundred years this customary family structure has been falling apart in all the countries where capitalism is dominant and where the number of factories and other enterprises which employ hired labour is increasing.

The customs and moral principles of family life are changing as the general conditions of life change. It is the universal spread of female labour that has contributed most of all to the radical change in family life. Formerly only the man was considered a breadwinner. But Russian women have for the past fifty or sixty years (and in other capitalist countries for a somewhat longer period of time) been forced to seek paid work outside the family and outside the home. The wages of the “breadwinner” being insufficient for the needs of the family, the woman found herself obliged to look for a wage and to knock at the factory door. With every year the number of working-class women starting work outside the home as day labourers, saleswomen, clerks, washerwomen and servants increased.

Statistics show that in 1914, before the outbreak of the First World War, there were about sixty million women earning their own living in the countries of Europe and America, and during the war this number increased considerably. Almost half of these women are married. What kind of family life they must have can easily be imagined. What kind of “family life” can there be if the wife and mother is out at work for at least eight hours and, counting the travelling, is away from home for ten hours a day? Her home is neglected; the children grow up without any maternal care, spending most of the time out on the streets, exposed to all the dangers of this environment. The woman who is wife, mother and worker has to expend every ounce of energy to fulfil these roles.

She has to work the same hours as her husband in some factory, printing-house or commercial establishment and then on top of that she has to find the time to attend to her household and look after her children. Capitalism has placed a crushing burden on woman’s shoulders: it has made her a wage-worker without having reduced her cares as housekeeper or mother. Woman staggers beneath the weight of this triple load. She suffers, her face is always wet with tears. Life has never been easy for woman, but never has her lot been harder and more desperate than that of the millions of working women under the capitalist yoke in this heyday of factory production.

The family breaks down as more and more women go out to work. How can one talk about family life when the man and woman work different shifts, and where the wife does not even have the time to prepare a decent meal for her offspring? How can one talk of parents when the mother and father are out working all day and cannot find the time to spend even a few minutes with their children? It was quite different in the old days. The mother remained at home and occupied herself with her household duties; her children were at her side, under her watchful eye. Nowadays the working woman hastens out of the house early in the morning when the factory whistle blows. When evening comes and the whistle sounds again, she hurries home to scramble through the most pressing of her domestic tasks.

Then it’s oil to work again the next morning, and she is tired from lack of sleep. For the married working woman, life is as had as the workhouse. It is not surprising therefore that family ties should loosen and the family begin to fall apart. The circumstances that held the family together no longer exist. The family is ceasing to be necessary either to its members or to the nation as a whole. The old family structure is now merely a hindrance. What used to make the old family so strong? First, because the husband and father was the family’s breadwinner; secondly, because the family economy was necessary to all its members: and thirdly, because children were brought up by their parents. What is left of this former type of family? The husband, as we have just seen, has ceased to he the sole breadwinner.

The wife who goes to work earns wages. She has learned to cam her own living, to support her children and not infrequently her husband. The family now only serves as the primary economic unit of society and the supporter and educator of young children. Let us examine the matter in more detail, to see whether or not the family is about to be relieved of these tasks as well.

Housework ceases to be necessary

There was a time when the women of the poorer classes in city and country spent their entire lives within the four walls of the home. A woman knew nothing beyond the threshold of her own home, and in most cases had no wish to know anything. After all, in her own home, there was so much to do, and this work was most necessary and useful not only for the family itself but also for the state as a whole. The woman did everything that the modern working and peasant woman has to do, but besides this cooking, washing, cleaning and mending, she spun wool and linen, wove cloth and garments, knitted stockings, made lace, prepared – as far as her resources permitted – all sorts of pickles, jams and other preserves for winter, and manufactured, her own candles. It is difficult to make a complete list of all her duties. That is how our mothers and grandmothers lived. Even today you may still come across remote villages deep in the country, far from the railroads and the big rivers, where this mode of life has been preserved and where the mistress of the house is overburdened with all kinds of chores over which the working woman of the big cities and of the populous industrial regions has long ceased to worry.

In our grandmother’s day, all this domestic work was necessary and beneficial; it ensured the well-being of the family. The more the mistress of the house applied herself, the better the peasant or craftsman’s family lived. Even the national economy benefited from the housewife’s activity, for the woman did not limit herself to making soup and cooking potatoes (i.e. satisfying the Immediate needs of the family), she also produced such things as cloth, thread, butter, etc. which had a value as commodities that could be sold on the market. And every man, whether peasant or worker, tried to find a wife who had “hands of gold”, for he knew that a family could not get along without this “domestic labour”. The interests of the whole nation were involved, for the more work the woman and the other members of the family put into making cloth, leather and wool (the surplus of which was sold in the neighbouring market), the greater the economic prosperity of the country as a whole.

But capitalism has changed all this. All that was formerly produced in the bosom of the family is now being manufactured on a mass scale in workshops and factories. The machine has superseded the wife. What housekeeper would now bother to make candles, spin wool or weave, cloth? All these products can be bought in the shop next door, formerly every girl would learn to knit stockings. Nowadays, what working woman would think of making her own? In the first place she doesn’t have the time. Time is money, and no one wants to waste time in an unproductive and useless manner. Few working women would start to pickle cucumbers or make other preserves when all these things can be bought in the shop. Even if the products sold in the store are of an inferior quality and not prepared with the care of the home-made equivalent the working woman has neither the time nor the energy needed to 1 perform these domestic operations. First and foremost she is a hired worker. Thus the family economy is gradually being deprived of all the domestic work without which our grandmothers could hardly have imagined a family. What was formerly produced in the family is now produced by the collective labour of working men and women in the factories.

The family no longer produces; it only consumes. The housework that remains consists of cleaning (cleaning the floors, dusting, heating water, care of the lamps etc.), cooking (preparation of dinners and suppers), washing and the care of the linen and clothing of the “family (darning and mending). 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.

The housewife may spend all day, from morning to evening, cleaning her home, she may wash and iron the linen daily, make every effort to keep her clothing in good order and prepare whatever dishes she pleases and her modest resources allow, and she will still end the day without having created any values. Despite her industry she would not have made anything that could be considered a commodity. Even if a working woman were to live a thousand years, she would still have to begin every day from the beginning. There would always be a new layer of dust to be removed from the mantelpiece, her husband would always come in hungry and her children bring in mud on their shoes.

Women’s work is becoming less useful to the community as a whole. It is becoming unproductive. The individual household is dying. It is giving way in our society to collective housekeeping. Instead of the working woman cleaning her flat, the communist society can arrange for men and women whose job it is to go round in the morning cleaning rooms. The wives of the rich have long since been freed from these irritating and tiring domestic duties. Why should working woman continue to be burdened with them? 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 win organise public restaurants and communal kitchens.

Even under capitalism such establishments have begun to appear. In fact over the last half a century the number of restaurants and cafes in all the great cities of Europe has been growing daily; they are springing up like mushrooms after the autumn rain. But under capitalism only people with well-lined purses can afford to take their meals in restaurants, while under communism everyone will be able to eat in the communal kitchens and dining-rooms. The working woman will not have to slave over the washtub any longer, or ruin her eyes in darning her stockings and mending her linen; she will simply take these things to the central laundries each week and collect the washed and ironed garments later. That will be another job less to do. Special clothes-mending centres will free the working woman from the hours spent on mending and give her the opportunity to devote her evenings to reading, attending meetings and concerts. Thus the four categories of housework are doomed to extinction with the victory of communism. And the working woman will surely have no cause to regret this. Communism liberates worm from her domestic slavery and makes her life richer and happier.

The state is responsible for the upbringing of children

But even if housework disappears, you may argue, there are still the children to look after. But here too, the workers’ state will come to replace the family, society will gradually take upon itself all the tasks that before the revolution fell to the individual parents. Even before the revolution, the instruction of the child had ceased to be the duty of the parents. Once the children had attained school age the parents could breathe more freely, for they were no longer responsible for the intellectual development of their offspring. But there were still plenty of obligations to fulfil. There was still the matter of feeding the children, buying them shoes and clothes and seeing that they developed into skilled and honest workers able, when the time came, to earn their own living and feed and support their parents in old age.

Few workers’ families however, were able to fulfil these obligations. Their low wages did not enable them to give the children enough to eat, while lack of free time prevented them from devoting the necessary attention to the education of the rising generation. The family is supposed to bring up the children, but in reality proletarian children grow up on the streets. Our forefathers knew some family life, but the children of the proletariat know none. Furthermore, the parents’ small income and the precarious position in which the family is placed financially often force the child to become an independent worker at scarcely ten years of age.

And when children begin, to earn their own money they consider themselves their own masters, and the words and counsels of the parents are no longer law; the authority of the parents weakens, and obedience is at an end.

Just as housework withers away, so the obligations of parents to their children wither away gradually until finally society assumes the full responsibility. Under capitalism children were frequently, too frequently, a heavy and unbearable burden on the proletarian family. Communist society will come to the aid of the parents. In Soviet Russia the Commissariats of Public Education and of Social Welfare are already doing much to assist the family. We already have homes for very small babies, creches, kindergartens, children’s colonies and homes, hospitals and health resorts for sick children. restaurants, free lunches at school and free distribution of text books, warm clothing and shoes to schoolchildren. All this goes to show that the responsibility for the child is passing from the family to the collective.

The parental care of children in the family could be divided into three parts: (a) the care of the very young baby, (b) the bringing up of the child, and (c) the instruction of the child. Even in capitalist society the education of the child in primary schools and later in secondary and higher educational establishments became the responsibility of the state. Even in capitalist society the needs of the workers were to some extent met by the provision of playgrounds, kindergartens, play groups, etc. The more the workers became conscious of their rights and the better they were organised, the more society had to relieve the family of the care of the children. But bourgeois society was afraid of going too far towards meeting the interests of the working class, lest this contribute to the break-up of the family.

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. The father and mother are ready to agree to any terms when their children are hungry. Capitalist society has not been able to transform education into a truly social and state matter because the property owners, the bourgeoisie, have been against this.

Communist society considers the social education of the rising generation to be one of the fundamental aspects of the new life. The old family, narrow and petty, where the parents quarrel and are only interested in their own offspring, is not capable of educating the “new person”. The playgrounds, gardens, homes and other amenities where the child will spend the greater part of the day under the supervision of qualified educators will, on the other hand, offer an environment in which the child can grow up a conscious communist who recognises the need for solidarity, comradeship, mutual help and loyalty to the collective. What responsibilities are left to the parents, when they no longer have to take charge of upbringing and education? The very small baby, you might answer, while it is still learning to walk and clinging to its mother’s skirt, still needs her attention. Here again the communist state hastens to the aid of the working mother. No longer will there be any women who are alone. The workers’ state aims to support every mother, married or unmarried, while she is suckling her child, and to establish maternity homes, day nurseries and other such facilities in every city and village, in order to give women the opportunity to combine work in society with maternity.

Working mothers have no need to be alarmed; communist not intending to take children away from their parents or to tear the baby from the breast of its mother, and neither is it planning to take, violent measures to destroy the family. No such thing! The aims of communist society are quite different. Communist society sees that the old type of family is breaking up, and that all the old pillars which supported the family as a social unit are being removed: the domestic economy is dying, and working-class parents are unable to take care of their children or provide them with sustenance and education. Parents and children suffer equally from this situation. 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.” Communist society takes care of every child and guarantees both him and his mother material and moral support. Society will feed, bring up and educate the child. At the same time, those parents who desire to participate in the education of their children will by no, means be prevented from doing so. 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. Such are the plans of communist society and they can hardly be interpreted as the forcible destruction of the family and the forcible separation of child from mother.

There is no escaping the fact: the old type of family has had its day. The family is withering away not because it is being forcibly destroyed by the state, but because the family is ceasing to be a necessity. The state does not need the family, because the domestic economy is no longer profitable: the family distracts the worker from more useful and productive labour. The members of the family do not need the family either, because the task of bringing up the children which was formerly theirs is passing more and more into the hands of the collective. In place of the old relationship between men and women, a new one is developing: a union of affection and comradeship, a union of two equal members of communist society, both of them free, both of them independent and both of them workers. No more domestic bondage for women.

No more inequality within the family. No need for women to fear being left without support and with children to bring up. The woman in communist society no longer depends upon her husband but on her work. It is not in her husband but in her capacity for work that she will find support. She need have no anxiety about her children. The workers’ state will assume responsibility for them. Marriage will lose all the elements of material calculation which cripple family life. Marriage will be a union of two persons who love and trust each other. Such a union promises to the working men and women who understand themselves and the world around them the most complete happiness and the maximum satisfaction.

Instead of the conjugal slavery of the past, communist society offers women and men a free union which is strong in the comradeship which inspired it. Once the conditions of labour have been transformed and the material security of the working women has increased, and once marriage such as the church used to perform it – this so-called indissoluble marriage which was at bottom merely a fraud – has given place to the free and honest union of men and women who are lovers and comrades, prostitution will disappear. This evil, which is a stain on humanity and the scourge of hungry working women, has its roots in commodity production and the institution of private property. Once these economic forms are superseded, the trade in women will automatically disappear.

The women of the working class, therefore, need not worry over the fact that the family is doomed to disappear. They should, on the contrary, welcome the dawn of a new society which will liberate women from domestic servitude, lighten the burden of motherhood and finally put an end to the terrible curse of prostitution.

The woman who takes up the struggle for the liberation of the working class must learn to understand that there is no more room for the old proprietary attitude which says: “These are my children, I owe them all my maternal solicitude and affection; those are your children, they are no concern of mine and I don’t care if they go hungry and cold – I have no time for other children.” 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.

The workers’ state needs new relations between the sexes, just as the narrow and exclusive affection of the mother for her own children must expand until it extends to all the children of the great, proletarian family, the indissoluble marriage based on the servitude of women is replaced by a free union of two equal members of the workers’ state who are united by love and mutual respect. In place of the individual and egoistic family, a great universal family of workers will develop, in which all the workers, men and women, will above all be comrades. This is what relations between men and women, in the communist society will be like. These new relations will ensure for humanity all the joys of a love unknown in the commercial society of a love that is free and based on the true social equality of the partners.

Communist society wants bright healthy children and strong, happy young people, free in their feelings and affections. In the name of equality, liberty and the comradely love of the new marriage we call upon the working and peasant men and women, to apply themselves courageously and with faith to the work of rebuilding human society, in order to render it more perfect, more just and more capable of ensuring the individual the happiness which he or she deserves. The red flag of the social revolution which flies above Russia and is now being hoisted aloft in other countries of the world proclaim the approach of the heaven on earth to which humanity has been aspiring for centuries.

An Interesting Letter from Russia (1920)

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Dora B. Montefiore, The Communist, October 1920

The following letter has been received by Comrade Dora B. Montefiore from Madame Kollontay, in reply to a letter of greeting:-

Moscow,
13th Sept., 1920.

“Dear Comrade Montefiore, – I was ever so glad to get your kind greeting. I could not answer it at once, as unfortunately I got very ill (typhus fever) at the time of the International Congress. We live in a new world where the beautiful hopes of the future real Communism are mixed up with so many remains of the old capitalistic world. It is a hard struggle to make of Russia a real Communistic state, but little by little the work goes on. If only the comrades in the rest of the world would give us more active support! One thing is achieved: there is actually no capital, no private property in Russia, and the psycho1ogy of the masses has changed so greatly, that it seems we have stepped forward many centuries from the time of the beginning of the imperialist war. Also, the place of the women in the state and family has changed: all women have to work, for ‘who does not work does not eat’ in Soviet Russia. We have less and less of those women who were but a burden to their husbands and family.

“Oh, there is ever so much I would like to tell you about Soviet .Russia. Come to us some day, dear friend! But remember always before you criticise us that we could not and have not yet achieved Communism; one country, one nation, alone, cannot do it! Communism must be the work of all proletarians of the world. And we have great hopes that our English comrades will soon show us that they can do more than Russia, who was oppressed by the Tsar; where we had no good mass organisations, where the economical conditions are much less prepared for Communism than in Great Britain.

“Dear comrade, my love to you and my Communist greetings. I hope we shall meet soon.

Yours in Communism,

ALEXANDRA [Kollontay].”

The Labour of Women in the Evolution of the Economy (1921)

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In its search for new forms of economy and of living which meet the interests of the proletariat, the Soviet republic has inevitably committed a number of mistakes, and has a number of times had to alter and correct its line. But in the sphere of social upbringing and the protection of motherhood, the labour republic from the first months of its existence has marked out the right direction for developments to take. And in this sphere a deep and fundamental revolution in morals and attitudes is being achieved. In this country, where private property has been abolished and where politics is dictated by the desire to raise the level of the general economy, we can now deal in our stride with problems that were insoluble under the bourgeois system.

Soviet Russia has approached the question of protecting motherhood by keeping in view the solution to the basic problem of the labour republic – the development of the productive forces of the country, the raising and restoration of production. In order to carry out the job in hand it is necessary, in the first place, to tap the tremendous forces engaged in unproductive labour and use all available resources effectively; and, in the second place, to guarantee the labour republic an uninterrupted flow of fresh workers in the future, i.e. to guarantee the normal increase in population.

As soon as one adopts this point of view, the question of the emancipation of women from the burden of maternity solves itself. A labour state establishes a completely new principle: care of the younger generation is not a private family affair, but a social-state concern. Maternity is protected and provided for not only in the interests of the woman herself, but still more in the interests of the tasks before the national economy during the transition to a socialist system: it is necessary to save women from an unproductive expenditure of energy on the family so that this energy can be used efficiently in the interests of the collective; it is necessary to protect their health in order to guarantee the labour republic a flow of healthy workers in the future.

In the bourgeois state it is not possible to pose the question of maternity in this way: class contradictions and the lack of unity between the interests of private economies and the national economy hinder this. In a labour republic, on the other hand, where the individual economies are dissolving into the general economy and where classes are disintegrating and disappearing, such a solution to the question of maternity is demanded by life, by necessity. The labour republic sees woman first and foremost as a member of the labour force, as a unit of living labour; the function of maternity is seen as highly important, but as a supplementary task and as a task that is not a private family matter but a social matter.

“Our policy on the protection of maternity and childhood,” as Vera Pavlovna Lebedeva correctly notes, “is based on the picture of woman in the work process, which we keep constantly before our mind’s eye.”

But in order to give woman the possibility of participating in productive labour without violating her nature or breaking with maternity, it is necessary to take a second step; it is necessary for the collective to assume all the cares of motherhood that have weighed so heavily on women, thus recognising that the task of bringing up children ceases to be a function of the private family and becomes a social function of the state. Maternity begins to be seen in a new light. Soviet power views maternity as a social task. Soviet power, basing itself on this principle, has outlined a number of measures to shift the burden of motherhood from the shoulders of women to those of the state. Soviet power takes responsibility for the care of the baby and the material provision of the child, through the sub-department of the Protection of Motherhood and Childhood (headed by comrade V.P. Lebedeva) and the section of Narkompros (the Commissariat of Education) which deals with social upbringing.

The principle that Soviet power accepts in tackling the problem is that the mother be relieved of the cross of motherhood, and be left with the smile of joy which arises from the contact of the woman with her child. Of course, this principle is far from having been realised. In practice we lag behind our intentions. In our attempts to construct new forms of life and living, to emancipate the labouring woman from family obligations, we are constantly running up against the same obstacles; our poverty, and the devastation of the economy. But a foundation has been laid, the signposts are in place; our task is to follow the directions firmly and decisively.

The labour republic does not limit itself to financial provisions for motherhood and the distribution of benefits. It aims, above all, to transform the conditions of life in order to make it fully possible for a woman to combine motherhood and social labour and to preserve the baby for the republic, surrounding it with the necessary care and attention. From the very first months of the existence of the dictatorship of the proletariat in Russia, worker and peasant power has been striving to co ver the country with a network of institutions for the protection of motherhood and the social upbringing of children. The mother and the child became a special object of concern in Soviet politics. During the first months of the revolution, when I held the position of People’s Commissar of Social Welfare, I considered it to be my main task to chart the course that the labour republic should adopt in the sphere of protecting the interests of woman as a labour unit and as a mother.

It was at this time that the board which deals with the protection of motherhood was set up and began to organise model “palaces of motherhood”. Since then, comrade Vera Pavlovna Lebedeva has worked ably and energetically, and the cause of the protection of motherhood has flourished and established firm roots. From the early stages of the working woman’s pregnancy, she receives the assistance of Soviet power. Consultation centres for pregnant and nursing mothers are now to be found across the length and breadth of Russia. In tsarist times only six consultation centres existed; now we have about two hundred such centres, and a hundred and thirty-eight milk kitchens.

But of course, the most important task is to relieve the working mother of the unproductive labour involved in ministering to the physical needs of the child. Maternity does not in the least mean that one must oneself change the nappies, wash the baby or even be by the cradle. The social obligation of the mother is above all to give birth to a healthy baby. The labour republic must therefore provide the pregnant woman with the most favourable possible conditions; and the woman for her part must observe all the rules of hygiene during her pregnancy, remembering that in these months she no longer’ belongs to herself, she is serving the collective, “producing” from hex own flesh and blood a new unit of labour, a new member of the labour republic.

The woman’s second obligation is to breast-feed her baby ; only when she has done this does the woman have the right to say that she has fulfilled her obligations. The other tasks involved in caring for the younger generation can be carried out by the collective, of course the maternal instinct is strong, and there is no need to stifle it. But why should this instinct be narrowly limited to the love and care of one’s own child? Why not allow this instinct, which for the labour republic has valuable potential, the opportunity to develop vigorously and to reach its highest stage, where the woman not only cares for her own children but has a tender affection for all children?

The slogan advanced by the labour republic, “Be a mother not only to your child, but to all the children of the workers and peasants,” must show the working woman a new approach to motherhood. There have been instances where a mother, even a communist mother, refuses to breast-feed a baby that is suffering from a lack of milk, only because it is not “her” baby. Is such behaviour permissible? Future society, with its communist emotion and understanding, will be as amazed at such egoistic and anti-social acts as we are when we read of the woman in prehistoric society who loved her own child but found the appetite to eat the child of another tribe. Or to take another case, examples of which abound: a mother deprives her baby of milk in order to save herself the bother of caring for it. And can we allow the number of foundlings in Soviet Russia to continue growing at the present rate?

These problems, it is true, derive from the fact that the question of motherhood is being tackled but has not yet been completely solved. In this difficult transition period there are hundreds of thousands of women who are exhausted by the dual burden of hired labour and maternity. There are not enough creches, children’s homes and maternity homes, and the financial provisions do not keep pace with the price rises of goods on the free market. Consequently working women are afraid of motherhood and abandon their children. The growth in the number of foundlings, however, is also evidence that not all women in the labour republic have yet grasped the fact that motherhood is not a private matter but a social obligation. You who work amongst women will have to discuss this question and explain to working women, peasant women and office workers the obligations of motherhood in the new situation of the labour republic. At the same time, we obviously have to step up the work of developing the system of maternity protection and social upbringing. The easier it becomes for mothers to combine work and maternity, the fewer foundlings there will be.

We have already pointed out that maternity does not involve the mother always being with the child or devoting herself entirely to its physical and moral education. The obligation of the mother to her children is to ensure that a healthy and normal atmosphere is provided for their growth and development. In bourgeois society we always find that it is the children of the well-to-do classes who are healthy and flourishing, and never the children of the poor. How do we explain this? Is it because bourgeois mothers devoted themselves entirely to the education of their children? Not at all. Bourgeois mammas were very willing to place their children in the care of hired labourers: nannies and governesses.

Only in poor families do mothers themselves bear all the hardships of maternity; the children are with their mothers, but they die like flies. There can be no question of a normal upbringing: the mother does not have the time, and so the children are educated on the street. Every mother of the bourgeois class hurries to shift at least a part of child-care on to society; she sends the child to a kindergarten, to school or to a summer camp. The sensible mother knows that social education gives the child something that the most exclusive maternal love cannot give, in the prosperous circles of bourgeois society, where great significance is attached to giving the children a proper education in the bourgeois spirit, parents give their children into the care of trained nannies, doctors and pedagogues.

Hired personnel take over the role of the mother in supervising the physical care and moral education of the child, and the mother is left with the one natural and inalienable right: to give birth to the child.

The labour republic does not take children away from their mothers by force as the bourgeois countries have made out in tales about the horrors of the “Bolshevik regime”; on the contrary, the labour republic tries to create institutions which would give all women, and not just the rich, the opportunity to have their children brought up in a healthy, joyful atmosphere. Instead of the mother anxiously thrusting her child into the care of a hired nanny, Soviet Russia wants the working or peasant woman to be able to go to work, calm in the knowledge that her child is safe in the expert hands of a creche, a kindergarten or a children’s home.

In order to protect woman as the reproducer of the race, the labour republic has created “maternity homes” and has tried to open them wherever they are particularly needed. In 1921 we had a hundred and thirty-five such homes. These homes not only provide a refuge for the single woman in this most serious period of her life, but allow the married women to get away from home and family and the petty cares of the domestic round and to devote all her attention to regaining strength after the birth and to looking after her child in the first, most important weeks. Later on the mother is not essential to the child, but in the first weeks there is still, as it were, a physiological tie between mother and child. and during this period the separation of mother and child is not advisable.

You know yourselves, comrades, how willingly working women and even the wives of important functionaries take advantage of the maternity homes. where they find loving attention and peace. We do not have to use agitational methods to persuade women to use the maternity homes. Our problem is that the material resources of Russia are so limited; we are poor, and this makes it difficult for us to extend our network to cover the entire area of labour Russia with such, “aid stations” for working women and peasant women. There are, unfortunately, still no maternity homes at all in the rural regions, and in general we have done least of all to help the peasant mothers. In fact, all we have done for them is to organise summer creches. This makes it easier for the peasant mother to work in the fields without her baby suffering in any way.

In the course of 1921, 689 such creches, providing for 32,180 children, were opened. For mothers working in factories and offices, creches have been set up at factories and institutions, and also at a district and town level. I do not have to emphasise the great significance of these creches for the mothers. The trouble, is that we do not have enough of them, and we cannot satisfy even a tenth of the demand for such aid centres.

The network of social education organisations which relieve mothers of the hard work involved in caring for children includes, apart from the creches and the children’s homes which cater for orphans and ,foundlings up to the age of three, kindergartens for the three to seven year olds, children’s “hearths” for children of school age, children’s clubs, and finally children’s house communes and children’s work colonies. The social educational system also includes free meals for children of pre-school and school age, Vera Velichkina (Bonch-Bruyevich), a revolutionary to the end of her life, fought very hard for this measure, the introduction of which has as you know helped us a great deal in the hard years of the civil war, and has saved many children of the proletariat from emaciation and death from starvation.

The concern of the state for children is also manifest in the provision of free milk, special food rations for the young, and clothes and footwear for children ,in need. All these projects are far from having been realised in full; in practice we have covered only a narrow section of the population. However, we have so far failed to relieve the couple from all the difficulties of bringing up children, not because we have taken the wrong course but because our poverty prevents us from fulfilling all that Soviet power has planned. The general direction of the policy on maternity is correct. But our lack of resources hinders us. So far, experiments have only been carried out at a fairly modest level. Even so, they have given results and have revolutionised family life, introducing fundamental changes in the relationships between the sexes. This is a question we will discuss in the following talk.

The task of Soviet power is thus to provide conditions for the woman where her labour will not be spent on non-productive work about the home and looking after children but on the creation of new wealth for the state, for the labour collective. At the same time, it is important to preserve not only the interests of the woman but also the life of the child, and this is to be done by giving the woman the opportunity to combine labour and maternity. Soviet power tries to create a situation where a woman does not have to cling to a man she has grown to loathe only because she has nowhere else to go with her children, and where a woman alone does not have to fear her life and the life of her child. In the labour republic it is not the philanthropists with their humiliating charity but the workers and peasants, fellow-creators of the new society, who hasten to help the working woman and strive to lighten the burden of motherhood. The woman who bears the trials and tribulations of reconstructing the economy on an equal footing with the man, and who participated in the civil war, has a right to demand that in this most important hour of her life, at the moment when she presents society with a new member, the labour republic, the collective, should take upon itself the job of caring for the future of the new citizen.

Russia now has 524 protection of motherhood and social education sections. This is, nevertheless, insufficient. The transitional nature of the dictatorship places women in a particularly difficult situation; the old is destroyed but the new has not yet been created. The party and Soviet power must during this period pay increasing attention to the problem of maternity and the methods of solving it. If correct answers are found to these questions, not only women but also the national economy will gain.

I would like to say a few words about a question which is closely connected with the problem of maternity – the question of abortion, and Soviet Russia’s attitude to it. On 20 November 1920 the labour republic issued a law abolishing the penalties that had been attached to abortion. What is the reasoning behind this new attitude? Russia, after all, suffers not from an overproduction of living labour but rather from a lack of it. Russia is thinly, not densely populated. Every unit of labour power is precious. Why then have we declared abortion to be no longer a criminal offence? Hypocrisy and bigotry are alien to proletarian politics. Abortion is a problem connected with the problem of maternity, and likewise derives from the insecure position of women (we are not speaking here of the bourgeois class, where abortion has other reasons – the reluctance to “divide” an inheritance, to suffer the slightest discomfort, to spoil one’s figure or miss a few months of the season etc.)

Abortion exists and flourishes everywhere, and no laws or punitive measures have succeeded in rooting it out. A way round the law is always found. But “secret help” only cripples women; they become a burden on the labour government, and the size of the labour force is reduced. Abortion, when carried out under proper medical conditions, is less harmful and dangerous, and the woman can get back to work quicker. Soviet power realises that the need for abortion will only disappear on the one hand when Russia has a broad and developed network of institutions protecting motherhood and providing social education, and on the other hand when women understand that childbirth is a social obligation; Soviet power has therefore allowed abortion to be performed openly and in clinical conditions.

Besides the large-scale development of motherhood protection, the task of labour Russia is to strengthen in women the healthy instinct of motherhood, to make motherhood and labour for the collective compatible and thus do away with the need for abortion. This is the approach of the labour republic to the question of abortion, which still faces women in the bourgeois countries in all its magnitude. In these countries women are exhausted by the dual burden of hired labour for capital and motherhood. In Soviet Russia the working woman and peasant woman are helping the Communist Party to build a new society and to undermine the old way of life that has enslaved women. As soon as woman is viewed as being essentially a labour unit, the key to the solution of the complex question of maternity can be found.

In bourgeois society, where housework complements the system of capitalist economy and private property creates a stable basis for the isolated form of the family, there is no way out for the working woman. The emancipation of women can only be completed when a fundamental transformation of living is effected; and life-styles will change only with the fundamental transformation of all production and the establishment of a communist economy. The revolution in everyday life is unfolding before our very eyes, and in this process the liberation of women is being introduced in practice.

Prostitution and ways of fighting it (1921)

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Speech by Alexandra Kollontai to the third all-Russian conference of heads of the Regional Women’s Departments, 1921.

Comrades, the question of prostitution is a difficult and thorny subject that has received too little attention in Soviet Russia. This sinister legacy of our bourgeois capitalist past continues to poison the atmosphere of the workers’ republic and affects the physical and moral health of the working people of Soviet Russia. It is true that in the three years of the revolution the nature of prostitution has, under the pressure of the changing economic and social conditions altered somewhat. But we are still far from being rid of this evil. Prostitution continues to exist and threatens the feeling of solidarity and comradeship between working men and women, the members of the workers’ republic. And this feeling is the foundation and the basis of the communist society we are building and making a reality. It is time that we faced up to this problem. It is time that we gave thought and attention to the reasons behind prostitution. It is time that we found ways and means of ridding ourselves once and for all of this evil, which has no place in a workers’ republic.

Our workers’ republic has so far passed no laws directed at the elimination of prostitution, and has not even issued a clear and scientific formulation of the view that prostitution is something that injures the collective. We know that prostitution is an evil, we even acknowledge that at the moment, in this transitional period with its many problems, prostitution has become extremely widespread. But we have brushed the issue aside, we have been silent about it. Partly this is because of the hypocritical attitudes we have inherited from the bourgeoisie, and partly it is because of our reluctance to consider and come to terms with the harm which the widespread mass scale of prostitution does to the work collective. And our lack of enthusiasm in the struggle against prostitution has been reflected in our legislation.

We have so far passed no statutes recognising prostitution as a harmful social phenomenon. When the old tsarist laws were revoked by the Council of People’s Commissars, all the statutes concerning prostitution were abolished. But no new measures based on the interests of the work collective were introduced. Thus the politics of the Soviet authorities towards prostitutes and prostitution has been characterised by diversity and contradictions. In some areas the police still help to round up prostitutes just as in the old days. In other places, brothels exist quite openly. (The Interdepartmental Commission on the Struggle against Prostitution has data on this.) And there are yet other areas where prostitutes are considered criminals and thrown into forced labour camps. The different attitudes of the local authorities thus highlight the absence of a clearly worded statute. Our vague attitude to this complex social phenomenon is responsible, for a number of distortions of and diversions from the principles underlying our legislation and morality.

We must therefore not only confront the problem of prostitution but seek a solution that is in line with our basic principles and the programme of social and economic change adhered to by the party of the communists. We must, above all, clearly define what prostitution is. Prostitution is a phenomenon which is closely linked with unearned income, and it thrives in the epoch dominated by capital and private property. Prostitutes, from our point of view, are those women who sell their bodies for material benefit – for decent food, for clothes and other advantages; prostitutes are all those who avoid the necessity of working by giving themselves to a man, either on a temporary basis or for life.

Our Soviet workers’ republic has inherited prostitution from the bourgeois capitalist past, when only a small number of women were involved in work within the national economy and the majority relied on the “male breadwinner”, on the father or the husband. Prostitution arose with the first states as the inevitable shadow of the official institution of marriage, which was designed to preserve the rights of private property and to guarantee property inheritance through a line of lawful heirs. The institution of marriage made it possible to prevent the wealth that had been accumulated from being scattered amongst a vast number of “heirs”. But there is a great difference between the prostitution of Greece and Rome and the prostitution we know today.

In ancient times the number of prostitutes was small, and there was not that hypocrisy which colours the morality of the bourgeois world and compels bourgeois society to raise its hat respectfully to the ‘lawful wife” of an industrial magnate who has obviously sold herself to a husband she does not love, and, to turn away in disgust from a girl forced into the streets by poverty, homelessness, unemployment and other social circumstances which derive from the existence of capitalism and private property. The ancient world regarded prostitution as the legal complement to exclusive family relationships. Aspasia [the mistress of Pericles] was respected by her contemporaries far more than the colourless wives of the breeding apparatus.

In the Middle Ages, when artisan, production predominated, prostitution was accepted as something natural and lawful. Prostitutes had their own guilds and took part in festivals and local events just like the other guilds. The prostitute guaranteed that the daughters of the respectable citizens remained chaste and their wives faithful, since single men could (for a consideration) turn to the members of the guild for comfort. Prostitution was thus to the advantage of the worthy propertied citizens and was openly accepted by them.

With the rise of capitalism, the picture changes. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries prostitution assumes threatening proportions for the first time. The sale of women’s labour, which is closely and inseparably connected with the sale of the female, body, steadily increases, leading to a situation where the respected wife of a worker, and not just the abandoned and “dishonoured” girl, joins the ranks of the prostitutes: a mother for the sake of her children, or a young girl like Sonya Marmeladova for the sake of her family. This is the horror and hopelessness that results from the exploitation of labour by capital. When a woman’s wages are insufficient to keep her alive, the sale of favours seems a possible subsidiary occupation. The hypocritical morality of bourgeois society encourages prostitution by the structure of its exploitative economy, while at the same time mercilessly covering with contempt any girl or woman who is forced to take this path.

The black shadow of prostitution stalks the legal marriage of bourgeois society. History has never before witnessed such a growth of prostitution as occurred in the last part of the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries. In Berlin there is one prostitute for every twenty so-called honest women. In Paris the ratio is one to eighteen and in London one to nine. There are different types of prostitution: there is open prostitution that is legal and subject to regulation, and there is the secret, “seasonal” type, All forms of prostitution flourish like a poisonous flower in the swamps of the bourgeois way of life.

The world of the bourgeoisie does not even spare children, forcing young girls of nine and ten into the sordid embraces of wealthy and depraved old men. In the capitalist countries there are brothels which specialise exclusively in very young girls. In this present post-war period every woman faces the possibility of unemployment. Unemployment hits women in particular, and causes an enormous increase in the army of “street women”. Hungry crowds of women seeking out the buyers of “white slaves” flood the evening streets of Berlin. Paris and the other civilised centres of the capitalist states. The trade in women’s flesh is conducted quite openly, which is not surprising when you consider that the whole bourgeois way of life is based on buying and selling. There is an undeniable element of material and economic, considerations even the most legal of marriages. Prostitution is the way out for the woman who fails to find herself a permanent breadwinner. Prostitution, under capitalism provides men with the opportunity of having sexual relationships without having to take upon themselves the responsibility of caring materially for the women until the grave.

But if prostitution has such a hold and is so widespread even in Russia, how are we to struggle against it? In order to answer this question we must first analyse in more detail the factors giving rise to prostitution. Bourgeois science and its academics love to prove to the world, that prostitution is a pathological phenomenon, i.e. that it is the result of the abnormalities of certain women, just as some people are criminal by nature, some women, it is argued, are prostitutes by nature. Regardless of where or how such women might have lived, they would have turned to a life of sin. Marxists and the more conscientious scholars, doctors and statisticians have shown clearly that the idea of “inborn disposition” is false. Prostitution is above all a social phenomenon; it is closely connected to the needy position of woman and her economic dependence on man in marriage and the family. The roots of prostitution are m economics. Woman is on the one hand placed in an economically vulnerable position, and on the other hand has been conditioned by centuries of education to expect material favours from a man in return for sexual favours – whether these are given within or outside the marriage tie. This is the root of the problem. Here is the reason for prostitution.

If the bourgeois academics of the Lombroso-Tarnovsky school were correct in maintaining that prostitutes are born with the marks of corruption and sexual abnormality, how would one explain the well-known fact that in a time of crisis and unemployment the number of prostitutes immediately increases? How would one explain the fact that the purveyors of “living merchandise” who travelled to tsarist Russia from the other countries of western Europe always found a rich harvest in areas where crops had failed and the population was suffering from famine, whereas they came away with few recruits from areas of plenty? Why do so many of the women who are allegedly doomed by nature to ruin only take to prostitution in years of hunger and unemployment?

It is also significant that in the capitalist countries prostitution recruits its servants from the propertyless sections of the population. Low-paid work, homelessness, acute poverty and the need to support younger brothers and sisters: these are the factors that produce the largest percentage of prostitutes. If the bourgeois theories about the corrupt and criminal disposition were true, then all classes of the population ought to contribute equally to prostitution. There ought to he the same proportion of corrupt women among the rich as among the poor. But professional prostitutes, women who live by their bodies, are with rare exceptions recruited from the poorer classes. Poverty, hunger, deprivation and the glaring social inequalities that are the basis of the bourgeois system drive these women to prostitution.

Or again one might point to the fact that prostitutes in the capitalist countries are drawn, according to the statistics, from the thirteen to twenty-three age-group. Children and young women, in other words. And the majority of these girls are alone and without a home. Girls from wealthy backgrounds who have the excellent bourgeois family to protect them turn to prostitution only very occasionally. The exceptions are usually victims of tragic circumstances. More often than not they are victims of the hypocritical “double morality”. The bourgeois family abandons the girl who has “sinned” and she – alone, without support and branded by the scorn of society – sees prostitution as the only way out.

We can therefore list as factors responsible for prostitution: low wages, social inequalities, the economic dependence of women upon men, and the unhealthy custom by which women expect to he supported in return for sexual favours instead of in return for their labour.

The workers’ revolution in Russia has shattered the basis of capitalism and has struck a blow at the former dependence of women upon men. All citizens are equal before the work collective. They are equally obliged to work for the common good and are equally eligible to the support of the collective when they need it. A woman provides for herself not by marriage but by the part she plays in production and the contribution she makes to the people’s wealth.

Relations between the sexes are being transformed. But we are still bound by the old ideas. Furthermore, the economic structure is far from being completely re-arranged in the new way, and communism is still a long way off. In this transitional period prostitution naturally enough keeps a strong hold. After all, even though the main sources of prostitution – private property and the policy of strengthening the family – have been eliminated, other factors are still in force. Homelessness, neglect, had housing conditions, loneliness and low wages for women are still with us. Our productive apparatus is still in a state of collapse, and the dislocation of the national economy continues. These and other economic and social conditions lead women to prostitute their bodies.

To struggle against prostitution chiefly means to struggle against these conditions – in other words, it means to support the general policy of the Soviet government – which is directed towards strengthening the basis of communism and the organisation of production.

Some people might say that since prostitution will have no place once the power of the workers and the basis of communism are strengthened, no special campaign is necessary. This type of argument fails to take into account the harmful and disuniting effect that prostitution has on the construction of a new communist society.

The correct slogan was formulated at the first All-Russian Congress of Peasant and Working Woman: “A woman of the Soviet labour republic is a free citizen with equal rights, and cannot and must not be the object of buying and selling.” The slogan was proclaimed, but nothing was done. Above all, prostitution harms the national economy and hinders the further development of the productive forces. We know that we can only overcome chaos and improve industry if we harness the efforts and energies of the workers and if we organise the available labour power of both men and women in the most rational way. Down with the unproductive labour of housework and child-minding! Make way for work that is organised and productive and serves the work collective! These are the slogans we must take up.

And what, after all, is the professional prostitute? She is a person whose energy is not used for the collective; a person who lives off others, by taking from the rations of others. Can this sort of thing be allowed in a workers’ republic? No, it cannot. It cannot be allowed, because it reduces the reserves of energy and the number of working hands that are creating the national wealth and the general welfare, from the point of view of the national economy the professional prostitute is a labour deserter. For this reason we must ruthlessly oppose prostitution. In the interests of the economy we must start an immediate fight to reduce the number of prostitutes and eliminate prostitution in all its forms.

It is time we understood that the existence of prostitution contradicts the basic principles of a workers’ republic which fights all forms of unearned wages. In the three years of the revolution our ideas on this subject have changed greatly. A new philosophy, which has little m common with the old ideas, is in the making. Three years ago we regarded a merchant as a completely respectable person. Provided his accounts were in order and he did not cheat or dupe his customer too obviously, he was rewarded with the title of “merchant of the first guild”, “respected citizen”, etc.

Since the revolution attitudes, to trade and merchants have changed radically. We now call the “honest merchant” a speculator, and instead of awarding him honorary tides we drag him before a special committee and put him in a forced labour camp. Why do we do this?’ Because we know that we can only build a new communist economy if all adult citizens are involved in productive labour. The person who does not work and who lives off someone else or on an unearned wage harms the collective and the republic. We, therefore, hunt down the speculators, the traders and the hoarders who all live off unearned income. We must fight prostitution as another form of labour desertion.

We do not, therefore, condemn prostitution and fight against it as a special category but as an aspect of labour desertion. To us in the workers’ republic it is not important whether a woman sells herself to one man or to many, whether she is classed as a professional prostitute selling her favours to a succession of clients or as a wife selling herself to her husband. All women who avoid work and do not take part in production or in caring for children are liable, on the same basis as prostitutes, to be forced to work. We cannot make a difference between a prostitute and a lawful wife kept by her husband, whoever her husband is – even if he is a “commissar”. It is failure to take part in productive work that is the common thread connecting all labour deserters. The workers’ collective condemns the prostitute not because she gives her body to many men but because, like the legal wife who stays at home, she does no useful work for the society.

The second reason for organising a deliberate and well-planned campaign against prostitution is in order to safeguard the people’s health. Soviet Russia does not want illness and disease to cripple and weaken its citizens and reduce their work capacity. And prostitution spreads venereal disease. Of course, it is not the only means by which the disease is transmitted. Crowded living conditions, the absence of standards of hygiene, communal crockery and towels also play a part. Furthermore, in this time of changing moral norms and particularly when there is also a continual movement of troops from place to place, a sharp rise in the number of cases of venereal disease occurs independently of commercial prostitution. The civil war, for example, is raging in the fertile southern regions.

The Cossack men have been beaten and have retreated with the Whites. Only the women are left behind in the villages. They have plenty of everything except husbands. The Red Army troops enter the village They are billeted out and stay several weeks. Free relationships develop between the soldiers and the women. These relationships have nothing to do with prostitution: the woman goes with the man voluntarily because she is attracted to him, and there is no thought on her part of material gain. It is not the Red Army soldier who provides for the woman but rather the opposite. The woman looks after him for the period that the troops are quartered in the village. The troops move away, but they leave venereal disease behind. Infection spreads. The diseases develop, multiply, and threaten to maim the younger generation.

At a joint meeting of the department of maternity protection and the women’s department, Professor Kol’tsov spoke about eugenics, the science of maintaining and improving the health of humanity. Prostitution is closely connected with this problem, since it is one of the main ways in which infections are spread. The theses of the interdepartmental commission on the struggle against prostitution point out that the development of special measures to fight venereal diseases is an urgent task. Steps must of course be taken to deal with all sources of the diseases, and not solely with prostitution in the way that hypocritical bourgeois society does. But although the diseases are spread to some extent by everyday circumstances, it is nevertheless essential to give everyone a clear idea of the role prostitution plays. The correct organisation of sexual education for young people is especially important. We must arm young people with accurate information allowing them to enter life with their eyes open. We must not remain silent any longer over questions connected with sexual life; we must break with false and bigoted bourgeois morality.

Prostitution is not compatible with the Soviet workers’ republic for a third reason: it does not contribute to the development and strengthening of the basic class character and of the proletariat and its new morality.

What is the fundamental quality of the working class? What is its strongest moral weapon in the struggle? Solidarity and comradeship is the basis of communism. Unless this sense is strongly developed amongst working people, the building of a truly communist society is inconceivable. Politically conscious communists should therefore logically be encouraging the development of solidarity in every way and fighting against all that hinders its development – Prostitution destroys the equality, solidarity and comradeship of the two halves of the working class. A man who buys the favours of a woman does not see her as a comrade or as a person with equal rights. He sees the woman as dependent upon himself and as an unequal creature of a lower order who is of less worth to the workers’ state. The contempt he has for the prostitute, whose favours he has bought, affects his attitude to all women. The further development of prostitution, instead of allowing for the growth of comradely feeling and solidarity, strengthens the inequality of the relationships between the sexes.

Prostitution is alien and harmful to the new communist morality which is in the process of forming. The task of the party as a whole and of the women’s departments in particular must he to launch a broad and resolute campaign against this legacy from the past. In bourgeois capitalist society all attempts at fighting prostitution were a useless waste of energy, since the two circumstances which gave rise to the phenomenon – private property and the direct material dependence of the majority of women upon men – were firmly established. In a workers’ republic the situation has changed. Private property has been abolished and all citizens of the republic are obliged to work. Marriage has ceased to be a method by which a woman can find herself a “breadwinner” and thus avoid the necessity of working or providing for herself by her own labour. The major social factors giving rise to prostitution are, in Soviet Russia, being eliminated. A number of secondary economic and social reasons remain with which it is easier to come to terms. The women’s departments must approach the struggle energetically, and they will find a wide field for activity.

On the Central Department’s initiative, an interdepartmental commission for the struggle against prostitution was organised last year. For a number of reasons the work of the commission was neglected for a time, but since the autumn of this year there have been signs of life, and with the co-operation of Dr Gol'man and the Central (Women’s) Department some work has been planned and organised. Representatives from the People’s Commissariats of health, labour, social security and industry, the women’s department and the union of communist youth are all involved. The commission has printed the theses in bulletin no. 4, distributes circulars to all regional departments of social security outlining a plan to establish similar commissions all over the country, and has set about working out a number of concrete measures to tackle the circumstances which give rise to prostitution.

The interdepartmental commission considers it necessary that the women’s departments take an active part in this work, since prostitution affects the propertyless women of the working class. It is our job it is the job of the women’s departments – to organise a mass campaign around the question of prostitution. We must approach this issue with the interests of the work collective in mind and ensure that the revolution within the family is completed, and that relationships between the sexes are put on a more human footing.

The interdepartmental commission, as the theses make clear, takes the view that the struggle against prostitution is connected in a fundamental way with the realisation of our Soviet politics in the sphere of economics and general construction. Prostitution will he finally eliminated when the basis of communism is strengthened. This is the truth which determines our actions. But we also need to understand the importance of creating a communist morality. The two tasks are closely connected: the new morality is created by a new economy, but we will not build a new communist economy without the support of a new morality. Clarity and precise thinking are essential in this matter, and we have nothing to fear from the truth. Communists must openly accept that unprecedented changes in the nature of sexual relationships are taking place. This revolution is called into being by the change in the economic structure and by the new role which women play in the productive activity of the workers’ state. In this difficult transition period, when the old is being destroyed and the new is in the process of being created, relations between the sexes sometimes develop that are not compatible with the interests of the collective. But there is also something healthy m the variety of relationships practised.

Our party and the women’s departments in particular must analyse the different forms in order to ascertain which are compatible with the general tasks of the revolutionary class and serve to strengthen the collective and its interests. Behaviour that is harmful to the collective must he rejected and condemned by communists. This is how the Central Women’s Department has understood the task of the interdepartmental commission. It is not only necessary to take practical measures to fight the situation and the circumstances that nourish prostitution and to solve the problems of housing and loneliness etc., but also to help the working class to establish its morality alongside its dictatorship.

The interdepartmental commission points to the fact that in Soviet Russia prostitution is practised (a) as a profession and (b) as a means of earning supplementary income. The first form of prostitution is less common and in Petrograd, for example, the number of prostitutes has not been significantly reduced by round-ups of the professionals. The second type of prostitution is widespread in bourgeois capitalist countries (in Petrograd; before the revolution, out of a total of fifty thousand prostitutes only about six or seven thousand were registered), and continues under various guises in our Russia, Soviet ladies exchange their favours for a pair of high-heeled boots; working women and mothers of families sell their favours for flour. Peasant women sleep with the heads of the anti-profiteer detachments in the hope of saving their boarded food, and office workers sleep with their bosses in return for rations, shoes and in the hope of promotion.

How should we fight this situation? The interdepartmental commission had to tackle the important question of whether or not prostitution should be made a criminal offence. Many of the representatives of the commission were inclined to the view that prostitution should be an offence, arguing that professional prostitutes are clearly labour deserters. If such a law were passed, the round-up and placing of prostitutes in forced labour camps would become accepted policy.

The Central Department spoke in firm and absolute opposition to such, a step, pointing out that if prostitutes were to be arrested on such grounds, then so ought all legal wives who are maintained by their husbands and do not contribute to society. The prostitute and the house-wife are both labour deserters, and you cannot send one to a forced labour camp without sending the other. This was the position the Central Department took, and it was supported by the representative of the Commissariat of justice. If we take labour desertion as our criterion, we cannot help punishing all forms of labour desertion. Marriage or the existence of certain relationships between the sexes is of no significance and can play no role in defining criminal offences in a labour republic.

In bourgeois society a woman is condemned to persecution not when she does no work that is useful to the collective or because she sells herself for material gain (two-thirds of women in bourgeois society sell themselves to their legal husbands), but when her sexual relationships are informal and of short duration. Marriage in bourgeois society is characterised by its duration and by the official nature of its registration. Property inheritance is preserved in this way. Relationships that are of a temporary nature and lack official sanction are considered by the bigots and hypocritical upholders of bourgeois morality to be shameful.

Can we who uphold the interests of working people define relationships that are temporary and unregistered as criminal? Of course we cannot. Freedom in relationships between the sexes does not contradict communist ideology. The interests of the work collective are not affected by the temporary or lasting nature of a relationship or by its basis in love, passion or passing physical attraction.

A relationship is harmful and alien to the collective only if material bargaining between the sexes is involved, only when worldly calculations are a substitute for mutual attraction. Whether the bargaining takes the form of prostitution or of a legal marriage relationship is not important. Such unhealthy relationships cannot be permitted, since they threaten equality and solidarity. We must therefore condemn all prostitution, and go as far as explaining to these legal wives are “kept women” what a sad and intolerable part they are playing in the worker’s state.

Can the presence or otherwise of material bargaining be used as a criterion in determining what is and what is not a criminal offence? can we really persuade a couple to admit whether or not there is an element of calculation in their relationship? Would such a law be workable, particularly in view of the fact that at the present time a great variety of relationships are practised among working people and ideas on sexual morality are in constant flux? Where does prostitution end and the marriage of convenience begin? The interdepartmental commission opposed the suggestion that prostitutes be punished for prostituting, i.e. for buying and selling. They confined themselves to suggesting that all people convicted of work desertion be directed to the social security network and from there either to the section of the Commissariat that deals with the deployment of the labour force or to sanatoria and hospitals. A prostitute is not a special case; as with other categories of deserter, she is only sent to do forced labour if she repeatedly avoids work. Prostitutes are not treated any differently from other labour deserters. This is an important and courageous step, worthy of the world’s first labour republic.

The question of prostitution as an offence was set out in thesis no. 15. The next problem that had to be tackled was whether or not the law should punish the prostitute’s clients. There were some on the commission who were in favour of this, but they had to give up the idea, which did not follow on logically from our basic premises. How is a client to be defined? Is he someone who buys a woman’s favours? In that case the husbands of many legal wives will be guilty. Who is to decide who is a client and who is not? It was suggested that this problem be studied further before a decision was made, but the Central Department and the majority of the commission were against this. As the representative of the Commissariat of justice, admitted, if it were not possible to define exactly when a crime had been committed, then the idea of punishing clients was untenable. The position of the Central Department was once again adopted.

But while the commission accepted that clients cannot he punished by the law, it spoke out for the moral condemnation of those who visit prostitutes or in any way make a business out of prostitution. In fact the commission’s theses point out that all go-betweens who make money out of prostitution can be prosecuted as persons making money other than by their own labour. Legislative proposals to this effect have been drawn up by the interdepartmental commission and put before the Council, of People’s Commissars. They will come into force in the neat future.

It remain for me to indicate the purely practical measures which can help to reduce prostitution, and in the implementation of which the women’s departments can play an active role. It cannot be doubted that the poor and inadequate wages that women receive continue to serve as one of the real factors pushing women into prostitution. According to the law the Wages of male and female workers are equal, but in practice most women are engaged in unskilled work. The problem of improving their skills through the development of a network of special courses must he tackled. The task of the women’s departments must be to bring influence to bear on, the education authorities to step up the provision of vocational training for working women.

The political backwardness of women and their lack of social awareness is a second reason for prostitution. The women’s departments should increase their work amongst proletarian women. The best way to fight prostitution is to raise the political consciousness of the broad masses of women and to draw them into the revolutionary struggle to build communism.

The fact that the housing situation is still not solved also encourages prostitution. The women’s department and the commission for the struggle against prostitution can and must have their say over the solution of this problem. The interdepartmental commission is working out a project on the provision of house communes for young working people and on the establishment of houses that will provide accommodation for women when they are newly arrived in any area, However, unless the women’s departments and the komsomols in the provinces show some initiative and take independent action in this matter, all the directives of the commission will remain beautiful and benevolent resolutions – but they will remain on paper. And there is so much we can and must do. The local women’s departments must work in conjunction with the education commissions to raise the issue of the correct organisation of sex education in schools. They could also hold a series of discussions and lectures on marriage, the family and the history of relationships between the sexes, highlighting the dependence of these phenomena and of sexual morality itself on economic factors.

It is time we were clear on the question of sexual relationships. It is time we approached this question in a spirit of ruthless and scientific criticism. I already said that the interdepartmental commission has accepted that professional prostitutes are to be treated in the same way as labour deserters It therefore follows that women who have a work- book but are practising prostitution as a secondary source of income cannot he prosecuted. But this does not mean that we do not fight against prostitution. We are aware, as I have already pointed out more than once today, that prostitution harm the work collective, negatively affecting the psychology of men and women and distorting feelings of equality and solidarity.

Our task is to re-educate the work collective and to bring its psychology into line with the economic tasks of the working class. We must ruthlessly discard the old ideas and attitudes to which we cling through habit Economics has outstripped ideology. The old economic structure is disintegrating and with it the old type of marriage, but we cling to bourgeois life styles. We are ready to reject all the aspects of the old system and welcome the revolution in all spheres of life, only . . . don’t touch the family, don’t try to change the family! Even politically aware communists are afraid to look squarely at the truth, they brush aside the evidence which clearly shows that the old family ties are weakening and that new forms of economy dictate new forms of relationships between the sexes.

Soviet power recognises that woman has a part to play in the national economy and has placed her on an equal footing with the man in this respect, but in everyday life we still hold to the “old ways” and are prepared to accept as normal marriages which are based on the material dependency of a woman on a man. In our struggle against prostitution we must clarify our attitude to marital relations that are based on the same principles of “buying and selling”. We must learn to be ruthless over this issue; we must not be deflected from our purpose by sentimental complaints that “by your criticism and scientific preaching you encroach on sacred family ties”. We have to explain unequivocally that the old form of the family has been outstripped. Communist, society has no need of it.

The bourgeois world gave its blessing to the exclusiveness and isolation of the married couple from the collective; in the atomised and individualistic bourgeois society, the family was the only protection from the storm of life, a quiet harbour in a sea of hostility and competition. The family was an independent and enclosed collective. In communist society this cannot be. Communist society presupposes such a strong sense of the collective that any possibility of the existence of the isolated, introspective family group is excluded. At the present moment ties of kinship, family and even of married life can be seen to be weakening. New ties between working people are being forged and comradeship, common interests, collective responsibility and faith in the collective are establishing themselves as the highest principles of morality.

I will not take it upon myself to prophesy the form that marriage or relationships between the sexes will assume in the future. But of one thing there is no doubt: under communism all dependence of women upon men and all the elements of material calculation found m modern marriage will be absent. Sexual relationships will be based on a healthy instinct for reproduction prompted by the abandon of young love, or by fervent passion, or by a blaze of physical attraction or by a soft light of intellectual and emotional harmony. Such sexual relationships have nothing in common with prostitution. Prostitution is terrible because it is an act of violence by the woman upon herself in the name of material gain. Prostitution is I naked act of material calculation which leaves no room for considerations of love and passion. Where passion and attraction begin, prostitution ends. Under communism, prostitution and the contemporary family will disappear. Healthy, joyful and free relationships between the sexes will develop. A new generation will come into being, independent and courageous and with a strong sense of the collective: a generation which places the good of the collective above all else.

Comrades! We are laying the foundations for this communist future. It is in our power to hasten the advent of this future. We must strengthen the sense of solidarity within the working class. We must encourage this sense of togetherness. Prostitution hinders the development of solidarity, and we therefore call upon the women’s departments to begin an immediate campaign to root out his evil.

Comrades! Our task is to cut out the roots that feed prostitution. Our task is to wage a merciless struggle against all the remnants of individualism and of the former, type of marriage. Our task is to revolutionise, attitudes in the sphere of sexual relationships, to bring them into line with the interest of the working collective. When the communist collective has eliminated the contemporary forms of marriage and the family, the problem of prostitution will cease to exist.

Let us get to work, comrades. The new family is already in the process of creation, and the great family of the triumphant world proletariat is developing and growing stronger.

Letter to Dora Montefiore (1921)

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SUCCESS TO OUR WORK
Letter by Comrade ALEXANDRA KOLLANTAI (People’s Commissar for Propaganda) to Comrade DORA B. M. MONTEFIORE

Moscow Jan 26, 1921

Dearest Comrade and Friend, – It was quite a treat to hear at last from you dear Comrade Montefiore. How happy I should be if I could show you all the revolutionary and really constructive work that has been done in these last few years! Sometimes it seems as if centuries have passed, the change all around is so great. Not only in the institutions, but especially in the psychology. For instance: In the bourgeois Capitalist States one regards a commercial man, a merchant as “a decent citizen” who does not commit or buys at “normal” prices. How different is it now in Soviet Russia! We have no dealers, no merchants, no shopkeepers as a normal and legal thing; and if people do speculate, and sell and buy, they do it secretly, knowing that commerce is a crime, not only by law, but as a moral and social principle. Here we have the great change! It would have needed a hundred years or more to make people understand that only labour, productive labour, is regarded as normal and is esteemed by social opinion; now we have this evolution of mind accomplished in three years’ time!

Relations Between Men and Women.

Many other examples show the same thing. Especially is this taking place in family life and in the relations between men and women. The women are getting more independent and more sound; new and healthy relations, based on solidarity between men and women in our first workers’ republic of the world.

Nationalisation of Women

We laugh at the stories which the bourgeois papers publish about Russia especially about the nationalisation of women! ... Poor bourgeois correspondents! They have no idea how the working and peasant women have grown in these few years, of their self-activity in a new workers’ State, where the woman is regarded as an equal! Who could venture to “nationalise” a free, independent and, politically as well as economically active citizen woman of our Soviet Russia?

I should like to see the faces of the liars who tell such stupid stories about us, if they asked a Russian working class girl if she was “nationalised"! They play such an active part in our revolution that old prejudices against the sex are dying out little by little.

Women in the Government

We have women not only as Soviet members, but also as presidents in local Soviets. Many women act as commissars in all branches of social and State life, and at the front. One has even been decorated with the Red Star for her work as Political Commissar at the front during these years. We have had even one People’s Commissar,[1] and hundreds of Communist women are at the head of different State departments, especially in the Commissariat of Public Health, of Social Welfare, Public Education and Public Feeding (organisation of communal kitchens and rationing the goods to the population according to our labour card system).

Our Party is doing good work amongst the working women. We have a special women’s section in each local party committee. I am now at the head of the whole work. We have about 400,000 organised women, the majority of whom are Communists belonging to the Party (no sex division, no special organisation of women in the Party itself). The rest are grouped round our Soviet work, controlled by our Communist Women’s Department.

Our work is much harder when we try to get at the peasant women! But little by little we succeed in gaining their sympathy for Communism.

Methods of Propaganda

A very good method of enlightening the women is by the so-called “non-party” conferences, where we, the Communist Women’s Department, invite delegates from all the villages, factories, workshops and housewives (elected in Town-District Conferences). Political and economic questions are discussed, and generally the non-party” conferences end by passing all our Communist resolutions!

Our tactics are: less agitation, more deeds! More practical work to help the working women, who have to suffer much under the hard conditions of a transitory historical and economic period!

Women’s Papers

We have seventy four weekly papers for working women (a paper in each Government Province), a monthly paper, a weekly official bulletin. The work is growing fast. Under our influence we are now working out a law on prostitution.

Mothers and Children

But what I would like you to see is our children’s social education! The institutions are not new as regards organisation — but the spirit that prevails there is new and inspiring! And the children are so happy in our homes for babies, or in children’s homes! You must not think that we take the children by force from the mothers! Nothing of the kind. We not only try to help our working women who are over-burdened with work at home, and with professional work, and use their labour energy more productively for the sake of their own prosperity and the prosperity of their children and all children of the Soviet Republic! Our cry is: Mothers: learn to be loving mothers not only towards your own child but towards all children of our Workers’ Republic! But there is a lack of homes; we have not plenty of clothes for our nine million children; we have not paper enough for our school books, etc. That means our task is double as hard. And still we do all we can to feed the children and help the mother. All children in the towns are fed up to 16 years of age by the State.

I could write for hours about our “fairy tale” land where the sunny side of creative work is darkened often by many shady sides of our life and tactics. I am not always in favour of many of the tactical methods of our Party; I know how far we are from real Communism; but I feel we are on the way to it.

No Private Property.

The biggest obstacle is removed: we have no private property, no capitalists to against I And if we suffer, we suffer more because the production in the whole world is disorganised; the productive forces have not developed during these terrible years of war. But we are going forward; we are beginning to organise our industry on new, communistic lines, and I believe we, sooner than any capitalist country, will enter into a period of prosperity. We work for the benefit of the social body — and we work hard, with enthusiasm.

If only the scoundrels, the capitalists of Great Britain, America, etc. would not always be doing destructive work, attacking Soviet Russia! But we see that their end is near. The workers of England and other countries are no longer fools; they know who their enemy is. And the movement is growing. I am sure your comrades all understand. Against unemployment, no other methods can help except the putting aside of all the gentlemen, the capitalists who DISORGANISE PRODUCTION by anarchistic methods of ruling industry and by means of never-ending competition!

I wish you success in your, or rather OUR work !

1. Myself, as you know. I was twice People’s Commissar of Public Welfare from October, I917 and then in the Ukraine as People’s Commissar for Propaganda.

Alexandra Kollantai Archive

Workers’ Opposition (1921)

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Introduction

I

Alexandra Kollontai’s text The Workers’ Opposition was written in Russian, during the early weeks of 1921. It was an attempt to give a more detailed justification to the Theses on the Trade Union Question, submitted by the Workers’ Opposition for discussion at the 10th Congress (March 1921) of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (The Theses themselves were published in Pravda on January 25, 1921). The document was published in England almost immediately, in Sylvia Pankhurst’s Workers’ Dreadnought (April 22 – August 19, 1921) and reprinted in Chicago later that year. In Russia, it was circulated at the 10th Congress, but banned immediately afterwards (as part of the outlawing of the Workers’ Opposition), following the ban on organised factions which had been voted at that Congress. Solidarity republished Kollontai’s text in 1961. The publication aroused considerable interest (as judged by sales) but little comment at the time. Translations appeared in several languages.

Destalinisation, Hungary ’56, Czechoslovakia ’68, and the spread of left-communist ideas in the wake of the student unrest of the 1960s all contributed to making the debate on the nature of the Soviet state more vigorous and important. Hence a second edition in 1968, and now a third one.

II

We are not reprinting this text because we agree with the analysis contained in it (in many respects we do not, as will be made clear in the rest of this Introduction), but rather because of the importance of the text itself in relation to the question of the causes of the degeneration of the Russian revolution.

Much more is now available than 20 years ago concerning the darker sides of the Russian revolution before Lenin’s death. Daniels, Avrich, Voline, Brinton and others have shattered the myth of Stalin being mainly responsible for the degeneration of a revolution which – according to the myth – had remained fundamentally sound under Lenin’s leadership. Even Trotskyist historians have had to give up the myth (see Liebman’s recent Leninism under Lenin). The pre-1923 closet has turned out to contain an impressive number of skeletons. (The Solidarity footnotes – written in 1961 – which follow Kollontai’s text, may be useful to those not acquainted with the works referred to above; they supply some basic information on the facts Kollontai refers to, and they start to explore the role of Bolshevik ideology and practice in the degeneration of the Russian revolution. The interested reader may also want to read Paul Cardan’s preface to the French translation of this text, republished as a Solidarity pamphlet: From Bolshevism to Bureaucracy.)

But nothing can substitute for the flavour of the original documents, testifying to how historical events were perceived by their contemporaries. Kollontai’s text, an admirable blend of seriousness and sarcasm, of analysis and involvement, of clarity and passion, is probably the liveliest and most interesting document showing that, even among leading Bolsheviks and as early as 1920, i.e. nearly four years before Lenin’s death, a consciousness was spreading that the Party’s policies did not reflect the interests of the working class: the systematic violation of the principles of democracy and working class power at the point of production was having its effects on many rank-and-file members and on a few leaders.

The Workers’ Opposition is an incisive critique of the developing bureaucracy. It is a critique which, in spite of a number of limitations to be discussed below, is far more penetrating and radical than those of the various tendencies inside the Bolshevik Party which, for one reason or another, were – after Lenin’s death – to oppose Stalin’s “usurpation” of the Russian revolution.

It is full of glimpses of a dismal situation where there is no democracy and little freedom of opinion and criticism; where the workers have already been totally expropriated of all power to decide (even on small things like equipping a dining room or organizing a nursery); where the Party and Soviet bureaucrats already enjoy considerable privileges (see the discussion of housing); and where comrades who dare to disagree with decrees from above are still being persecuted (notice the word still , had persecution of dissenting comrades then already been going on for a long time?). This is a picture usually associated with Stalinist, rather than Leninist, Russia.

It is also interesting that the remedies suggested by Kollontai contain some demands now usually rather associated with the anarchist tradition: decisions should come from below; persons in a position of power should be elected by, responsible to, and revocable by, those affected by their decisions, the creativity of the revolutionaries must be considered the greatest resource for the advice of the revolution, and must not be stifled by delegating decisions to bureaucrats, and so on.

III

The main interest of this text, then, lies in that it clearly demonstrates the extent of bureaucratization already present in Russia in 1920. But there is another reason why it is important: this text shows the inability of even a ‘leftist’ and independent thinker like Kollontai to perceive some crucial aspects of bureaucratization, the reason probably being her still largely Marxist analytical framework. Kollontai’s analysis is very similar to (in fact, it is probably one of the sources of) the later theories attributing the degeneration of the Party to unavoidable factors like the backwardness of Russia, the small relative size of the working class, and the Civil War.

Her diagnosis of the cause of bureaucratization is centred on the penetration of non-working-class elements into the Party: peasants, and bourgeois elements (specialists and the like). Non-Bolshevik, as she is in her faith in the working class and in the primacy of class over Party, she is still a Marxist and a Bolshevik in her belief that the class origin of the members of a political organization is the only relevant factor determining the organization’s policies. The working class, according to her analysis, is good; other classes are evil; the Bolshevik Party’s basic principles are sound, its leadership is revolutionary; if the Party were made up of workers only, there would be no need to worry.

But – so the argument went on – as the Party is not only made up of workers and could not be, in the Russian conditions of the time – the workers had to protect themselves from ‘their’ party. This, it was believed, could be achieved by expelling non-proletarian elements. It was also concluded that more power should be given to the trade unions, whose personnel comes from the working class: There, the class atmosphere is “thicker.”

But from Kollontai’s text itself it emerges that the great majority of Bolshevik leaders (and presumably of cadres too – given the limited success of the Workers’ Opposition propaganda campaign) distrusted the workers, were in favour of the Party controlling everything, wanted “one-man management,” favoured the appointment principle as against the election principle, and conceived of the trade unions simply as one more coercive apparatus to get the workers to work harder. The consistency of all the positions with the basic tenets of Bolshevik Marxism (the workers by themselves can only develop a trade union consciousness, the Party is the collective consciousness of the working class, the development of the forces of production has absolute priority, etc. ) is indisputable. Kollontai’s prescriptions amounted to a rejection of those tenets. This rejection, if examined carefully, would have come to imply that:

(1) organisations develop dynamics of their own, depending on their ideology, structure and power,

(2) the ideology, structure and power of the Bolshevik Party was eminently favourable to bureaucratization, i.e. to the development of vested interests in seeking and defending privileges via the monopoly of decisional power.

But then Kollontai would have had to admit that Bolshevik ideology and organizational structure could themselves – and within a few months – turn the best workers into bureaucrats. Bolshevism would have stood accused of being itself a cause of the degeneration of the revolution.

IV

It is doubtful that Kollontai had realized the more general implications of what she was arguing. In this text, she does not recognise the fact that the Bolshevik Party could (and did) ‘degenerate’ quite apart from any infiltration’s of non-revolutionary elements, that its policies, from the very inception of the revolution, aimed at depriving the workers of any real decisional authority, and actively contributed to the workers’ retreat from the historical stage.

Again, she should not have identified, as she implicitly does, workers’ management of production with management by the unions. By 1921 the Russian unions were already strongly under Party control, and already in an advanced stage of bureaucratization. As Brinton has shown in detail, the Bolshevik policy in the first year or so after the revolution was to remove all questions of industrial management from the hands of autonomous workers’ committees and vest them in the hands of the unions or other “economic” organizations. At a later stage (from about 1919 on) the Bolsheviks were to shed even the pretence of union control and sought firmly to place all matters of industrial policy directly in the hands of the Party. Whether Kollontai and the Workers’ Opposition realized it or not, their protest on this question was really only aimed at this second phase of Bolshevik policy.

It can obviously be argued that Kollontai was not speaking her whole mind, but rather moderating her criticisms and demands for tactical reasons: she must have known, it could be argued, that she was sounding already extremist enough – Lenin, in fact, accused her text of petty-bourgeois anarchism); and that the union apparatus, although far from ideal, was the only significant organizational structure where the Workers’ Opposition might find support. But the subsequent actions of many members of the Workers’ Opposition suggest that they were not more radical than this text implies. They were ready to limit, but not to endanger, the primacy of the Party, as shown by the fact that many of them denounced the Kronstadt uprising and even fought against the sailors.

Thus, there seems to be a significant difference between the Kronstadt ‘rebels’ and the Workers Opposition: the latter did not defend the right of other parties to exist (and therefore, presumably, to supplant the Bolshevik Party if democratic elections so decided). Their democratic aspirations were considerably more limited than those of the Kronstadt sailors. All opposition had to be within the Party. This may help explain why, on the whole, they do not seem to have put up a tough struggle against the decision to dissolve them as an organised group, and why many of them remained Bolshevik to the end, including Alexandra Kollontai.

V

Our Introduction to the previous reprint concluded with the following words:

“Both East and West, the working class has – during the last fifty years – gone through a tremendous experience: the experience of ‘its own’ leaderships, in fact of all ‘leaderships’ claiming to act on its behalf. And deep down it is beginning to draw the lessons of a whole historical epoch. These are that its emancipation will only be achieved and maintained through its own sustained efforts. Over a hundred years ago Marx and Engels wrote that ‘the emancipation of the working class is the task of the working class itself and that the proletarian movement was the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority’. In 1921 Alexandra Kollontai and the Workers’ Opposition perceived some aspects of this essential truth through the terrible experience of the bureaucratic counter-revolution. Today, after the open admissions of the 20th and 22nd Congresses of the CPSU, after what the whole world witnessed in Hungary and Czechoslovakia, and after the innumerable and as yet undocumented horrors of the Stalin epoch (and of the period immediately preceding it), it is the task of revolutionaries to take a dispassionate look at reality, to draw all the lessons and fearlessly to proclaim them”

These lines no longer seem to be satisfactory as a conclusion. They reflect the concerns which were central to Solidarity’s activity at the time – namely, the effort to persuade revolutionaries that the disdain of democracy, the cult of leaders, the manipulatory tactics, which the Marxist movement had inherited from Stalinism, had their roots in Leninism itself. This truth is now much more widely accepted, especially in those countries which have experienced a radical student movement. The renewed interest in anarchism, the hippies in the USA, Rudi Dutschke in Germany, the Internationals Situationniste and Cohn-Bendit in France, the “metropolitan redskins” in 1977 in Italy, just to give a few examples, testify to the spread of the refusal of Leninism indeed, in many cases, of Marxism itself. The same holds true for large actions of the women’s movement.

As we ourselves developed an increasingly critical attitude towards Marxism, we could not avoid reconsidering the role assigned by Marxism to the working class. Our present opinions on this issue are not unanimous. I, for one, feel uneasy at the simplistic faith in the working class expressed by those concluding lines. They follow Kollontai in treating the workers as a homogeneous whole, all fundamentally revolutionary; while the other social groups, by implication, are classified as counter-revolutionary. On this second point, in her own time, Kollontai was justified enough; on the first, she was not. Already then, within the working class there were divisions and hierarchies, the most significant one being between the older, politically educated, skilled workers and the recently arrived, unskilled ones, the latter were almost absent from the 1917-18 Factory Committees, and there is evidence that the skilled workers felt they were entitled to leadership over them, and that frictions between the two strata were frequent.

The ‘left-communist’ and libertarian traditions seem to have paid too little attention to the internal division of the working class. Yet, in trying to define the working class, the following dilemma is inevitable: the more one tries to minimize the internal divisions and divergent interests of the working class, the smaller the working class must be taken to be (it is only half a joke to say that, in the USA, a homogeneous working class without privileged strata would include black unskilled women workers only; the larger one tries to make the working class the more evident internal cleavages and contrasts become. Even the best attempts to prove that the working class is not a minority of the working population (e.g. Braverman’s Labour and Monopoly Capital, Monthly Review Press, 1974) stop far short of demonstrating its capacity for political unity. It is not necessary to refer to racial division in the USA to know that hierarchies and division exist within the working class. For instance, better-paid workers usually bitterly oppose reductions in differentials. If unemployment can be made to fall on ethnic minorities or immigrants, racism or nationalism often develop among the employed white or non- immigrant workers. The concept of “Labour aristocracy,” criticisable as it may be, was born out of real historical problems.

These divisions cause some parts of the working class to be lukewarm or cold about radical struggles when these may endanger some of their own privileges (small as these may be), and resist radical ideologies which criticise these privileges. The vested interests of some sections of the working class surely had a role in the birth of so many working class organizations and leaderships which look abominable to a libertarian. And in so far as these divisions are the result of conscious action by the capitalists to divide and rule (for instance the conscious fostering of Paki-bashing, or of hierarchies in the factory, created by management, with little objective base, but internalized by the workers) they testify to a weakness of the working class, unable to prevent the division from becoming established and permeating its way of thinking. Considering these weaknesses, one should not be surprise to discover that many workers have internalized conservative values and modes of behaviour, and that many have opted for sectional struggles rather than struggles for the betterment of the whole class: with the consequent development of individualism, cynicism, sometimes racism, etc. More frequently, one should expect to find a sense of impotence, a fatalistic pessimism. Unfortunately, reality often confirms these expectations.

Luckily, theoretical analysis and recent struggles converge in demonstrating the increasing importance of concerns which are not specific to the trade “traditional” working class predicament (and on which, by the way, Marxism has very little to say): sexism, bureaucracy, authoritarianism, racism, nationalism, unfreedom East and West, etc. (it should be clear why many young workers do not see themselves as part of the working class: they do not feel that being a worker is the central, defining element of their personalities). There is no reason why radical struggles on these topics should mobilize only or mainly workers (so far, in fact, they have not). They can (as in May 68 in France) act as a catalyst, decrease the economist and corporation of working class struggles, and favour a return to more radical aspirations concerning work too; but they are also important in themselves – precisely because work and production are only one of the realms of social life which need revolutionizing.

So, unqualified references to the traditional belief in “the revolutionary role and revolutionary potential of the working class” are not only lacking in a solid theoretical base, but are also dangerous. They nurture an unjustified optimism on the strength and unity of the workers. And with it they breed mythical hopes with consequent waste of energies, disillusionment, despair, etc.; they favour a lack of critical attitude towards the negative sides of workers’ culture and activity (or passivity); they decrease the incentive to look for the causes of the workers’ weaknesses and for ways of fighting them. Perhaps even more dangerous, they favour a disdain or outright opposition towards the new struggles (sexual, ecological, anti-authoritarian, among students, in prisons, in mental hospitals, etc.), especially when workers remain indifferent or hostile to them (how many militants or rank-and-file papers actively fight the repression of homosexuals among workers?). And, at a more subtle level, by extolling workers because they are workers, they risk reinforcing the capitalist morality of productivity – of work as the essence of humanity and hence both a duty and something meritorious. One should rather try to spread the refusal of work and of the work ethic, a hatred of work as it is at Present.

One task of revolutionaries remains “to take a dispassionate look at reality, to draw all the lessons and fearlessly to proclaim them.” The provisional conclusions of attempting to do so seem to be that radical thought, nowadays, has no simple formulas, no clear allies. No one, and no social group, is entitled to a privileged role. But the other side of this situation is that opposition to present society is widespread in many more strata and groups than before. “The possibilities are nowadays at least as great as the despair” Horkheimer wrote in 1943. Let us explore and exploit these possibilities at us and the cracks in the social structure which our wedges can widen.

Theleme Anarres

Solidarity (London) comment

T. A. asks cogent questions about “the working class'’ which we expect to discuss further within Solidarity. As he suggests, our present opinions on this issue are not unanimous. The following points have been raised by members:

• Is not the domination of the ruling class and their systems over our lives most powerful and direct in production, rather than in education, sexuality, etc.? If this is so, can the transformation of the whole of society be achieved without the transformation of production relations as its pivot, whatever the difficulties? We ask this question not because we believe the domination in other areas is unimportant, or because we believe that radical changes in these areas automatically follow changes in the relations of production. We ask it because we believe that to omit all reference to the organization of work is to leave a dangerous gap in the range of our concerns.

• Does the potential influence of a social group on events depend only on its desires or numbers? Or does it also depend on how central a position it occupies in the functioning of the system? Such considerations could attribute key roles to parts of the constructive/destructive working class. For example workers concerned in the maintenance of nuclear submarines could play an important role in preventing a war, should they choose to do so out of all proportion to their numbers. This does not contradict the need for the co-operation of a large majority of people “working class” or not in the task of building a new society.

• T. A. refers to “new” areas of struggle. But are the “new” struggles any less divided by the relative privileges of their participants than the “old” ones? How much evidence is there, in any case, that lack of privileges necessarily makes for radicalism?

• Which has greater potential for change: the refusal of work as such, or the demand for socially useful, creative and co-operative work as an important need of life – though not, of course, the only need or necessarily the main one?

Individual or Collective Management?

Individual or Collective Management?

Before making clear what the cause is of the ever-widening break between the “Workers’ Opposition” and the official point of view held by our directing centres, it is necessary to call attention to two facts:

(1) The Workers’ Opposition sprang from the depths of the industrial proletariat of Soviet Russia. It is an outgrowth not only of the unbearable conditions of life and labour in which seven million industrial workers find themselves, but it is also a product of vacillation, inconsistencies, and outright deviations of our Soviet policy from the clearly expressed class-consistent principles of the Communist programme.

(2) The Opposition did not originate in some particular centre, was not a fruit of personal strife and controversy, but, on the contrary, covers the whole extent of Soviet Russia and meets with a resonant response. At present, there prevails an opinion that the whole root of the controversy arising between the Workers’ Opposition and the numerous currents noticeable among the leaders consists exclusively in difference of opinions regarding the problems that confront the Trade Unions.

This, however, is not true. The break goes deeper. Representatives of the Opposition are not always able clearly to express and define it, but as soon as some vital question of the reconstruction of our Republic is touched upon, controversies arise concerning a whole areas of cardinal economic and political questions.

For the first time, the two different points of view (as expressed by the leaders of our party and the representatives of our class-organised workers), found their refection at the Ninth Congress of our Party when that body was discussing the question: collective versus personal management in industry.

At that time, there was no opposition from any well-formed group, but it is very significant that collective management was favoured by all the representatives of the Trade Unions, while opposed to it were all the leaders of our Party, who are accustomed to appraise all events from the institutional angle. They require a good deal of shrewdness and skill to placate the socially heterogeneous and the sometimes politically hostile aspirations of the different social groups of the population as expressed by proletarians, petty owners, peasantry, and bourgeoisie in the person of specialists, and pseudo-specialists, of all kinds and degrees.

Why was it that only the Unions stubbornly defended the principle of collective management, even without being able to adduce scientific arguments in favour of it? And why was it that the specialists’ supporters at the same time defended the “one man management''?: The reason is that in this controversy, though both sides emphatically denied that there was a question of principle involved, two historically irreconcilable points of view had clashed. The “one man management’ is a product of the individualist conception of the bourgeois class. The “one man management’ is in principle an unrestricted, isolated, free will of one man, disconnected from the collective.

This idea finds its reflection in all spheres of human endeavour – beginning with the appointment of a sovereign for the State, and ending with a sovereign director of the factory. This is the supreme wisdom of bourgeois thought. The bourgeoisie do not believe in the power of a collective body. They like to whip the masses into an obedient flock, and drive them wherever their unrestricted will desires. The working class and its spokesmen, on the contrary, realise that the new Communist aspirations can be obtained only through the collective efforts of the workers themselves. The more the masses are developed in the expression of their collective will and common thought, the quicker and more complete will be the realization of working class aspirations, for it will create a new: homogeneous, unified, perfectly-arranged Communist Industry. Only those who are directly bound to industry can introduce into it animating innovations.

Rejection of a principle – the principle of collective management in the control of industry – was a tactical compromise on behalf of our Party, an act of adaptation; it was, moreover, an act of deviation from that class policy which we so zealously cultivated and defended during that first phase of the revolution.

Why did this happen? How did it happen that our Party, matured and tempered in the struggle of the revolution, was permitted to be carried away from the direct road, in order to journey along the roundabout path of adaptation? formerly condemned overtly and branded as “opportunism"? The answer to this question we shall give later. Meanwhile we shall turn to the question: how did the Workers’ Opposition form and develop?

1. Growth of The Workers Opposition

The Ninth Congress of the Russian Communist Party was held in the spring of 1920. During the summer, the apportion did not assert itself. Nothing was heard about it during the stormy debates that took place at the Second Congress of the Communist International. But deep at the bottom, there was taking place an accumulation of experience, of critical thought. The first expression of this process, incomplete at the time, was at the Party Conference in September, 1920. For a time, the thought preoccupied itself largely with rejections and criticisms. The Opposition had no well-formulated proposals of its own. But it was obvious that the Party was entering into a new phase of its life. Within its ranks, “lower” elements demand freedom of criticism, loudly proclaiming that bureaucracy strangles them, leaves no freedom for activity or for manifestation of initiative.

The leaders of the Party understood this undercurrent, and Comrade Zinoviev made many verbal promises as to freedom of criticism, widening of the scope of self-activity for the masses, persecution of leaders deviating from the principles of democracy, etc. A great deal was said and well said; but from words to deeds there is a considerable distance. The September conference, together with Zinoviev’s much-promising speech has changed nothing either in the Party itself or in the life of the masses. The root from which the Opposition sprouts, was not destroyed. Down at the bottom, a growth of particulate dissatisfaction, criticism and independence was taking place. This inarticulate ferment was noted even by the Party leaders and it quite unexpectedly generated sharp controversies. It is significant that in the central Party bodies, sharp controversies arose concerning the part that must be played by the Trade Unions. This, however, is only natural.

At present, this subject of controversy between the Opposition and the Party leaders, while not being the only one, is still the cardinal point of our whole domestic policy. Long before the Workers’ Opposition had appeared with its Theses and formed that basis on which, in its opinion, the dictatorship of the proletariat must rest, in the sphere of industrial reconstruction, the leaders in the Party had sharply disagreed in their appraisal of the part that is to be played by the working class organisations regarding the latters’ participation in the reconstruction of industries on a Communist basis. The Central Committee of the Party split into groups. Comrade Lenin stood in opposition to Trotsky, while Bukharin took the middle grounds.

Only at the Eighth Soviet Congress and immediately after did it become obvious that within the Party itself there was a united group kept together primarily by the Theses of principles concerning the Trade Unions. This group, the Opposition, having no great theoreticians, and if spite of a most resolute resistance from the most popular leaders of the Party was growing strong and spreading all over labouring Russia. Was it so only in Petrograd and Moscow? Not at all. Even from the Donetz basin, the Ural mountains, Siberia, and a number of other industrial centres came reports to the Central Committee that there also the Workers‘ Opposition was forming and acting.

It is true that not everywhere does the Opposition find itself in complete accord on all points with the workers of Moscow. At times there is much indefiniteness, pettiness and absurdity in the expressions, demands and motives of the Opposition. Even the cardinal points may differ. Yet there is everywhere one unalterable point – and this is the question: who shall develop the creative powers in the sphere of economic reconstruction? Shall it be purely class organs, directly connected by vital ties with the industries – that is, shall industrial unions undertake the work of reconstruction – or shall it be left to the Soviet machine which is separated from direct vital industrial activity and is axed in its composition? This is the root of the break. The Workers’ Opposition defends the first principle, where the leaders of the Party, whatever their differences on various secondary matters, are in complete accord on the cardinal point, and defend the second principle.

What does this mean? This means that our Party lives through its first serious crisis of the revolutionary period, and that the Opposition is not to be driven away by such a cheap name as “syndicalism,” but that all comrades must consider this in all seriousness, Who is right, the leaders or the working masses endowed with a healthy class instinct?

2. Causes of the Crisis

Before considering the basic points of the controversy between the leaders of our Party and the Workers’ Opposition, it is necessary to find an answer to the question: how could it happen that our Party – formerly strong, mighty and invincible because of its clear-cut and firm class policy – began to debate from its programme?

The dearer the Communist Party is to us just because it has made such a resolute step forward on the road to the liberation if the workers from the yoke of capital, the less right do we have to close our eyes to the mistakes of leading centres.

The power of the Party must lie in the ability of our leading centres to detect the problems and tasks that confront the workers, and to pick up the tendencies, which they have been able to direct, so that the masses might conquer one more of the historical positions. So it was in the past, but it is no longer so at present. Our Party not only reduces its speed, but more often (wisely’ looks back and asks: have we not gone too far? Is this not the time to call a halt? Is it not wiser to be more cautious and to avoid daring experiments unseen in the whole of history'?’ What was it that produced this wise caution’ (particularly expressed in the distrust of the leading Party centres towards the economic industrial abilities of the labour unions) – caution that has lately overwhelmed all our centres? Where is the cause?

lf we begin to diligently to search for the cause of the developing controversy in our Party, it becomes clear that the party is passing through a crisis which was brought about by three fundamental causes. The first main basic cause is the unfortunate environment in which our Party must work and act. The Russian Communist Party must build Communism and carry into life its programme:

(a) in the environment of complete destruction and breakdown of the economic structure ;

(b) in the face of a never diminishing and ruthless pressure of the Imperialist States and White Guards’,

(c) to the working class of Russia has fallen the lot of realising Communism, creating new Communist forms of economy in an economically backward country with a preponderant peasant population, where the necessary economic prerequisites for socialization of production and distribution are lacking, and where Capitalism has not as yet been able to complete the full cycle of its development (from the unlimited struggle of competition of the first stage of Capitalism to its highest form: the regulation of production by capitalist unions – the trusts).

It is quite natural that all these factors hinder the realization of our programme (particularly in its essential part – in the reconstruction of Industries on the new basis) and inject into our Soviet economic policy diverse influences and a lack of uniformity.

Out of this basic cause follow the two others. First of all, the economic backwardness of Russia and the domination of the peasantry within its boundaries create that diversity, and inevitably detract the practical policy of our Party from the clear-cut class direction, consistent in principle and theory.

Any party standing at the head of a heterogeneous Soviet state is compelled to consider the aspirations of peasants with their petty-bourgeois inclinations and resentments towards Communism, as well as lend an ear to the numerous petty-bourgeois elements, remnants of the former capitalists in Russia and to all kinds of traders, middlemen, petty officials, etc. These have very rapidly adapted themselves to the Soviet institutions and occupy responsible potions in me centres, appearing in the capacity of agents of different commissariats etc. No wonder that Zarupa, the People’s Commissar of Supplies, at the Eighth Congress quoted figures which showed that in the service of the Commissariat of Supplies there were engaged 17% of workers, 13% of peasants, less than 20% of specialists, and that of the remaining, more than 50% were tradesmen, salesmen, and similar people, in the majority even illiterate (Zarupa’s own words). In Zarupa’s opinion this is a proof of their democratic constitution, even though they have nothing in common with the class proletarians, with the producers of all wealth, with the workers in factory and mill.

These are the elements – the petty-bourgeois elements widely scattered through the Soviet institutions, the elements of the middle class, with their hostility towards Communism, and with their predilections towards the immutable customs of the past, with resentments and fears towards revolutionary arts. These are the elements that bring decay into our Soviet institutions, breeding there an atmosphere altogether repugnant to the working class. They are two different worlds and hostile at that.

And yet we in Soviet Russia are compelled to persuade both ourselves and the working class that the petty-bourgeoisie and middle classes (not to speak of well-to-do peasants) can quite comfortably exist under the common motto: “All power to the Soviets,” forgetful of the fact that in practical everyday life, the interests of the workers and those of the middle classes and peasantry imbued with petty-bourgeois psychology must inevitably clash, rending the Soviet policy asunder, and deforming its clearest class statutes.

Beside peasant-owners in the villages and burgher elements in the cities, our party in its Soviet State policy is forced to reckon with the influence exerted by the representatives of wealthy bourgeoisie now appearing in the form of specialists, technicians, engineers and former managers of financial and industrial affairs, who by all their past experience are bound to the capitalist system of production. They cannot even imagine any other mode of production, but the one which lies within the traditional bounds of capitalist economics.

3. The Growing Influence of The Specialists

The more Soviet Russia finds itself in need of specialists in the sphere of technique and management of production, the stronger becomes the influence of these elements, foreign to the working class, on the development of our economy. Having been thrown aside during the first period of the revolution, and being compelled to take up an attitude of watchful waiting or sometimes even open hostility towards the Soviet authorities, particularly during the most trying months (the historical sabotage by the intellectuals), this social group of brains in capitalist production, of servile, hired, well-paid servants of capital, acquire more and more influence and importance in politics with every day fiat passes.

Do we need names? Every fellow worker, carefully watching our foreign and domestic policy, recalls more than one such name. As long as the centre of our life remained at the military fronts, the influence of these gentlemen directing our Soviet policy, particularly in the sphere of industrial reconstruction, was comparatively negligible. Specialists, the remnants of the past, by all their nature closely, unalterably bound to the bourgeois system that we aim to destroy, gradually begin to penetrate into our Red Army, introducing there their atmosphere of the past (blind subordination, servile obedience, distinction, ranks, and the arbitrary will of superiors in place of class discipline, etc.). But their influence did not extend to the general political activity of the Soviet Republic.

The proletariat did not question their superior skill to direct military affairs, fully realising through their healthy class instinct that in military matters the working class as a class cannot express a new world, is powerless to introduce substantial changes into the military system – to reconstruct its foundation on a new class basis. Professional militarism – an inheritance of past ages – militarism and wars will have no place in Communist society. The struggle will go on along other channels, will take quite different forms inconceivable to our imagination Militarism lives through its last days, through the transitory epoch of dictatorship, and therefore it is only natural that the workers, as a class, could not introduce into the forms and systems anything new and conducive to the future development of society.

Even in the Red Army, however, there were innovating touches of the working class. But the nature of militarism remained the same, and the direction of military affairs by the former officers and generals of the old army did not draw the Soviet policy in military matters away to the opposite side sufficiently for the workers to feel any harm to themselves or to their class interests.

In the sphere of national economy it is quite different however. Production, its organisation – this is the essence of Communism. To debar the workers from the organisation of industry, to deprive them, that is, their individual organisations, of the opportunity to develop their powers in creating new forms of production in industry through their unions, to deny these expressions of the class organisation of the proletariat, while placing full reliance on the ‘skill’ of specialists trained and taught to carry on production under a quite different system of production – is to jump off the rails of scientific Marxist thought. That is, however, just the thing that is being done by the leaders of our Party at present.

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 the 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 past. 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. They are the ones who introduce the ridiculously naive belief that it is possible to bring about Communism by bureaucratic means. They ‘decree’ where it is now necessary to create and carry on research.

The more the military front recedes before the economic front, the keener becomes our crying need; the more pronounced the influence of that group which is not only inherently foreign to Communism, but absolutely unable to develop the right qualities for introducing new forms of organising the work, of new motives for increasing production, of new approaches to production and distribution. All these technicians, practical men, men of business experience, who just now appear on the surface of Soviet life bring pressure to bear upon the leaders of our Party through and within the Soviet institutions by exerting their influence on economic policy.

4. State And Party

The Party, therefore, finds itself in a difficult and embarrassing situation regarding the control over the Soviet state. It is forced to lend an ear and to adapt itself to three economically hostile groups of the population, each different in social structure. The workers demand a clear-cut, uncompromising policy, a rapid, forced advance towards Communism; the peasantry, with its petty-bourgeois proclivities and sympathies, demands Afferent kinds of “freedom,” including freedom of trade and non-interference in their affairs. The latter are joined in this demand be the burgher clad in the form of (agents’ of Soviet officials, commissaries in the army, etc., who have already adapted themselves to the Soviet regime, and sway our policy toward petty-bourgeois lines.

As far as the centre is conceded, the influence of these petty-bourgeois elements is negligible. But in the provinces and in local Soviet activity, their influence is a great and harmful one. Finally, there is still another group of men consisting of the former managers and directors of the capitalist industries. These are not the magnates of capital, like Riabushinsky or Rublikoff, whom the Soviet Republic got rid of during the first phase of the revolution, but they are the most talented servants of the capitalist system of production, the ‘brains and genius’ of Capitalism, its true creators and sponsors.

Heartily approving the centralist tendencies of the Soviet government in the sphere of economics, well realising all the benefits of trustification and regulation of production (this, by the way, is being carried on by capital in all advanced Industrial , countries), they are striving for just one thing – they want this regulation to be carried on not through the labour organisations (the industrial unions), but by themselves – acting now under the guise of Soviet economic institutions – the central industrial committees, industrial centres of the Supreme Council of National Economy, where they are already firmly rooted. The influence of these gentlemen on the ‘sober’ State policy of our leaders is great, considerably greater than is desirable.

This influence is reflected in the policy which defends and cultivates bureaucratism (with no attempts to change it entirely, but just to improve it). The policy is particularly obvious in the sphere of our foreign trade with the capitalist states, which is just beginning to spring up: these commercial relations are carried on over the heads of the Russian as well as the foreign organised workers. It finds its expression, also, in a whole series of measures restricting the self-activity of the masses and giving the initiative to the scions of the capitalist world.

Among all these various groups of the population, our Party, by trying to find a middle ground, is compelled to steer a course which does not jeopardize the unity of the State interests. The clear-cut policy of our Party, in the process of identifying itself with Soviet State institutions, is being gradually transformed into an upper-class policy, which in essence is nothing else but an adaptation of our directing centres to the heterogeneous and irreconcilable interests of a socially different, mixed, population. This adaptation leads to inevitable vacillation, fluctuations, deflations and mistakes. It is only necessary to recall the zig-zag-like road of our policy toward the peasantry, which from thanking on the poor peasant’, brought us to placing reliance on the industrious peasant-owner’. Let us admit that this policy is proof of the political soberness and “statecraft wisdom” of our directing centres. But the future historian, analysing without bias the stages of our domination, will find and point out that in this is evident a dangerous digression’ from the class line toward ‘adaptation’ and a course full of harmful possibilities or results.

Let us again take the question of foreign trade. There exists in our policy an obvious duplicity. This is attested by the constant, unending friction between the Commissariat of Foreign Trade and the Commissariat of Foreign Affairs. This friction is not of administrative nature alone. Its cause lies deeper. And if the secret work of the directing centres were exposed to the view of rank and file elements, who knows what the controversy dividing the Commissariat of Foreign Affairs and the trade representatives abroad might lead to?

This seemingly administrative friction is essentially a serious, deep, social friction, concealed from the rank and tile, and makes it absolutely necessary for Soviet politics to adapt to the three heterogeneous social groups of the population (workers, peasants and representatives of the former bourgeoisie). This constitutes another cause bringing a crisis into our Party. And we cannot but pay attention to this cause. It is too characteristic, too pregnant with possibilities. It is therefore the duty of our Party, on behalf of Party unity and future activity, to ponder over this cause and to learn the necessary lessons from the widespread dissatisfaction generated by it in the rank and file.

5. The Masses are not Blind

As long as the working class, during the first period of the revolution, felt itself to be the only bearer of Communism, there was perfect unanimity in the Party. In the days immediately following the October Revolution, none could even think of ‘ups’ as something different from ‘downs’, for in those days the advanced workers were busily engaged in realising point after point in our class-communist program. The peasant who received the land did not at the time assert himself as a part of and a full-fledged citizen of the Soviet Republic. Intellectuals, specialists, men of affairs – the entire petty-bourgeois class and pseudo-specialists at present climbing up the Soviet ladder, rung by rung, under the guise of ‘specialists’ – stepped aside, watching and waiting but meanwhile giving freedom to the advanced working masses to develop their creative abilities.

At present, however, it is just the other way. The worker feels, sees, and revises at every step that specialists and (what is worse) untrained illiterate pseudo-specialists, and unpractical men throw out the worker and fill up all the high administrative posts of our industrial and economic institutions. And the Party, instead of putting the brakes on this tendency from the elements which are altogether foreign to the working class and Communism, encourages it. The Party seeks salvation from the industrial chaos, not in the workers but in these very elements. Not in the workers, not in their union organisations does the Party repose its trust, but in these elements. The working masses feel it and instead of unanimity and unity in the Party, there appears a break.

The masses are not blind. Whatever words the most popular leaders might use in order to conceal their deviation from a clear-cut class policy, whatever the compromises made with the peasants and world Capitalism, and whatever the trust that the leaders place in the disciples of the capitalist system of production, the working masses feel where the digression begins. The workers may cherish an ardent affection and love for such personalities as Lenin. They may be fascinated by the incomparable flowery eloquence of Trotsky and his organising abilities. They may revere a number of other leaders – as leaders. But when the masses feel that they and their class are not trusted, it is quite natural that they say : No, halt! We refuse to follow you blindly! Let us examine the situation.

Your policy of picking out the middle ground between three socially opposed groups is a wise one indeed, but it smacks of the well-tried and familiar adaptation and opportunism. Today we may gain something with the help of your sober policy, but let us beware lest we find ourselves on a wrong road that, through zigzags and turns, will lead from the future to the debris of the past. Distrust of the workers by the leaders is steadily growing. The more sober these leaders get, the more clever statesmen they become with their policy of sliding over the blade of a sharp knife between Communism and compromise with the bourgeois past, the deeper becomes the abyss between the ‘ups’ and ‘downs’ the less understanding there is, and the more painful and inevitable becomes the crises within the Party itself.

The third reason enhancing the crisis in the Party is that, in fact during these three years of the revolution, the economic situation of the working class, of those who work in factories and mills, has not only not been improved, but has become more unbearable. This nobody dares to deny. The suppressed and widely-spread dissatisfaction among workers (workers, mind you) has a real justification.

6. Who has Gained From The Revolution?

Only the peasants gained directly by the revolution. As far as the middle classes are concerned, they very cleverly adapted themselves to the new conditions, together with the representatives of the rich bourgeoisie who had occupied all the responsible and directing positions in the Soviet institutions (particularly in the sphere of directing State economy, in the industry organisations and the re-establishment of commercial relations with foreign nations). Only the basic class of the Soviet Republic, which bore all the burdens of the dictatorship as a mass, ekes out a shamefully pitiful existence.

The Workers’ Republic controlled by the Communists, by the vanguard of the working class, which, to quote Lenin, has absorbed all the revolutionary energy of the class’, has not had time enough to ponder over and improve the conditions of all the workers (those not in individual establishments which happened to gain the attention of the Council of the People’s Commissars in one or another of the so-called ‘shock industries’) in general and lift their conditions of life to a human standard of existence.

The Commissariat of Labour is the most stagnant institution of all the Commissariats. In the whole of the Soviet policy, the question was never seriously raised on a national scale and discussed: what must and can be done in the face of the utter collapse of industry at home and a most unfavourable internal situation to improve the workers’ conditions and preserve their health for productive labour in the future, and to better the lot of the workers in the shops?

Until recently, Soviet policy was devoid of any worked out plan for improving the lot of the workers and their conditions of life. All that was done in this field was done almost incidentally, or at random, by local authorities under the pressure or the masses themselves. During these three years of civil war, the proletariat heroically brought to the altar of the revolution their innumerable sacrifices. They waited patiently. But now that the pulse of life in the Republic is again transferred to the economic front, the rank and file worker considers it unnecessary to ‘suffer and wait’. Why? is he not the creator of life on a Communist basis? Let us ourselves take up this reconstruction, for we know better than the gentlemen from the centres where it hurts us most.

The rank and file worker is observant. He sees that so far the problems of hygiene, sanitation, improving conditions of labour in the shops – in other words, the betterment of the workers’ lot has occupied the last place in our policy. In our solution to the housing problem, we went no further than housing the workers’ families in inconvenient bourgeois mansions. What is still worse, so far we have not even touched the practical problem of housing in regard to workers. To our shame, in the heart of the Republic, in Moscow itself, working people are still living in filthy, overcrowded and unhygienic quarters, one visit to which makes one think that there has been no revolution at a11. We all know that the housing problem cannot be solved in a few months, even years, and that due to our poverty, its solution is faced with the serious difficulties. But the facts of ever-growing inequality between the privileged groups of the population in Soviet Russia and the rank and file workers, ‘the framework of the dictatorship’, breed and nourish the dissatisfaction.

The rank and file worker sees how the Soviet official and the practical man lives and how he lives – he on whom rests the dictatorship of the proletariat. He cannot but see that during the revolution, the life and health of the workers in the shops commanded the least attention; that where prior to the revolution there existed more or less bearable conditions, they are still maintained by the shop committees. And where such conditions did not exist, where dampness, foul air and gases poisoned and destroyed the workers’ health, these conditions remain unchanged. “We could not attend to that; pray, there was the military front.” And yet whenever it was necessary to make repairs in any of the houses occupied by the Soviet institutions, they were able to find both the materials and the labour. What would happen if we tried to shelter our specialists or practical men engaged in the sphere of commercial transactions with foreign capitalists in those huts in which the masses of workers still live and labour? They would raise such a howl that it would become necessary to mobilize the entire housing department in order to correct ‘the chaotic conditions’ that interfere with the productivity of our specialists.

7. “Our Sorrows are not Theirs...”

The service of the Workers’ Opposition consists in that it included the problem of improving the workers’ lot (together with all the other secondary workers’ demands) into the general economic policy. The productivity of labour cannot be increased unless the life of the workers is organised on a new Communist basis.

The less that is undertaken and planned (I do not speak of something that has been carried out) in this sphere, the deeper is the mutual distrust between leaders and workers. There is no unity, no sense of their identity of needs, demands and aspirations. The leaders are one thing, and we are something altogether different. Maybe it is true that the leaders know better how to rule over the country, but they fail to understand our needs, our life in the shops, its requirements and immediate needs; they do not understand and do not know. From this reasoning follows the instinctive leaning towards the unions, and the consequent dropping out of the Party. It is true they are a part of us, but as soon as they get into the centres, they leave us altogether; they begin to live differently; if we suffer, what do they care? Our sorrows are not theirs any longer.

And the more our industry establishments and unions are drained of their best elements by the Party (which sends them either to the front or to the Soviet institutions), the weaker becomes the direct connection between the rank and file workers and the directing Party centres. A chasm is growing. At present, this division manifests itself even in the ranks of the Party itself. The workers, through their Workers’ Opposition ask: Who are we? Are we really the prop of the class dictatorship? Or are we just an obedient flock that serves as a support for those who, having severed all ties with the masses, carry out their own policy and build up industry without any regard to our opinions and creative abilities under the reliable cover of the Party label?

8. Objectives of The Opposition

Whatever the Party leaders might do in order to drive away the Workers’ Opposition, the latter will always remain that growing healthy class force which is destined to inject vitalising energy into the rehabilitation of economic life as well as into the Communist Party, which begins to fade and bend low to the ground.

There are thus three causes which bring about a crisis in our Party : there is first of all the overall objective conditions under which Communism in Russia is being carried out (the civil war! economic backwardness of the country, its utter industrial collapse as an aftermath of the long years of war); the second cause is the heterogeneous composition of our population seven million workers, the peasantry, the middle classes, and, finally, the former bourgeoisie, men of affairs in all professions, who issuance the policy of Soviet institutions and penetrate into the Party; the third cause is the inactivity of the Party in the field of immediate improvement of the workers’ life coupled with the inability and weakness of the corresponding Soviet institutions to take up and solve these problems.

What then is it that the Workers’ Opposition wants? What is its role?

Its role consists in raising before the Party all the perturbing questions, and in giving form to all that heretofore was causing only a subdued agitation in the masses and led the non-partisan workers ever further from the Party. It clearly and fearlessly shouted to the leaders: ‘Stop, look and think! Where do you lead us? Are we not going off the right road? It will be very bad for the Party to find itself without the foundation of the dictatorship. The Party will be on its own and so will the working class. In this lies the greatest danger to the revolution.’

The task of the Party at its present crisis is fearlessly to face the mistakes and lend its ear to the healthy class call of the wide working masses. Through the creative powers of the rising class, in the form of industrial unions, we shall go forwards towards reconstruction and the development of the creative forces of the country; towards purification of the Party itself from elements foreign to it; towards correction of the activity of the Party by means of going back to democracy, freedom of opinion, and criticism inside the Party.

The Trade Unions: Their Role & Problems

The Trade Unions: Their Role & Problems

1. Who shall build the Communist Economy?

In a basic yet brief outline, we have already explained what it is that causes the crisis in our Party. Now we shall make clear what are the most important points of the controversy between the leaders of our Party and the Workers’ Opposition.

There are two such points: firstly, the part to be played by, and the problems confronting, the trade unions during the reconstruction period of the national economy, coupled with the organisation of production on a Communist basis, and secondly, the question of self-activity of the masses. This question is linked with that of bureaucracy in the Party and the Soviets.

Let us answer both questions in turn. The period of ‘making theses’ in our Party has already ended. Before us we find six different platforms, six Party tendencies. Such a variety and such minute variations of shades in its tendencies our Party has never been seen before. Party thought has never been so rich in formulae on one and the same question. It is, therefore, obvious that the question is a basic one, and very important.

And such it is. The whole controversy boils down to one basic question : Who shall build the Communist economy, and how shall it be built? This is, moreover, the essence of our programme; this is its heart. This question is just as important as the question of seizure of political power by the proletariat. Only the Bubnoff group of so-called political centralists is so nearsighted as to under-estimate its importance and to say “The question concerning trade unions at the present moment has no importance whatsoever, and presents no theoretical difficulties.”

It is, however, quite natural that the question seriously agitates the Party. The question is really in what direction shall we turn the wheel of history; shall we turn it back or move it forward? It is also natural that there is not a single Communist in the Party who would remain non-committal during the discussion of this question. As a result, we have six different groups. If we begin, however, carefully to analyse all the theses of these most minutely divergent groups, we find that on the basic question – who shall build the Communist economy and organise production on a new basis – there are only two points of view. One is that which is expressed and formulated in the statement of principles of the Workers’ Opposition. The other is the viewpoint that unites all the rest of the groups differing only in shades, but identical in substance. What does the statement of the Workers’ Opposition stand for, and how does the latter understand the part that is to be played by the trade unions, or, to be more exact, the industrial unions, at the present moment?

“We believe that the question of reconstruction and development of the productive forces of our country can be solved only if the entire system of control over the people’s economy is changed” (from Shliapnikoff’s report, December 30). Take notice comrades: only if the entire system of control if changed. What does this mean? ‘The basis of the controversy’, the report continues, ‘revolves around the question: by what means during this period of transformation can our Communist Party carry out its economic policy – shall it be by means of the workers organised into their class union, or – over their heads – by bureaucratic means, through canonised functionaries of the State.’ The basis of the controversy is, therefore, this: shall we achieve Communism through the workers or over their heads, by the hands of Soviet officials? And let us, comrades, ponder whether it is possible to attain and build a Communist economy by the hands and creative abilities of the scions of the other class, who are imbued with their routine of the past. If we begin to think as Marxists, as men of science, we shall answer categorically and explicitly: ‘No !’

2. New Relations in Production & The Materialist Conception Of History

The root of the controversy and the cause of the crisis lies in the supposition that ‘practical men’, technicians, specialists, and managers of capitalist production can suddenly release themselves from the bonds of their traditional conceptions of ways and means of handling labour (which have been deeply ingrained into their very flesh through the years of their service to Capital) and acquire the ability to create new forms of production of labour organisation, and of incentives to work. To suppose that this is possible is to forget the incontestable truth that a system of production cannot be changed by a few individual geniuses, but through the requirements of a class.

Just imagine for a moment that during the transitory period from the feudal system (founded on slave labour) to the system of capitalist production (with its allegedly free hired labour in the industries), the bourgeois class, lacking at the time the necessary experience in the organisation of capitalist production, had invited all the clever, shrewd experienced managers of the feudal estates who had been accustomed to deal with servile chattel slaves, and entrusted to them the task of organising production on a new capitalist basis. What would happen? Would these specialists in their own sphere, depending on the whip to increase productivity of labour, succeed in handling a ‘free’, though hungry, proletarian, who had released himself from the curse of involuntary labour and had become a soldier or a day labourer? Would not these experts wholly destroy the newly-born and developing capitalist production? Individual overseers of the chattel slaves, individual former landlords and their managers, were able to adapt themselves to the new form of production; but it was not from their ranks that the real creators and builders of the bourgeois capitalist economy were recruited.

Class instinct whispered to the first owners of the capitalist establishments that it was better to go slowly and use common sense in place of experience in the search for new ways and means to establish relations between capital and labour? than to borrow the antiquated useless methods of exploitation of labour from the old, outlawed system. Class instinct quite correctly told the first capitalists during the first period of capitalist development that in place of the whip of the overseer they must apply another incentive – rivalry, personal ambition of workers facing unemployment and misery. And the capitalists, having grasped this new incentive to labour, were wise enough to use it in order to promote the development of the bourgeois capitalist forms of production by increasing the productivity of ‘free’ hired labour to a high degree of intensity. Five centuries ago, the bourgeoisie acted also in a cautious way, carefully listening to the dictates of their class instincts. They relied more on their common sense than on the experience of the skilled specialists in the sphere of organised production on the old feudal estates. The bourgeoisie was perfectly right, as history has shown us.

We possess a great weapon that can help us to find the shortest road to the victory of the working class: diminish suffering along the way, and bring about the new system of production – Communism – more quickly. This weapon is the materialistic conception of history. However, instead of using it, widening our experience and correcting our researches in conformity with history, we are ready to throw this weapon aside and follow the encumbered, circuitous road of blind experiments.

Whatever our economic distress happens to be, we are not justified in feeling such an extreme degree of despair. It is only the capitalist governments, standing with their backs to the wall that need feel despair. After exhausting all the creative impulses of capitalist production, they find no solution to their problems. As far as toiling Russia is concerned, there is no room for despair: Since the October revolution, unprecedented opportunities of economic creation have opened new, unheard-of forms of production, with an immense increase in the productivity of labour.

It is only necessary not to borrow from the past, but, on the contrary, to give complete freedom to the creative powers of the future. This is what the Workers’ Opposition is doing. Who can be the builder and creator of Communist economy? that class – and not the individual geniuses of the past – which is organically bound with newly-developing, painfully-born forms of production of a more productive and perfect system of economy. Which organ can formulate and solve the problems in the sphere of organising the new economy and its production – the pure class industrial unions, or the heterogeneous Soviet economic establishments?

The Workers’ Opposition considers that it can be done only by the former, that is, by the workers’ collective, and not by the functional, bureaucratic, socially-heterogeneous collective with a strong admixture of the old capitalist elements, whose mind is cloned with the refuse of capitalistic routine. “The workers’ unions must be drawn from the present position of passive assistance to the economic institutions into active participation in the management of the entire economic structure” (from ‘Theses of the Workers’ Opposition’). To seek, find and create new and more perfect forms of economy, to find new incentives to the productivity of labour – all this can be done only by the workers’ collectives that are closely bound with the new farms of production.

Only these collectives from their everyday experience, are capable of drawing certain conclusions. At first glance, these conclusions appear to be only of practical importance, and yet exceedingly valuable theoretical conclusions may be drawn from them concerning the handling of new labour power in a workers’ state where misery, poverty, unemployment and competition on the labour market cease to be incentives to work. To find a stimulus, an incentive to work – this is the greatest task of the working class standing on the threshold of Communism. None other, however, but the working class itself in the form of its class collectives, is able to solve this great problem.

The solution to this problem, as proposed by the industrial unions, consists in giving complete freedom to the workers as regards experimenting, class training, adjusting and discovering new forms of production, as well as expressing and developing their creative abilities – that is, to that class which can alone be the creator of Communism.

This is how the Workers’ Opposition sees the solution to this difficult problem, from which follows the most essential point of their theses: “organisation of control over the social economy is a prerogative of the All-Russian Congress of Producers, who are united in the trade and industrial unions which elect the central body directing the whole economic life of the republic” (‘Theses of the Workers’ Opposition ’). This demand would ensure freedom for the manifestation of creative class abilities, not restricted and crippled by the bureaucratic machine which is saturated with the spirit of routine of the bourgeois capitalist system of production and control. The Workers’ Opposition relies on the creative powers of its own class: the workers. The rest of our programme follows from this premise.

3. Who Will Manage Production?

But right at this point there begin the differences between the Workers’ Opposition and the line that is followed by the Party leaders. Distrust towards the working class (not in the sphere of politics, but in the sphere of economic creative abilities) is the whole essence of the theses signed by our Party leaders. They do not believe that by the rough hands of workers, untrained technically, can be created those foundations of the economic forms which, in the course of time, shall develop into a harmonious system of Communist production.

To all of them – Lenin, Trotsky, Zinovieff, and Bukharin – it seems that production is touch a delicate thing that it is impossible to get along without the assistance of ‘directors’. First of all we shall ‘bring up’ the workers, ‘teach them’, and only when they have grown up shall we remove from them all the teachers of the Supreme Council of Natural Economy and let the industrial unions take control over production. It is, after all, significant that all the theses written by the Party leaders coincide in one essential feature: for the present, we shall not give control over production to the trade unions; for the present we shall wait. It is doubtless true that Trotsky, Lenin, Zinovieff, and Bukharin differ in their reasons as to why the workers should not be entrusted with running the industries just at present. But they unanimously agree that just at the present time, the management of the production must be carried on over the workers’ heads by means of a bureaucratic system inherited from the past. On this point all the leaders of our Party are in complete accord.

‘The centre of gravity in the work of the trade unions at the present moment’ – assert the Ten in their Theses – “must be shifted into the economic industrial sphere. The trade unions as class organisations of workers, built up in conformity with their industrial functions, must take on the major work if organisation of production.” (‘major work’ is a too indefinite term. It permits of various interpretations. And yet it would seem that the platform of the ‘Ten’ gives more leeway for the trade unions in running the industries than Trotsky’s centralistic. Further, the theses of the ‘Ten’ go on to explain what they mean by ‘major work’ of the unions.

“The most energetic participation in the centres which regulate production and control, register and distribute labour power, organic exchange between cities and villages, fight against sabotage, and carry out decrees on different compulsory labour obligations, etc.” This is all. Nothing new. And nothing more than what the trade unions have already been doing. This cannot save our production nor help in the solution of the basic question – raising and developing the productive forces of our country.

In order to make clear the fact that the programme of the ‘Ten’ does not give to the trade unions any of the directing functions, but assigns to them only an auxiliary role in the management of production, the authors say: “In a developed stage (not at present, but at a developed stage), the trade unions in their process of social transformation must become organs of a social authority. They must work as such, in subordination to other organisations, and carry out the new principles of organisation of economic life.’ By this they mean to say that the trade unions must work in subordination to the Supreme Council of National Economy and its branches.

4. Trotsky’s View

What is the difference, then, with that and ‘joining by growth’ which was proposed by Trotsky? The difference is only one of method. The theses of the ‘Ten’ strongly emphasize the educational nature of the trade unions. In their formulation of problems for the trade unions (mainly in the sphere of organisation, industry and education), our Party leaders as clever politicians suddenly convert themselves into ‘teachers’.

This peculiar controversy is revolving not around the system of management in industry, but mainly around the system of bringing up the masses. In fact, when one begins to turn over the pages of the stenographic minutes and speeches made by our prominent leaders, one is astonished by the unexpected manifestation of their pedagogic proclivities. Every author of the theses proposes the most perfect system of bringing up the masses. But all these systems of ‘education’ lack provisions for freedom of experiment, for training and for the expression of creative abilities by those who are to be taught. In this respect also all our pedagogues are behind the times.

The trouble is that Lenin, Trotsky, Bukharin and others see the functions of the trade unions not as the control over production or as the taking over of the industries, but merely as a school for bringing up the masses. During the discussion it seemed to some of our comrades that Trotsky stood for a gradual ‘absorption of the unions by the state’ – not all of a sudden, but gradually and that he wanted to reserve for them the right of ultimate control over production, as it is expressed in our programme.

This point, it seemed at first, put Trotsky on a common ground with the Opposition at a time when the group represented by Lenin and Zinovieff, being opposed to the ‘absorption of the state’, saw the object of union activity and their problem as ‘training for Communism’. ‘Trade Unions’, thunder Trotsky and Zinovieff, ‘are necessary for the rough work’ (p. 22 of the report, Dec. 30). Trotsky himself, it would seem, understands the task somewhat differently. In his opinion, the most important work of the unions consists in organising production. In this he is perfectly right.

He is also right when he says, ‘inasmuch as unions are schools of Communism, they are such schools not in carrying on general propaganda (for such activity would mean they were playing the part of clubs), not in mobilizing their members for military work or collecting the produce tax, but for the purpose of all-round education of their members on the basis of their participation in production’ (Trotsky’s report, Dec. 30). All this is true, but there is one grave omission: the unions are not only schools for Communism, but they are its creators as well.

Creativeness of the class is being lost sight of. Trotsky replaces it by the initiative of ‘the real organisers of production’, by Communists inside the unions (from Trotsky’s report, Dec. 30). What Communists? According to Trotsky, by the Communists appointed by the Party to responsible administrative positions in the unions (for reasons that quite often have nothing in common with considerations of industrial and economic problems of the unions). Trotsky is quite frank. He does not believe that the workers are ready to create Communism and through pain, suffering and blunder still seek to create new forms of production. He has expressed this frankly and openly. He has already carried out his system of ‘club education’ of the masses, of training them for the role of ‘master’ in the Central Administrative Body of Railways adopting all those methods of educating the masses which were practised by our traditional journeymen upon their apprentices. It is true that a beating on the head by a boot-stretcher does not make an apprentice a successful shopkeeper after he becomes a ‘journeyman’. And yet as long as the boss-teacher’s stick hangs over his head, he works and produces.

This, in Trotsky’s opinion, is the whole essence of shifting the central point ‘from politics to industrial problems’. To raise, even temporarily, productivity by every and all means is the whole crux of the task. The whole course of training in the trade unions must be, in Trotsky’s opinion, also directed towards this end.

5. The Views of Lenin, Zinoviev & Bukharin

Comrades Lenin and Zinovieff, however, disagree with him. They are ‘educators’ of the modern trend of thought’. It has been stated many a time that the trade unions are schools for Communism. What does that mean – ‘schools for Communism’?

If we take this definition seriously, it will mean that in schools for Communism, it is necessary first of all to teach and bring up, but not to command (this allusion to Trotsky’s views meets with applause). Further on, Zinovieff adds: the trade unions are performing a great task, both for the proletarian and the Communist cause. This is the basic part to be played by the trade unions. At present, however, we forget this, and think that we may handle the problem of trade unions too recklessly, too roughly, too severely.

It is necessary to remember that these organisations have their own particular tasks – these are not tasks of commanding, supervising or dictating, but tasks in which all may be reduced to one : drawing of the working masses into the channel of the organised proletarian movement. Thus, teacher Trotsky went too far in his system of bringing up the masses. But what does Comrade Zinovieff himself propose? To give, within the unions, the first lessons in Communism: to teach them (the masses) the basic facts about the proletarian movement. How? Through practical experience, through practical creation of the new forms of production? Just what the Opposition wants? Not at all. Zinovieff-Lenin’s group favours a system of bringing up through reading, giving moral precepts and good, well-chosen examples. We have 500,000 Communists (among whom, we regret to say, there are many ‘strangers’ – stragglers from the other world – to seven million workers.

According to Comrade Lenin, the Party has drawn to itself ‘the proletarian vanguard’. The best Communists, in co-operation with specialists from the Soviet economic institutions, are searching hard in their laboratories for the new forms of Communist production. These Communists, working at present under the care of ‘good teachers’ in the Supreme Council of National Economy or other centres, these Peters and Johns are the best pupils it is true. But the working masses in the trade unions must look to these exemplary Peters and Johns and learn something from them without touching with their own hands the rudder of control, for it is ‘too early as yet’. They have ‘not yet learned enough’.

In Lenin’s opinion the trade unions – that is, the working class organisations – are not the creators of the Communist forms of people’s economy, for they serve only as a connecting-link between the vanguard and the masses: ‘the trade unions in their everyday work persuade masses, masses of that class ...’ etc.

That is not Trotsky’s ‘club system’, not a mediaeval system of education. This is the Froebel-Pestalozzi’s German system founded on studying examples. Trade must do nothing vital in the industries. But they persuade the masses. They must keep the masses In touch with the vanguard, with the Party which (remember this!) does not organise production as a collective, but only creates Soviet economic institutions of a heterogeneous composition, whereto it appoints Communists. Which system is better? This is the question. Trotsky’s system, whatever it may lack in other respects, is clearer and therefore more real. On reading books and studying examples taken from downhearted Peters and Johns, one cannot advance education too far. This must be remembered, and remembered well.

Bukharin’s group occupies the middle ground. Or rather, it attempts to co-ordinate both systems of upbringing. We must notice, however, that it too fails to record the principle of independent creativeness of the unions in industry. In the opinion of Bukharin’s group, the trade unions play a double role (so it is proclaimed in their thesis). On the one hand it (obviously ‘the role’) takes on itself the function of a ‘school for Communism’. And, on the other hand, it takes on the functions of an intermediary between the Party and the masses (this is from Lenin’s group). It takes on, in other words, the role of a machine: injecting the wide proletarian masses into the active life (notice, comrades – ‘into the active life’ – but not into the creation of a new form of economy or into a search for new forms of production). Besides that they (obviously the unions) in ever increasing degree, must become the component part both of the economic machine and of the State authority. This is Trotsky’s ‘joining together’.

The controversy again revolves not around the trade union problems but around the methods of educating the masses by means of the unions. Trotsky stands, or rather stood, for a system which, with the help of that introduced among the railway workers, might hammer into the organised workers’ heads the wisdom of Communist reconstruction. By means of ‘appointees’, ‘shake-ups’, and all kinds of miraculous measures promulgated in conformity with ‘the shock system’, it would re-make the unions so that they might join the Soviet economic institutions by growth, and become obedient tools in realising economic plans worked out by the Supreme Council of National Economy, Zinovieff and Lenin are in no hurry to join up the trade unions to the Soviet economic machine. The unions, they say, shall remain unions. As regards production, it will be run and managed by men whom we choose. When the trade unions have brought up obedient and industrious Peters and Johns, we will ‘inject’ them into the Soviet Economic institutions. Thus the unions will gradually disappear, dissolve.

The creation of new forms of national economy they entrust to the Soviet bureaucratic institutions. As to the unions, they leave them the role of ‘schools’. Education, education and more education. Such is the Lenin-Zinovieff slogan. Bukharin, however, wanted ‘to bank’ on radicalism in the system of union education, and, of course, he fully merited the rebuke from Lenin together with the nickname of ‘simidicomist’. Bukharin and his group, while emphasizing the educational part to be played by the unions in the present political situation, stand for the most complete workers’ democracy inside the unions, for wide elective powers to the unions – not only for the elective principle generally applied, but for non-conditional election of delegates nominated by the unions. What a democracy!

This smacked of the very Opposition itself, if it were not for one difference. The Workers Opposition sees in the unions the managers and creators of the Communist economy, whereas Bukharin, together with Lenin and Trotsky, leave to them only the role of ‘schools for Communism’ and no more. Why should Bukharin not play with the elective principle, when everybody knows that will do no good or bad to the system of running industry? For, as a matter of fact, the control of industry will still remain outside the unions, beyond their reach, in the hands of the Soviet institutions. Bukharin reminds us of those teachers who carry on education in conformity with the old system by means of ‘books’. ‘You must learn that far and no further’, while encouraging ‘self-activity’ of the pupils ... in organising dances, entertainments etc.

In this way, the two systems quite comfortably live together and square up with one another. But what the outcome of all this will be, and what duties will the pupils of these teachers of eclectics be able to perform – that is a different question. If Comrade Lunacharsky were to disapprove at all the educational meetings of ‘eclectic heresy’ like this, the position of the People’s Commissariat on Education would be precarious indeed.

6. Restricting Creativeness

However, there is no need to underestimate the educational methods of our leading comrades in regard to the trade unions. They all, Trotsky included, realise that in the matter of education, ‘self-activity’ of the masses is not the least factor. Therefore, they are in search of such a plan where trade unions, without any harm to the prevailing bureaucratic system of running the industry, may develop their initiative and their economic creative powers. The least harmful sphere where the masses could manifest their self-activity as well as their ‘participation in active life’ (according to Bukharin) is the sphere of betterment of the workers’ lot. The Workers’ Opposition pays a great deal of attention to this question, and yet it knows that the basic sphere of class creation is the creation of new industrial economic forms, of which the ‘betterment of the workers’ lot is only a part.

In Trotsky and Zinovieff’s opinion, all production must be initiated and adjusted by the Soviet institutions, while the trade unions are advised to perform a rather restricted, though useful, work of improving the lot of the workers. Comrade Zinovieff, for instance, sees in distribution of clothing the ‘economic role’ of the unions, and explains: ‘there is no more important problem than that of economy; to repair one bathhouse in Petrograd at present is ten times more important than delivering five good lectures’.

What is this? A naive, mistaken view? Or a conscious substitution of organising creative tasks in the sphere of production and development of creative abilities, by restricted tasks of home economics, household duties, etc.? In somewhat different language, the same thought is expressed by Trotsky. He very generously proposes to the trade unions to develop the greatest initiative possible in the economic field.

But where shall this initiative express itself in ‘putting glass’ in the shop window or filling up a pool in front of the factory (from Trotsky’s speech at the Miners’ Congress)? Comrade Trotsky, take pity on us! For this is merely the sphere of house-running. If you intend to reduce the creativeness of the unions to such a degree, then the unions will become not schools for Communism, but places where they train people to become janitors. It is true that Comrade Trotsky attempts to widen the scope of the ‘self-activity of the masses’ by letting them participate not in an independent improvement of the workers’ lot, on the job (only the ‘insane’ Workers’ Opposition goes that far), but by taking lessons from the Supreme Council of the National Economy on this subject.

Whenever a question concerning workers is to be decided, as for instance about distribution of food or labour power, it is necessary that the trade unions should know exactly, not in general outline as mere citizens, but know thoroughly the whole current work that is being done by the Supreme Council of National Economy (speech of Dec. 30). The teachers from the Supreme Council of National Economy not only force the trade unions ‘to carry out’ plans, but they also ‘explain to their pupils their decrees’. This is already a step forward in comparison with the system that functions at present on the railways. To every thinking worker, it is clear, however, that putting in glass, useful as it may be, has nothing in common with running industry, productive forces and their development do not find expression in this work. The really important question still is: how to develop the productive forces. How to build such a state of economy by squaring the new life with production, and how to eliminate unproductive labour as much as possible. A Party may bring up a Red soldier, a political worker or an executive worker to carry out the projects already laid out. But it cannot develop a creator of Communist economy, for only a union offers an opportunity for developing the creative abilities along new lines.

Moreover, this is not the task of the Party. The Party task is to create the conditions – that is, give freedom to the working masses united by common economic industrial aims – so that workers can become worker-creators, find new impulses for work, work out a new system to utilise labour power, and discover how to distribute workers in order to reconstruct society, and thus to create a new economic order of things founded on a Communist basis. Only workers can generate in their minds new methods of organising labour as well as running industry.

7. Technique & Organisation

This is a simple marxist truth, and yet at present the leaders of our Party do not share it with us. Why? Because they place more reliance on the bureaucratic technicians, descendants of the past, than on the healthy elemental class-creativeness of the working masses. In every other sphere we may hesitate as to who is to be in control – whether the workers’ collective or the bureaucratic specialists, be it in the matter of education, development of science, organisation of the Army, care of Public Health. But there is one place, that of the economy, where the question as to who shall have control is very simple and clear for everyone who has not forgotten history. It is well known to every marxist that the reconstruction of industry and the development of the creative forms of a country depend on two factors: on the development of technique and on the efficient organisation of labour by means of increasing productivity and finding new incentives to work. This has been true during every period of transformation from a lower stage of economic development to a higher one throughout the history of human existence.

In a workers’ republic the development of the productive forces by means of technique plays a secondary role in comparison with the second factor, that of the efficient organisation of labour, and the creation of a new system of economy. Even if Soviet Russia succeeds in carrying out completely its project of general electrification, without introducing any essential change in the system of control and organisation of the people’s economy and production, it would only catch up with the advanced capitalist countries in the matter of development. Yet, in the efficient utilization of labour power and building up a new system of production, Russian labour finds itself in exceptionally favourable circumstances. These give her the opportunity to leave far behind all bourgeois capitalist countries in the question of developing the productive forces. Unemployment as an incentive to labour in socialist Russia has been done away with. New possibilities are open for a working class that had been freed from the yoke of capital, to have its own creative say in finding new incentives to labour and the creation of new forms of production which will have had no precedent in all of human history.

Who can, however, develop the necessary creativeness and keenness in this sphere? Is it the bureaucratic elements, the heads of the Soviet institutions or the industrial unions, whose members in their experience of regrouping workers in the shop come across creative, useful, practical methods that can be applied in the process of re-organising the entire system of the people’s economy? The Workers’ Opposition asserts that administration of the people’s economy is the trade unions’ job and, therefore, that the Opposition is more marxist in thought than the theoretically trained leaders.

The Workers’ Opposition is not so ignorant as wholly to underestimate the great value of technical progress or the usefulness of technically trained men. It does not, therefore, think that after electing its own body of control over industry it may safely dismiss the Supreme Council of National Economy, the central industrial committees, economic centres, etc. Not at all. The Workers’ Opposition thinks that it must assert its own control over these technically valuable administrative centres, give them theoretical tasks, and use their services as the capitalists did when they hired the technicians in order to carry out their own schemes.

Specialists can do valuable work in developing the industries, they can make the workers’ manual labour easier; they are necessary, indispensable, just as science is indispensable to every rising and developing class. But the bourgeois specialists, even when Communist labels are pasted on them, are powerless physically and too weak mentally to develop the productive forces in a non-capitalist state; to find new methods of labour organisation and to develop new incentives for intensification of labour. In this, the last word belongs to the working class – to the industrial unions. When the rising bourgeois class, having reached the threshold leading from mediaeval to modern times, entered into the economic battle with the decaying class of feudal lords, it did not possess any technical advantages over the latter.

The trader – the first capitalist – was compelled to buy goods from that craftsman or journeyman who by means of hand files, knife, and primitive spindles was producing goods’ both for his ‘master’ (the landlord) and for the outside trader, with whom he entered into a ‘free’ trade agreement. Feudal economy having reached a culminating point in its organisation, ceased to give any surplus, and there began a decrease in the growth of productive forces. Humanity stood face to face with the alternatives of either economic decay or of finding new incentives for labour of creating, consequently, a new economic system which would increase productivity, widen the scope of production, and open new possibilities for the development of productive forces.

Who could have found and evolved the new methods in the sphere of industrial reorganisation? None but those class representatives who had not been bound by the routine of the past, who understood that the spindle and cutter in the hands of a chattel slave produce incomparably less than in the hands of supposedly free hired workers, behind whose back stands the incentive of economic necessity.

Thus the rising class, having found where the basic incentive to labour lay, built on at a complex system great in its own way: the system of capitalist production. The technicians only come to the aid of capitalists much later. The basis was the new system of labour organisation, and the new relations that were established between capital and labour.

The same is true at present. No specialist or technician imbued with the routine of the capitalist system of production can ever introduce any new creative motive and vitalising innovation into the yields of labour organisation, in creating and adjusting a Communist economy. Here the function belongs to the workers’ collectives. The great service of the Workers’ Opposition is that it brought up this question of supreme importance frankly and openly before the Party.

Comrade Lenin considers that we can put through a Communist plan on the economic field by means of the Party. Is it so? First of all, let us consider how the Party functions. According to Comrade Lenin, “it attracts to itself the vanguard of workers” ; then it scatters them over various Soviet institutions (only a part of the vanguard gets back into the trade unions, where the Communist members, however, are deprived of an opportunity of directing and building up the people’s economy). These well-trained, faithful, and perhaps very talented Communist-economists disintegrate and decay in the general economic institutions. In such an atmosphere, the influence of these comrades is weakened, marred, or entirely lost. Quite a different thing with the trade unions.

There, the class atmosphere is thicker, the composition more homogeneous, the tasks that the collective is faced with more closely bound with the immediate life and labour needs of the producers themselves, of the members of factory and shop committees, of the factory management and the unions’ centres. Creativeness and the search for new forms of production, for new incentives to labour, in order to increase productivity, may be generated only in the bosom if this natural class collective. Only the vanguard of the class can create revolution, but only the whole class can develop through its everyday experience the practical work of the basic class collectives.

Whoever does not believe in the basic spirit of a class collective – and this collective is most fully represented by the trade unions – must put a cross over the Communist reconstruction of society. Neither Krestinsky or Preobrajensky, Lenin or Trotsky can infallibly push to the forefront by means of their Party machine those workers able to find and point out new approaches to the new system of production. Such workers can be pushed to the front only by life-experience itself, from the ranks of those who actually produce and organise production at the same time. This consideration, which should be very simple and clear to every practical man, is lost sight of by our Party leaders: it is impossible to decree Communism. It can be treated only in the process of practical research, through mistakes, perhaps, but only by the creative powers of the working class itself.

8. The Programme of The Opposition

The cardinal point of the controversy that is taking place between the Party leaders and the Workers’ Opposition is this: to whom will our Party entrust the building of the Communist economy – to the Supreme Council of National Economy with all its bureaucratic branches? Or to the industrial unions? Comrade Trotsky wants ‘to join’ the trade unions to the Supreme Council of People’s Economy, so that, with the assistance of the latter, it might be possible to swallow up the former. Comrades Lenin and Zinovieff, on the other hand, wanted to ‘bring up’ the masses to such a level of Communist understanding that they could be painlessly absorbed into the same Soviet institutions. Bukharin and the rest of the factions express essentially the same view. Variations exist only in the way they put it ; the essence is the same. Only the Workers’ Opposition expresses something entirely different, defends the proletarian class viewpoint in the very process of creation and realization of its tasks.

The administrative economic body in the workers’ republic during the present transitory period must be ‘a body directly elected by the producers themselves. All the other administrative economic Soviet institutions should serve only as executive centres of the economic policy of the all-important economic body of the workers’ republic. All else is goose-stepping, that shows distrust towards the creative abilities of the workers, distrust which is not compatible with the professed ideals of our Party, whose very strength depends on the perennial creative spirit of the proletariat.

There will be nothing surprising if at the approaching Party congress, the sponsors of the different economic reforms, with the single exception of the Workers’ Opposition, will come to a common understanding through mutual compromise and concessions, since there is no essential controversy among them.

The Workers’ Opposition alone will not and must not compromise. This does not, however, mean that it is aiming at a split’. Not at all. Its task is entirely different. Even in the event of defeat at the Congress, it must remain in the Party, and step by step stubbornly defend its point of view, save the Party, clarify its class lines.

Once more in brief : what is it that the Workers’ Opposition wants?

(1) To form a body from the workers – producers themselves – for administering the people’s economy.

(2) For this purpose, (i.e. for the transformation of the unions from the role of passive assistance to the economic bodies, to that of active participation and manifestation of their creative initiative) the Workers’ Opposition proposes a series of preliminary measures aimed at an orderly and gradual realisation of this aim.

(3) Transferring of the administrative functions of industry into the hands of the union does not take place until the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the trade unions has found the said unions to be able and sufficiently prepared for the task.

(4) All appointments to the administrative economic positions shall be made with consent of the union. All candidates nominated by the union to be non-removable. All responsible officials appointed by the unions are responsible to it and may be recalled by it.

(5) In order to carry out all these proposals, it is necessary to strengthen the rank and file nucleus in the unions, and to prepare factory and shop committees for running the industries.

(6) By means of concentrating in one body the entire administration of the public economy (without the existing dualism of the Supreme Council of National Economy and the All-Russian Executive Committee of the trade unions) there must be created a singleness of will which will make it easy to carry out the plan and put ‘to life the Communist system of production. Is this syndicalism? Is not this, on the contrary, the same as what is stated in our Party programme, and are not the elements of principles signed by the rest of the comrades deviating from it?

On Bureaucracy & Self-activity of The Masses

On Bureaucracy & Self-activity of The Masses

1. Initiative... & The Roots of Apathy

Is it to be bureaucracy or self-activity of the masses? This is the second point of the controversy between the leaders of our Party and the Workers’ Opposition. The question of bureaucracy was raised and only superficially discussed at the eighth Soviet Congress. Herein, just as in the question on the part to be played by the trade unions and their problems, the discussion was shifted to a wrong channel. The controversy on this question is more fundamental than it might seem.

The essence is this: what system of administration in a workers’ republic during the period of creation of the economic basis for Communism secures more freedom for the class creative powers? Is it a bureaucratic state system or a system of wide practical self-activity of the working masses? The question relates to the system of administration and the controversy arises between two diametrically opposed principles: bureaucracy or self-activity. And yet they try to squeeze it into the scope of the problem that concerns itself only with methods of animating the Soviet institutions.

Here we observe the same substitution of the subjects discussed as the one that occurred in the debates on the trade unions. It is necessary to state definitely and clearly that half-measures, changes in relations between central bodies and local economic organizations, and other such petty non-essential innovations (such as responsible officials or the injection of Party members into the Soviet institutions, where these Communists are subjected to all the bad influences of the prevailing bureaucratic system, and disintegrate among the elements of the former bourgeois class) will not bring ‘democratisation’ or life into the Soviet institutions.

This is not the point however. Every child in Soviet Russia knows that the vital problem is to draw the wide toiling masses of workers, peasants and others, into the reconstruction of economy in the proletarian state, and to change the conditions of life accordingly. The task is clear: it is to arouse initiative and self-activity in the masses. But what is being done to encourage and develop that initiative? Nothing at all. Quite the contrary. At every meeting we call upon the working men and women to ‘create a new life, build up and assist the Soviet authorities’. But no sooner do the masses or individual groups of workers take our admonition seriously and attempt to apply it in real life than some bureaucratic institution, feeling ignored, hastily cuts short the efforts of the over-zealous initiators.

Every comrade can easily recall scores of instances then workers themselves attempted to organise dining-rooms, day nurseries for children, transportation of wood, etc. Each time a lively, immediate interest in the undertaking died from the red tape, interminable negotiations with the various institutions that brought no results, or resulted in refusals, new requisitions etc. Wherever there was an opportunity under the impetus of the masses themselves – of the masses using their own efforts – to equip a dining-room, to store a supply of wood, or to organise a nursery, refusal always followed refusal from the central institutions. Explanations were forthcoming that there was no equipment for the dining-room, lack of horses for transporting the wood, and absence of an adequate building for the nursery.

How much bitterness is generated among working men and women when they see and know that if they had been given the right, and an opportunity to act, they could themselves have seen the project through. How painful it is to receive a refusal of necessary material! when such material had already been found and procured by the workers themselves. Their initiative is therefore slackening and the desire to act is dying out. ‘If that is the case’, people say, ‘let officials themselves take care of us’. As a result, there is generated a most harmful division: we are the toiling people, they are the Soviet officials, on whom everything depends. This is the whole trouble.

2. The Essence of Bureaucracy

Meanwhile, what are our Party leaders doing? Do they attempt to find the cause of the evil? Do they openly admit that their very system which was carried out into life through the Soviets, paralyses and deadens the masses, though it was meant to encourage their initiative? No, our Party leaders do nothing of the kind. Just the opposite. Instead of finding means to encourage the mass initiative which could fit perfectly into our flexible Soviet institutions, our Party leaders all of a sudden appear in the role of defenders and knights of bureaucracy. How many comrades follow Trotsky’s example and repeat that ‘we suffer, not because we adopt the bad sides of bureaucracy, but because we have failed so far to learn the good ones’ (‘On one common plan’, by Trotsky).

Bureaucracy is a direct negation of mass self-activity. Whoever therefore accepts the principle of involving the masses in active participation as a basis for the new system of the workers’ republic, cannot look for good or bad sides in bureaucracy. He must openly and resolutely reject this useless system. Bureaucracy is not a product of our misery as Comrade Zinovieff tries to convince us. Neither is it a reflection of blind subordination’ to superiors, generated by militarism, as others assert. This phenomenon has deeper roots. It is a by-product of the same cause that explains our policy of double-dealing in relation to the trade unions, namely, the growing influence in the Soviet institutions of elements hostile in spirit not only to Communism, but also to the elementary aspirations of the working masses. Bureaucracy is a scourge that pervades the very marrow of our Party as well as of the Soviet institutions. This fact is emphasised not only by the Workers’ Opposition. It is also recognised by many thoughtful comrades not belonging to this group.

Restrictions on initiative are imposed, not only in regard to the activity of the non-party masses (this would only be a logical and reasonable condition, in the atmosphere of the civil war). The initiative of Party members themselves is restricted. Every independent attempt, every new thought that passes through the censorship of our centre, is considered as ‘heresy’, as a violation of Party discipline, as an attempt to infringe on the prerogatives of the centre, which must ‘foresee’ everything and ‘decree’ everything and anything. If anything is not decreed one must wait, for the time will come when the centre at its leisure will decree. Only then, and within sharply restricted limits, will one be allowed to express one’s ‘initiative’.

What would happen if some of the members of the Russian Communist Party – those, for instance, who are fond of birds – decided to form a society for the preservation of birds? The idea itself seems useful. It does not in any way undermine any ‘state project’. But it only seems this way. All of a sudden there would appear some bureaucratic institution which would claim the right to manage this particular undertaking. That particular institution would immediately ‘incorporate’ the society into the Soviet machine, deadening, thereby, the direct initiative. And instead of direct initiative, there would appear a heap of paper decrees and regulations which would give enough work to hundreds of other officials and add to the work of mails and transport.

The harm in bureaucracy does not only lie in the red tape as some comrades would want us to believe – they narrow the whole controversy to the sanitation of Soviet institutions’. The harm lies in the solution of all problems, not by means of an open exchange of opinions or by the immediate efforts of all concerned, but by means of formal decisions handed down from the central institutions. These decisions are arrived at either by one person or by an extremely limited collective, wherein the interested people are quite often entirely absent. Some third person decides your fate: this is the whole essence of bureaucracy. In the face of the growing suffering in the working class, brought about by the confusion of the present transitory period, bureaucracy finds itself particularly weak and impotent.

Miracles of enthusiasm in stimulating the productive forces and alleviating working conditions can only be performed by the active initiative of the interested workers themselves, provided it is not restricted and repressed at every step by a hierarchy of ‘permissions’ and ‘decrees’. Marxists, and Bolsheviks in particular, have been strong and powerful in that they never stressed the policy of immediate success of the movement (This line, by the way, has always been followed by the opportunists-compromisers). Marxists have always attempted to put the workers in such conditions as would give them the opportunity to temper their revolutionary will and to develop their creative abilities. The workers’ initiative is indispensable for us, and yet we do not give it a chance to develop.

Fear of criticism and of freedom of thought, by combining together with bureaucracy, often produce ridiculous results. There can be no self-activity without freedom of thought and opinion, for self-activity manifest itself not only in initiative, action and work, but in independent though as well. We give no freedom to class activity, we are afraid of criticism, we have ceased to rely on the masses: hence we have bureaucracy with us. That is why the Workers’ Opposition considers that bureaucracy is our enemy, our scourge, and the greatest danger to the future existence of the Communist Party itself.

3. Against The Bureaucracy in The Party

In order to do away with the bureaucracy that is finding its shelter in the Soviet institutions, we must first get rid of all bureaucracy in the Party itself. That is where we face the immediate struggle. As soon as the Party – not in theory but in practice – recognised the self-activity of the masses as the basis of our State, the Soviet institutions will again automatically become living institutions, destined to carry out the Communist project. They will cease to be the institutions of red tape and the laboratories for still-born decrees into which they have very rapidly degenerated.

What shall we do then in order to destroy bureaucracy in the Party and replace it by workers’ democracy? First of all it is necessary to understand that our leaders are wrong when they say: ‘Just now we agree to loosen the reins somewhat, for there is no immediate danger on the military front, but as soon as we again feel the danger we shall return to the military system in the Party.’ We must remember that heroism saved Petrograd, more than once defended Lugansk, other centres, and whole regions. Was it the Red Army alone that put up the defence? No. There was, besides, the heroic self-activity and initiative of the masses themselves. Every comrade will recall that during the moments of supreme danger, the Party always appealed to this self-activity, for it saw in it the sheet-anchor of salvation. It is true that at times of threatening danger, Party and class discipline must be stricter. There must be more self-sacrifice, exactitude in performing duties, etc. But between these manifestations of class spirit and the ‘blind subordination’ which is being advocated lately in the Party, there is a great difference.

In the name of Party regeneration and the elimination of bureaucracy from the Soviet institutions, the Workers’ Opposition, together with a group of responsible workers in Moscow, demand complete realization of all democratic principles, not only for the present period of respite but also for times of internal and external tension. This is the first and basic condition for the Party’s regeneration, for its return to the principles of its programme, from which it is more and more deviating in practice under the pressure of elements that are foreign to it.

The second condition, the vigorous fulfilment of which is insisted upon by the Workers’ Opposition, is the expulsion from the Party of all non-proletarian elements. The stronger the Soviet authority becomes, the greater is the number of middle class, and sometimes even openly hostile elements, joining the Party. The elimination of these elements must be complete and thorough. Those in charge of it must take into account the fact that the most revolutionary elements of non-proletarian origin had joined the Party during the first period of the October revolution. The Party must become a Workers’ Party. Only then will it be able vigorously to repeal all the influences that are now being brought to bear on it by petty-bourgeois elements, peasants, or by the faithful servants of Capital – the specialists.

The Workers’ Opposition proposes to register all members who are non-workers and who joined the Party since 1919, and to reserve for them the right to appeal within three months from the decisions arrived at, in order that they might join the Party again.

At the same time, it is necessary to establish a ‘working status’ for all those non-working class elements who will try to get back into the Party, by providing that every applicant to membership of the Party must have worked a certain period of time at manual labour: under general working conditions, before he becomes eligible for enrolment into the Party.

The third decisive step towards democratization of the Party is the elimination of all non-working class elements from administrative positions. In other words, the central, provincial, and county committees of the Party must be so composed that workers closely acquainted with the conditions of the working masses should have the preponderant majority therein. Closely related to this demand stands the further demand of converting all our Party centres, beginning from the Central Executive Committee and including the provincial county committees, from institutions taking care of routine, everyday work, into institutions of control over Soviet policy. We have already remarked that the crisis in our Party is a direct outcome of three distinct crosscurrents, corresponding to the three different social groups: the working class, the peasantry and middle class, and elements of the former bourgeoisie – that is, specialists, technicians and men of affairs.

Problems of State-wide importance compel both the local and central Soviet institutions, including even the Council of People’s Commissars and the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, to lend an ear to, and conform with, these three distinct tendencies, representing the groups that compose the population of Soviet Russia. As a result, the class line of our general policy is blurred, and the necessary stability is lost. Considerations of State interests begin to outweigh the interests of the workers.

To help the Central Committee and Party Committees stand firmly on the side of our class policy, to help them call all our Soviet institutions to order each time that a decision in Soviet policy becomes necessary (as, for instance, in the question of the trade unions) it is necessary to disassociate the prerogatives of such responsible officials who, at one and the same time, have responsible posts both in the Soviet institutions and in the Communist Party centres. We must remember that Soviet Russia has not so far been a socially homogeneous unit. On the contrary, it has represented a heterogeneous social conglomeration. The State authority is compelled to reconcile these, at times mutually hostile, interests by choosing the middle ground.

The Central Committee of our Party must become the supreme directing centre of our class policy, the organ of class thought and control over the practical policy of the Soviets, and the spiritual personification of our basic programme. To ensure this, it is necessary, particularly in the Central Committee, to restrict multiple office-holding by those who, whilst being members of the Central Committee, also occupy high posts in the Soviet government. For this purpose, the Workers’ Opposition proposes the formation of Party centres, which would really serve as organs of ideal control over the Soviet institutions, and would direct their actions along clear-cut class lines. To increase Party activity, it would be necessary to implement everywhere the following measure: at least one third of Party members in these centres should be permanently forbidden to act as Party members and Soviet officials at the same time.

The fourth basic demand of the Workers’ Opposition is that the Party must reverse its policy in relation to the elective principle.

Appointments are permissible only as exceptions. Lately they have begun to prevail as a rule. Appointments are very characteristic of bureaucracy, and yet at present they are a general, legalized and well-recognised daily occurrence. The procedure of appointments produces a very unhealthy atmosphere in the Party. It disrupts the relationship of equality amongst the members by rewarding friends and punishing enemies, and by other no less harmful practices in Party and Soviet life. Appointments lessen the sense of duty and responsibility to the masses in the ranks of those appointed, for they are not responsible to the masses. This makes the division between the leaders and the rank and file members still sharper. Every appointee, as a matter of fact, is beyond any control. The leaders are not able closely to watch his activity while the masses cannot call him to account and dismiss him if necessary. As a rule every appointee is surrounded by an atmosphere of officialdom: servility and blind subordination, which infects all subordinates and discredits the Party. The practice of appointments completely rejects the principle of collective work. It breeds irresponsibility.

Appointments by the leaders must be done away with and replaced by the elective principle at every level of the Party. Candidates shall be eligible to occupy responsible administrative positions only when they have been elected by conferences or congresses. Finally, in order to eliminate bureaucracy and make the Party more healthy, it is necessary to revert to the state of affairs where all the cardinal questions of Party activity and Soviet policy were submitted to the consideration of the rank and file, and only after that were supervised by the leaders. This was the state of things when the Party was forced to carry on its work in secret – even as late as the time of the signing of the Brest-Litovsk treaty.

4. Discuss The Problems Openly

At present, the state of things is altogether different. In spite of the widely circulated promises made at the All Russian Party Conference held in September (1920) a no less important question than that of concessions was quite arbitrarily decided for the masses. Only due to the sharp controversy that arose within the Party centres themselves was the question of the trade unions brought out into the open, to be thrashed out in debate.

Wide publicity, freedom of opinion and discussion, the right to criticise within the Party and among the members of the trade unions – such are the decisive steps that can put an end to the prevailing system of bureaucracy. Freedom of criticism, right of different factions freely to present their views at Party meetings, freedom of discussion – are no longer the demands of the Workers’ Opposition alone. Under the growing pressure from the masses, a whole series of measures that were demanded by the rank and file long before the Party Conference are now recognised and officially promulgated. One need only read the proposals of the Moscow Committee in regard to Party structure to be proud of the great influence that is being exerted on the Party centres. If it were not for the Workers’ Opposition, the Moscow Committee would never have taken such a sharp ‘turn to the left’. However, we must not overestimate this ‘leftism’, for it is only a declaration of principles to the Congress. It may happen, as it has many a time with decisions of our Party leaders during these years, that this radical declaration will soon be forgotten. As a rule, these decisions are accepted by our Party centres only just as the mass impetus is felt. As soon as life again swings into normal channels, the decisions are forgotten.

Did not this happen to the decision of the eighth Congress which resolved to free the Party of all elements who joined it for selfish motives, and to use discretion in accepting non-working class elements? What has become of the decision taken by the Party Conference in 1920, when it was decided to replace the practice of appointments by recommendations? Inequality in the Party still persists, in spite of repeated resolutions passed on this subject. Comrades who dare to disagree with decrees from above are still being persecuted. There are many such instances. If all these various Party decisions are not enforced, then it is necessary to eliminate the basic cause that interferes with their enforcement. We must remove from the Party those who are afraid of publicity, strict accountability before the rank and file, and freedom of criticism.

Non-working class members of the Party, and those workers who fell under their influence, are afraid of all this. It is not enough to clean the Party of all non-proletarian elements by registration or to increase the control in time of enrolment, etc. It is also necessary to create opportunities for the workers to join the Party. It is necessary to simplify the admission of workers to the Party, to create a more friendly atmosphere in the Party itself, so that workers might feel themselves at home. In responsible Party officials they should not see superiors but more experienced comrades, ready to share with them their knowledge, experience and skill, and to consider seriously workers’ needs and interests. How many comrades, particularly young workers, are driven away from the Party just because we manifest our impatience with them by our assumed superiority and strictness, instead of teaching them bringing them up in the spirit of Communism? Besides the spirit of bureaucracy, an atmosphere of officialdom finds a fertile ground in our Party. If there is any comradeship in our Party it exists only among the rank and file members.

5. Historical Necessity of The Opposition

The task of the Party congress is to take into account this unpleasant reality. It must ponder over the question: Why is the Workers’ Opposition insisting on introducing equality, on eliminating all privileges in the Party, and on placing under a stricter responsibility to the masses those administrative officials who are elected by them? In its struggle for establishing democracy in the Party, and for the elimination of all bureaucracy, the Workers’ Opposition advances three cardinal demands:

(1) Return to the principle of election all along the line with the elimination of all bureaucracy, by making all responsible officials answerable to the masses.

(2) Introduce wide publicity within the Party, both concerning general questions and where individuals are involved. Pay more attention to the voice of the rank and file (wide discussion of all questions by the rank and file and their summarizing by the leaders; admission of any member to the meetings of Party centres, except when the problems discussed require particular secrecy). Establish freedom of opinion and expression (giving the right not only to criticise freely during discussions, but to use funds for publication of literature proposed by different Party factions).

(3) Make the Party more of a workers’ Party. Limit the number of those who fill offices, both in the Party and the Soviet institutions at the same time.

corrceted translation of next two paragraphs inserted here A correct solution to the question will be if we succeed in closely linking the party along the whole line, not only with the Soviet bodies, but also with the trade unions. Here, a person working in both positions not only does not threaten a deviation of the party’s policy from the purity of the party line, but, on the contrary, gives the party class stability against the influence of world capitalism in the coming era (through trade agreements and concessions).

To create such a Central Committee with ‘workers spirit’ means to create such a Central Committee, where representatives of the lower ranks, wedded to the masses, would cease to play the role of ‘ceremonial generals’ at a merchant wedding, and in fact would be inextricably linked with the broad non-party members of the working masses in trade unions and manage to take into account, sum up the slogans the moment, the needs, the aspirations of the class and would direct the party’s policy along the class line.

This last demand is particularly important. Our Party must not only build Communism, but prepare and educate the masses for a prolonged period of struggle against world capitalism, which may take on unexpected new forms. It would be childish to imagine that, having repelled the treason of the White Guards and of Imperialism on the military fronts, we will be free from the danger of a new attack from world capital, which is striving to seize Soviet Russia by roundabout ways, to penetrate into our life, and use the Soviet Republic for its own ends. This is the great danger that we must stand guard against. And herein lies the problem for our Party : how to meet the enemy well-prepared, how to rally all the proletarian forces around clear-cut class issues (the other groups of the population always gravitate to capitalism). It is the duty of our leaders to prepare for this new page of our revolutionary history

It will only be possible to find correct solutions to these questions when we succeed in uniting the Party all along the line, not only together with the Soviet institutions, but with the trade unions as well. The filling up of offices in party and trade unions not only tends to deviate Party policy from clear-cut class lines but also renders the Party susceptible to the influences of world capitalism during this coming epoch, influences exerted through concessions and trade agreements. To make the Central Committee one that the workers feel is their own is to create a Central Committee wherein representatives of the lower layers connected with the masses would not merely play the role of upgrading generals’, or a merchant’s wedding part. The Committee should be closely bound with the wide non-party working masses in the trade unions. It would thereby be enabled to formulate the slogans of the time, to express the workers’ needs, their aspirations, and to direct the policy of the Party along class lines. Such are the demands of the Workers’ Opposition. Such is its historic task. And whatever derisive remarks the leaders of our Party may employ, the Workers’ Opposition is today the only vital active force with which the Party is compelled to contend, and to which it will have to pay attention.

Is the Opposition necessary? Is it necessary, on behalf of the liberation of the workers throughout the world from the yoke of capital, to welcome its formation? Or is it an undesirable movement, detrimental to the fighting energy of the Party, and destructive to its ranks? Every comrade who is not prejudiced against the Opposition and who wants to approach the question with an open mind and to analyse it, even if not in accordance with what the recognised authorities tell him, will see from these brief outlines that the Opposition is useful and necessary. It is useful primarily because it has awakened slumbering thought. During these years of the revolution, we have been so preoccupied with our pressing affairs that we have ceased to appraise our actions from the stand-point of principle and theory.

We have been forgetting that the proletariat can commit grave mistakes and not only during the period of Struggle for political power. It can turn to the morass of opportunism. Even during the epoch of the dictatorship of the proletariat such mistakes are possible, particularly when on all sides we are surrounded by the stormy waves of imperialism and when the Soviet Republic is compelled to act in a capitalist environment. At such times, our leaders must be not only wise, (statesman-like) politicians. They must also be able to lead the Party and the whole working class along the line of class creativeness. They must prepare it for a prolonged struggle against the new forms of penetration of the Soviet Republic by the bourgeois influences of world capitalism. Be ready, be clear – but along class lines ; such must be the slogan of our Party, and now more than ever before.

The Workers’ Opposition has put these questions on the order of the day, rendering thereby an historic service. The thought begins to move. Members begin to analyse what has already been done. Wherever there is criticism, analysis, wherever thought moves and works, there is life, progress, advancement forward towards the future. There is nothing more frightful and harmful than sterility of thought and routine. We have been retiring into routine, and might inadvertently have gone off the direct class road leading to Communism, if it were not for the Workers’ Opposition injecting itself into the situation at a time when our enemies were about to burst into joyful laughter. At present this is already impossible. The Congress, and the Party, will be compelled to contend with the point of view expressed by the Workers’ Opposition.

They will either compromise with it or make essential concessions under its influence and pressure. The second service of the Workers’ Opposition is that it has brought up for discussion the question as to who, after all, shall be called upon to create the new forms of economy. Shall it be the technicians and men of affairs, who by their psychology are bound up with the past, together with Soviet officials and some Communists scattered among them, or shall it be working class collectives, represented by the unions?

The Workers’ Opposition has said what has long ago been printed in the Communist Manifesto by Marx and Engels: the building of Communism can and must be the work of the toiling masses themselves. The building of Communism belongs to the workers. Finally, the Workers’ Opposition has raised its voice against bureaucracy. It has dared to say that bureaucracy binds the wings of self-activity and the creativeness of the working class; that it deadens thought, hinders initiative and experimenting in the sphere of finding new approaches to production ; in a word that it hinders the development of new forms for production and life. Instead of a system of bureaucracy, the Workers’ Opposition proposes a system of self-activity for the masses.

In this respect, the Party leaders even now are making concessions and ‘recognising’ their deviations as being harmful to Communism and detrimental to working class interests (the rejection of centralism). The Tenth Congress, we understand, will make another series of concessions to the Workers’ Opposition. Thus, in spite of the fact that the Workers’ Opposition appeared as a mere group inside the Party only a few months ago, it has already fulfilled its mission. It has compelled the leading Party centres to listen to the workers’ sound advice. At presents whatever might be the wrath toward the Workers’ Opposition, it has the historical future to support it.

Just because we believe in the vital forces of our Party, we know that after some hesitation, resistance and devious political moves, our Party will ultimately again follow that path which has been blazed by the elemental forces of the proletariat. Organised as a class, there will be no split. If some groups leave the Party, they will not the ones who make up the Workers’ Opposition. Those will fall out who attempt to evolve into principles the temporary deviations from the spirit of the Communist programme, that were forced upon the Party by the prolonged civil war, and hold to them as if they were the essence of our political line of action.

All those in the Party who have been accustomed to reflect the class viewpoint of the ever-growing proletariat will absorb and digest everything that is wholesome, practical and sound in the Workers’ Opposition. Not in vain will the rank-and-file worker speak with assurance and reconciliation: ‘Ilyich (Lenin) will ponder, he will think it over, he will listen to us. And then he will decide to turn the Party rudder toward the Opposition. Ilyich will be with us yet’.

The sooner the Party leaders take into account the Opposition’s work and follow the road indicated by the rank-and-file members, the quicker shall we overcome the crisis in the Party. And the sooner shall we step over the line beyond which humanisms having freed itself from objective economic laws and taking advantage of all the richness and knowledge of common working-class experience, will consciously begin to create the human history of the Communist epoch.

Workers’ Opposition (1921)

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The Workers Opposition in Russia

Introduction

The principal object in translating and publishing this book is to show the workers in America a revolutionary political party in operation, and to demonstrate us inevitable tendency towards bureaucracy with a consequent isolation from the masses. A complete survey or even a small part of the evils of abounding in a political centralization of production and distribution is of course beyond the scope of this small book and too, it is obvious that the complaint expressed here could not tread outside of party lines.

The book was only intended originally for the delegates of the Tenth Congress of the Russian Communist Party, and, anticipating criticism for publishing in America what was not intended for the world at large we justify ourselves on the ground that criticism of a party having perhaps the destiny and welfare of the millions of Russia in their hands is as much the business of revolutionary workers in America as anywhere else. Yes, even Russian workers.

The Russian revolution as a spontaneous movement of the masses is not the property of any certain group or party. All humanity is bound up in such an event and therefore no one can be expected to recognize certain circles beyond which a knowledge of such vital questions cannot go.

The failure of the Bolshevik party to solve the social problem and the failure of the author of this book to prove that it could have been solved by the same political party if they only had adopted the tactics suggested by the “Opposition”, these two fasts taken together, should, in our opinion, be sufficient to remove for a long time to come the notion that a few leaders can emancipate the workers from their desks in government buildings.

Kollontay has succeeded in convincing us that Lenin, Trotzky and Zinoviev together with other front rank bolsheviks were wrong all the time in trying to solve the social problem from the top downward. She has strengthened the belief that it must take place from the bottom upward, but she has failed to show any logical justification for a political party directing such a movement.

The translation of this book from Russian to English presented. many difficulties, chief of which was the necessity of remodeling many parts into readable English. The original in Russian was written in haste, with barely time to have it printed for the Tenth Congress of the Russian Communist Party and this made it impossible for a better and more studious attention to the details of construction. Therefore the English translation bears many sentences and paragraphs that are not exact translations, but retain the sense of the original copy. One other thing that must be noted in connection with the book, is the intimate manner the writer assumes. This is of course because her intended auditors were familiar with the situation with which she was dealing and therefore she was excluded from the necessity of going very deep in her discussions. But in spite of all this it is obvious that the “Infantile sickness of Leftism” is a disease that is completely overshadowed by the organic weakness of political centers.

This book is now out of print in Russia and together with the “Workers Opposition” as a movement was officially declared by the Tenth Congress of the Russian Party to be “incompatable with the present policy of the Communist party”, and as this can mean nothing else than that the stamp of illegality has been placed on the movement it must now operate outside of party influences. What will be the future of the “Opposition” principles in Russia one can only guess, but it is certain that the struggle of the workers to control the industries themselves win be carried on in Russia in spite of all legal hindrances.

INDUSTRIAL WORKERS OF THE WORLD,
1001 West Madison St., Chicago, Ill.

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Crisis in the Party

A. Kolontay

The Workers Opposition in Russia

Crisis in the Party

Before considering the basic points of the controversy between the leaders of our party and the Workers’ Opposition, it is necessary to find an answer to the question: How could it happen that our party – formerly strong, mighty, and invincible because of its clear-cut and firm class policy – began to deviate from its program.

The dearer the Communist Party is to us just because it has made such a resolute step forward on the road to the liberation of workers from the yoke of capital, the less right we have to close our eyes to the mistakes of leading centers.

The power of the party must lie in the ability of our leading centers to detect the problems and tasks that confronted the workers, and to pick up the tendencies, which they have been able to direct so that the masses might conquer one more of the historical positions. So it was in the past, but it is no longer so at present. Our party not only reduces its speed but ever oftener “wisely” looks back and asks: “Have we not gone too far? Is this not the time to call a halt? Is it not wiser to be more cautious, and to avoid the daring experiments unseen in the whole of the history.”

What was it that produced this “wise caution” (particularly expressed in the distrust of the leading party centers toward the economic industrial abilities of the labor unions) – caution that has lately overwhelmed all our centers. Where is the cause?

If we begin diligently to search for the cause of the arising controversy in our party, it becomes clear that the party is passing through a crisis which was brought about by three fundamental causes.

The first main basic cause is the distressful environment in which our party must work and act. The Russian Communist Party must build communism and carry into life its program: (1) In the environment of complete destruction and breakdown of the economic structure. (2) In the face of the never diminishing ruthless pressure of the imperialist states and white guards. (3) To the working class of Russia has fallen the lot to realize communism, create new communist forms of economy in an economically backward country with a preponderant peasant population, where the necessary economic prerequisites for socialization of production and distribution are lacking, and where capitalism has not been able as yet to complete the full cycle of its development (from the unlimited struggle of competition of the first stages of capitalism to its highest form – to the regulation of production by capitalist unions – the trusts).

It is quite natural that all these factors hinder the practical realization of our program (particularly in its essential part – in the reconstruction of industries on the new basis) and inject into our soviet economic policy diverse influences and a lack of uniformity.

Out of this basic cause follow the two others. First of all, the economic backwardness of Russia and the domination of the peasantry within its boundaries create that diversity, and inevitably detract the practical policy of our party from . the clear-cut class direction, consistent in principle and theory.

Any party standing at the head of a heterogeneous soviet state is compelled to consider the aspirations of peasants with their petty-bourgeois inclinations and resentments towards communism, as well as lend ear to the numerous petty bourgeois elements, remnants of the former capitalists in Russia, to all kinds of traders, middlemen, petty officials, etc., who have very rapidly adapted themselves to the soviet institutions and occupy responsible positions in the centers, appear in the capacity of agents of different commissariats, etc. No wonder that Zurupa, the People’s Commissar of Supplies, at the Eighth Congress quoted figures which showed that in the service of the Commissariat of Supplies there were engaged 17 per cent of workers, 13 per cent of peasants, less than 20 per cent of specialists, and that of the remaining, more than 50 per cent were “tradesmen, salesmen, and similar people, in the majority even illiterate.” (Zurupa’s own words.) In Zurupa’s opinion this is a proof of their democratic composition, even though they have nothing in common with the class proletarians, with the producers of all wealth, with the workers in factories and mills.

These are the elements – the elements of petty-bourgeois widely scattered through the soviet institutions, the elements of the middle class with their hostility toward communism, and with their predilections toward the immutable customs of the past, with resentments and fears toward revolutionary acts, – these are the elements that bring decay into our soviet institutions, breeding there an atmosphere altogether repugnant to the working class. They are two different worlds and hostile at that. And yet we in Soviet Russia are compelled to persuade both ourselves and the working class that the petty-bourgeoisie and middle classes (not speaking of well to do peasants) can quite comfortably exist under the common motto: “All power to the soviets,” forgetful of the fact that in practical everyday life the interests of the workers and those of the middle classes and peasantry imbued with petty-bourgeois psychology must inevitably clash, rending the soviet policy asunder, and deforming its clear-cut class statutes.

Beside peasant-owners in the villages and burgher elements in the cities, our party in its soviet state policy is forced to reckon with the influence exerted by the representatives of wealthy bourgeoisie now appearing in the form of specialists, technicians, engineers, and former managers of financial and industrial affairs, who by all their past experience are bound to the capitalist system of production. They can not even imagine of any other mode of production but only that one which lies within the traditional bounds of capitalist economics.

The more Soviet Russia finds itself in need of specialists in the sphere of technique and management of production, the stronger becomes the influence of these elements, foreign to the Working class elements, on the development of our economy. Having been thrown aside during the first period of the revolution, and being compelled to take up an attitude of watchful waiting or sometimes even open hostility toward the soviet authorities, particularly during the most trying months (the historical sabotage by the intellectuals), this social group of brains in capitalist production, of servile, hired, well-paid servants of capital, acquire more and more influence and importance in politics with every day that passes.

Do we need names? Every fellow worker carefully watching our foreign and domestic policy recalls more than one of such names.

As long as the center of our life remained at the military fronts the influence of these gentlemen directing our soviet policy, particularly in the sphere of industrial reconstruction, was comparatively negligible.

Specialists, the remnants of the past, by all their nature closely, unalterably bound to. the bourgeois system that we aim to destroy, gradually began to penetrate into our Red Army, introducing there their atmosphere of the past (blind subordination, servile obedience, distinction, ranks, and the arbitrary will of superiors in place of class . discipline, etc.), but to the general political activity of the Soviet republic their influence did not extend.

The proletariat did not question their superior skill to direct military affairs, fully realizing through their healthy class instinct that in military matters the working class as a class can not express a new word, is powerless to introduce substantial changes into the military system – to reconstruct its foundation on a new class basis. Professional militarism – inheritance of the past ages – militarism, wars, will have no place in the communist society. The struggle will go on along other channels, will take quite different forms inconceivable to our imagination. Militarism lives through its last days, through the transitory epoch of dictatorship, and therefore, it is only natural that the workers, as a class, could not introduce into the forms and systems of militarism anything new, and conducive to the future development of society. Even in the Red Army, however, there were innovating touches of the working class, but the nature of militarism remained the same, and the direction of military affairs by the former officers and generals of the old army did not draw the soviet policy in military affairs away to the opposite side sufficiently for the workers to feel any harm to themselves or to their class interests.

In the sphere of national economy it is quite different, however. Production, its organization – this is the essence of communism. To debar the workers from the organization of industry, to deprive them, that is, their industrial organizations, of the opportunity to develop their powers in creating new forms of production in industry through their unions, to deny these expressions of the class organization of the proletariat, while placing full reliance on the “skill” of specialists trained and taught to carry on production under a quite different system of production, – is to jump off the rails of scientific Marxian thought. This is, however, just the thing that is being done by the leaders of our party at present.

Taking into consideration the utter collapse of our industries while still clinging to the capitalist mode of production (payment for labor in money, graduations in wages received according to the 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 past-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. They are the ones who introduce the ridiculously naive belief that it is possible to bring about communism by bureaucratic means. They “decree” where it is now necessary to create and carry on research.

The more the military front recedes before the economic front, the keener becomes our crying need, the more pronounced the influence of that group which is not only inherently foreign to communism, but absolutely unable to develop the right qualities for introducing new forms of organizing the work, of new motives for increasing production, of new approaches to production and distribution. All these technicians, practical men, men of business experience, who just now appear on the surface of soviet life, by exerting their influence on the economic policy bring pressure to bear upon the leaders of our party through and within the soviet institutions.

The party, therefore, finds itself in a difficult and embarrassing situation regarding the control over the soviet state, and is forced to lend ear and adapt itself to three economically hostile groups of the population, each different in social structure. The workers demand a clear-cut, uncompromising policy, a rapid, forced advance toward communism; while the peasantry with its petty-bourgeois proclivities and sympathies demand different kinds of “freedom,” including freedom of trade and non-interference into their affairs. The latter are joined in this demand by the burgher class in the form of “agents” of soviet officials, commissaries in the army, etc. who have already adapted themselves to the soviet regime, and sway our policy toward petty-bourgeois lines.

As far as the center is concerned, the influence of these petty-bourgeois elements is negligible, but in the provinces and in local soviet activity their influence is great and a harmful one. Finally, there is still another group of men, that of the former managers and directors of the capitalist industries. These are not the magnates of capital, like Riabushinsky or Rublikoff, whom the soviet republic got rid of during the first phase of the revolution, but they are the most talented servants of the capitalist system of production, “the brains and genius” of capitalism, its true creators and sponsors.

Heartily approving the centralist tendencies of the soviet government in the sphere of economics, well realizing all the benefits of trustification and regulation of production (this, by the way, is being carried on by capital in all advanced industrial countries), they are striving for just one thing – they want that this regulation should be carried on not through the labor organizations (the industrial unions) but through themselves – acting flow under the guise of soviet economic institutions – the central industrial committees, industrial centers of the Supreme Council of National Economy, where they are already firmly rooted. The influence of these gentlemen on “the sober” state policy of our leaders is great, considerably greater than is desirable.

This influence is reflected in the policy which defends and cultivates bureaucratism (with no attempts to change it entirely, but just to improve it). This policy is particularly obvious in the sphere of our foreign trade with the capitalist states, which is just beginning to spring up: the commercial relations are carried on over the heads of the Russian a« well as the foreign organized workers . It finds its expression, also, in a whole series of measures restricting the self-activity of the masses and giving the initiative to the scions of the capitalist world.

Among all these various groups of the population our party, by trying to find a middle ground, is compelled to steer a course which would not jeopardize the unity of the state interests. The clear-cut policy of our party in the process of identifying itself with soviet state institutions is being gradually transformed into an upper-class policy, which in essence is nothing else but an adaptation of our directing centers to the heterogeneous and irreconcilable interests of the socially different mixed population. This adaptation leads to inevitable vacillation, fluctuations, deviations and mistakes. It is only necessary to recall the zigzag-like road of our policy toward the peasantry, which from “banking on the poor peasant” brought us to placing reliance on “the industrious peasant-owner.” Let us admit that this policy is proof of the political soberness and “statecraft wisdom” of our directing centers, but the future historian analyzing without bias the stages of our domination will find and point out that in this is evident “a dangerous digression” from the class line toward “adaptation” and a course full of harmful possibilities or results.

Let us take again the question of foreign trade. There exists in our policy an obvious duplicity. This is attested by the constant, unending friction between the Commissariat of Foreign Trade and the Commissariat of Foreign Affairs. This friction is not of administrative nature alone; its cause lies deeper, and if the secret work of the directing centers were exposed to the view of rank and file elements, who knows what the controversy dividing the Commissariat on Foreign Affairs and the trade representatives abroad might lead to?

The seemingly administrative friction that is essentially a serious, deep, social friction, concealed from the rank and file, and makes it absolutely necessary for soviet politics to adapt itself to the three heteregeneous social groups of the population (workers, peasants, and representatives of the former bourgeoisie), constitutes another cause bringing crisis into our party. And we can not but pay attention to this cause. It is too characteristic, too pregnant with possibilities. It is, therefore, the duty of our party in behalf of party unity and future activity to ponder over this cause and derive a necessary lesson from the wide-spread dissatisfaction generated by it in the rank and file.

As long as the working class, during the first period of the revolution, felt itself as being the only bearer of communism there was perfect unanimity in the party. In the days immediately following the October revolution none could even think of “ups” as something different from “downs,” for in those days the advanced workers were busily engaged in realizing point after point in our class-communist program. The peasant who received the land did not at that time assert himself as a part of and a full-fledged citizen of the Soviet republic. Intellectuals, specialists, men of affairs – the entire petty-bourgeoisie class and pseudo-specialists climbing at present up the soviet ladder rung by rung, under the guise of “specialists,” in watchful waiting stepped aside, giving freedom for the advanced working masses to develop their creative abilities.

At present, however, it is just the other way. The worker feels, sees and realizes at every step that specialists, and, what is still worse, untrained illiterate pseudo-specialists, and practical men, throw out the worker and fill up all the high administrative posts of industrial and economic institutions. And the Party, instead of putting the brakes on this tendency from the elements which are altogether foreign to the working class and communism, encourages it and seeks salvation from the industrial chaos not in the workers, but in these very elements. Not in the workers, not in their union organizations does the Party repose its trust, but in these elements. The working masses feel it, and instead of unanimity and unity in the party there appears a break.

The masses are not blind. Whatever words the most popular leaders might use in order to conceal the deviation from the clear-cut class policy and the compromises made with the peasants and world capitalism, and the trust that they place in the disciples of the capitalist system of production, the working masses feel where the digression begins.

The workers may cherish an ardent affection and love for such personalities as Lenin; they may be fascinated by the incomparable flowery eloquence of Trotzky and his organizing abilities; they may revere a number of other leaders, as leaders, but when the masses feel that they and their class are not trusted, it is quite natural that they say: “No, halt. We refuse to follow you blindly. Let us examine the situation. Your policy of picking out the middle ground between the three socially opposed groups is a wise one indeed but it smacks of the well-tried and familiar adaptation and opportunism. For the present day we may gain something with the help of your sober policy, but let us beware lest we find ourselves on a wrong road that through zig-zags and turns will lead from the future to the debris of the past ...

Distrust of the leaders toward the workers is steadily growing, and the more sober these leaders are getting, the more clever statesmen they become with their policy of sliding over the blade of a sharp knife between communism and compromise with bourgeoisie past, the deeper becomes the abyss between the “ups” and the “downs,” the less understanding there is and the more painful and inevitable becomes the crisis within the party itself.

The third reason enhancing the crisis in the party is that in fact, during these three years of the revolution the economic situation of the working class, of those who work in factories and mills, has not only not been improved, but become more unbearable. This nobody dares to deny. The suppressed and widely spread dissatisfaction among workers (workers – mind you) has a real justification.

Only the peasants gained directly by the revolution; as far as the middle classes are concerned they very cleverly adapted themselves to the new conditions, together with the representatives of the rich bourgeoisie who had occupied all the responsible and directing positions in the soviet institutions (particularly in the sphere of directing state economy), in the industrial organizations and the reestablishment of commercial relations with foreign nations. Only the basic class of the Soviet republic which bore all the burdens of the dictatorship as a mass ekes out a shamefully pitiful existence.

The workers’ republic controlled by the communists, by the vanguard of the working class which, to quote Lenin’s words, “has absorbed all the revolutionary energy of the class,” has not had time enough to ponder over and improve the conditions of all the workers (those not in individual establishments which happened to gain the attention of the Council of the People’s Commissars in one or another of the so-called “shock industries”) but of all the workers in general and lift their conditions of life to a human standard of existence.

The Commissariat of Labor is the most stagnant institution of all the commissariats. In the whole of the soviet policy there was never seriously raised on a national scale and discussed, the question: what must and can be done in the face of an utter collapse of industry at home and a most unfavorable external situation, in order to improve the workers’ conditions and preserve their health for productive labor in the future, and to better the lot of workers in the shops?

Until recently the soviet policy was devoid of any worked-out plan for improving the lot of the workers and their conditions of life. All that was done in this field was done rather incidentally, or at random, by local authorities under the pressure of the masses themselves. During these three years of civil war the proletariat heroically brought to the altar of the revolution their innumerable sacrifices. They waited patiently, but at present, at the turn of affairs, when the pulse of life in the republic is again transferred to the economic front, the rank and file worker considers it unnecessary “to suffer and wait.” Why? Is he not the creator of life on the communist basis? Let us ourselves take up this reconstruction for we know better than the gentlemen from the centers where it hurts us the most.

The rank and file worker is very observant. He sees that so far the problems of hygiene, sanitation, improving conditions of labor in the shops – in other words, the betterment of the workers’ lot has occupied the last place in our policy. Further than housing of workers’ families in the inconvenient bourgeois mansions we did not go in our solution of the housing problem, and, what is still worse, so Tar we have not even touched the practical problem of housing in regard to workers. To our shame, in the heart of the republic, in Moscow itself, they are still living in filthy, overcrowded and unhygienic working men’s quarters, one visit to which makes one think that there was no revolution at all. We all know that the housing problem can not be solved in a few months, even years, and that due to our poverty its solution is confronted with serious difficulties, but the facts of ever growing inequality between the privileged groups of the population in Soviet Russia and the rank and file workers, “the framework of the dictatorship,” breed and nourish the dissatisfaction.

The rank and file worker sees how the soviet official and the practical man lives and how lives he – he on whom rests the dictatorship of the proletariat? He can not but see that during the revolution the life and health of the workers in the shops commanded the least attention; that where prior to the revolution there existed more or less bearable conditions, they are still maintained by the shop committees, and where the latter did not exist, where dampness, foul air and gases poisoned and destroyed the workers* health, these conditions remained unchanged. “We could not attend to that; pray, there was the military front.” And yet whenever it was necessary to make repairs in any of the houses occupied by the soviet institutions they were able to find both the materials and the labor power. What would happen if we tried to shelter our specialists or practical men engaged in the sphere of commercial transactions with foreign capitalists in those huts, in which the masses of workers still live and labor? They would raise such a howl that it would become necessary to mobilize the entire housing department in order to correct “the chaotic conditions” that interfere with the productivity of our specialists.

The service of the Workers” Opposition consists in that it included the problem of improving the workers’ lot together with all the other secondary demands of workers into the general economic policy. The productivity of labor can not be increased unless the life of workers will have been organized on the new communist basis.

The less that is undertaken and planned out (I do not speak of something that has been carried out) in this sphere, the deeper fa the misunderstanding, the estrangement, and still greater is the mutual distrust between the directing centers of the party and the rank and file workers. There is no unity, no sense of their identity of needs, demands and aspirations. “The leaders are one thing, and we are something altogether different. Maybe it is true that the leaders know better how to rule over the country, but they fail to understand our needs, our life in the shops, its requirements, and immediate needs; they do not understand, and do not know.” From this reasoning follows the instinctive leaning toward the unions, and consequent dropping out of the party. “It is true that they are a part of us, but as soon as they get into the centers, they leave us altogether; they begin to live differently; if we suffer what do they care; our sorrows are not theirs, any longer.”

And the more our industrial establishments and unions are drained of their best elements by the party which sends them either to the front or to the soviet institutions, the weaker becomes the direct connection between the rank and file workers and the directing party centers. A chasm is growing, and at present, therefore, this division manifests itself even in the ranks of the party itself. The workers through their Workers’ Opposition ask: Who are we? Are we really the prop of the class dictatorship, or are we just an obedient flock that serves as a support for those who, having severed all ties with the masses, carry out their own policy and build up industry without any regard to our opinions and creative abilities under the reliable cover of the party label?

Whatever the party leaders might do in order to, drive away the Workers’ Opposition the latter will always remain that growing healthy class force, which is destined to inject vitalizing energy into the rehabilitation of the economic life as well as into the communist party which begins to fade and bend low to the ground.

Thus, there are three causes that bring about a crisis into our party; there are first of all the supreme objective conditions under which communism in Russia is being carried out and realized (the civil war, economic backwardness of the country, its utter industrial collapse as an aftermath of the long years of war; the second cause is the heterogeneous composition of our population – (7 millions of workers, the peasantry, the middle classes, and, finally, the former bourgeoisie, men of affairs of all professions, who influence the policy of soviet institutions and penetrate into the party); the third cause is the inactivity of the party in the field of immediate improvement of the workers’ life coupled with the inability and weakness of the corresponding soviet institutions to take up and solve these problems.

What then is that the Workers’ Opposition wants? What is its service?

If its sendee consists in that it put up before the party all the perturbing questions, that it gave form to all that heretofore was causing only a subdued agitation in the masses and led the non-partisan workers ever further from the party; that it clearly and fearlessly shouted to the leaders: “Stop, look and think! Where do you lead us? Do we not go off the right road? It will be very bad for the party to find itself Without the foundation of the dictatorship, the party will remain by itself, and the working class by itself. In this lies the greatest danger to the revolution.”

The task of the party at its present crisis is to fearlessly face the mistakes and lend its ear to the healthy class call of the wide working masses: Through creative powers of the rising class in the form of industrial unions we shall go toward reconstruction and development of creative forces of the country; toward purification of the party itself from the elements foreign to it; toward correction of the activity of the party by means of going back to democracy, freedom of opinion and criticism inside the party.

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The Part to Be Played by the Trade Unions, and Their Problem

A. Kolontay

The Workers Opposition in Russia

The Part to Be Played by the Trade Unions,
and Their Problems

In a basic yet brief outline we have already explained what it is that causes the crisis in our party. Now we shall make clear what are the most important points of the controversy between the leaders of our party and the Workers’ Opposition. There are two such points: The part to be played, and the problems confronting the trade unions during the reconstruction period of the national economy, coupled with the organization of production on the communist basis, and the question of self-activity of the masses coupled with bureaucracy in the party and soviets.

Let us answer the first question, as the second is the sequence of the first. The period of “making theses” in our party has already ended. Before us we find six different platforms, six party tendencies. Such a variety and such minute variations of shades in its tendencies our party has never seen before, and the party thought has never been so rich in formula on one and the same question. It is, therefore, obvious that the question is a basic one and very important.

And such it is. The whole controversy simmers down, to one basic question: Who shall build the communist economy, and how shall it be built? This is, moreover, the essence of our program; this is its heart. This question is not less, if not more important, than the question of seizure of the political state by the proletariat. Only the Bubnoff group of so-called political centralism may be so near-sighted as to underestimate its importance and to say: “The question concerning trade unions at the present moment has no importance whatsoever, and presents none of the theoretical difficulties.”

It is, however, quite natural that the question seriously agitates the party as it is in reality the question: in what direction shall we turn the wheel of history – shall we turn . it back or move it forward? It is also natural that there is not a single communist in the party who would remain non-committal during the discussion of this question. As a result we have six different groups.

If we begin, however, to carefully analyze all the theses of these most minutely divergent groups we find that on the basic question – who shall build the communist economy and organize the production on the new basis – there are only two points of view. One is that which is expressed and formulated in the statement of principles of the Workers’ Opposition, and the other is one that unites all the rest of the groups, differing only in shades, but identical in substance.

What does the statement of the Workers’ Opposition stand for, and how does the latter understand the part that is to be played by the trade unions, or, to be more exact, by the industrial unions at the present moment? “We believe that the question of reconstruction and development of the productive forces of our country may be solved only if the entire system of control over the people’s economy is changed” (From Shliapnikoff’s report, Dec. 30th). Take notice, comrades, – “only if the entire system of control is changed.” What does it mean?

“The basis of. the controversy,” – goes on the report, – “revolves around the question: by what means during this period of transformation can our Communist party carry out its economic policy: – whether by means of workers organized into their class unions, or – over their heads – by bureaucratic means, through canonized functionaries of the state.” The basis of the controversy is namely this: whether we shall realize communism through workers or over their heads, by the hands of soviet officials. And let us, comrades, ponder whether it is possible to attain and build a communist economy by the hands and creative abilities of the scions from the other class, who are imbued with their routine of the past? If we begin to think as Marxians, as men of science, we shall answer categorically and explicitly – no.

The root of the controversy and the cause of the crisis lies in the supposition that “practical men,” technicians, specialists and managers of capitalist production can suddenly release themselves from the bonds of their traditional conceptions of ways and means of handling labor, which had been deeply ingrained into their very flesh through the years of their service to capital, and acquire the ability to create new forms of production, of labor organization and of incentives to work.

To suppose that, is to forget the incontestable truth that a system of production can not be changed by a few individual geniuses, but by the requirements of a class.

Just imagine for a moment that during the transitory period from the feudal system founded on slave labor to the system of capitalist production, with its alleged free hired labor in the industries, (the bourgeois class lacking at that time the necessary experience in the organization of capitalist production), were to invite all the clever, shrewd, experienced managers of the feudal estates who had been accustomed to deal with servile chattel slaves, and entrust to them the task of organizing production on a new capitalist basis. What would happen? Would these specialists in their own sphere, depending on the whip to increase productivity of labor, succeed in handling a “free,” though hungry, proletarian, who had released himself from the curse of involuntary labor and had become a soldier or a day laborer? Would not these experts wholly destroy the newly born and developing capitalist production? Individual overseers of the chattel slaves, individual former landlords, and their managers were able to adapt themselves to the new forms of production, but it was not from their ranks that the real creators and builders of the bourgeois capitalist economy were recruited.

The class instinct whispered to the first owners of the capitalist establishments that it is better to go slowly and use common sense in place of experience in search of the new ways and means in establishing relations between capital and labor, than to borrow the antiquated useless methods of exploitation of labor from the old outlawed system. The class instinct quite correctly told the first capitalists during the first period of capitalist development that in place of the whip of the overseer they must apply another incentive: rivalry, personal ambition of workers facing unemployment and misery. And the capitalists, having grasped this new incentive to labor, this new conqueror of labor, were wise enough to use it in order to promote the development of bourgeois capitalist forms of production by increasing the productivity of “free” hired labor to a high degree of intensity.

Five centuries ago the bourgeoisie acted also in a cautious way carefully listening to the dictates of their class instincts. They relied more on their common sense than on the experience of the skillful specialists in the sphere of organizing production on the old feudal estates. The bourgeoisie was perfectly right as history has showed us.

We possess a great weapon that can help us to find the shortest road to the victory of the working class, diminish suffering along the way, and more quickly bring about the new system of production – communism.

This weapon is the materialistic conception of history. However, instead of using it, widening our experience and correcting our researches in conformity with history we are ready to throw this weapon aside, and follow the encumbered circuitous road of blind experiments.

Whatever our economic distress happens to be we are not justified in going to such an extreme degree of despair, for despair can overcome only the capitalist governments standing with their backs to the wall; after exhausting all the creative impulses of capitalist production they find no solution to their problems.

As far as toiling Russia is concerned, for whom since the October revolution has been opened new unprecedented opportunities of economic creation, as well as development of new unheard-of forms of production, with an immense increase in productivity of labor, there is no room for despair.

It is only necessary not to borrow from the past, but, on the contrary, give complete freedom to the creative powers of the future. This is what the Workers’ Opposition is doing. Who can be the builder and the creator of communist economy? That class – and not individual geniuses of the past – which is organically bound with newly developing, painfully born forms of production of a more productive and perfect system of economy. Which organ – the pure class industrial unions, or the heterogeneous soviet economic establishments – can formulate and solve the creative problems in the sphere of organizing the new economy and its production? The Workers’ Opposition considers that it can be done only by the first, that it, by the workers’ collective, and not by the functional bureaucratic socially-heterogeneous collective with a strong admixture of elements of the old capitalist type, whose mind is clogged by the refuse of capitalistic routine.

“The workers’ unions from the present position of passive assistance to the economic institutions must be drawn into an active participation in the management of the entire economic structure” (the theses of the Workers’ Opposition). To seek, find, and create new and more perfect forms of economy, to find new incentives to the productivity of labor – all this can be done only by the workers’ collectives that are closely bound with the new forms of production; only they from their everyday experience may draw certain, at first glance only practically important, and yet exceedingly valuable theoretical conclusions in handling the new labor power in a new labor state where misery, poverty, unemployment and competition on the labor market ceases to be the incentives to labor.

To find a stimulus, an incentive to work – this is the greatest task of the working class standing on the threshold to communism. None other, however, but the working class itself in the form of its class collective is able to solve this great problem.

The solution of this problem, as it is proposed by the industrial unions, consists in giving complete freedom to the workers as regards experimenting, class training, adjusting and feeling out the new forms of production, as well as expression and development of their creative abilities, that is, to that class which alone can be the creator of communism. This is the way the Workers’ Opposition handles the solution of this difficult problem from which follows the most essential point of their theses. “Organization of control over the social economy is a prerogative of the All-Russian Congress of producers, who are united in the trade and industrial unions which elect the central body directing the whole economic life of the republic”’ (Theses of the Workers’ Opposition). This point secures freedom for the manifestation of class creative abilities, not restricted and crippled by the bureaucratic machine which is saturated with the spirit of routine of the bourgeois capitalist system of production and control. The Workers’ Opposition relies on the creative powers of its own class – the workers. From this premise is deducted the rest of the program.

But right at this point there begins the deviation of the Workers’ Opposition from the line that is followed by the party leaders. Distrust toward the working class (not in the sphere of politics, but in the sphere of economic creative abilities) is the whole essence of the theses signed by our party leaders. They do not believe that by the rough hands of workers, untrained technically, can be created those basic outlines of the economic forms from which in the course of time shall develop a harmonious system of communist production.

To all of them – Lenin, Trotzky, Zinovieff and Bucharin – it seems that production is such a “delicate thing” that it is impossible to get along without the assistance of “directors.” First of all we shall “bring up” the workers, “teach them,” and only when they grow up shall we remove from them all the teachers of the Supreme Council of Natural Economy and let the industrial unions take control over the production. It is, after all, significant that all the theses written by the party leaders coincide in one essential feature: for the present we shall not give control over the production to the trade unions; for the present we “shall wait.” It is also true that Trotzky, Lenin, Zinovieff and Bucharin’s points of view differ in stating the reason – why the workers should not be entrusted with running the industries just at present, but they all unanimously agree that just at the present time the management over the production must be carried on over the workers’ heads by means of a bureaucratic system inherited from the past.

On this point all the leaders of our party are in complete accord. “The center of gravitation in the work of the trade unions at the present moment – assert the ‘Ten’ in their theses – must be shifted into the economic industrial sphere. The trade unions as class organizations, of workers built up in conformity with their industrial functions must take on themselves the major work in organization of production” (boldface ours). “Major work” is a too indefinite term which permits of various interpretations, and yet, it would seem, the platform of the “Ten” gives more leeway for the trade unions in running the industries than Trotzky centralism. Is this the case, however? Further, the theses of the Ten go on to explain what they mean by “major work” of the unions. “The most energetic participation in the centers which regulate production and control, register and distribute labor power, organize exchange between cities and villages, fight against sabotage and carry out decrees on different compulsory labor obligations, etc.” This is all. Nothing new and nothing more than what the trade unions have already been doing, and which can not save our production nor help in the solution of the basic question – raising and developing the productive forces of our country.

In order to make clear the fact that the program of the “Ten” does not give to the trade unions any of the directing functions, but assigns to them, only an auxiliary role in the management of production, the authors of it say: “In a developed stage (not at present, but in a developed stage) the trade unions in their process of social revolution must become organs of the social authority, working as such, in subordination to other organizations, toward carrying out the new principles of organization of the economic life.” By this they meant to say that the trade unions must work in subordination to the Supreme Council of National Economy and its branches. What is the difference then with that and “joining by growth” which was proposed by Trotzky. The difference is only in methods. The theses of the “Ten” strongly emphasize the educational nature of the trade unions. In their formulation of problems for the trade unions, mainly in the sphere of organization, industry and education, our party leaders as clever politicians suddenly convert themselves into “teachers.”

This peculiar controversy is revolving not around the system of management in industry, but mainly around the system of bringing up the masses. In fact when one begins to turn over the pages of the stenographic minutes and speeches made by our prominent leaders, one is astonished by the unexpected manifestation of their pedagogic proclivities. Every author of the theses proposes the most perfect system of bringing up the masses, but all these systems of “education” lack provisions for freedom of experiment, for training and expressing creative abilities by those who are to be taught; in this respect all our pedagogues are also behind the times.

The trouble is that Lenin, Trotzky, Bukharin and others limit the functions of the trade unions not to the control over production or taking over the industries, but to a mere school of bringing up the masses. During the discussion to some of our comrades it seemed that Trotzky stands for a gradual “absorption of the unions by the state” – not all of a sudden, but gradual, and wants to reserve for them the right of ultimate control over production, as it is expressed in our program.

This point, it seemed at first, put Trotzky on a common ground with the Opposition at a time when the group represented by Lenin and Zinovieff, being opposed to “the absorption by the state,” sees the object of the union activity and their problem in “training for communism.” “Trade unions,” – thunder Trotzky and Zinoview – “are necessary for the rough work” (page 22 of the report, Dec. 30th). Trotzky himself, it would seem, understands the task somewhat differently; in his opinion the most important work of the unions consists in organizing production.

In this he is perfectly right; he is also right when he says: “Inasmuch as unions are schools of communism they are such schools not in carrying on general propaganda (for in such a case they would play the part of clubs), not in mobilizing their members for military work or collecting the produce tax, but for the purpose of all-round education of their members on the basis of their participation in production .” (Trotzky’s report, December 30th). All this is true, but there is one grave omission; the unions are not only schools for communism , but they are its creators as well.

Creativeness of the class is being lost sight of. Trotzky substitutes it by initiative of “the real organizers of production,” by communists inside the unions (from Trotzky’s report, Dec. 30th). What communists? According to Trotzky, those communists who are appointed by the party to responsible administrative positions into the unions for reasons that quite often have nothing in common with considerations of industrial and economic problems of the unions. Trotzky is frank. He does not believe in workers’ preparedness to create communism, and through pain and suffering to seek, to blunder, and still create new forms of production. He has expressed this frankly and openly. He has already carried out his system of “club education” of the masses, and of their training for the role of “master” in the Central Administrative body of Railways by adopting all those methods of educating the masses which were practiced by our traditional journeymen upon their apprentices. It is true that a beating on the head by a boot-stretcher does not make an apprentice a successful shopkeeper after he becomes a journeyman, and yet as long as the boss-teacher’s stick hangs over his head he works and produces.

This, in Trotzky’s opinion, is the whole essence of shifting the central point “from politics to industrial problems.” To raise even temporarily productivity by every and all means is the whole crux of the task. Toward this end must be, in Trotzky’s opinion, also directed the whole course of training in the trade unions.

Comrades Lenin and Zinovieff, however, disagree with him. They are “educators” of “a modern trend of thought.” It has been stated many a time that the trade unions are schools for communism. What does that mean – schools for communism? If we take this definition seriously, it will mean that in school for communism it is necessary first of all to teach and bring up, but not to command (this allusion to Trotzky’s views meets with applauses). Further on Zinovieff adds: the trade unions are performing a great task both for the proletarian and communist cause. This is the basic part to be played by the trade unions. At present, however, we forget this, and think that we may handle the problem of trade unions too recklessly, too roughly, too severely.

It is necessary to remember that these organizations have their own particular tasks – not of commanding, supervising or dictating, but tasks in which all may be reduced to one – “drawing of the working masses into the channel of the organized proletarian movement.” Thus, teacher Trotzky went too far in his system of bringing up the masses, but what does comrade Zinovieff himself propose? To give within the unions the first lessons in communism, “to teach them (the masses) the elementals of the proletarian movement.” How? “Through practical experience, through practical creation of the new forms of production (just what the opposition wants)? Not at all. Zinovieff-Lenin’s group favors a system of bringing up through reading, giving moral precepts and good, well chosen examples. We have 500,000 communists (among whom, we regret to say, there are many “strangers” – stragglers from the other world) to 7,000,000 workers.

According to comrade Lenin the party has drawn into itself “the proletarian vanguard,” and the best communists, in co-operation with specialists from the soviet economic institutions, are searching hard in their laboratories for the new forms of communist production. These communists working at present under the care of “good teachers” in the Supreme Council of National Economy or other centers, these Peters and Johns are the best pupils, it is true, but the working masses in the trade unions must look to these exemplary Peters and Johns and learn something from them without touching with their own- hands the rudder of control, for it is too early as yet as they have not learned enough.

In Lenin’s opinion, the trade unions, that is, the working class organizations, are not the creators of the communist forms of people’s economy for they serve only as a connecting link of the vanguard with the masses, – “the trade unions in their everyday work persuade masses, masses of that class ...” etc.

This is not Trotzky’s “club system,” not a medieval system of education. This is the Froebel-Pestalozzi’s German system founded on studying examples. Trade unions must do nothing vital in the industries, but to persuade masses, and keep the masses in touch with the vanguard, with the party, which (remember this!) does not organize production as a collective, but only creates the soviet economic institutions of a heterogeneous composition, and whereto it appoints communists.

Which system is better? – this is the question. Trotzky’s system, whatever it may be in other respects, is clearer, and, therefore, more real. On reading books and studying examples taken from good-hearted Peters and Johns one can not advance education too far. This must be remembered, and remembered well.

Bueharin’s group occupied the middle ground or, rather, attempts to coordinate both systems of bringing up; we must notice, however, that this also does not recognize the principle of independent creativeness of the unions in industry. In the opinion of Bucharin’s group the trade unions play a double role (so it is proclaimed in its theses); on one hand it (obviously “the role”) takes on itself the functions of a “school for communism,” and, on the other hand, the functions of an intermediary between the party and the masses (this is from Lenin’s group); it takes, in other words, the role of a machine injecting the wide proletarian masses into the active life (notice, comrades – “into the active life, but not into the creation of the new form of economy, and search for new forms of production). Besides that, they (obviously the unions) in ever increasing degree must become the component part both of the economic machine and the state authority. This is from Trotzky’s “joining together.”

The controversy again revolves not around the trade union problems, but around the methods of educating the masses by means of unions. Trotzky stands, or rather, stood for, a system which, with the help of that introduced among the railway workers, might hammer into the organized workers’ heads the wisdom of communist reconstruction, and by means of “appointees,” “shake-ups,” and all kinds of miraculous measures promulgated in conformity with “the shock system” could remake the unions so that they might join the soviet economic institutions by growth and become obedient tools in realizing economic plans worked out by the Supreme Council of National Economy.

Zinovieff and Lenin are not in a hurry to join the trade unions to the soviet economic machine. The unions, they say, shall remain unions. As regards production it will be run and managed by men whom we choose. When the trade unions have brought up obedient and industrious Peters and Johns we will “inject” them into the soviet economic institutions and thus the unions will gradually disappear, dissolve.

The creation of new forms of national economy we entrust to the soviet bureaucratic institutions; as to the unions we leave to them the role of “schools.” Education, education, and more education. Such is the Lenin-Zinovieff slogan. Bucharin, however, wanted “to bank” on radicalism in the system of union education, and, of course, fully merited the rebuke from Lenin together with the nickname of “Simidicomist.” Bucharin and his group, while emphasizing the educational part to be played by the unions in the present political situation, stand for the most complete workers’ democracy inside the unions , for wide elective powers to the unions – not only for the elective principle generally applied, but for non-conditional election of delegates nominated by the unions. Pray, what a democracy!

This smacked of the very Opposition itself, if it were not for one difference. The Workers’ Opposition sees in the unions the managers, and creators of the communist economy whereas Bucharin together with Lenin and Trotzky leave to them only the role of “schools for communism,” and no more. Why should he not play with the elective principle when everybody knows that it will do no good or bad for the system of running the industry? For, as a matter of fact, the control over the industry will still remain outside the unions, beyond their reach, in the hands of the soviet institutions. Bucharin reminds us of those teachers who carry on education in conformity with the old system by means of “books.” – “You must learn that far, and no further” while encouraging “self-activity” of the pupils in organizing dances, entertainments, etc.

In this way the two systems quite comfortably live together, and square one with another. But what the outcome of all this will be, and what duties will the pupils of these teachers of eclectics be able to perform – this is a different question. If comrade Lunacharsky were to disapprove at all the educational meetings “eclectic heresy” like this the position of the People’s Commissariat on Education would be precarious, indeed.

However, there is no need to underestimate the educational methods of our leading comrades in regard to the trade unions. They all, Trotzky included, realize that in the matter of education “self-activity” of the masses is not the least factor. Therefore, they are in search of such a plan, where the trade unions without any harm to the prevailing bureaucratic system of running the industry, may develop their initiative and their economic creative powers. The least harmful sphere where the masses could manifest their self-activity as well as their “participation in active life” (according to Bucharin) is the sphere of betterment of the workers’ lot. The Workers’ Opposition pays a great deal of attention to this question, and yet it knows that the basic sphere of class creation is the creation of new industrial economic forms, of which the betterment of the workers’ lot is only a part.

In Trotzky and Zinovieff’s opinion the production must be created and adjusted by the soviet institutions while the trade unions are advised to perform a rather restricted, though useful, work of improving the lot of the workers. Comrade Zinovieff, for instance, sees in distribution of clothing the “economic role” of the unions and explains: “there is no other more important problem than that of economy; to repair one bath house in Petrograd at present is ten times more important than delivering five good lectures.”

What is this? A naive mistaken view, or a conscious substitution of organizing creative tasks in the sphere of production, and development of creative abilities by restricted tasks of home economics, house-hold duties, etc? In somewhat different language the same thought is expressed by Trotzky. He very generously proposes to the trade unions to develop the greatest initiative possible in the economic field.

But where shall this initiative express itself? In “putting glasses” in the shop window or filling up a pool in front of the factory (from Trotzky’s speech at the Miner’s Congress). Comrade Trotzky, take pity on us! For this is merely the sphere of “house-running,” and if you intend to reduce the creativeness of the unions to such a scope then the unions will become not schools for communism, but places where they train people for janitors. It is true that comrade Trotzky attempts to widen the scope of the “self-activity of the masses” by letting them participate not in an independent improvement of the workers’ lot, on the job (that far goes only the “insane” Workers’ Opposition), but by taking lessons from the Supreme Council of National Economy on this subject.

Whenever a question concerning workers is to be decided, as, for instance, about distribution of food or labor power, it, is necessary that the trade unions must know exactly (not participate themselves in the matter, but only know), not in general outline, as mere citizens, but know thoroughly the whole current work that is being done by the Supreme Council of National Economy (speech of Dec. 30th). The teachers from the Supreme Council of National Economy not only force the trade unions “to carry out” their plans, but they also “explain to their pupils their decrees.” This is already a step forward in comparison with the system that functions at present on the railways.

To every thinking worker it is clear, however, that putting in glasses, being as useful as it may, has nothing in common with running the industry. Productive forces and their development do not find expression in this work. The really Important question still is: how to develop them, how to build such a state of economy by squaring the new life with production, in order to eliminate the unproductive labor as much as possible. A party may bring up a red soldier, a political worker, or executive worker to carry out the projects already laid out, but it cannot develop a creator of communist economy, for only a union offers an opportunity for developing the creative abilities along new lines.

Moreover, this is not the task of the party. The party task is to create conditions, that is, give freedom to the working masses united by common economic industrial aims, so that they could bring up a worker-creator, find new impulses for work, could work out a new system to utilize labor power, and might know how to distribute workers in order to reconstruct society, and thus to create a new economic order of things founded on the communist basis. Only workers can generate in their mind new methods of organizing labor as well as running industry.

This is a simple Marxian truth, and yet at present the leaders of our party do not share it with us. Why? Just because they place more reliance on the bureaucratic technicians, descendants of the past, than in the healthy elemental class creativeness of the working masses. In every other sphere we may hesitate as to who is to be in the control – whether the workers’ collective or the bureaucratic specialists, be that in the matter of education, developing of science, organization of the army, care of public health, but there is one place, that of the economy, where ‘the question as to who shall have the control is very simple and clear for every one who has not forgotten history.

It is well known to every Marxian that reconstruction of industry and development of creative forces of a country depend on two factors: on the development of technique, and the efficient organization of labor by means of increasing productivity and finding new incentives to work. This has been true during every period of transformation from a lower stage of economic development to one higher throughout all the history of human existence.

In a labor republic the development of productive forces by means of technique plays a secondary role in comparison with the second factor, that of the efficient organization of labor, and creation of a new system of economy. Even if Soviet Russia succeeds in carrying out completely its project of general electrification without introducing any essential change in the system of control and organization of the people’s economy and production it would only catch up with the advanced capitalist countries in the matter of development.

Yet, in the efficient utilization of labor power and building up a new system of production Russian labor finds itself in exceptionally favorable circumstances, which give her the opportunity to leave far behind all the bourgeois’ capitalist countries in the matter of developing the productive forces. Unemployment as an incentive to labor in Soviet Russia has been done away with. Therefore, there are open new possibilities for the working class that had been freed from the yoke of capital, to say its own new creative word in finding new incentives to labor and creation of new forms of production which will have had no precedent in all human history.

Who can, however, develop the necessary creativeness and keenness in this sphere? Whether bureaucratic elements, heads of the soviet institutions or the industrial unions whose members in their experience in regrouping workers in the shop come across creative, useful, practical methods that can be applied in the process of reorganizing the entire system of the people’s economy? The Workers’ Opposition asserts that administration of the people’s economy is the trade unions’ job, and, therefore, it is more Marxian in thought than the theoretically trained leaders.

The Workers’ Opposition is not so ignorant as to wholly underestimate the great value of the technical progress or the usefulness of technically trained men. It does not, therefore, think that after electing its own body of control over the industry it may safely dismiss the Supreme Council of National Economy, the central industrial committees, economic centers, etc. Not at all. And yet the Workers’ Opposition thinks that it must assert its own control over these technically valuable administrative centers, give them theoretical tasks, and use their services as the capitalists did when they hired the technicians in order to carry out their own schemes. Specialists indeed can do valuable work in developing the industries; they can make the workers’ manual labor easier; they are necessary, indispensable as science is indispensable to every rising and developing class, but the bourgeois specialists, even with the communist label pasted on, are powerless physically and too weak mentally to develop productive forces in a non-capitalist state; to find new methods of labor organization, and develop new incentives for intensification of labor. In this, the last word belongs to the working class – to the industrial unions.

When the class of rising bourgeoisie, having reached the threshold leading from medieval to modem times, entered into the economic battle with the decaying class of feudal lords it did not possess any of the technical advantages over the latter. The trader – the first capitalist – was compelled to buy goods from that craftsman or journeyman who by means of hand files, knife and primitive spindles was producing goods both for his “master,” the landlord, and for the outside trader, with whom he entered into a “free” trade agreement. Feudal economy having reached a culminating point in its organization, ceased to give any surplus, and there began a decrease in the growth of productive forces; humanity stood face to face with an alternative of either economic decay or of finding new incentives for labor, of creating, consequently, a new economic system which would increase productivity, widen the scope of production, and open new possibilities for the development of productive forces.

Who could have found and evolved the new methods in the sphere of industrial reorganization? None, but those class representatives who had not been bound by the routine of the past, who understood that the spindle and cutter in the hands of a chattel slave produce incomparably less than in the hands of supposedly free hired workers behind whose back stands the incentive of economic necessity.

Thus, the rising class having found where the basic incentive to labor lies, has built on it a complex system great in its own way; the system of capitalist production. The technicians have come to the aid of capitalists only much later. The basis was the new system of labor organization, and the new relations that were established between capital and labor.

The same is true at present. No specialist or technician imbued with the routine of the capitalist system of production can ever introduce any new creative motive and vitalizing innovation into the fields of labor organization, in creating and adjusting the communist economy. Here the function belongs to the workers’ collective. The great service of the Workers’ Opposition is that it has put up this question of supreme importance frankly and openly before the party.

Comrade Lenin considers that we can put through the communist plan on the economic field by means of the party. Is it so? First of all let us consider how the party functions. According to comrade Lenin, “it attracts to itself the vanguard of workers”; then it scatters it over various soviet institutions (only a part of the vanguard gets back into the trade unions, where the communist members, however, are deprived of an opportunity of directing and building up the people’s economy). There these well trained, faithful, and, perhaps, very talented communist-economists disintegrate and decay in the general atmosphere of routine, which pervades all our soviet economic institutions. In such an atmosphere the influence of these comrades is weakened, marred or entirely lost.

Quite a different thing with the trade unions. There the class atmosphere is thicker, the composition of forces is more homogeneous, the tasks that the collective is faced with are more closely bound with the immediate life and labor needs of the producers themselves, of the members of factory and shop committees, of the factory management, and the unions’ centers. Creativeness, research of new forms for production, for new incentives to labor, in order to increase productivity, may be generated only in the bosom of this natural class collective. Only the vanguard of the class can create revolution, but only the whole class can create through everyday experience and practical work of its basic class collective.

Whoever does not believe in the creative spirit of a class collective – and this collective is most fully represented by the trade union – must put a cross over the communist reconstruction of society. Neither can Krestinsky or Preobrajensky nor Lenin and Trotzky push to the forefront by the means of their party machine, without a mistake, those workers who are able to find and point out new approaches to the new system of production. Such workers can be advanced only by life-experience itself from the ranks of those who actually produce and organize production at the same time.

Nevertheless, this consideration, very simple and clear to every practical man, is lost sight of by our party leaders. It is impossible to decree communism. In can be created only in the process of practical research, through mistakes, perhaps, but only by the creative powers of the working class itself.

The cardinal point of controversy that is taking place between the party leaders and the Workers’ Opposition is this: In whom will our party place the trust of building up the communist economy – in the Supreme Council of National Economy with all its bureaucratic branches or in the Industrial Unions? Comrade Trotzky wants “to join” the trade unions to the Supreme Council of People’s Economy so that with the assistance of the latter it might be possible to swallow the first. Comrades Lenin and Zinovieff, on the other hand, want to “bring up” masses to such a level of communist understanding that they could be painlessly absorbed into the same soviet institutions. Bucharin and the rest of the factions express essentially the same view, and the variation consists only in the way they put it, the essence is the same. Only the Workers’ Opposition expresses something entirely different, defends the class proletarian viewpoint in the very process of creation and realization of its tasks.

The administrative economic body in the labor republic during the present transitory period must be a body directly elected by the producers themselves. All the rest of the administrative economic soviet institutions shall serve only as executive centers of the economic policy of that all-important economic body of the labor republic. All else is a goose-stepping that manifests distrust toward the creative abilities of workers, distrust which is not compatible with the professed ideals of our party whose very strength depends on the perennial revolutionary creative spirit of the proletariat.

There will be nothing surprising if at the approaching party congress the sponsors of the different economic reforms, save the single exception of the Workers’ Opposition, will come to a common understanding through mutual compromises and concessions since there is no essential controversy among them.

The Workers’ Opposition alone will not and must not compromise. This does not, however, mean that it “drives to a split.” Not at all. Its task is entirely different. Even in the event of defeat at the congress it must remain in the party, and step by step stubbornly defend its point of view, save the party, and clarify its class lines.

Once more in brief: what is it that the Workers’ Opposition wants?

• To form a body from the workers – producers themselves – for administering the people’s economy.

• For this purpose, viz.: for the transformation of the unions from the role of passive assistance to the economic bodies, to that of an active participation and manifestation of their creative initiative, the Workers Opposition proposes a series of preliminary measures to an orderly and gradual realization of this aim.

• Transferring of the administrative functions of industry into the hands of the union does not take place until the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the trade unions has found said unions as being able and sufficiently prepared for the task.

• All appointments to the administrative economic positions shall be made with consent of the union. All candidates nominated by the union are non-removable. All responsible officials appointed by the union are responsible to, and may be recalled, by it.

• In order to carry out all these proposals it is necessary to strengthen the rank and file nucleus in the unions, and to prepare factory and shop committees for running the industries.

• By means of concentrating in one body the entire administration of the public economy (without the existing dualism of the Supreme Council of National Economy and the All-Russian Executive Committee of the trade unions) there must be created a oneness of will that will make it easy to carry out the plan and put into life the communist system of production. Is this syndicalism? Is not this, on the contrary, the same as what is stated in our party program, and are not the statements of principles signed by the rest of the comrades deviating from it?

The Woman Worker and Peasant in Soviet Russia (1921)

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In Soviet Russia there is no independent movement of women workers. In Soviet Russia the proletariat of both sexes are indissolubly united in their struggle to establish and consolidate the dictatorship (of the proletariat-Tr.) and to build the new society of working people.

However, precisely in order to ensure this unity, this joint struggle and joint work, the Communist Party had to include among its tasks the special task of involving women actively in the construction of a new future and in the conscious defence of the first republic of working people against its internal and external enemies.

This task was formulated by the Bolshevik Party as far back as the eve of the revolution, the spring of 1917, when the editorial board of the magazine Rabotnitsa was set up under the party Central Committee in order to serve not only as a centre of propaganda work among the female proletariat, but also as a centre organising women workers around the banner of Bolshevism.

At a time when bourgeois chauvinism and Kerenskyism were in full flood and the dangers of conciliation had not yet been finally eliminated, the editorial board of Rabotnitsa, responding in early June, 1917, to Kerensky's call for the Russian army to advance, organised a large international meeting calling for opposition to the criminal slaughter of the war and for world-wide worker solidarity against the common enemy-the capitalists-and their loyal servants, the conciliators. This was the first open international meeting in Russia.

In autumn, 1917, with the struggle of the proletariat for Soviet power having intensified, and faced with the threat of an offensive by General Kornilov, the most progressive and conscious section of women workers came out in support of the Bolsheviks and became actively involved in the civil war that had broken out. However, the broad mass of women workers and peasants remained outside the movement, passively bearing the increasing burden of economic collapse, deprivation and suffering that inevitably accompany the clash between two social worlds.

The Great October Revolution and the transfer of power into the hands of the working people gave women in Russia full political and civil equality. A new age opened up before women workers and peasants. An end had been put to their former, age-old lack of rights. From that moment on, women enjoyed total equality in every sphere of the work and life of the state. From the very first days following the October Revolution, the Communist Party hastened to make use of the energies of women communists and women workers sympathetic to Soviet power. Women were appointed Commissars, were given important posts, and even sat on the Council of People's Commissars. They were given work in every section of the newly formed Soviet state apparatus...

The doors of the Communist Party stood open to women of the working class, and the law gave them every opportunity to participate in the work of the Soviets to reshape their way of life and thus improve their own living conditions... However, the broad mass of women workers and peasants (taken in the majority) looked with fear upon communists and Soviet power, seeing in them only the destroyers of the fundamental order and ancient traditions, 'godless' people who separated church and state, heartless people who wished to take children away from their mothers and hand them over to be brought up by the state.

Starvation and deprivation further stimulated the blind resentment of the women, who transmitted to their families ideas and attitudes hostile to communism.

In the autumn of 1918 after the attempt by counterrevolution, with the assistance of the Czechoslovaks, to smash the Bolsheviks and put an end to Soviet power, the party recognised the urgency of the problem of involving women workers in Soviet construction and raising their level of class-consciousness. The women, who had stood aside from the movement to consolidate the Soviets, were already becoming a factor actively assisting counter-revolution.

In the interests of communism it was necessary to win over the women workers and turn them into defenders of Soviet power. General propaganda of the ideas of Soviet power and communism proved insufficient to draw women into the movement. A special approach had to be found as regards the women workers and poorest peasants; a special method of work among women had to be developed in order to force them to understand and appreciate what their position should be and which power best guaranteed women's interests – the dictatorship of the proletariat, or a return to the rule of the bourgeoisie.

On the initiative of a group of communist women in Moscow, and with the full support of the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party, the First All-Russia Congress of Women Workers and Peasants was convened in Moscow in November, 1918. It was attended by over a thousand women delegates elected at women workers' and peasants' meetings. This congress was not only of enormous propaganda significance, but also laid the foundations for the creation within the Russian Communist Party of a special, all-Russia apparatus for conducting work among women. The creation of a special apparatus within the party whose purpose was to draw the mass of the female population into the construction of a republic of working people and into the struggle for communism thus received official recognition within the party.

To begin with, responsibility for this work was assumed by the Commissions for Propaganda Among Women Workers, organised under the auspices of party committees. The slogan of the commissions ran: 'propaganda in deeds as well as words', which meant that women workers and peasants were to be turned into conscious and active communists via involvement in the creative practical work of the Soviets. With this in view, the commissions created a special apparatus linking the party with the broad mass of backward working women. This apparatus was the council of women delegates. Each enterprise and each workshop was to send one woman delegate for every fifty women workers to the delegate council of women workers.

The delegates were elected for three months, and their attendance at weekly delegate councils, at which they were informed about recent political events, about the work being done in various branches of Soviet construction, and in particular about social education, public catering, protection of motherhood and other areas of state activity directly assisting the domestic emancipation of working woman, was compulsory.

The delegates not only attended the councils, but were also charged with a number of practical activities which included membership of the commissions on labour protection, on improving living conditions, on provision for motherhood, etc., operating at their own enterprises, visits of inspection to state institutions in order to become familiar with the methods and systems of work used in various branches of the state apparatus, and also co-operating in various party and state campaigns. As the work done by the party among the women increased, it became necessary to regulate it, make it more efficient and thorough-going. In the autumn of 1919, the party reorganised the Commissions for Propaganda Among Women Workers into departments for work among women. Such departments now form part of every local party committee, from the Central Committee to city, district and uyezd committees.

The departments for work among women not only involve women workers and peasants in the party and in state construction, turning them into active women Communists, but also bring independent initiative into the building of communism, putting before the party and state organs tasks related to the comprehensive and practical emancipation of women. Thus, on the initiative of the departments, abortion was legalised, and the proposal advanced at the Eighth Congress of Soviets on actively involving women workers in the rehabilitation of the economy and organisation of production by bringing women into all the organs of economic management has been adopted.

The inter-departmental commission for the campaign against prostitution, and the commissions to promote the protection of mother and child were also set up on the initiative of these departments. During the elaboration of the law on the obligation to work (April, 1920) they introduced a number of clauses relating to the protection of the physical strength, health and interests of mothers. Finally, in April of this year, on the initiative of the women's departments, a law was passed through the Council of People's Commissars on involving women workers and peasants in the practical work of executive committee departments and institutions for a period of two months with a view to infusing new life into the state apparatus and freeing it from bureaucratic elements, and also in order to train state executives from among the women workers.

Over the two and a half years since the creation within the party of the special apparatus to conduct work among women with a view to involving women workers and peasants in the construction of a republic of working people ...and drawing them into communism, enormous progress has been made. The former mistrustful or passive attitude among the mass of women to the revolution and to Soviet power is now found only in the most remote areas where the women's departments have not yet begun to expand their activities.

Theses on Communist Morality in the Sphere of Marital Relations (1921)

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Family and marriage are historical categories. phenomena which develop in accordance with the economic relations that exist at the given level of production. The form of marriage and of the family is thus determined by the economic system of the given epoch, and it changes as the economic base of society changes. The family. in the same way. as government, religion. science, morals. law and customs, is part of the. superstructure which derives from the economic system of society.

Where economic functions are performed by the family rather than by society as a whole, family and marital relations are more stable and possess a vital capacity: “The less the development of labour, and the more limited its volume of production ... the more preponderantly does the social order appear to be dominated by ties of sex” (Engels, Origins of the Family). In the period of natural economy the family formed an enclosed economic unit which was necessary for humankind and thus had a vital capacity. The family was at that time a unit of both production and consumption. Outside the family/economic unit the individual had no means. especially at the earliest levels of the development of society, of sustaining the conditions necessary for life. In some areas and in some countries where capitalism is weakly developed (among. the peoples of the East, for example) the peasant family is still fundamentally a family/economic union. With the transition, however, from a natural economy to a merchant capitalist economy based on trade and exchange, the family ceases to be necessary for the functioning of society and thus loses its strength and vital capacity.

The fact that with the consolidation of the capitalist system of production, the marital/family union develops from a production unit into a legal arrangement concerned only with consumption, leads inevitably to the weakening of marital/family ties. In the era of private property and the bourgeois-capitalist economic system, marriage and the family are grounded in (a) material and financial considerations, (b) economic dependence of the female sex on the family breadwinner – the husband – rather than the social collective, and (c) the need to care for the rising generation. Capitalism maintains a system of individual economies: the family has a role to play in performing economic tasks and functions within the national capitalist economy. Thus under capitalism the family does not merge with or dissolve into the national economy but continues to exist as an independent economic unit, concerned with production in the case of the peasant family and consumption in the case of the urban family. The individual economy which springs from private property is the basis of the bourgeois family.

The communist economy does away with the family. In the period of the dictatorship of the proletariat there is a transition to the single production plan and collective social consumption, and the family loses its significance as an economic unit. The external economic functions of the family disappear, and consumption ceases to be organised on an individual family basis, a network of social kitchens and canteens is established. and the making, mending and washing of clothes and other aspects of housework ‘are integrated into the national economy. In the period of the dictatorship of the proletariat the family economic unit should be recognised as being, from the point of view of the national economy. not only useless but harmful. The family economic unit involves (a) the uneconomic expenditure of products and fuel on the part of small domestic economies, and (b) unproductive labour, especially by women. in the home – and is therefore in conflict with the interest of the workers’ republic in a single economic plan and the expedient use of the labour force (including women).

Under the dictatorship of the proletariat then. the material and economic considerations in which the family was grounded cease to exist. The economic dependence of women on men and the role of the family in the care of ‘the younger generation also disappear. as the communist elements in the workers’ republic grow stronger. With the introduction of the obligation of all citizens to work, woman has a value in the national economy which is independent of her family and marital status. The economic subjugation of women in marriage and the family is done away with, and responsibility for the care of the children and their physical and spiritual education is assumed by the social collective. The family teaches and instils egoism thus weakening the ties of the collective and hindering the construction of communism. However. in the new society relations between parents and children are freed from any element of material considerations and enter a new historic stage.

Once the family has been stripped of its economic functions and its responsibilities towards the younger generation and is no longer central to the existence of the woman, it has ceased to he a family. The family unit shrinks to a union of two people based on mutual agreement.

In the period of the dictatorship of the proletariat. the workers’ state has to concern itself not with the economic and social unit of the family, since this unit dies as the bonds of communism are consolidated, but with the changing forms of marital relations. The family as an economic unit and as a union of parents and children based on the need to provide for the material welfare of the latter is doomed to disappear. Thus the workers’ collective has to establish its attitude not to economic relationships but to the form of relationships between the sexes. What kind of relations between the sexes are in the best interests of the workers’ collective? What form of relations would strengthen. not weaken. the collective in the transitional stage between capitalism and communism and would thus assist the construction of the new society? The laws and the morality that the workers’ system is evolving are beginning to give an answer to this, question.

Once relations between the sexes cease to perform the economic and social function of the former family, they are no longer the concern of the workers’ collective. It is not the relationships between the sexes but the result – the child – that concerns the collective. The workers’ state recognises its responsibility to provide for maternity, i.e. to guarantee the well-being of the woman and the child, but it does not recognise the couple as a legal unit separate from the workers’ collective. The decrees on marriage issued by the workers’ republic establishing the mutual rights of the married couple (the right to demand material support from the partner for yourself or the child), and thus giving legal encouragement to the separation of this unit and its interests from the general interests of the workers’ social collective (the right of wives to be transferred to the town or village where their husbands are working), are survivals of the past; they contradict the interests of the collective and weaken its bonds. and should therefore be reviewed and changed.

The law ought to emphasise the interest of the workers’ collective in maternity and eliminate the situation where the child is dependent on the relationship between its parents. The law of the workers’ collective replaces the right of the parents, and the workers’ collective keeps a close watch, in the interests of the unified economy and of present and future labour resources. In the period of the dictatorship of the proletariat there must, instead of marriage law. be regulation of the relationship of the government to maternity, of the relationship between mother and child and of the relationship between the mother and the workers’ collective (i.e. legal norms must regulate the protection of female labour, the welfare of expectant and nursing mothers, the welfare of children and their social education).

Legal norms must regulate the relationship between the mother and the socially educated child, and between the father and the child. Fatherhood should not be established through marriage or a relationship of a material nature. The man should he able to choose whether or not to accept the role of fatherhood (i.e. the right which he shares equally with the mother to decide on a social system of education for the child, and the right. where this does not conflict with the interests of the collective, of intellectual contact with the child and the opportunity to influence its development).

There are two grounds on which, in the interests of the workers’ collective, the relationships between the sexes ought to be subject to legislative regulations: (a) the health and hygiene of the nation and the race, and (b) the increase or decrease of the population required by the national economic collective. In the period of the dictatorship of the proletariat. the regulation of relationships enters a new phase. Instead of laws and the threat of legal proceedings, the workers’ collective must rely on agitational and educational influences, and on social measures to improve the relationships between the sexes and to guarantee the health of the children born from these relationships. For example, the Commissariats of Health and Education must carry out a broad campaign on the question of venereal and other infectious diseases, thereby reducing the danger of these diseases spreading through sexual intercourse and daily living. A person is guilty before the law not for having had sexual relations but for having consciously kept silent and hidden the fact that he or she has the disease from those with whom he or she lives and works, and thus for failing to observe the rule on precautions to he taken to reduce the likelihood of infection.

In the period of the dictatorship of the proletariat. communist Morality – and not the law – regulates sexual relationships in the interest of the workers’ collective and of future generations.

Each historical (and therefore economic) epoch in the development of society has its own ideal of marriage and its. own sexual morality. Under the tribal system. with its ties of kinship, the morality was different from that which developed with the establishment of private property and the rule of the husband and father (patriarchy). Different economic systems have different moral codes. Not only each stage in the development of society. but each class has its corresponding sexual morality (it is sufficient to compare the morals of the feudal landowning class and of the bourgeoisie in one and the same epoch to see that this is true). The more firmly established the principles of private property, the stricter the moral code. The importance of virginity before legal marriage sprang from the principles of private property and the unwillingness of men to pay for the children of others.

Hypocrisy (the outward observance of decorum and the actual practice of depravity), and the double code (one code of behaviour for the man and another for the woman) are the twin pillars of bourgeois morality. Communist morality must above all, resolutely spurn all the hypocrisy inherited from bourgeois society in relationships between the sexes. and reject the double standard of morality.

In the period of the dictatorship of the proletariat relations between the sexes should be evaluated only according to the criteria mentioned above – the health of the working population and the development of inner bonds of solidarity within the collective. The sexual act must be seen not as something shameful and sinful but as something which is as natural as the other needs of healthy organism. such as hunger and thirst. Such phenomena cannot be judged as moral or immoral. The satisfaction of healthy and natural instincts only ceases to be normal when the boundaries of hygiene are overstepped. In such cases, not only the health of the person concerned but the interests of the work collective, which needs the strength and energy and health of its members, are threatened. Communist morality. therefore. while openly recognising the normality of sexual interests. condemns unhealthy and unnatural interest in sex (excesses, for example, or sexual relations before maturity has been reached, which exhaust the organism and lower the capacity of men and women for work).

As communist morality is concerned for the health of the population, it also criticises sexual restraint. The preservation of health includes the full and correct satisfaction of all man’s needs; norms of hygiene should work to this end, and not artificially suppress such an important function of the organism as the sex drive (Bebel. Woman and Socialism). Thus both early sexual experience (before the. body has developed and grown strong) and sexual restraint must be seen as equally harmful. This concern for the health of the human race does not establish either monogamy or polygamy as the obligatory form of relations between the sexes. for excesses may be committed in the bounds of the former, and a frequent change of partners by no means signifies sexual intemperance. Science has discovered that when a woman has relationships with many men at one time, her ability to have children is impaired; and relationships with a number of women drain the main and affect the health of his children negatively. Since the workers’ collective needs strong and healthy men and women. such arrangements of sexual life are not in its interests.

It is accepted that the psychological state of parents at the moment of conception influences the health and life capacity of the child. Thus in the interests of human health, communist morality :criticises, sexual relations which are based on physical attraction alone and are not attended by love or fleeting passion. In the interests of the collective, communist morality also criticises persons whose sexual relationships are built not on physical attraction but on calculation. habit or even intellectual affinity.

In view of the need to encourage the development and growth of feelings of solidarity and to strengthen the bonds of the work collective, it should above all be established that the isolation of the “couple” as a special unit does not answer the interests of communism. Communist morality requires the education of the working class in comradeship and the fusion of the hearts and minds of the separate members of this collective. The needs and interests of the individual must be subordinated to the interests and aims of the collective. On the one hand, therefore, the bonds of family and marriage must be weakened, and on the other, men and women need to be educated in solidarity and the subordination of the will of the individual to the will of the collective. Even at this present, early stage. the workers’ republic demands that mothers, learn to be the mothers not only of their own child but of all workers’ children; it does not recognise the couple as a self-sufficient unit. and does not therefore approve of wives deserting work for the sake of this unit.

As regards sexual relations. communist morality demands first of all an end to all relations based on financial or other economic considerations. The buying and selling of caresses destroys the sense of equality between the sexes. and thus undermines the basis of solidarity without which communist society cannot exist. Moral censure is consequently directed at prostitution in all its forms and at all types of marriage of convenience, even when recognised by Soviet law. The preservation of marriage regulations creates the illusion that the workers’ collective can accept the “couple” with its special, exclusive interests. The stronger the ties between the members of the collective, as a whole, the less the need to reinforce marital relations.

Secondly. communist morality demands the education of the younger generation in responsibility to the collective and in the consciousness that love is not the only thing in life (this is especially important in the case of women, for they have been taught the opposite for centuries). Love is only one aspect of life. and must not be allowed to overshadow the other facets of the relationships between individual and collective. The ideal of the bourgeoisie was the married couple, where the partners complemented each other so completely that they had no need of contact with society. Communist morality demands, on the contrary, that the younger generation be educated in such a way that the personality of the individual is developed to the full. and the individual with his or her many interests has contact with a range of persons of both sexes.

Communist morality encourages the development of many and varied bonds of love and friendship among people. The old ideal was “all for the loved ones”; communist morality demands all for the collective.

Though sex love is seen in the context of the interests of the collective. communist morality demands that people are educated in sensitivity and understanding and are psychologically demanding both to themselves and to their partners. The bourgeois attitude to sexual relations as simply a matter of sex must be criticised and replaced by an understanding of the whole gamut of joyful love-experience that enriches life and makes for greater happiness. The greater the intellectual and emotional development of the individual the less place will there be in his or her relationship for the bare physiological side of love. and the brighter will be the love experience.

In the transitional period, relations between men and women must. in order to meet the interests of the workers’ collective, he based on the following considerations. (1) All sexual relationships must be based on mutual inclination, love. infatuation or passion, and in no case on financial or material motivations. All calculation in relationships must be subject to merciless condemnation. (2) The form and length of the relationship are not regulated, but the hygiene of the race. and communist morality require that relationships be based not on the sexual act alone, and that it should not be accompanied by any excesses that threaten health. (3) Those with illnesses etc. that might be inherited should not have children. (4) A jealous and proprietary attitude to the person loved must be replaced by a comradely understanding of the other and an acceptance of his or her freedom. jealousy is a destructive force of which communist morality cannot approve. (5) The bonds between the members of the collective must he strengthened. The encouragement of the intellectual, and political interests of the younger generation assists the development of healthy and bright emotions in love.

The stronger the collective, the more firmly established becomes the communist way of life. The closer the emotional ties between the members of the community, the less the need to seek a refuge from loneliness in marriage. Under communism the blind strength of matter is subjugated to the will of the strongly welded and thus unprecedentedly powerful workers’ collective. The individual has the opportunity to develop intellectually and emotionally as never before. in this collective. new forms of relationships are maturing and the concept of love is extended and expanded.

Sexual Relations and the Class Struggle (1921)

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Among the many problems that demand the consideration and attention of contemporary mankind, sexual problems are undoubtedly some of the most crucial. There isn’t a country or a nation, apart from the legendary “islands”, where the question of sexual relationships isn’t becoming an urgent and burning issue. Mankind today is living through an acute sexual crisis which is far more unhealthy and harmful for being long and drawn-out. Throughout the long journey of human history, you probably won’t find a time when the problems of sex have occupied such a central place in the life of society; when the question of relationships between the sexes has been like a conjuror, attracting the attention of millions of troubled people; when sexual dramas have served as such a never-ending source of inspiration for every sort of art.

As the crisis continues and grows more serious, people are getting themselves into an increasingly hopeless situation, and are trying desperately by every available means to settle the “insoluble question”. But with every new attempt to solve the problem, the confused knot of personal relationships gets more tangled. It’s as if we couldn’t see the one and only thread that could finally lead us to success in controlling the stubborn tangle. The sexual problem is like a vicious circle. and however frightened people are and however much they run this way and that, they are unable to break out.

The conservatively inclined part of mankind argue that we should return to the happy times of the past, we should re-establish the old foundations of the family and strengthen the well-tried norms of sexual morality. The champions of bourgeois individualism say that we ought to destroy all the hypocritical restrictions of the obsolete code of sexual behaviour. These unnecessary and repressive “rags” ought to be relegated to the archives – only the individual conscience, the individual will of each person can decide such intimate questions. Socialists, on the other hand, assure us that sexual problems will only be settled when the basic reorganisation of the social and economic structure of society has been tackled. Doesn’t this “putting off the problem until tomorrow” suggest that we still haven’t found that one and only “magic thread”? Shouldn’t we find or at least locate this “magic thread” that promises to unravel the tangle? Shouldn’t we find it now, at this very moment?

The history of human society, the history of the continual battle between various social groups and classes of opposing aims and interests, gives us the clue to finding this “thread”. It isn’t the first time that mankind has gone through a sexual crisis. This isn’t the first time that the pressure of a rushing tide of new values and ideals has blurred the clear and definite meaning of moral commandments about social relationships. The “sexual crisis” was particularly acute at the time of the Renaissance and the Reformation, when a great social advance pushed the proud and patriarchal feudal nobility who were used to absolute command into the background, and cleared the way for the development and establishment of a new social force – the bourgeoisie.

The sexual morality of the feudal world had developed out of the depths of the “tribal way of life” – the collective economy and the tribal authoritarian leadership that stifles the individual will of the individual member. This clashed with the new and strange moral code of the rising bourgeoisie. The sexual morality of the bourgeoisie is founded on principles that are in sharp contradiction to the basic morality of feudalism. Strict individualism and the exclusiveness and isolation of the “nuclear family” replaced the emphasis on “collective work” that was characteristic of both the local and regional economic structure of patrimonial life.

Under capitalism and the ethic of competition, the triumphant principles of individualism and exclusive private property, grew and destroyed whatever remained of the idea of the community, which was to some extent common to all types of tribal life. For a whole century, while the complex laboratory of life was turning the old norms into a new formula and achieving the outward harmony of moral ideas, men wandered confusedly between two very different sexual codes and attempted to accommodate themselves to both.

But in those bright and colourful days of change, the sexual crisis, although profound, did not have the threatening character that it has assumed in our time. The main reason for this is that in “the great days” of the Renaissance, in the “new age” when the bright light of a new spiritual culture flooded the dying world with its clear colours, flooded the bare monotonous life of the Middle Ages, the sexual crisis affected only a relatively small part of the population. By far the largest section of the population, the peasantry, was affected only in the most indirect way and only as, slowly, over the course of centuries, a change in the economic base, in the economic relations of the countryside, took place. At the top of the social ladder a bitter battle between two opposing social worlds was fought out.

This involved also a struggle between their different ideals and values and ways of looking at things. It was these people who experienced and were threatened by the sexual crisis that developed. The peasants, wary of new things, continued to cling firmly to the well-tried tribal tradition handed down from their forefathers, and only under the pressure of extreme necessity modified and adapted this tradition to the changing conditions of their economic environment. Even at the height of the struggle between the bourgeoisie and the feudal world the sexual crisis by-passed the “class of tax-payers”. As the upper strata of society went about breaking up the old ways, the peasants in fact seemed to be more intent on clinging firmly to their traditions.

In spite of the continuous whirlwinds that threatened overhead and shook the very soil under their feet, the peasants, especially our Russian peasantry, managed to preserve the basis of their sexual code untouched and unshaken for many centuries.

The story today is very different. The “sexual crisis” does not spare even the peasantry. Like an infectious disease it “knows neither rank nor status”. It spreads from the palaces and mansions to the crowded quarters of the working class, looks in on the peaceful dwelling places of the petty bourgeoisie, and makes its way into the heart of the countryside. It claims victims in the villas of the European bourgeoisie, in the fusty basement of the worker’s family, and in the smoky hut of the peasant. There is “no defence, no bolt” against sexual conflict. To imagine that only the members of the well-off sections of society are floundering and are in the throes of these problems would be to make a grave mistake.

The waves of the sexual crisis are sweeping over the threshold of workers’ homes, and creating situations of conflict that are as acute and heartfelt as the psychological sufferings of the “refined bourgeois world”. The sexual crisis no longer interests only the “propertied”. The problems of sex concern the largest section of society – they concern the working class in its daily life. It is therefore hard to understand why this vital and urgent subject is treated with such indifference. This indifference is unforgivable. One of the tasks that confront the working class in its attack on the “beleaguered fortress of the future” is undoubtedly the task of establishing more healthy and more joyful relationships between the sexes.

What are the roots of this unforgivable indifference to one of the essential tasks of the working class? How can we explain to ourselves the hypocritical way in which “sexual problems” are relegated to the realm of “private matters” that are not worth the effort and attention of the collective? Why has the fact been ignored that throughout history one of the constant features of social struggle has been the attempt to change relationships between the sexes, and the type of moral codes that determine these relationships; and that the way personal relationships are organised in a certain social group has had a vital influence on the outcome of the struggle between hostile social classes?

The tragedy of our society is not just that the usual forms of behaviour and the principles regulating this behaviour are breaking down, but that a spontaneous wave of new attempts at living is developing from within the social fabric, giving men hopes and ideals that cannot yet be realised. We are people living in the world of property relationships, a world of sharp class contradictions and an individualistic morality. We still live and think under the heavy hand of an unavoidable loneliness of spirit. Man experiences this “loneliness” even in towns full of shouting, noise and people, even in a crowd of close friends and work-mates. Because of their loneliness men are apt to cling in a predatory and unhealthy way to illusions about finding a “soul mate” from among the members of the opposite sex. They see sly Eros as the only means of charming away, if only for a time, the gloom of inescapable loneliness.

People have perhaps never in any age felt spiritual loneliness as deeply and persistently as at the present time. People have probably never become so depressed and fallen so fully under the numbing influence of this loneliness. It could hardly be otherwise. The darkness never seems so black as when there’s light shining just ahead.

The “individualists”, who are only loosely organised into a collective with other individuals, now have the chance to change their sexual relationships so that they are based on the creative principle of friendship and togetherness rather than on something blindly physiological. The individualistic property morality of the present day is beginning to seem very obviously paralysing and oppressive. In criticising the quality of sexual relationships modern man is doing far more than rejecting the outdated forms of behaviour of the current moral code. His lonely soul is seeking the regeneration of the very essence of these relationships. He moans and pines for “great love”, for a situation of warmth and creativity which alone has the power to disperse the cold spirit of loneliness from which present day “individualists” suffer.

If the sexual crisis is three quarters the result of external socioeconomic relationships, the other quarter hinges on our “refined individualistic psyche”, fostered by the ruling bourgeois ideology. The “potential for loving” of people today is, as the German writer Miesel-Hess puts it, at a low ebb. Men and women seek each other in the hope of finding for themselves, through another person, a means to a larger share of spiritual and physical pleasure. It makes no difference whether they are married to the partner or not, they give little thought to what’s going on in the other person, to what’s happening to their emotions and psychological processes.

The “crude individualism” that adorns our era is perhaps nowhere as blatant as in the organisation of sexual relationships. A person wants to escape from his loneliness and naïvely imagines that being “in love” gives him the right to the soul of the other person – the right to warm himself in the rays of that rare blessing of emotional closeness and understanding. We individualists have had our emotions spoiled in the persistent cult of the “ego”. We imagine that we can reach the happiness of being in a state of “great love” with those near to us, without having to “give” up anything of ourselves.

The claims we make on our “contracted partner” are absolute and undivided. We are unable to follow the simplest rule of love – that another person should be treated with great consideration. New concepts will teach us to achieve relationships based on the unfamiliar ideas of complete freedom, equality and genuine friendship. But in the meantime mankind has to sit in the cold with its spiritual loneliness and can only dream about the “better age” when all relationships between people will be warmed by the rays of “the sun god”, will experience a sense of togetherness, and will be educated in the new conditions of living. The sexual crisis cannot be solved unless there is a radical reform of the human psyche, and unless man’s potential for loving is increased. And a basic transformation of the socio-economic relationships along communist lines is essential if the psyche is to be re-formed. This is an “old truth” but there is no other way out. The sexual crisis will in no way be reduced, whatever kind of marriage or personal relationships people care to try.

History has never seen such a variety of personal relationships – indissoluble marriage with its “stable family”, “free unions”, secret adultery; a girl living quite openly with her lover in so-called “wild marriage”; pair marriage, marriage in threes and even the complicated marriage of four people – not to talk of the various forms of commercial prostitution. You get the same two moral codes existing side by side in the peasantry as well – a mixture of the old tribal way of life and the developing bourgeois family. Thus you get the permissiveness of the girls’ house[01] side by side with the attitude that fornication, or men sleeping with their daughters-in-law, is a disgrace.

It’s surprising that, in the face of the contradictory and tangled forms of present-day personal relationships, people are able to preserve a faith in moral authority, and are able to make sense of these contradictions and thread their way through these mutually destructive and incompatible moral codes. Even the usual justification – “I live by the new morality” – doesn’t help anyone, since the new morality is still only in the process of being formed. Our task is to draw out from the chaos of the present-day contradictory sexual norms the shape, and make clear the principles, of a morality that answers the spirit of the progressive and revolutionary class.

Besides the already mentioned inadequacies of the contemporary psyche – extreme individuality, egoism that has become a cult – the “sexual crisis” is made worse by two characteristics of the psychology of modern man:

• The idea of “possessing” the married partner;

• The belief that the two sexes are unequal, that they are of unequal worth in every way, in every sphere, including the sexual sphere.

Bourgeois morality, with its introverted individualistic family based entirely on private property, has carefully cultivated the idea that one partner should completely “possess” the other. It has been very successful. The idea of “possession” is more pervasive now than under the patrimonial system of marriage relationships. During the long historical period that developed under the aegis of the “tribe”, the idea of a man possessing his wife (there has never been any thought of a wife having undisputed possession of her husband) did not go further than a purely physical possession. The wife was obliged to be faithful physically – her soul was her own. Even the knights recognised the right of their wives to have chichesbi (platonic friends and admirers) and to receive the “devotion” of other knights and minnesingers.

It is the bourgeoisie who have carefully tended and fostered the idea of the absolute possession of the “contracted partner’s” emotional as well as physical “I”, thus extending the concept of property rights to include the right to the other person’s whole spiritual and emotional world. Thus the family structure was strengthened and stability guaranteed in the period when the bourgeoisie were struggling for domination. This is the ideal that we have accepted as our heritage and have been prepared to see as an unchangeable moral absolute! The idea of “property” goes far beyond the boundaries of “lawful marriage”. It makes itself felt as an inevitable ingredient of the most “free” union of love.

Contemporary lovers with all their respect for freedom are not satisfied by the knowledge of the physical faithfulness alone of the person they love. To be rid of the eternally present threat of loneliness, we “launch an attack” on the emotions of the person we love with a cruelty and lack of delicacy that will not be understood by future generations. We demand the right to know every secret of this person’s being. The modern lover would forgive physical unfaithfulness sooner than “spiritual” unfaithfulness. He sees any emotion experienced outside the boundaries of the “free” relationship as the loss of his own personal treasure.

People “in love” are unbelievably insensitive in their relations to a third person. We have all no doubt observed this strange situation – two people who love each other are in a hurry, before they have got to know each other properly, to exercise their rights over all the relationships that the other person has formed up till that time, to look into the innermost corners of their partner’s life. Two people who yesterday were unknown to each other, and who come together in a single moment of mutual erotic feeling, rush to get at the heart of the other person’s being.

They want to feel that this strange and incomprehensible psyche, with its past experience that can never be suppressed, is an extension of their own self. the idea that the married pair are each other’s property is so accepted that when a young couple who were yesterday each living their own separate lives are today opening each other’s correspondence without a blush, and making common property of the words of a third person who is a friend of only one of them, this hardly strikes us as something unnatural. But this kind of “intimacy” is only really possible when people have been working out their lives together for a long period of time.

Usually a dishonest kind of closeness is substituted for this genuine feeling, the deception being fostered by the mistaken idea that a physical relationship between two people is a sufficient basis for extending the rights of possession to each other’s emotional being.

The “inequality” of the sexes – the inequality of their rights, the unequal value of their physical and emotional experience – is the other significant circumstance that distorts the psyche of contemporary man and is a reason for the deepening of the “sexual crisis”. The “double morality” inherent in both patrimonial and bourgeois society has, over the course of centuries, poisoned the psyche of men and women. These attitudes are so much a part of us that they are more difficult to get rid of than the ideas about possessing people that we have inherited only from bourgeois ideology. The idea that the sexes are unequal, even in the sphere of physical and emotional experience, means that the same action will be regarded differently according to whether it was the action of a man or a woman.

Even the most “progressive” member of the bourgeoisie, who has long ago rejected the whole code of current morality, easily catches himself out at this point since he too in judging a man and a woman for the same behaviour will pass different sentences. One simple example is enough. Imagine that a member of the middle-class intelligentsia who is learned, involved in politics and social affairs – who is in short a “personality”, even a “public figure” – starts sleeping with his cook (a not uncommon thing to happen) and even becomes legally married to her. Does bourgeois society change its attitude to this man, does the event throw even the tiniest shadow of doubt as to his moral worth? Of course not.

Now imagine another situation. A respected woman of bourgeois society – a social figure, a research student, a doctor, or a writer, it’s all the same – becomes friendly with her footman, and to complete the scandal marries him. How does bourgeois society react to the behaviour of the hitherto “respected” woman? They cover her with “scorn”, of course! And remember, it’s so much the worse for her if her husband, the footman, is good-looking or possesses other “physical qualities”. “It’s obvious what she’s fallen for”, will be the sneer of the hypocritical bourgeoisie.

If a woman’s choice has anything of an “individual character” about it she won’t be forgiven by bourgeois society. This attitude is a kind of throwback to the traditions of tribal times. Society still wants a woman to take into account, when she is making her choice, rank and status and the instructions and interests of her family. Bourgeois society cannot see a woman as an independent person separate from her family unit and outside the isolated circle of domestic obligations and virtues. Contemporary society goes even further than the ancient tribal society in acting as woman’s trustee, instructing her not only to marry but to fall in love only with those people who are “worthy” of her.

We are continually meeting men of considerable spiritual and intellectual qualities who have chosen as their friend-for-life a worthless and empty woman, who in no way matches the spiritual worth of the husband. We accept this as something normal and we don’t think twice about it. At the most friends might pity Ivan Ivanovich for having landed himself with such an unbearable wife. But if it happens the other way round, we flap our hands and exclaim with concern, “How could such an outstanding woman as Maria Petrovna fall for such a nonentity? I begin to doubt the worth of Maria Petrovna.” Where do we get this double criterion from? What is the reason for it? The reason is undoubtedly that the idea of the sexes being of “different value” has become, over the centuries, a part of man’s psychological make-up.

We are used to evaluating a woman not as a personality with individual qualities and failings irrespective of her physical and emotional experience, but only as an appendage of a man. This man, the husband or the lover, throws the light of his personality over the woman, and it is this reflection and not the woman herself that we consider to be the true definition of her emotional and moral make-up. In the eyes of society the personality of a man can be more easily separated from his actions in the sexual sphere. The personality of a woman is judged almost exclusively in terms of her sexual life. This type of attitude stems from the role that women have played in society over the centuries, and it is only now that a re-evaluation of these attitudes is slowly being achieved, at least in outline. Only a change in the economic role of woman, and her independent involvement in production, can and will bring about the weakening of these mistaken and hypocritical ideas.

The three basic circumstances distorting the modern psyche – extreme egoism, the idea that married partners possess each other, and the acceptance of the inequality of the sexes in terms of physical and emotional experience – must be faced if the sexual problem is to be settled. People will find the “magic key” with which they can break out of their situation only when their psyche has a sufficient store of “feelings of consideration”, when their ability to love is greater, when the idea of freedom in personal relationships becomes fact, and when the principle of “comradeship” triumphs over the traditional idea of “inequality” and submission. The sexual problems cannot be solved without this radical re-education of our psyche.

But isn’t this asking too much? Isn’t the suggestion utopian, without foundation, the naïve notion of a dreaming idealist? How are you honestly going to raise mankind’s “potential for loving”? Haven’t wise men of all nations since time immemorial, beginning with Buddha and Confucius and ending with Christ, been busying themselves over this? And who can say if the “potential for loving” has been raised? Isn’t this kind of well-meaning daydream about the solution of the sexual crisis simply a confession of weakness and a refusal to go on with the search for the “magic key”?

Is that the case? Is the radical re-education of our psyche and our approach to sexual relationships something so unlikely, so removed from reality? Couldn’t one say that, on the contrary, while great social and economic changes are in progress, the conditions are being created that demand and give rise to a new basis for psychological experience that is in line with what we have been talking about? Another class, a new social group, is coming forward to replace the bourgeoisie, with its bourgeois ideology, and its individualistic code of sexual morality. The progressive class, as it develops in strength, cannot fail to reveal new ideas about relationships between the sexes that form in close connection with problems of its social class.

The complicated evolution of socio-economic relations taking place before our eyes, which changes all our ideas about the role of women in social life and undermines the sexual morality of the bourgeoisie, has two contradictory results. On the one hand we see mankind’s tireless efforts to adapt to the new, changing socio-economic conditions. This is manifest either in an attempt to preserve the “old forms” while providing them with a new content (the observance of the external form of the indissoluble, strictly monogamous marriage with an acceptance, in practice, of the freedom of the partners) or in the acceptance of new forms which contain however all the elements of the moral code of bourgeois marriage (the “free” union where the compulsive possessiveness of the partners is greater than within legal marriage). On the other hand we see the slow but steady appearance of new forms of relationships between the sexes that differ from the old norms in outward form and in spirit.

Mankind is not groping its way toward these new ideas with much confidence, but we need to look at its attempt, however vague it is at the moment, since it is an attempt closely linked with the tasks of the proletariat as the class which is to capture the “beleaguered fortress” of the future. If, amongst the complicated labyrinth of contradictory and tangled sexual norms, you want to find the beginnings of more healthy relationships between the sexes – relationships that promise to lead humanity out of the sexual crisis – you have to leave the “cultured quarters” of the bourgeoisie with their refined individualistic psyche, and take a look at the huddled dwelling-places of the working class. There, amidst the horror and squalor of capitalism, amidst tears and curses, the springs of life are welling up.

You can see the double process which we have just mentioned working itself out in the lives of the proletariat, who have to exist under the pressure of harsh economic conditions, cruelly exploited by capitalism. You can see both the process of “passive adjustment” and that of active opposition to the existing reality. The destructive influence of capitalism destroys the basis of the worker’s family and forces him unconsciously to adapt to the existing conditions. This gives rise to a whole series of situations with regard to relationships between the sexes which are similar to those in other social classes. Under the pressure of low wages the worker inevitably tends to get married at a later age.

If twenty years ago a worker usually got married between the ages of twenty and twenty-five, he now shoulders the cares of a family only towards his thirtieth year. The higher the cultural demands of the worker – the more he values the opportunity of being in contact with cultural life, of visiting theatres and lectures, of reading papers and magazines, of giving his spare time to struggle and politics or to some favourite pursuit such as art or reading etc. – the later he tends to get married. But physical needs won’t take a financial situation into consideration: they insist on making themselves felt. The working-class bachelor, in the same way as the middle-class bachelor, looks to prostitution for an outlet. This is an example of the passive adjustment of the working class to the unfavourable conditions of their existence.

Take another example. When the worker marries, the low level of pay forces the worker’s family to “regulate” childbirth just as the bourgeois family does. The frequent cases of infanticide, the growth of prostitution – these are all expressions of the same process. These are all examples of adjustment by the working class to the surrounding reality. But this is not a process characteristic of the proletariat alone. All the other classes and sections of the population caught up in the world process of capitalist development react in this way.

We see a difference only when we begin to talk about the active, creative forces at work that oppose rather than adapt to the repressive reality, and about the new ideals and attempts at new relationships between the sexes. It is only within the working class that this active opposition is taking shape. This doesn’t mean that the other classes and sections of the population (particularly the middle-class intelligentsia who, by the circumstances of their social existence, stand closest to the working class) don’t adopt the “new” forms that are being worked out by the progressive working class. The bourgeoisie, motivated by an instinctive desire to breathe new life into their dead and feeble forms of marriage, seize upon the “new” ideas of the working class. But the ideals and code of sexual morality that the working class develops do not answer the class needs of the bourgeoisie. They reflect the demands of the working class and therefore serve as a new weapon in its social struggle. They help shatter the foundations of the social domination of the bourgeoisie. Let us make this point clear by an example.

The attempt by the middle-class intelligentsia to replace indissoluble marriage by the freer, more easily broken ties of civil marriage destroys the essential basis of the social stability of the bourgeoisie. It destroys the monogamous, property-oriented family. On the other hand, a greater fluidity in relationships between the sexes coincides with and is even the indirect result of one of the basic tasks of the working class. The rejection of the element of “submission” in marriage is going to destroy the last artificial ties of the bourgeois family. This act of “submission” on the part of one member of the working class to another, in the same way as the sense of possessiveness in relationships, has a harmful effect on the proletarian psyche. It is not in the interests of that revolutionary class to elect only certain members as its independent representatives, whose duty it is to serve the class interests before the interests of the individual, isolated family. Conflicts between the interests of the family and the interests of the class which occur at the time of a strike or during an active struggle, and the moral yardstick with which the proletariat views such events, are sufficiently clear evidence of the basis of the new proletarian ideology.

Suppose family affairs require a businessman to take his capital out of a firm at a time when the enterprise is in financial difficulties. Bourgeois morality is clear-cut in its estimate of his action: “The interests of the family come first”. We can compare this with the attitude of workers to a strikebreaker who defies his comrades and goes to work during a strike to save his family from being hungry. “The interests of the class come first”. Here’s another example. The love and loyalty of the middle-class husband are sufficient to divert his husbands from all interests outside the home and end up by tying her to the nursery and the kitchen. “The ideal husband can support the ideal family” is the way the bourgeoisie looks at it.

But how do workers look upon a “conscious” member of their class who shuts the eyes of his wife or girl-friend to the social struggle? For the sake of individual happiness, for the sake of the family, the morality of the working class will demand that women take part in the life that is unfolding beyond the doorsteps. The “captivity” of women in the home, the way family interests are placed before all else, the widespread exercise of absolute property rights by the husband over the wife – all these things are being broken down by the basic principle of working-class ideology of “comradely solidarity”. The idea that some members are unequal and must submit to other members of one and the same class is in contradiction with the basic proletarian principle of comradeship.

This principle of comradeship is basic to the ideology of the working class. It colours and determines the whole developing proletarian morality, a morality which helps to re-educate the personality of man, allowing him to be capable of positive feeling, capable of freedom instead of being bound by a sense of property, capable of comradeship rather than inequality and submission.

It is an old truth that every new class that develops as a result of an advance in economic growth and material culture offers mankind an appropriately new ideology. The code of sexual behaviour is a part of this ideology. However it is worth saying something about “proletarian ethics” or “proletarian sexual morality”, in order to criticise the well-worn idea that proletarian sexual morality is no more than “superstructure”, and that there is no place for any change in this sphere until the economic base of society has been changed. As if the ideology of a certain class is formed only when the breakdown in the socio-economic relationships, guaranteeing the dominance of that class, has been completed! All the experience of history teaches us that a social group works out its ideology, and consequently its sexual morality, in the process of its struggle with hostile social forces.

Only with the help of new spiritual forces, created within and answering the needs of the class, will that class manage to strengthen its social position. It can only successfully win power from those groups in society that are hostile to it by holding to these new norms and ideals. To search for the basic criteria for a morality that can reflect the specific interests of the working class, and to see that the developing sexual norms are in accordance with these criteria – this is the task that must be tackled by the ideologists of the working class. We have to understand that it is only by becoming aware of the creative process that is going on within society, and of the new demands, new ideals and new norms that are being formed, only by becoming clear about the basis of the sexual morality of the progressive class, that we can possibly make sense of the chaos and contradictions of sexual relationships and find the thread that will make it possible to undo the tightly rolled up tangle of sexual problems.

We must remember that only a code of sexual morality that is in harmony with the problems of the working class can serve as an important weapon in strengthening the working class’s fighting position. The experience of history teaches us that much. What can stop us using this weapon in the interests of the working class, who are fighting for a communist system and for new relationships between the sexes that are deeper and more joyful?

Notes

[01]. In the traditional Russian villages, the young girls would often get together to rent an old hut or a room in someone’s house. They would gather there in the evenings to tell stories, do needlework and sing. The young men would come to join in the merrymaking. Sometimes it seems that the merrymaking would become an orgy, though there are conflicting ideas about this.

The Activity of the International Secretariat of Communist Women (1921)

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The Women’s Movement

(15 November 1921)

The task of the International Secretariat of Communist Women consists of awakening the working woman from her age-long passivity, of giving her confidence in herself, of drawing her into the revolutionary movement and of obtaining her entrance into the Communist International.

The International Secretariat is at present composed of the following comrades: Klara Zetkin, Hertha Sturm (Germany), Lucie Colliard (France) and three Russian secretaries attached to the Executive of the Communist International, comrades Lilina, Kasparowa and Kollontay. The latter is a member of the Executive as well. One of the secretaries has charge of liaison with the Red Trade-Union International.

At the present time the International Secretariat is devoting itself to two campaigns: Firstly, relief for Russia, and as most important, aid for mothers and children; and secondly a protest against the aggressive policy of the bourgeois states against Soviet Russia. In August the International Secretariat through its Berlin representatives addressed an appeal to the working women of the world for the famine-stricken in Russia – an appeal which found an immediate response in several countries The Women’s Section of the Swedish Communist Party has taken over the maintenance of a children’s home in the famished provinces. Collections and conferences have taken place in Germany.

Besides the measures demanded by the Executive for relief to the famine-stricken, the International Secretariat has drawn the attention of women in all countries to the necessity of rescuing the children victims of the famine.

The International Secretariat has decided against the sending of starving children from the famished regions to foreign countries for political and economic as well as purely practical reasons. It invites on the other hand, the Women Communist Sections of various countries to assume the care and maintenance of all the children of a province, of a region or of a children’s’ asylum, according to their resources. When the French or English working women know that the lives and well-being of all the children in a given locality depend upon their activity, it is not to be doubted that the intensity of their work will be increased ten fold.

Such acts will have an undeniably beneficial influence upon international solidarity. But in order that they assume tangible shape the foreign sections must send their representatives into Russia and the International Secretariat must establish a permanent connection between those supported and foreign countries. The second measure under consideration in the struggle against the famine is the international relief of children by children. The initiative of proletarian children ought to be able to show itself in such acts of solidarity which will strengthen the bonds of international brotherhood in the coming generation. In this respect the simplest gestures of assistance, such as gifts of school notebooks, pencils and slates for the suffering children, are of material as well as moral aid.

The International Secretariat is also occupied with the organization of Communist Saturdays for the benefit of the famishing. They can be devoted to the salvaging of old clothes in the making of children’s clothing, etc. The Secretariat is also devoting its attention to the question of unemployment of women. Its organ is the Working Women’s International. published in German at Berlin, started last April. The International Secretariat has sent an organizer into the Far East, and is making preparations for the first conference of the women of the Near East.

In general, we may derive the greatest satisfaction from the progress made by the International Secretariat of Communist Women. It may be said that it has, in one year of activity, succeeded in establishing itself on a solid foundation in the feminine proletariat and that it is to-day able to effectively collaborate in the work of the Communist International.

Soon (In 48 years’ time) (1922)

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7 January 1970. It’s warm and bright, and there is a lively and festive atmosphere in the “House of Rest” where the veterans of the “Great Years” of the world revolution spend their days.

The veterans decided that on the day that had once been Christmas Day they would recall their childhood and youth by decorating a tree. A real fir tree just like in the years before the world upheavals. The young children and the older girls and boys were enthusiastic about the idea. Especially when they heard that “red grandmother” was going to tell stories about the great years of 1917. There was no problem in getting the tree. They came to an agreement with the man in charge of forestry conservation, persuading this vigilant guardian of the plant kingdom that the forest would not be ruined by the loss of one tree stolen for such a strange and unusual festival. The candles were more difficult. The new method of lighting, using reflected light rays, had not only done away with kerosene-wick lamps once and for all, but had banished electricity to the far distant provinces where the latest innovations had yet to be introduced. The younger generation had never seen candles, and the veterans of the “great years” had to explain them with the help of diagrams. A special conference of people who had been members of the people’s economic council during the revolutionary period was called to discuss the ways of producing the candles. The young people, with their clever heads and clever hands, were there to help.

After a number of failures, misunderstandings, and unexpected difficulties, they managed to decorate the tree with paper decorations of various colors, with candies, nuts, sweet juicy oranges, rosy apples and home-made candles in home-made candle holders. The veterans and the children were unanimously of the opinion that the Commune Ten had not seen such an original and interesting festival for a long time. The young people enjoyed themselves as the young have always done. They laughed and joked. There were songs, games, and dances.

But you had to take one look at the girls and boys to see how they differed from the young people who had fought at the barricades during the “great years” and from those who had lived under the yoke of capitalism. The young people of Commune Ten were healthy, their bodies were fine and supple and strong. The girls had long, luxurious plaits which they arranged carefully. For the commune strictly followed the rule that every member should have time for relaxation and the care for his or her person. The communards loved beauty and simplicity, and they did not force or distort nature. The young men dressed in attractive clothes that allowed for free movement. Their hands were obviously strong and able. There was not one sick, pale, or exhausted face among all the yond people who had gathered for the “fir-tree” festival. Their eyes shone brightly and their bodies were strong and firm. Their happy laughter filled the bright, festive hall, and that was the most joyful change of all. The young people of Commune Ten loved life and loved to laugh. They only frowned when it came to battling against the only enemy, nature. However, they did not frown because the struggle was not to their taste, but in order to concentrate better and chose the best way to win.

The struggle of men and women to control their environment was still in progress. The more victories they won, the more mysteries there were to be solved. But the young people were not afraid of the battle. What would life be like without struggle, with the need to stretch the mind and strive forward towards the unknown and the unattainable? Life on the commune would be dull without it.

The life of the commune is organized in the most rational way. Everyone has a profession and everyone has some favorite pursuit. Everyone works at their own vocation for two hours a day, contributing in this way to the running of the commune. The rest of the time the individual is free to devote his or her energies to the type of work he or she enjoys-to science, technology, art, agriculture or teaching. Young men and women work together at the same professions. Life is organized so that people do not live in families but in groups, according to their ages.

Children have their “palaces,” the young people their smaller homes; adults live together communally in the various ways that suit them, and the old people together in their “houses.” In the communes there are no rich people and no poor people; the very words “rich” and “poor” have no meaning and have been forgotten. The members of the commune do not have to worry about their material needs, for they are provided with everything: food, clothes, books and entertainment. In return for this the individual provides two hours’ daily work for the commune, and the rest of the time the discoveries of a creative and enquiring mind. The commune has no enemies, for all the neighboring peoples and nations have long since organized themselves in a similar fashion and the world is a federation of communes. The younger generation does not know what war is.

The young people insisted that the veterans of the “great years” tell them about the battles between the Reds and the Whites. But the veterans were not anxious to talk about the war on the “day of the fir tree.” They thought it more appropriate to speak about the leaders of the revolutions. They promised to begin the stories when the candles had burned low and everyone had been given their sweets. The young people hurried to bring the glass trolleys into the hall. The sweets the liked so much were laid out in gaily colored, artistically decorated bowls. The sooner we’ve had our sweets and the candles on the fir tree have finished burning the better, thought the children. But the veterans watched the lights burn low with a sense of sadness. The candles remained them, it is true, of that old and long-forgotten system of capitalism which they had so hated in their youth; but the past had been ennobled by their great striving for progress. Their dreams had been fulfilled, but the life was now passing them by and their old limbs could not match the bold flights of the young people. Much of the life and many of the aspirations of the young people were incomprehensible to them.

“Grandad, I know what the word ‘capitalist’ means,” boasted lively lad who was tucking into the special holiday pie. “And I know what a ruble is and what a money is.”

“We saw money in a museum. Did you have money, Grandad? Did you carry it in a little bag in your pocket? And then there were people . . . now what were they called? . . . Thieves . . . that’s right, isn’t it? And they took money out of the pockets of their comrades. How very strange it must have been.”

And they all laughed at the strange past.

The veterans of the revolution somehow felt awkward and embarrassed about the past, when there had been capitalists and thieves and money and ladies. The last of the candles flickered out, and the trolleys were rolled to one side. The young people gathered impatiently around the story tellers.

“Grandmother, red grandmother, tell us about Lenin. You saw him, didn’t you? Did he live like everyone else? Did he eat and drink and laugh? Did Lenin ever look at the starts, grandmother?”

These young people had their own way of looking at everything. What had the stars got to do with it? When Lenin was alive there had been some much to do on the Earth itself. There had been hunger and exhaustion. War and hunger ... hunger and war. A time of suffering and of bloodshed, but also of bravery, self-sacrifice and heroism, and of tremendous faith in the victory of the revolution and the justice of the struggle. “Red grandmother” wanted the young people to understand the grandeur of the social struggle. But the young people listened as the veterans had once listened to the Christmas story: “capital,” “profit,” “private property,” “front,” “CHEKA,” “speculation,” “soldiers"-all this was just so much “historical vocabulary” that the children heard at school when they were learning about the “Great Years of the Revolution.”

The young people of the world commune are turn their attention to the cosmos; the sky beckons them. They do not understand the grandeur of the old struggles. They cannot appreciate either excitement or the fears and anxieties of the past.

“Did you actually shoot people, shoot at living people?”

The eyes of the young people showed surprise and sparked with reproach and bewilderment. Life was sacred.

“We were fighting for our lives, though. We sacrificed everything for the revolution,” red grandmother said in justification.

“Just as we dedicate ourselves to the commune,” was the proud reply of the young people.

Red grandmother fell silent. Life had forged ahead. The “great years” were now only history. The younger generation could not respond as they had done to the stories of the worldwide barricades and “the last fight.” The social question was settled. The ideas of communism had justified themselves. Mankind was free from the slavery of backbreaking work for others, from material dependence and from the struggle for daily bread. New and larger problems confronted humanity, challenging the search and dauntless sprit of men and women. In comparison with these horizons, the previous struggle against social forces seemed to the young people of 1970 and easy question.

“Hunger? You went hungry? You must have been very unorganized and ignorant.

“Ignorant,” “unorganized” – the young people could pass no sterner judgment on red grandmother’s contemporaries.

“But without us and our firm faith in the triumph of communism, without our fierce and determined struggle against capitalism and the enemies of the workers, you would never have known the benefits of universal organization and the joy of free creative work.”

“We understand. But our tasks are on an even larger scale.”

The young people held their heads high, facing the future boldly. They turned their eyes to the stars and the dark blackcloth of the sky, visible through the wide windows of the festival hall.

“You achieved your aims, and we will achieve ours. You subdued the social forces; we will subdue nature. Sing with us, red grandmother, the new hymn of the struggle with the elements. You know the tune. It is your own ‘International,’ but the words are new. They call us to struggle, to achieve things, to move forward. Let the fir-tree burn out. Our festival is in front of us. Our festival is a life of endeavor and discovery.

Make way for Winged Eros: A Letter to Working Youth (1923)

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Love as a social factor

You ask me, my young friend, what place proletarian ideology gives to love? You are concerned by the fact that at the present time young workers are occupied more with love and related questions than with the tremendous tasks of construction which face the workers’ republic. It is difficult for me to judge events from a distance, but let us try to find an explanation for this situation, and then it will be easier to answer the first question about the place of love in proletarian ideology.

There can be no doubt that Soviet Russia has entered a new phase of the civil war. The main theatre of struggle is now the front where the two ideologies, the two cultures – the bourgeois and the proletarian – do battle. The incompatibility of these two ideologies is becoming increasingly obvious, and the contradictions between these two fundamentally different cultures are growing more acute. Alongside the victory of communist principles and ideals in the sphere of politics and economics, a revolution in the outlook, emotions and the inner world of working people is inevitably taking place. A new attitude to life, society, work, art and to the rules of living (i.e. morality) can already be observed. The arrangement of sexual relationships is one aspect of these rules of living. Over the five years of the existence of our labour republic, the revolution on this non-military front has been accomplishing a great shift in the way men and women think. The fiercer the battle between the two ideologies, the greater the significance it assumes and the more inevitably it raises new “riddles of life” and new problems to which only the ideology of the working class can give a satisfactory answer.

The “riddle of love” that interests us here is one such problem. This question of the relationships between the sexes is a mystery as old as human society itself. At different levels of historical development mankind has approached the solution of this problem in different ways. The problem remains the same: the keys to its solution change. The keys are fashioned by the different epochs, by the classes in power and by the spirit” of a particular age (in other words by its culture).

In Russia over the recent years of intense civil war and general dislocation there has been little interest in the nature of the riddle. The men and women of the working classes were in the grip of other emotions, passions and experiences. In those years everyone walked in the shadow of death, and it was being decided whether victory would belong to the revolution and progress or to counter-revolution and reaction. In face of the revolutionary threat, tender-winged Eros fled from the surface of life. There was neither time nor a surplus of inner strength for love’s “joys and pains.” Such is the law of the preservation of humanity’s social and psychological energy. As a whole. this energy is always directed to the most urgent aims of the historical moment. And in Russia, for a time, the biological instinct of reproduction, the natural voice of nature dominated the situation. Men and women came together and men and women parted much more easily and much more simply than before. They came together without great commitment and parted without tears or regret.

Prostitution disappeared, and the number of sexual relationships where the partners were under no obligation to each other and which were based on the instinct of reproduction unadorned by any emotions of love increased. This fact frightened some. But such a development was, in those years, inevitable. Either pre-existing relationships continued to exist and unite men and women through comradeship and long-standing friendship, which was rendered more precious by the seriousness of the moment, or new relationships were begun for the satisfaction of purely biological needs, both partners treating the affair as incidental and avoiding any commitment that might hinder their work for the revolution.

The unadorned sexual drive is easily aroused but is soon spent; thus “wingless Eros” consumes less inner strength than “winged Eros.” whose love is woven of delicate strands of every kind of emotion. “Wingless Eros” does not make one suffer from sleepless nights, does not sap one’s will, and does not entangle the rational workings of the mind. The fighting class could not have fallen under the power of “winged Eros” at a time when the clarion call of revolution was sounding. It would not have been expedient at such a time to waste the inner strength of the members of the collective on experiences that did not directly serve the revolution. Individual sex love, which lies at the heart of the pair marriage, demands a great expenditure of inner energy. The working class was interested not only in economising in terms of material wealth but also in preserving the intellectual and emotional energy of each person. For this reason, at a time of heightened revolutionary struggle, the undemanding instinct of reproduction spontaneously replaced the all embracing “winged Eros.”

But now the picture changes. The Soviet republic and the whole of toiling humanity are entering a period of temporary and comparative calm. The complex task of understanding and assimilating the achievements and gains that have been made is beginning. The proletariat, the creator of new forms of life, must be able to learn from all social and psychological phenomena, grasp the significance of these phenomena and fashion weapons from them for the self-defence of the class. Only when the proletariat has appropriated the laws not only of the creation of material wealth but also of inner, psychological life is it able to advance fully armed to fight the decaying bourgeois world. Only then will toiling humanity prove itself to be the victor, not only on the military and labour front but also on the psychological-cultural front.

Now that the revolution has proved victorious and is in a stronger position, and now that the atmosphere of revolutionary élan has ceased to absorb men and women completely, tender-winged Eros has emerged from the shadows and begun to demand his rightful place. “Wingless Eros” has ceased to satisfy psychological needs. Emotional energy has accumulated and men and women, even of the working class, have not yet learned to use it for the inner life of the collective. This extra energy seeks an outlet in the love-experience. The many-stringed lyre of the god of love drowns the monotonous voice of “wingless Eros.” Men and women are now not only united by the momentary satisfaction of the sex instinct but are beginning to experience “love affairs” again, and to know all the sufferings and all the exaltations of love’s happiness.

in the life of the Soviet republic an undoubted growth of intellectual and emotional needs, a desire for knowledge, an interest in scientific questions and in art and the theatre can be observed. This movement towards transformation inevitably embraces the sphere of love experiences too. Interest is aroused in the question of the psychology of sex, the mystery of love. Everyone to some extent is having to face up to questions of personal life. One notes with surprise that party workers who in previous years had time only for Pravda editorials and minutes and reports are reading fiction books in which winged Eros is lauded.

What does this mean? Is this a reactionary step? A symptom of the beginning of the decline of revolutionary creativity? Nothing of the sort! It is time we separated ourselves from the hypocrisy of bourgeois thought. It is time to recognize open that love is not only a powerful natural factor, a biological force, but also a social factor. Essentially love is a profoundly social emotion. At all stages of human development love has in different forms, it is true, been an integral part of culture. Even the bourgeoisie, who saw love as a “private matter,” was able to channel the expression of love in its class interests. The ideology of the working class must pay even greater attention to the significance of love as a factor which can, like any other psychological or social phenomenon, be channeled to the advantage of the collective. Love is not in the least a “private” matter concerning only the two loving persons: love possesses a uniting element which is valuable to the collective. This is clear from the fact that at all stages of historical development society has established norms defining when and under what conditions love is “legal” (i.e. corresponds to the interests of the given social collective), and when and under what conditions love is sinful and criminal (i.e. contradicts the tasks of the given society).

Historical notes

From the very early stages of its social being, humanity has sought to regulate not only sexual relations but love itself.

In the kinship community, love for one’s blood relations was considered the highest virtue. The kinship group would not have approved of a woman sacrificing herself for the sake of a beloved husband: fraternal or sisterly attachment were the most highly regarded feelings. Antigone, who according to the Greek legend risked her life to bury the body of her dead brother, was a heroine in the eyes of her contemporaries. Modern bourgeois society would consider such an action on the part of a sister as highly curious. In the times of tribal rule, when the state was still in its embryonic stage, the love held in greatest respect was the love between two members of the same tribe. In an era when the social collective had only just evolved from the stage of kinship community and was still not firmly established in its new form, it was vitally important that its members were linked by mental and emotional ties. Love-friendship was the most suitable type of tie, since at that time the interests of the collective required the growth and accumulation of contacts not between the marriage pair but between fellow-members of the tribe, between the organizers and defenders of the tribe and state that is to say, between the men of the tribe, of course; women at that time had no role to play in social life, and there was no talk of friendship among women). “Friendship” was praised and considered far more important than love between man and wife. Castor and Pollux were famous for their loyalty to each other and their unshakable friendship, rather than for the feats they performed for their country. For the sake of friendship or its semblance a man might offer his wife to an acquaintance or a guest.

The ancient world considered friendship and “loyalty until the grave” to be civic virtues. Love in the modern sense of the word had no place, and hardly attracted the attention either of poets or of writers. The dominant ideology of that time relegated love to the sphere of narrow, personal experiences with which society was not concerned; marriage was based on convenience, not on love. Love was just one among other amusements; it was a luxury which only the citizen who had fulfilled all his obligations to the state could afford. While bourgeois ideology values the “ability to love” provided it confines itself to the limits set down by bourgeois morality, the ancient world did not consider such emotions in its categories of virtues and positive human qualities. The person who accomplished great deeds and risked his life for his friend was considered a hero and his action “most virtuous” while a man risking himself for the sake of a woman he loved would have been reproached or even despised.

The morality of the ancient world, then, did not even recognize the love that inspired men to great deeds – the love so highly regarded in the feudal period – as worthy of consideration. The ancient world recognized only those emotions which drew its fellow-members close together and rendered the emerging social organism more stable. In subsequent stages of cultural development, however, friendship ceases to be considered a moral virtue. Bourgeois society was built on the principles of individualism and competition, and has no place for friendship as a moral factor. Friendship does not help in any way, and may hinder the achievement of class aims; it is viewed as an unnecessary manifestation of “sentimentality” and weakness. Friendship becomes an object of derision. Castor and Pollux in the New York of London of today would only evoke a condescending smile. This was not so in feudal society, where love-friendship was seen as a quality to be taught and encouraged.

The feudal system defended the interests of the noble family. Virtues were defined with reference not so much to relations between the members of that society as to the obligations of the individual to his or her family and its traditions. Marriage was contracted according to the interests of the family, and any young man (the girl had no rights whatever) who chose himself a wife against these interests was severely criticized. In the feudal era the individual was not supposed to place personal feelings and inclinations above the interests of family, and he who did so “sinned.” Morality did not demand that love and marriage go hand in hand.

Nevertheless, love between the sexes was not neglected; in fact, for the first time in the history of humanity it received a certain recognition. It may seem strange that love was first accepted in this age of strict asceticism, of crude and cruel morals, an age of violence and rule by violence; but the reasons for acceptance become clear when we take a closer look. In certain situations and in certain circumstances, love can act as a lever propelling the man to perform actions of which he would otherwise have been incapable. The knighthood demanded of each member fearlessness, bravery, endurance and great feats of individual valour on the battlefield. Victory in war was in those days decided not so much by the organization of troops as by the individual qualities of the participants. The knight in love with the inaccessible “lady of his heart” found it easier to perform miracles of bravery, easier to win tournaments, easier to sacrifice his life. The knight in love was motivated by the desire to “shine” and thus to win the attention of his beloved.

The ideology of chivalry recognized love as a psychological state that could be used to the advantage of the feudal class, but nevertheless it sought to organize emotions in a definite framework. Love between man and wife was not valued, for the family that lived in the knightly castle and in the Russian boyar’s terem was not held together by emotional ties. The social factor of chivalrous love operated where the knight loved a woman outside the family and was inspired to military and other heroic feats by this emotion. The more inaccessible the woman, the greater the knight’s determination to win her favour and the greater his need to develop in himself the virtues and qualities which were valued by his social class. Usually the knight chose as his lady the woman least accessible, the wife of his suzerain, or often the queen. Only such a “platonic” love could spur the knight to perform miracles of bravery and was considered virtuous and worthy. The knight rarely chose an unmarried woman as the object of his love, for no matter how far above him in station and apparently inaccesible the girl might be, the possibility of marriage and the consequent removal of the psychological lever could not be ruled out. Hence feudal morality combined recognition of the ideal of asceticism (sexual restraint) with recognition of love as a moral virtue. In his desire to free love from all that was carnal and sinful and to transform it into an abstract emotion completely divorced from its biological base the knight was prepared to go to great lengths, choosing as his lady a woman he had never seen or joining the ranks of the lovers of the Virgin Mary. Further he could not go.

Feudal ideology saw love as a stimulus, as a quality assisting in social cohesion: spiritual love and the knight’s adoration of his lady served the interests of the noble class. The knight who would have thought nothing of sending his wife to a monastery or of slaying her for unfaithfulness would have been flattered if she had been chosen by another knight as his lady, and would have made no objections to her platonic friendships. But while placing so much emphasis on spiritual love, feudal morality in no way demanded that love should determine legal marriage relationships. Love and marriage were kept separate by feudal ideology, and were only united by the bourgeois class that emerged in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The exalted sophistication of feudal love existed. therefore, alongside indescribably crude norms of relations between the sexes. Sexual intercourse both within and outside marriage lacked the softening and inspiring element of love and remained an undisguisedly physiological act.

The church pretended to wage war on depravity, but by encouraging “spiritual love” it encouraged crude animal relations between the sexes. The knight who would not be parted from the emblem of the lady of his heart, who composed poetry in her honour and risked his life to win her smile, would rape a girl of the urban classes without a second thought or order his steward to bring him a beautiful peasant for his pleasure. The wives of the knights, for their part, did not let slip the opportunity to enjoy the delights of the flesh with the troubadours and pages of the feudal household.

With the weakening of feudalism and the growth of new conditions of life dictated by the interests of the rising bourgeoisie, a new moral ideal of relations between the sexes developed. Rejecting platonic love, the bourgeoisie defended the violated rights of the body and injected the combination of the spiritual and physical into the very conception of love. Bourgeois morality did not separate love and marriage; marriage was the expression of the mutual attraction of the couple. In practice of course the bourgeoisie itself, in the name of convenience, continually sinned against this moral teaching, but the recognition of love as the pillar of marriage had a profound class basis.

Under the feudal system the family was held together firmly by the traditions of nobility and birth. The married couple was held in place by the power of the church, the unlimited authority of the head of the family, the strength of family tradition and the will of the suzerain; marriage was indissoluble. The bourgeois family evolved in different conditions; its basis was not the co-ownership of family wealth but the accumulation of capital. The family was the guardian of this capital; in order that accumulation might take place as rapidly as possible, it was important that a man’s savings should be handled with care and skill: in other words, that the woman should not only be a good housewife but also the helper and friend of her husband. With the establishment of capitalist relations and of the bourgeois social system, the family. in order to remain stable, had to be based not only on economic considerations but also on the co-operation of all its members, who had a joint interest in the accumulation of wealth. And co-operation could serve as a more powerful factor when husband and wife and parents and children were held together by strong emotional and psychological bonds.

At the end of the fourteenth and the beginning of the fifteenth centuries, the new economic way of life gave rise to a new ideology. The conceptions of love and marriage gradually changed. The religious reformer, Luther, and the other thinkers and public figures of the Renaissance and the Reformation, understood the social force of love perfectly. Aware that the stability of the family – the economic unit on which the bourgeois system rests – required that its members be linked by more than economic ties alone, the revolutionary ideologists of the rising bourgeoisie propagated the new moral ideal of a love that embraced both the flesh and the soul. The reformers of the period challenged the celibacy of the clergy and made merciless fun of the “spiritual love” of chivalry that kept the knight in a continual state of aspiration but denied him the hope of satisfying his sensual needs. The ideologists of the bourgeoisie and the reformation recognised the legitimacy of the body’s needs. Thus, while the feudal world had divided love into the sexual act (relations within marriage or with concubines) on the one hand, and spiritual, platonic love (the relations between the knight and the lady of his heart) on the other, the bourgeois class included both the physical attraction between the sexes and emotional attachments in its concept of love. The feudal ideal had separated love from marriage; the bourgeoisie linked the two. The bourgeoisie made love and marriage inseparable. In practice, of course, this class has always retreated from its ideal; but while the question of mutual inclination was never raised under feudalism, bourgeois morality requires that even in marriages of convenience, the partners should practise hypocrisy and pretend affection.

Traces of feudal tradition and feudal attitudes to marriage and love have come down to us, surviving the centuries and accommodating themselves to the morality of the bourgeois class. Royal families and the higher ranks of the aristocracy still live according to these old norms. In these circles it is considered “amusing” but rather “awkward” when a marriage is concluded on the basis of love. The princes and princesses of this world still have to bow to the demands of birth and politics, joining themselves for life to people they do not care for.

In peasant families one also finds that family and economic considerations play a big part in marriage arrangements. The peasant family differs from that of the urban industrial bourgeoisie chiefly in that it is an economic labour unit; its members are so firmly held together by economic circumstances that inner bonds are of secondary importance. For the medieval artisan, love likewise had no role in marriage, for in the context of the guild system the family was a productive unit, and this economic rationale provided stability. The ideal of love in marriage only begins to appear when, with the emergence of the bourgeoisie, the family loses its productive functions and remains a consumer unit also serving as a vehicle for the preservation of accumulated capital.

But though bourgeois morality defended the rights of two “loving hearts” to conclude a union even in defiance of tradition, and though it criticized “spiritual love” and asceticism, proclaiming love as the basis of marriage, it nevertheless defined love in a very narrow way. Love is permissible only when it is within marriage. Love outside legal marriage is considered immoral. Such ideas were often dictated, of course, by economic considerations, by the desire to prevent the distribution of capital among illegitimate children. The entire morality of the bourgeoisie was directed towards the concentration of capital. The ideal was the married couple, working together to improve their welfare and to increase the wealth of their particular family unit. divorced as it was from society. Where the interests of the family and society were in conflict, bourgeois morality decided in the interests of the family (cf. the sympathetic attitude of bourgeois morality - though not the law – to deserters and to those who, for the sake of their families, cause the bankruptcy of their fellow shareholders). This morality, with a utilitarianism typical of the bourgeoisie, tried to use love to its advantage, making it the main ingredient of marriage, and thereby strengthening the family.

Love, of course, could not be contained within the limits set down by bourgeois ideologists. Emotional conflicts grew and multiplied, and found their expression in the new form of literature – the novel – which the bourgeois class developed. Love constantly escaped from the narrow framework of legal marriage relations set for it, into free relationships and adultery, which were condemned but which were practised. The bourgeois ideal of love does not correspond to the needs of the largest section of the population – the working class. Nor is it relevant to the life-style of the working intelligentsia. This is why in highly developed capitalist countries one finds such an interest in the problems of sex and love and in the search for the key to its mysteries. How, it is asked, can relations between the sexes be developed in order to increase the sum of both individual and social happiness?

The working youth of Soviet Russia is confronting this question at this very moment. This brief survey of the evolution of the ideal of love marriage relationships will help you, my young friend, to realize and understand that love is not the private matter it might seem to be at a first glance. Love is an important psychological and social factor, which society has always instinctively organized in its interests. Working men and women, armed with the science of Marxism and using the experience of the past, must seek to discover the place love ought to occupy in the new social order and determine the ideal of love that corresponds to their class interests.

Love-comradeship

The new, communist society is being built on the principle of comradeship and solidarity. Solidarity is not only an awareness of common interests: it depends also on the intellectual and emotional ties linking the members of the collective. For a social system to be built on solidarity and co-operation it is essential that people should be capable of love and warm emotions. The proletarian ideology, therefore, attempts to educate and encourage every member of the working class to be capable of responding to the distress and needs of other members of the class, of a sensitive understanding of others and a penetrating consciousness of the individual’s relationship to the collective. All these “warm emotions” – sensitivity, compassion, sympathy and responsiveness – derive from one source: they are aspects of love, not in the narrow, sexual sense but in the broad meaning of the word. Love is an emotion that unites and is consequently of an organizing character. The bourgeoisie was well aware of this, and in the attempt to create a stable family bourgeois ideology erected “married love” as a moral virtue; to be a “good family man” was, in the eyes of the bourgeoisie, an important and valuable quality. The proletariat should also take into account the psychological and social role that love, both in the broad sense and in the sense of relationships between the sexes, can and must play, not in strengthening family-marriage ties, but in the development of collective solidarity

What is the proletariat’s ideal of love? We have already seen that each epoch has its ideal; each class strives to fill the conception of love with a moral content that suits its own interests. Each stage of cultural development, with its richer intellectual and emotional experiences, redefines the image of Eros. With the successive stages in the development of the economy and social life, ideas of love have changed; shades of emotion have assumed greater significance or, on the other hand, have ceased to exist.

In the course of the thousand-year history of human society. love has developed from the simple biological instinct – the urge to reproduce which is inherent in all creatures from the highest to the lowest – into a most complex emotion that is constantly acquiring new intellectual and emotional aspects. Love has become a psychological and social factor. Under the impact of economic and social forces, the biological instinct for reproduction has been transformed in two diametrically opposed directions. On the one hand the healthy sexual instinct has been turned by monstrous social and economic relations, particularly those of capitalism, into unhealthy carnality. The sexual act has become an aim in itself - just another way of obtaining pleasure, through lust sharpened with excesses and through distorted, harmful titillations of the flesh. A man does not have sex in response to healthy instincts which have drawn him to a particular woman: a man approaches any woman, though he feels no sexual need for her in particular, with the aim of gaining his sexual satisfaction and pleasure through her. Prostitution is the organized expression of this distortion of the sex drive. If intercourse with a woman does not prompt the expected excitement, the man will turn to every kind of perversion.

This deviation towards unhealthy carnality takes relationships far from their source in the biological Instinct. On the other hand, over the centuries and with the changes in human social life and culture, a web of emotional and intellectual experiences has come to surround the physical attraction of the sexes. Love in its present form is a complex state of mind and body; it has long been separated from its primary source, the biological instinct for reproduction, and in fact it is frequently in sharp contradiction with it. Love is intricately woven from friendship, passion, maternal tenderness, infatuation, mutual compatibility, sympathy, admiration, familiarity and many other shades of emotion. With such a range of emotions involved, it becomes increasingly difficult to distinguish direct connection between the natural drive of “wingless Eros” and “winged Eros,” where physical attraction and emotional warmth are fused. The existence of love friendship where the element of physical attraction is absent, of love for one’s work or for a cause, and of love for the collective, testify to the extent to which love has become “spiritualized” and separated from its biological base.

In modern society. sharp contradictions frequently arise and battles are waged between the various manifestations of emotion. A deep intellectual and emotional involvement in one’s work may not be compatible with love for a particular man or woman, love for the collective might conflict with love for husband, wife or children. It may be difficult for love-friendship in one person to coexist with passion in another; in the one case love is predominantly based on intellectual compatibility, and in the other case on physical harmony. “Love” has many faces and aspects. The various shades of feeling that have developed over the ages and which are experienced by contemporary men and women cannot be covered by such a general and inexact term.

Under the rule of bourgeois ideology and the capitalist way of life, the complexity of love creates a series of complex and insoluble problems. By the end of the nineteenth century the many-sidedness of love had become a favourite theme for writers with a psychological bent Love for two or even three has interested and perplexed many of the more thoughtful representatives of bourgeois culture. In the sixties of the last century our Russian thinker and writer Alexander Herzen tried to uncover this complexity of the inner world and the duality of emotion in his novel Who Is Guilty?, and Cheryshevsky tackled the same questions in his novel What is to be Done?, Poetic geniuses such as Goethe and Byron, and bold pioneers in the sphere of relations between the sexes such as George Sand, have tried to come to terms with these issues in their own lives; the author of Who Is Guilty? also knew of the problems from his own experience, as did many other great thinkers, poets and public figures. And at this present moment many “small” people are weighed down by the difficulties of love and vainly seek for solutions within the framework of bourgeois thought. But the key to the solution is in the hands of the proletariat. Only the ideology and the life-style of the new, labouring humanity can unravel this complex problem of emotion.

We are talking here of the duality of love, of the complexities of “winged Eros”; this should not be confused with sexual relations “with out Eros,” where one man goes with many women or one woman with a number of men. Relations where no personal feelings are involved can have unfortunate and harmful consequences (the early exhaustion of the organism, venereal diseases etc.), but however entangled they are, they do not give rise to “emotional dramas.” These “dramas” and conflicts begin only where the various shades and manifestations of love are present. A woman feels close to a man whose ideas, hopes and aspirations match her own; she is attracted physically to another. For one woman a man might feel sympathy and a protective tenderness, and in another he might find support and understanding for the strivings of his intellect. To which of the two must he give his love? And why must he tear himself apart and cripple his inner self, if only the possession of both types of inner bond affords the fullness of living?

Under the bourgeois system such a division of the inner emotional world involves inevitable suffering. For thousands of years human culture, which is based on the institution of property, has been teaching people that love is linked with the principles of property. Bourgeois ideology has insisted that love, mutual love, gives the right to the absolute and indivisible possession of the beloved person. Such exclusiveness was the natural consequence of the established form of pair marriage and of the ideal of “all-embracing love” between husband and wife. But can such an ideal correspond to the interests of the working class? Surely it is important and desirable from the proletariat’s point of view that people’s emotions should develop a wider and richer range? And surely the complexity of the human psyche and the many-sidedness of emotional experience should assist in the growth of the emotional and intellectual bonds between people which make the collective stronger? The more numerous these inner threads drawing people together, the firmer the sense of solidarity and the simpler the realization of the working-class ideal of comradeship and unity.

Proletarian ideology cannot accept exclusiveness and “all embracing love.” The proletariat is not filled with horror and moral indignation at the many forms and facets of “winged Eros” in the way that the hypocritical bourgeoisie is; on the contrary, it tries to direct these emotions, which it sees as the result of complex social circumstances, into channels which are advantageous to the class during the struggle for and the construction of communist society. The complexity of love is not in conflict with the interests of the proletariat. On the contrary, it facilitates the triumph of the ideal of love-comradeship which is already developing.

At the tribal stage love was seen as a kinship attachment (love between sisters and brothers, love for parents). The ancient culture of the pre-christian period placed love-friendship above all else. The feudal world idealized platonic courtly love between members of the opposite sex outside marriage. The bourgeoisie took monogamous marital love as its ideal. The working class derives its ideal from the labour co-operation and inner solidarity that binds the men and women of the proletariat together; the form and content of this ideal naturally differs from the conception of love that existed in other cultural epochs. The advocacy of love-comradeship in no way implies that in the militant atmosphere of its struggle for the dictatorship of the proletariat the working class has adopted a strait-jacket ideology and is mercilessly trying to remove all traces of tender emotion from relations between the sexes. The ideology of the working class does not seek to destroy “winged Eros” but, on the contrary, to clear the way for the recognition of the value of love as a psychological and social force.

The hypocritical morality of bourgeois culture resolutely restricted the freedom of Eros, obliging him to visit only the “legally married couple.” Outside marriage there was room only for the “wing less Eros” of momentary and joyless sexual relations which were bought (in the case of prostitution) or stolen (in the case of adultery). The morality of the working class, on the other hand, in so far as it has already been formulated, definitely rejects the external forms of sexual relations. The social aims of the working class are not affected one bit by whether love takes the form of a long and official union or is expressed in a temporary relationship. The ideology of the working class does not place any formal limits on love. But at the same time the ideology of the working class is already beginning to take a thoughtful attitude to the content of love and shades of emotional experience. In this sense the proletarian ideology will persecute “wingless Eros” in a much more strict and severe way than bourgeois morality. “Wingless Eros” contradicts the interests of the working class. In the first place it inevitably involves excesses and therefore physical exhaustion, which lower the resources of labour energy available to society. In the second place it impoverishes the soul, hindering the development and strengthening of inner bonds and positive emotions. And in the third place it usually rests on an inequality of rights in relationships between the sexes, on the dependence of the woman on the man and on male complacency and insensitivity, which undoubtedly hinder the development of comradely feelings. “Winged Eros” is quite different.

Obviously sexual attraction lies at the base of “winged Eros” too, but the difference is that the person experiencing love acquires the inner qualities necessary to the builders of a new culture - sensitivity, responsiveness and the desire to help others. Bourgeois ideology demanded that a person should only display such qualities in their relationship with one partner. The aim of proletarian ideology is that men and women should develop these qualities not only in relation to the chosen one but in relation to all the members of the collective. The proletarian class is not concerned as to which shades and nuances of feeling predominate in winged Eros. The only stipulation is that these emotions facilitate the development and strengthening of comradeship. The ideal of love-comradeship, which is being forged by proletarian ideology to replace the all-embracing and exclusive marital love of bourgeois culture, involves the recognition of the rights and integrity of the other’s personality, a steadfast mutual support and sensitive sympathy, and responsiveness to the other’s needs.

The ideal of love-comradeship is necessary to the proletariat in the important and difficult period of the struggle for and the consolidation of the dictatorship. But there is no doubt that with the realization of communist society love will acquire a transformed and unprecedented aspect. By that time the “sympathetic ties” between all the members of the new society will have grown and strengthened. Love potential will have increased, and love-solidarity will become the lever that competition and self-love were in the bourgeois system. Collectivism of spirit can then defeat individualist self-sufficiency, and the “cold of inner loneliness,” from which people in bourgeois culture have attempted to escape through love and marriage, will disappear. The many threads bringing men and women into close emotional and intellectual contact will develop. and feelings will emerge from the private into the public sphere. Inequality between the sexes and the dependence of women on men will disappear without trace, leaving only a fading memory of past ages.

In the new and collective society, where interpersonal relations develop against a background of joyful unity and comradeship, Eros will occupy an honourable place as an emotional experience multiplying human happiness. What will be the nature of this transformed Eros? Not even the boldest fantasy is capable of providing the answer to this question. But one thing is clear: the stronger the intellectual and emotional bonds of the new humanity, the less the room for love in the present sense of the word. Modern love always sins, because it absorbs the thoughts and feelings of “loving hearts” and isolates the loving pair from the collective. In the future society, such a separation will not only become superfluous but also psychologically inconceivable. In the new world the accepted norm of sexual relations will probably be based on free, healthy and natural attraction (without distortions and excesses) and on “transformed Eros.”

But at the present moment we stand between two cultures. And at this turning-point, with the attendant struggles of the two worlds on all fronts, including the ideological one, the proletariat’s interest is to do its best to ensure the quickest possible accumulation of “sympathetic feelings.” In this period the moral ideal defining relationships is not the unadorned sexual instinct but the many-faceted love experience of love-comradeship. In order to answer the demands formulated by the new proletarian morality, these experiences must conform to three basic principles: 1. Equality in relationships an end to masculine egoism and the slavish suppression of the female personality; 2. Mutual recognition of the rights of the other, of the fact that one does not own the heart and soul of the other (the sense of property, encouraged by bourgeois culture; 3. Comradely sensitivity, the ability to listen and understand the inner workings of the loved person (bourgeois culture demanded this only from the woman). But in proclaiming the rights of “winged Eros,” the ideal of the working class at the same time subordinates this love to the more powerful emotion of love-duty to the collective. However great the love between two members of the collective, the ties binding the two persons to the collective will always take precedence, will be firmer, more complex and organic. Bourgeois morality demanded all for the loved one. The morality of the proletariat demands all for the collective.

But I can hear you objecting, my young friend, that though it may be true that love-comradeship will become the ideal of the working class, will this new “moral measurement” of emotions not place new constraints on sexual relationships? Are we not liberating love from the fetters of bourgeois morality only to enslave it again? Yes, my young friend, you are right. The ideology of the proletariat rejects bourgeois “morality” in the sphere of love-marriage relations. Nevertheless, it inevitably develops its own class morality, its own rules of behaviour, which correspond more closely to the tasks of the working class and educate the emotions in a certain direction. In this way it could be said that feelings are again in chains. The proletariat will undoubtedly clip the wings of bourgeois culture. But it would be short-sighted to regret this process, since the new class is capable of developing new facets of emotion which possess unprecedented beauty, strength and radiance. As the cultural and economic base of humanity changes, so will love be transformed.

The blind, all-embracing, demanding passions will weaken; the sense of property, the egoistical desire to bind the partner to one “forever,” the complacency of the man and the self-renunciation of the woman will disappear. At the same time, the valuable aspects and elements of love will develop. Respect for the right of the other’s personality will increase, and a mutual sensitivity will be learned; men and women will strive to express their love not only in kisses and embraces but in joint creativity and activity. The task of proletarian ideology is not to drive Eros from social life but to rearm him according to the new social formation, and to educate sexual relationships in the spirit of the great new psychological force of comradely solidarity.

I hope it is now clear to you that the interest among young workers in the question of love is not a symptom of “decline.” I hope that you can now grasp the place love must occupy in the relationships between young workers.

Autobiography of a Sexually Emancipated Communist Woman (1926)

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Prefatory Note

This is the first time that the complete autobiography which Alexandra Kollontai wrote in 1926 has been published. The sentences and paragraphs in italics were crossed out in the galleyproofs and left out in her time. Variants were indicated in footnotes which likewise were rejected and crossed out. The reader thus will have an idea of the extent and the intensity of corrections made by the author under the pressure of the gradually sharpening Stalinist control.

The Aims and Worth of My Life

Nothing is more difficult than writing an autobiography. What should be emphasized? Just what is of general interest? It is advisable, above all, to write honestly and dispense with any of the conventional introductory protestations of modesty. For if one is called upon to tell about one's life so as to make the events that made it what it became useful to the general public, it can mean only that one must have already wrought something positive in life, accomplished a task that people recognize. [1] Accordingly it is a matter of forgetting that one is writing about oneself, of making an effort to abjure one's ego so as to give an account, as objectively as possible, of one's life in the making and of one's accomplishments. I intend to make this effort but whether it will turn out successfully is something else again.

At the same time I must confess that, in a certain sense, this autobiography poses a problem for me. For by looking back while prying, simultaneously, into the future, I will also be presenting to myself the most crucial turning points of my being and accomplishments. In this way I [2a] may succeed in setting into bold relief that which concerns the women's liberation struggle and, further, the social significance which it has.[2] That I ought not to shape my life according to the given model, that I would have to grow beyond myself in order to be able to discern my life's true line of vision was an awareness that was mine already in my youngest years.

At the same time I was also aware [3] that in this way I could help my sisters to shape their lives, in accordance not with the given traditions but with their own free choice to the extent, of course, that social and economic circumstances permit. I always believed that the time inevitably must come when woman will be judged by the same moral standards applied to man. For it is not her specific feminine virtue that gives her a place of honor in human society, but the worth of the useful mission accomplished by her, [4a] the worth of her personality as human being, as citizen, [4b] as thinker, as fighter. Subconsciously this motive was the leading force of my whole life and activity.

To go my way, to work, to struggle, to create side by side with men, and to strive for the attainment of a universal human goal [4c] (for nearly thirty years, indeed, I have belonged to the [4d] Communists) but, at the same time, to shape my personal, intimate life as a woman according to my own will and according to the given laws of my nature. [4e] It was this that conditioned my line of vision.[4f] And [4g] in fact I have [4h] succeeded in structuring my intimate life according to my own standards and I make no secret of my love experiences [4i] anymore than does a man.[4k] Above all, however, I never let my feelings, the joy or pain of love take the first place in my life inasmuch as creativity, activity, struggle always occupied the foreground.

I managed to become a member of a government cabinet, of the first Bolshevik cabinet in the years 1917/18. I am also the first woman ever to have been appointed ambassadress, a post which I occupied for three years and from which I resigned of my own free will.[4l] This may serve to prove that woman certainly can stand above the conventional conditions of the age. The World War, the stormy, revolutionary spirit now prevalent in the world in all areas has greatly contributed to blunting the edge of the unhealthy, overheated double standard of morality. We are already accustomed not to make overly taxing demands, for example,[4m] on actresses and women belonging to the free professions in matters relating to their married life.

Diplomacy, however, is a caste which more than any other maintains its old customs, usages, traditions, and, above all, its strict ceremonial. The fact that a woman, a "free," a single woman was recognized in this position without opposition shows that the time has come when all human beings will be equally appraised according to their activity and their general human dignity. When I was appointed as Russian envoy to Oslo, I realized that I had thereby achieved a victory not only for myself, but [4n] for women in general [4o] and indeed, a victory over their worst enemy, that is to say,[4p] over conventional morality and conservative concepts of marriage.

When on occasion I am told that it is truly remarkable[4r] that a woman has been appointed to such a responsible position, I always [4s] think to myself that in the final analysis, the principal victory as regards women's liberation does not lie in this fact alone. Rather, what is of a wholly special significance here is that a woman, like myself, [4t] who has settled scores with the double standard and who has never concealed it,[4u] was accepted into a caste which to this very day staunchly upholds tradition and pseudo-morality. Thus the example of my life can also serve to dispel[4v] the[4w] old goblin of the double standard also from the lives of other women. And this is a most crucial point of my own existence, which has a certain social-psychological worth and contributes to the liberation struggle of working women.

To avoid any misunderstanding, however, it should be said here that I am still far from being the type of the positively new women who take their experience as females with a relative lightness and, one could say, with an enviable superficiality, whose feelings and mental energies are directed upon all other things [5] in life but sentimental love feelings. [6] After all I still belong to the generation of women who grew up at a turning point in history. Love with its many disappointments, with its tragedies and eternal demands for perfect happiness[7] still played a very great role in my life. An all-too-great role! It was an expenditure of precious time and energy, fruitless and, in the final analysis, utterly worthless. We, the women of the past generation, did not yet[8] understand how to be free.

The whole thing was an absolutely incredible squandering of our mental energy, a diminution of our labor power which was dissipated in barren emotional experiences. It is certainly true that we, myself as well as many other activists, militants and working women contemporaries, were able to understand that love was not the main goal of our life and that we knew how to place work at its center. Nevertheless we would have been able to create and achieve much more had our energies not been fragmentized in the eternal struggle with our egos and with [9] our feelings for another. It was, in fact, an eternal defensive war against the intervention of the male into our ego, a struggle revolving around the problem-complex: work or marriage and love?

We, the older generation, did not yet understand, as most men do and as young women are learning today, that work and the longing for love can be harmoniously combined so that work remains as the main goal of existence. 10] Our mistake was that each time we succumbed to the belief that we had finally found the one and only in the man we loved, the person with whom we believed we could blend our soul, one who was ready fully to recognize us as a spiritual-physical force.[11]

But over and over again things turned out differently, since [12] the man always tried to impose his ego upon us and adapt us fully to his purposes. Thus despite everything the inevitable inner rebellion ensued, over and over again since love became a fetter. We felt enslaved and tried to loosen the love-bond. And after the eternally recurring struggle with the beloved man, we finally tore ourselves away and rushed toward freedom. Thereupon we were again [13] alone, unhappy, [14] lonesome, but free–free to pursue our beloved, chosen ideal ...work.

Fortunately young people, the present generation, no longer have to go through this kind of struggle which is absolutely unnecessary to human society. Their abilities, their work-energy will be reserved for their creative activity. Thus the existence of barriers will become a spur.[15]

It is essential that I relate some details here about my private life. My childhood was a very happy one, judging by outward circumstances. My parents belonged to the old Russian nobility.[16] I was the only child born of my mother's second marriage (mother was separated and I was born outside the second marriage, and then adopted). I was the youngest, the most spoiled, and the most coddled member of the family. This, perhaps, was the root cause of the protest against everything around me that very early burgeoned within me. Too much was done for me in order to make me happy. I had no freedom of maneuver either in the children's games I played or in the desires that I wanted to express. At the same time I wanted to be free. [17] I wanted to express desires on my own, to shape my own little life. My parents were well-to-do.

There was no luxury in the house, but I did not know the meaning of privation. Yet I saw how other children were forced to give up things, and I was particularly and painfully shocked by the little peasant children who were my playmates (we lived almost always in the countryside, on the estate of my grandfather, who was a Finn). Already as a small [18] child I criticized[19] the injustice of adults and I experienced as a blatant contradiction[20] the fact that everything was offered to me whereas so much was denied to the other children. My criticism sharpened as the years went by and the feeling of revolt against the many proofs of love around me grew apace. [21] Already early in life I had eyes for the social injustices prevailing in Russia.

I was never sent to school because my parents lived in a constant state of anxiety over my health and they could not endure the thought that I, like all other children, should spend two hours daily far from home. My mother probably also had a certain horror of the liberal influences with which I might come into contact at the high school. Mother, of course, considered that I was already sufficiently critically[22] inclined. Thus I received my education at home under the direction of a proficient, clever tutoress who was connected with Russian revolutionary circles. I owe very much to her, Mme. Marie Strakhova.

I took[23] the examinations qualifying me for admission to the university when I was barely sixteen (in 1888) [24] and thereafter I was expected to lead the life of a "young society woman."[25] Although my education had been unusual and caused me much harm (for years I was extremely shy and utterly inept in the practical matters of life), it must nevertheless be said that my parents were by no means reactionaries. On the contrary, they were even[26] rather progressive for their time. But they held fast to traditions where it concerned the child, the young person under their roof. My first bitter struggle against these traditions revolved around the idea of marriage. I was supposed to make a good match [27] and mother was bent upon marrying me off at a very early age.

My oldest sister, at the age of nineteen, had contracted marriage with a highly placed gentleman who was nearly seventy. [28] I revolted against this marriage of convenience, this marriage for money[29] and wanted to marry only for love, out of a great passion. [30] Still very young, and against my parents' wishes, I chose my cousin, an impecunious young engineer whose name, Kollontai, I still bear today. My maiden name was Domontovich. The happiness of my marriage lasted hardly three years. I gave birth to a son. Although I personally raised my child with great care, [31] motherhood was never the kernel of my existence. A child had not been able to draw the bonds of my marriage tighter.

I still loved my husband, but the happy life of a housewife and spouse became for me a "cage." More and more my sympathies, my [32] interests turned to the revolutionary working class of Russia. I read voraciously. I zealously studied all [33] social questions, attended lectures, and worked in semi-legal societies for the enlightenment of the people. These were the years of the flowering of Marxism in Russia (1893/96). Lenin at that time was only a novice in the literary and revolutionary arena. George Plechanov was the leading mind of the time. I stood close to the materialist conception of history, since in early womanhood I had inclined towards the realistic school. I was an enthusiastic follower of Darwin and Roelsches.

A visit to the big and famous Krengolm textile factory, which employed 12,000 workers of both sexes, decided my fate. I could not lead a happy, peaceful life when the working population was so terribly enslaved. I simply had to join this movement. At that time this led to differences with my husband, who felt that my inclinations constituted an act of personal defiance directed against him. I left husband and child and journeyed to Zurich in order to study political economy under Professor Heinrich Herkner. Therewith[34] began my conscious life on behalf of the revolutionary goals of the working-class movement. When I came back to St. Petersburg–now Leningrad–in 1899, I joined the illegal Russian Social Democratic Party. I worked as a writer and propagandist.

The fate of Finland, whose independence and relative freedom were being threatened by the reactionary policy of the Czarist regime at the end of the '90's, exercised a wholly special power of attraction upon me. Perhaps my particular gravitation towards Finland resulted from the impressions I received on my grandfather's estate during my childhood. I actively espoused the cause of Finland's national liberation. Thus my first extensive [35] scientific work in political economy was a comprehensive investigation [36] of the living and working conditions of the Finnish proletariat in relation to industry. [37] The book appeared in 1903 in St. Petersburg. My parents had just died, my husband and I had been living separately for a long time, and only my son remained in my care.

Now I had the opportunity to devote myself completely to my aims: [38] to the Russian revolutionary movement and to the working-class movement of the whole world. [39] Love, marriage, family, all were secondary, transient matters. They were there, they intertwine with my life over and over again. But as great as was my love for my husband, immediately it transgressed a certain limit in relation to my feminine proneness to make sacrifice, rebellion flared in me anew. I had to go away, I had to break with the man of my choice, otherwise (this was a subconscious feeling in me) I would have exposed myself to the danger of losing my selfhood. It must also be said that not a single one of the men who were close to me has ever had a direction-giving influence on my inclinations, strivings, or my world-view. On the contrary, most of the time I was the guiding spirit. I acquired my view of life, my political line from life itself, and in uninterrupted study from [40] books.

In 1905, at the time the so-called first revolution in Russia broke out, after the famous Bloody Sunday, I had already acquired a reputation in the field of economic and social literature. And in those stirring times, when all energies were utilized in the storm of revolt, it turned out that I had become very popular as an orator. Yet in that period I realized for the first time how little our Party concerned itself with the fate of the women of the working class and how meager was its interest in women's liberation. To be sure a very strong bourgeois women's movement was already in existence in Russia. But my Marxist outlook pointed out to me with an illuminating clarity that women's liberation[41] could take place only as the result of the victory of a new social order and a different economic system.

Therefore I threw myself into the struggle between the Russian[42] suffragettes and strove with all my might to induce the working-class movement to include the woman question as one of the aims of its struggle in its program. [43] It was very difficult [44] to win my fellow members [45] over to this idea. I was completely isolated with my ideas and demands. Nevertheless in the years 1906-1908 I won a small group of women Party comrades over to my plans. I [46] wrote[47] an article published in the illegal press in 1906 in which for the first time [48] I set forth the demand to call the working-class movement into being in Russia through systematic Party work. In Autumn of 1907 we opened up the first Working Women's Club.

Many of the members of this club, who were still very young workers at that time, now occupy important posts in the new Russia and in the Russian Communist Party (K. Nicolaieva, Marie Burke, etc.). One result of my activity in connection with the women workers, [49] but especially of my political writings–among which was a pamphlet on Finland containing the call to rise up against the Czarist Duma [50] with "arms"–was the institution of legal proceedings against me which held out the grim prospect of spending many years in prison. I was forced to disappear immediately and was never again to see my home. My son was taken in by good friends, my small household liquidated. I became "an illegal." It was a time of strenuous work.

The first All-Russian Women's Congress which had been called by the bourgeois suffragettes was scheduled to take place in December of 1908. At that time the reaction was on the rise and the working-class movement was prostrate again after the first victory in 1905. Many Party comrades were in jail, others had fled abroad. The vehement struggle between the two factions of the Russian Workers Party broke out anew: the Bolsheviks on the one side, the Mensheviks on the other. In 1908 I belonged to the Menshevik faction, having been forced thereto by the hostile position taken by the Bolsheviks towards the Duma, a pseudo-Parliament called by the Czar in order to Pacify the rebellious spirits of the age.

Although with the Mensheviks I espoused the point of view that even a pseudo-Parliament should be utilized as a tribute for our Party and that the elections for the Duma must be used as an assembling point for the working class. But I did not side with the Mensheviks on the question of coordinating the forces of the workers with the Liberals in order to accelerate the overthrow of absolutism. On this point I was, in fact, very left-radical and was even branded as a "syndicalist" by my Party comrades. [51] Given my attitude towards the Duma it logically followed that I considered it useless to exploit the first bourgeois women's congress in the interest of our Party. Nevertheless I worked with might and main to assure that our [52] women workers, who were to participate in the Congress, emerged as an independent and distinct group.

I managed to carry out this plan but not without opposition. My Party comrades[53] accused me and those women-comrades who shared my views of being "feminists" and of placing too much emphasis on matters of concern to women only. At the time there was still no comprehension at all [54] of the extraordinarily important role in the struggle devolving upon self-employed professional women. Nevertheless our will prevailed. A women-workers' group came forward at the Congress in St. Petersburg with its own [55] program and it drew a clear line of demarcation between the bourgeois suffragettes and the women's liberation movement of the working class in Russia. However, I was forced to flee before the close of the Congress because the police had come upon my tracks. I managed to cross the frontier inter Germany and thus, in December of 1908, began a new period of my life, political emigration.

The Years of Political Emigration

As a political refugee henceforth I lived in Europe and America until the overthrow of Czarism in 1917. As soon as I arrived in Germany, after my flight, I joined the German Social Democratic Party in which I had many personal friends, among whom I especially numbered Karl Liebknecht,[56] Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Kautsky. [57] Clara Zetkin also had a great influence on my activity [58] in defining the principles of the women-workers movement in Russia. Already in 1907 I had taken part, as a delegate from Russia, in the first International Conference of Socialist Women that was held in Stuttgart. This gathering was presided over by Clara Zetkin and it made an enormous contribution to the development of the women-workers movement along Marxist lines.

I put myself at the disposal of the Party press as a writer on social and political questions, and I was also frequently called upon as an orator by the German Party and I worked for the Party as an agitator from the Palatinate to Saxony, from Bremen to south Germany. But I assumed[59] no leading posts either in the Russian party or in the German party.[60] By and large I was mainly a "popular orator" and an esteemed political writer.

I can now openly confess [61] that in the Russian Party I deliberately kept somewhat aloof from the controlling center, and that is explainable mainly by the fact that I was not yet in complete agreement with the policy of my comrades.[62] But I had no desire to pass over to the Bolsheviks, nor could I for that matter since at the time it seemed to me as if they did not attach sufficient importance to the development of the working-class movement in "breadth and depth." Therefore I worked on my own seemingly almost as though I wanted to remain in the background without setting my sights or obtaining a leading position. [63] Here it must be admitted that, although I possessed a certain degree of ambition, like every other active human being, I was never animated by the desire to obtain "a post." For me "what I am" was always of less importance than "what I can," that is to say, what I was in a position to accomplish.

In this way I, too, had my ambition and it was especially noticeable there where I stood with my whole heart and soul [64] in the struggle, where the issue was the abolition of the slavery of working women. I had above all set myself the task of winning over women workers in Russia to socialism and, at the same time, of working for the liberation of[65] woman, for her equality of rights. My book "The Social Foundations of the Women's Question" had appeared shortly before my flight; it was a polemical disputation with the bourgeois suffragettes but, at the same time, a challenge to the Party to build a viable women workers movement in Russia. The book enjoyed a great success. At that time I wrote for the legal and illegal press. Through an exchange of letters I tried to influence Party comrades and women workers themselves.

Naturally, I always did this in such a way that I demanded from the Party that it[66] espouse the cause of women's liberation. I did not always have an easy time of it. Much passive resistance, little understanding, and even less interest for this aim, over and over again, lay as an obstacle in the path. It was not until 1914, shortly before the outbreak of the World War, that finally both factions–the Mensheviks and the Bolsheviks–took up the question in an earnest and practical way, a fact which had on me an effect almost tantamount to a personal commendation. Two periodicals for working women were launched in Russia, the International Working Women's Congress of March 8, 1914, was celebrated. I was still living in exile, however, and could help the so dearly loved women-workers movement in my homeland only from afar.

I was in close contact, also from afar, with the working women of Russia. Already several years earlier[67] I had been appointed by the Textile Workers Union as an official delegate to the Second International Conference of Socialist Women (1910) and, further, [68] to the extraordinary International Socialist Congress in Basle in 1912. Later when a draft of a bill on social insurance was introduced in the Russian pseudo-Parliament (the Duma), the Social Democratic Duma faction (of the Menshevik wing) requested me to elaborate the draft of a bill on maternity welfare. It was not the first time that the[69] faction lay claim to my energies for legislative work. Just before I was forced to go into exile, I had been enlisted by them–as a qualified expert–to participate in the deliberation of the question of Finland in the Imperial Duma.

The task that had been assigned to me, namely, the elaboration of a draft of a bill in the field of maternity welfare, motivated me to undertake a most thorough study of this special question. The Bund für Mutterschutz, and the outstanding work of Dr. Helene Stöcker, also provided me with valuable suggestions. Nevertheless I also studied the question in England, France, and in the Scandinavian countries. The result of these studies was my book "Motherhood and Society," a comprehensive[70] work of 600 pages on maternity welfare and the relevant legislation in Europe and Australia. The fundamental regulations and demands in this field, which I summed up at the end of my book, were realized later in 1917 by the Soviet regime in the first social insurance laws.

For me the years of political emigration were hectic, quite stirring [71] years. I travelled as a Party orator from country to country. In 1911, in Paris, I organized the housewives' strike "La grève des menagères" against the high cost of living. In 1912 I worked in Belgium setting the groundwork for the miners' strike in the Borinage and in the same year the Party dispatched me to the left-oriented Socialist Youth Association of Sweden in order to strengthen the Party's72] anti-militaristic tendencies. Several years earlier, this still merits mention here, [73] I fought in the ranks of the British Socialist Party side by side with Dora Montefiore and Madame Koeltsch [74] against the English suffragettes for the strengthening of the still fledgling socialist working-women's movement. In 1913 I was again in England.

This time I was there in order to take an active part in a protest action against the famous "Beilis Trial" which had been instigated by the anti-semites in Russia. In the spring of the same year, the left wing of the Swedish Social Democratic Party invited me to Sweden. These were truly hectic years, marked by the most varied types of militant activity. Notwithstanding, my Russian Party comrades also laid claim to my energies and appointed me delegate to the Socialist Party and Trade Union Congress. Thus with the help of Karl Liebknecht I also sparked an activity in Germany on behalf of the deported socialist members of the Duma. [75] In 1911 I was called to the Russian Party School in Bologna, where I delivered a series of lectures. The present Russian Minister of Education in Soviet Russia, A.

Lunacharsky, Maxim Gorki, as well as the famous Russian economist and philosopher A. Bogdonov, were the founders of this Party school, and Trotsky delivered lectures at the school at the same time that I was there. The present Soviet Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs, G. Chicherin, who at that time worked as secretary of a relief agency for political refugees, oftentimes called upon me to hold public lectures on the most disparate cultural problems of Russian life in order to help fill the relief agency's almost empty kitty. At his behest I travelled all over Europe but Berlin was my fixed abode. I felt at home in Germany and have always greatly appreciated the conditions there so ideally suited for scientific work. But I was not allowed to give speeches in Prussia. On the contrary, I had to keep as quiet as possible to avoid expulsion by the Prussian police.

Then the World War broke out and once again I arrived at a new turning point in my life.

But before I talk about this important period of my intellectual existence, I still want to say a few words about my personal life. The question rises whether in the middle of all these manifold, exciting labors and Party-assignments I could still find rime for intimate experiences, for the pangs and joys of love. Unfortunately, yes! I say unfortunately because ordinarily these experiences entailed all too many cares, disappointments, and pain, and because all too many energies were pointlessly consumed through them. Yet the longing to be understood by a man down to the deepest, most secret recesses of one's soul, to be recognized by him as a striving human being, repeatedly decided matters.

And repeatedly disappointment ensued all too swiftly, since the friend saw in me only the feminine element which he tried to mold into a willing sounding board to his own ego. So repeatedly the moment inevitably arrived in which I had to shake off the chains of community with an aching heart but with a sovereign, uninfluenced will. Then I was again alone. But the greater the demands life made upon me, the more the responsible work waiting to be tackled, the greater grew the longing to be enveloped by love, warmth, understanding. All the easier, consequently, began the old story of disappointment in love, the old story of Titania in "A Midsummer Night's Dream." [76]

The outbreak of the World War found me in Germany. My son was with me. We were both arrested because my identity papers were not in order. During the house search, however, the police found a mandate from the Russian Social Democratic Party appointing me as delegate to the World Congress of Socialists. Suddenly the gentlemen from Alexander Platz became utterly charming: they figured that a female Social Democrat could not be a friend of the Czar and consequently certainly not an enemy of Germany. They were right. [77] I was in fact no enemy of Germany and still less a Russian patriot.

To me the war was an abomination, a madness, a crime, and from the first moment onwards–more out of impulse than reflection–I inwardly rejected it and could never reconcile myself with it up to this very moment. [78] The intoxication of patriotic feelings has always been something alien to me, on the contrary I felt an aversion for everything that smacked of super-patriotism. I found no understanding for my "anti-patriotic" attitude among my own Russian [79] Party comrades, who also lived in Germany. [80] Only Karl Liebknecht, his wife Sofie Liebknecht, and a few other German Party comrades, like myself, espoused the same standpoint and, like myself, [81] considered it a socialist's duty to struggle against the war. Strange to say, I was present in the Reichstag on August 4, the day the war budget was being voted on. The collapse of the German Socialist Party struck me as a calamity without parallel. I felt utterly alone and found comfort only in the company of the Liebknechts.

With the help of some German Party friends I was able to leave Germany with my son in August of 1914 and emigrate to the Scandinavian peninsula. I left Germany not because I had felt the slightest manifestation of unfriendliness towards me but only for the reason that without a sphere of activity I would have been forced to live in idleness in that country. I was impatient to take up the struggle against the war. After arriving on Sweden's neutral soil, I immediately [82] began the work against the war and for[83] the international solidarity of the world working class. An appeal to working women made its way, along illegal channels, to Russia and to different other countries. In Sweden I wrote and spoke against the war.

I spoke at public meetings, most of which had been called by the leftist-leaning world-famous [84] Swedish Party leaders Zeta Höglund and Frederic Strön. I found in them the pure echo of my ideas and [85] feelings and we joined forces in a common task for the victory of internationalism and against the war hysteria. It was only later that I learned of the attitude which the leading minds of the Russian Party had taken towards the war. When the news finally reached us, by way of Paris and Switzerland, it was for us a day of ineffable joy. We received assurance that both Trotsky and Lenin, although they[86] belonged to different factions of the Party, had militantly risen up against the war.

Thus I was no longer "isolated." A new grouping was proposed [87] in the Party, the internationalists and the "social-patriots." A Party periodical was also founded in Paris. [88] In the middle of my zealous activities, however, I was arrested by the Swedish authorities and brought to the Kungsholm prison. The worst moment during this arrest was born of my concern over the identity papers of a good friend and Party comrade, Alexander Schlapnikov, who had just arrived illegally in Sweden from Russia, which I had taken over for safe-keeping. Under the eyes of the police I managed to hide them under my blouse and somehow make them disappear. Later I was transferred from the Kungsholm prison to the prison in Malma and then banished to Denmark.

As far as I know I was one of the first of the European socialists to be jailed because of anti-war propaganda. In Denmark I continued my work but with greater prudence. Nevertheless [89] the Danish police did not leave me in peace. Nor did the Danish Social Democrats exhibit friendliness for the internationalists. In February of 1915 I emigrated to Norway where together with Alexander Schlapnikov we served as a link between Switzerland, the place of residence of Lenin and of the Central Committee,[90] and Russia. We had full contact with the Norwegian socialists. On March 8 of the same year I tried to organize an international working women's demonstration against the war in Christiania (now Oslo), but the representatives from the belligerent countries did not show up.

That was the time when the decisive rupture in Social Democracy was being prepared, since the patriotically minded socialists could not go along with the internationalists. Since the Bolsheviks were those who most consistently fought social-patriotism, in June of 1915 I officially joined the Bolsheviks and entered into a lively correspondence with Lenin (Lenin's letters to me have recently been published in Russia).[91]

I again began to do a prodigous amount of writing, this time for the international-minded press of the most different countries: England, Norway, Sweden, America, Russia. At this time one of my pamphlets, "Who Profits from the War?," appeared. Deliberately written in a very popular view, it was disseminated in countless editions, in millions of copies, [92] and was translated into several languages, German included. 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, [93] was to fight against the war and call a new Workers International into being.

In the autumn of 1915 the German section of the American Socialist Party invited me to journey to America to deliver lectures there in the spirit of "Zimmerwald" (a gathering of international-minded socialists). I was immediately ready to cross the ocean for this purpose, despite the fact that my friends determinedly advised me against it. They were all deeply worried about me because the journey had become very hazardous as a result of submarine warfare. But the aim enticed me enormously. My propaganda tour in America lasted five months, during which time I visited eighty-one cities in the United States and delivered lectures in German, French, and Russian. [94] The work was extremely strenuous, but also as fruitful, and I had warrant to believe that as a result the internationalists in the American Party were strengthened.

Much opposition to the war, passionate debates, also existed overseas, but the police did not bother me. [95] The newspapers, by turns, branded me either as a spy of the German Kaiser or as an agent of the Entente. I returned to Norway in the spring of 1916. I love Norway with its incomparable fjords and its majestic mountains, its courageous, gifted, and industrious people. At that time I lived on the famous Holmenkollen near Oslo and continued to work with the view 'of welding together all the forces of the internationalists in opposition to the World War. I shared Lenin's view which aimed at spreading the conviction that the war could be defeated only by the Revolution, by the uprising of the workers.

I was in substantial agreement with Lenin and stood much closer to him than many of his older followers and friends. [96] But my sojourn in Norway was not a long one because only a few months after my arrival I had to embark upon a second journey to America, where I remained till shortly before the outbreak of the Russian Revolution. For me the situation in America had changed insofar as, in the meanwhile, many Russian Party comrades had come over, Trotsky among others. We worked zealously for the new Workers International but America's intervention in the war aggravated our activity. [97]

I had already been in Norway for several weeks, when the Russian people rose up against absolutism and dethroned the Czar. A festive mood reigned among all our political friends. But I harbored no illusions because I knew that the overthrow of the Czar would be only the beginning of even more momentous events and difficult social struggles so I hastened [98] back to Russia in March 1917. I was one of the first political emigrants who came [99] back to the liberated homeland. Torneo, the tiny frontier town lying north of the Swedish-Finnish frontiers, through which I had to pass, was still in the grip of a cruel winter. A sleigh carried me across the river which marks the frontier. On Russian soil stood a soldier. A bright red ribbon fluttered on his chest. "Your identity papers, please, citizenness!" "I have none.

I am a political refugee." "Your name?" I identified myself. A young officer was summoned. Yes, my name was on the list of political refugees who were to be freely admitted into the country by order of the Workers' and Soldiers' Soviet. The young officer helped me out of the sleigh and kissed my hand, almost reverently. I was standing on the republican soil of liberated Russia! Could that be possible? It was one of the happiest hours of my whole [100] life. Four months later, by order of the Kerensky regime (the Provisional Government), the same charming young officer placed me under arrest as a dangerous Bolshevik at the Torneo frontier station ...Such is life's irony.

The Years of Revolution

So overwhelming was the rush of subsequent events that to this very day I really do not know what I should describe and emphasize: what have I accomplished, desired, achieved? Was there altogether an individual will at that time? Was it not only the omnipotent storm of the Revolution, the command of the active, awakened masses that determined our will and action? Was there altogether a single human being who would not have bowed to the general will? There were only masses of people, bound together in a bipartite will, which operated either for or against the Revolution, for or against ending the war, and which sided for or against the power of the Soviets. Looking back one perceives only a massive operation, struggle, and action. In reality there were no heroes or leaders. It was the people, the working people, in soldiers' uniform or in civilian attire, who controlled the situation and who recorded its will indelibly in the history of the country and mankind. It was a sultry summer, a crucial summer of the revolutionary flood-tide in 1917! At first the social storm raged only in the countryside, the peasants set fire to the "nests of gentle folk." In the cities the struggle that raged was between the advocates of a republican-bourgeois Russia and the socialist aspirations of the Bolsheviks ...

As I have previously stated, I belonged to the Bolsheviks. Thus immediately, from the first days onwards, I found an absolute enormous pile of work waiting for me. Once more the issue was to wage a struggle against the war, against coalescence with the liberal bourgeoisie, and for the power of the workers' councils, the Soviets. The natural consequence of this stand was that the bourgeois newspapers branded me as a "mad female Bolshevik." But this bothered me not at all. My field of activity was immense, and my followers, factory workers and women-soldiers, numbered thousands.[101] At this time I was very popular, especially[102] as an orator,[103] and, at the same time, hated and viciously attacked by the bourgeois press. Thus it was a stroke of luck~ that I was[104] so weighed down with current work that I found hardly any time to read the attacks and slanders against me. The hate directed against me, allegedly because I had been in the pay of the German Kaiser for the purpose of weakening the Russian front, grew[105] to monstrous proportions.

One of the most burning questions of the day was the high cost of living and the growing scarcity of vital necessities. Thus the women of the poverty-stricken strata had an indescribably hard time of it. Precisely this situation prepared the terrain in the Party for "work with women" so that very soon we were able to accomplish useful work. [106] Already in May of 1917 a weekly called "The Women Workers" made its debut. I authored an appeal to women against the high cost of living and the war. [107] The first mass meeting, packed with thousands of people,[108] that took place in Russia under the Provisional Government, was organized by us, by the Bolsheviks. Kerensky and his ministers made no secret of their hatred of me, the "instigator of the spirit of disorganization" in the Army.

One particular article of mine in "Pravda" in which I interceded for German prisoners of war unleashed a veritable storm of [109] indignation on the part of patriotic-minded circles. When in April Lenin delivered his famous programmatic speech within the frame of the Soviets, I was the only one of his Party comrades who took the poor to support his theses. What hatred this particular act kindled against me! [110] Often I had to jump off tramcars before people recognized me, since I had become a topical theme of the day and often bore personal witness to the most incredible abuse and lies directed against me. I should like to cite a small example which can show how the enemy worked with might and main to defame me.

At that time the newspapers hostile to me were already writing about the "Kollontai party dresses" which particularly then was laughable because my trunk had been lost en route to Russia, so I always wore the one and the same dress. There was even a little street ballad that commented on Lenin and me in verse. [111] There was also nothing extraordinary in the fact that, threatened as I was by irritated mobs, I was always protected from the worst only by the courageous intercession of my friends and Party comrades. Nevertheless I myself personally experienced little [112] of the hatred around me and, of course, there was also a great number of enthusiastic friends: the workers, the sailors, the soldiers who were utterly devoted to me. [113] Moreover, the number of our followers [114] grew from day to day.

Already in April, I was a member of the Soviet executive which, in reality, was the guiding political body of the moment, to which I belonged as the only woman and over a long period. In May of 1917 I took part in the strike of women laundry workers who set forth the demand that all laundries be "municipalized." The struggle lasted six weeks. Nevertheless the principal demand of the women laundry workers remained unmet by the Kerensky regime.

At the end of June, I was sent by my Party to Stockholm as a delegate to an international consultation which was interrupted when news reached us of the July uprising against the Provisional Government and of the extremely harsh measures that the[115] government was taking against the Bolsheviks. Many of our leading Party comrades had already been arrested, others, including Lenin, had managed to escape and go into hiding. The Bolsheviks were accused of high treason and branded as spies of the German Kaiser. The uprising was brought to a standstill and the coalition regime retaliated against all those who had manifested sympathy for the Bolsheviks. I immediately decided to return to Russia, although my friends and Party comrades [116] considered this to be a risky undertaking. They wanted me to go to Sweden and await the course of events.

Well-intentioned as these counsels were, and correct as they also appeared to me later, [117] I nevertheless could not heed them. I simply had to go back. Otherwise it would appear to me as an act of cowardice to take advantage of the privilege, that had become mine, of remaining wholly immune from the persecutions of the Provisional Government, when a great number of my political friends were sitting in jail. Later I realized that, perhaps, I might have been able to be move useful to our cause from Sweden, but I was under the compulsion of the moment. [118] By order of the Kerensky regime I was arrested on the border of Torneo and subjected to the most boorish treatment as a spy ... But the arrest itself proceeded quite theatrically: during the inspection of my passport I was requested to step into the commandant's office.

I understood what that meant. A number of soldiers were standing in an enormous room, pressed close against each other. Two young officers were also present, one of them being the charming young man who had received me so amiably [119] four months previously. A veritable [120] silence prevailed in the room. The facial expression of the first officer, Prince B., betrayed a great nervousness. Composed, I waited to see what would happen next. "You are under arrest," explained Prince B. "So. Has the counter-revolution triumphed Do we again have a monarchy?" "No," was the gruff reply. "You are under arrest by order of the Provisional Government." "I have been expecting it. Please, let my suitcase be brought in, I don't want it to be lost." "But, of course.

Lieutenant, the suitcase!" I saw how the officers heaved a sigh of relief, and how the soldiers left the room with displeasure writ large on their faces. Later I learned that my arrest had occasioned a protest among the soldiers who insisted upon witnessing the arrest. The officers, however, had feared that I might make a speech to the soldiers. "In that case we would have been lost," one of them told me afterwards.

I was forced to wait for the course of the investigation, like the other Bolsheviks, in a Petrograd prison, in strict isolation. The more incredibly the regime conducted itself towards the Bolsheviks, the more their influence grew.[121] The march of the White general Kornilov on Petrograd strengthened the most radical elements of the Revolution. The people demanded that the jailed Bolsheviks be freed. Kerensky, however, refused to free me and it was only by an order of the Soviet that I was released from jail upon payment of bail. But already on the next day, Kerensky's decree that I be placed under house arrest hung over me. Nevertheless I was given my full freedom of movement one month before the decisive struggle, the October Revolution in 1917. Again my work piled up. Now the groundwork was to be set for a systematic women-workers movement. The first conference of women workers was to be called. It also took place and it coincided with the overthrow of the Provisional Government and the establishment of the Soviet Republic.

At that time I was a member of the highest Party body, the Central Committee, and I voted for the policy of armed uprising.[122] I was also a member of different Party representations in decisive Congresses and State institutions (the preliminary Parliament, the democratic Congress, etc.). Then came the great days of the October Revolution. Smolny became historic. The sleepless nights, the permanent sessions. And, finally, the stirring declarations. "The Soviets take power!" "The Soviets address an appeal to the peoples of the world to put an end to the war." "The land is socialized and belongs to the peasants!"

The Soviet Government was formed. I was appointed People's Commissar (Minister) of Social Welfare. I was the only woman in the cabinet and the first woman in history [123] who had ever been recognized as a member of a government. When one recalls the first months of the Workers' Government, months which were so rich in magnificent illusions, [124] plans,[125] ardent initiatives to improve life, to organize the world anew, months of the real romanticism of the Revolution, one would in fact like to write about all else save about one's self. I occupied the post of Minister of Social Welfare from October of 1917 to March of 1918. [126] It was not without opposition that I was received by the former officials of the Ministry. Most of them sabotaged us openly and simply did not show up for work.

But precisely this office could not interrupt its work, come what may, since in itself it was an extraordinarily complicated operation. It included the whole welfare program for the war-disabled, hence for hundreds of thousands of crippled soldiers and officers, the pension system in general, foundling homes, homes for the aged, orphanages, hospitals for the needy, the work-shops making artificial limbs, the administration of playing-card factories (the manufacture of playing cards was a State monopoly), the educational system, [127] clinical hospitals for women.[128] In addition a whole series of educational institutes for young girls were also under the direction of this Ministry. One can easily imagine the enormous demands these tasks made upon a small group of people who, at the same time, were novices in State administration.

In a clear awareness of these difficulties I formed, [129] immediately, an auxiliary council in which experts such as physicians, jurists, pedagogues were represented alongside the workers and the minor officials of the Ministry. The sacrifice, the energy with which the minor employees bore the burden of this difficult task was truly exemplary. It was not only a matter of keeping the work of the Ministry going, but also of initiating reforms and improvements. New, fresh forces replaced the sabotaging officers of the old regime. A new life stirred in the offices of the formerly highly conservative Ministry. Days of grueling work! And at night the sessions of the councils of the People's Commissar (of the cabinet) under Lenin's chairmanship.

A small, modest room and only one secretary who recorded the resolutions which changed Russia's life to its bottommost foundations. My first act [130] People's Commissar was[131] to compensate a small peasant for his requisitioned horse. Actually by no stretch of the imagination did this belong to the functions of my office. But the man was determined to receive compensation for his horse. He had travelled from his distant village to the capital and had knocked patiently on the doors of all the ministries. Always with no results! Then the Bolshevik revolution broke out. The man had heard that the Bolsheviks were in favor of the workers and peasants. So he went to the Smolny Institute, to Lenin, who had to pay out the compensation. I do not know how the conversation between Lenin and the small peasant went.

As a result of it, however, the man came to me with a small page torn from Lenin's notebook on which I was requested to settle the matter somehow since at the moment the People's Commissariat for Social Welfare had the greatest amount of cash at its disposal. The small peasant received his compensation.

My main work as People's Commissar consisted in the following: [132] by decree to improve the situation of the war-disabled, to abolish religious instruction in the schools for young girls which were under the Ministry (this was still before the general separation of Church and State), and to transfer priests to the civil service, to introduce the right of self-administration for pupils in the schools for girls, to reorganize the former orphanages into government Children's Homes (no distinction was to be made between orphaned children and those who still had fathers and mothers), [133] to set up the first hostels for the needy and street-urchins, to convene a committee, composed only [134] of doctors, which was to be commissioned to elaborate[135] the free public health system for the whole country.

In my opinion the most important accomplishment of the People's Commissariat, however, was the legal foundation of a Central Office for Maternity and Infant Welfare. The draft of the bill relating to this Central Office was signed by me in January of 1918. A second decree followed in which I [136] changed all maternity hospitals into free Homes for Maternity and Infant Care,[137] in order thereby to set the groundwork for a comprehensive government system of pre-natal care. I was greatly assisted in coping with these tasks by Dr. Korolef.

We also planned a "Pre-Natal Care Palace," a model home with an exhibition room in which courses for mothers would be held and, among many other things, [138] model day nurseries were also to be established.[139] We were just about completing preparations for such a facility in the building of a girls' boarding school at which formerly young girls of the nobility had been educated and which was still under the direction of a countess, when a fire destroyed our work, which had barely begun! Had the fire been set deliberately? ... I was dragged out of bed in the middle of the night. I rushed to the scene of the fire; the beautiful exhibition room was totally ruined, as were all the other rooms. Only the huge name-plate "Pre-Natal Care Palace" still hung over the entrance door.

My efforts to nationalize maternity and infant care set off a new wave of insane attacks against me. All kinds of lies were related[140] about the "nationalization of women," about my legislative proposals which assertedly ordained that little girls of 12 were to become mothers. A special fury gripped the religious followers of the old regime when, on my own authority (the cabinet later criticized me for this action),[141] I transformed the famous Alexander Nevsky monastery into a home for war invalids. The monks resisted and a shooting fray ensued. The press again raised a loud hue and cry against me.[142] The Church organized street demonstrations against my action[143] and also pronounced "anathema' against me...

I received countless threatening letters, but I never requested military protection. I always went out alone, unarmed and without any kind of a bodyguard. In fact I never gave a thought to any kind of danger, being all too engrossed in matters of an utterly different character.[144] In February of 1918 a first State delegation of the Soviets was sent to Sweden in order to clarify different economic and political questions.[145] As Peoples' Commissar I headed this delegation. But our vessel was shipwrecked; we were saved by landing on the Aland Islands which belonged to Finland. At this very time the struggle between the Whites and the Reds in the country had reached its most crucial moment and the German Army was also making ready to wage war against Finland.

The White troops occupied the Aland Islands on the very evening of our shipwreck as we were seated at dinner in an inn of the city of Marieham, rejoicing over our rescue. We managed to escape thanks to the greatest determination and cunning, yet one of our group, a young[146] Finn, was captured and shot. We returned to Petrograd, where the evacuation of the capital was being prepared with feverish haste: German troops already stood before the gates of the city.

Now began a dark time[147] of my life which I cannot treat of here since the events are still too fresh in my mind. But the day will also come when I will give an account of them.[148]

There were differences of opinion in the Party.[149] I resigned from my post as People's Commissar on the ground of total disagreement with the current policy. Little by little I was also relieved of all my other tasks. I again gave lectures and espoused my ideas on "the new woman" and "the new morality."[150] The Revolution was in full swing. The struggle was becoming increasingly irreconcilable and bloodier, much of what was happening did not fit in with my outlook.[151] But after all[152] there was still the unfinished task, women's liberation. Women, of course, had received all rights but in practice, of course, they still lived under the old yoke: without authority in family life, enslaved by a thousand menial household chores, bearing the whole burden of maternity, even the material cares, because many women now found life alone as a result of the war and other circumstances.

In the autumn of 1916 when I devoted all my energies to drawing up systematic guidelines for the liberation of working women in all areas, I found a valuable support in the[153] first President of the Soviets, Sverdlov, now dead.[154] Thus the first Congress of Women Workers and Women Peasants could be called as early as November of 1918; some 1147 delegates were present. Thus the foundation was laid for methodical work in the whole country for the liberation[155] of the women of the working and the peasant classes. A flood of new work was waiting for me. The question now was one of drawing women into the people's kitchens and of educating them to devote their energies to children's homes and day-care centers, the school system, household reforms, and still many other pressing matters. The main thrust of all this activity was to implement, in fact, equal rights for women as a labor unit in the national economy and as a citizen in the political sphere and, of course, with the special proviso: maternity was to be appraised as a social function and therefore protected and provided for by the State.

Under the guidance of Dr. Lebedevo, the State institutes for pre-natal care also flourished then. At the same time, central officers were established in the whole country to deal with issues and tasks connected with women's liberation and to draw women into Soviet work.[156]

The Civil War in 1919 saddled me with new tasks. When the White troops tried to march north from south Russia, I was again sent to the Ukraine and to the Crimea where at first I served as chairwoman of the enlightenment department in the Army. Later, up to the evacuation of the Soviet government,[157] I was appointed People's Commissar of Enlightenment and Propaganda in the Ukrainian government. I managed to send 400 women communists out of the threatened zone near Kiev with a special train. I did my most possible best for the communist women workers movement also in the Ukraine.[158]

A serious illness tore me away from the exciting work for months. Hardly having recovered–at that time I was in Moscow–I took over the direction of the Coordinating Office for Work among Women and again a new period of intensive, grueling work began. A communist women's newspaper[159] was founded, conferences and congresses of women workers were convok

This is the first time that the complete autobiography which Alexandra Kollontai wrote in 1926 has been published. The sentences and paragraphs in italics were crossed out in the galleyproofs and left out in her time. Variants were indicated in footnotes which likewise were rejected and crossed out. The reader thus will have an idea of the extent and the intensity of corrections made by the author under the pressure of the gradually sharpening Stalinist control.

The Aims and Worth of My Life

Nothing is more difficult than writing an autobiography. What should be emphasized? Just what is of general interest? It is advisable, above all, to write honestly and dispense with any of the conventional introductory protestations of modesty. For if one is called upon to tell about one's life so as to make the events that made it what it became useful to the general public, it can mean only that one must have already wrought something positive in life, accomplished a task that people recognize. [1] Accordingly it is a matter of forgetting that one is writing about oneself, of making an effort to abjure one's ego so as to give an account, as objectively as possible, of one's life in the making and of one's accomplishments. I intend to make this effort but whether it will turn out successfully is something else again.

At the same time I must confess that, in a certain sense, this autobiography poses a problem for me. For by looking back while prying, simultaneously, into the future, I will also be presenting to myself the most crucial turning points of my being and accomplishments. In this way I [2a] may succeed in setting into bold relief that which concerns the women's liberation struggle and, further, the social significance which it has.[2] That I ought not to shape my life according to the given model, that I would have to grow beyond myself in order to be able to discern my life's true line of vision was an awareness that was mine already in my youngest years.

At the same time I was also aware [3] that in this way I could help my sisters to shape their lives, in accordance not with the given traditions but with their own free choice to the extent, of course, that social and economic circumstances permit. I always believed that the time inevitably must come when woman will be judged by the same moral standards applied to man. For it is not her specific feminine virtue that gives her a place of honor in human society, but the worth of the useful mission accomplished by her, [4a] the worth of her personality as human being, as citizen, [4b] as thinker, as fighter. Subconsciously this motive was the leading force of my whole life and activity.

To go my way, to work, to struggle, to create side by side with men, and to strive for the attainment of a universal human goal [4c] (for nearly thirty years, indeed, I have belonged to the [4d] Communists) but, at the same time, to shape my personal, intimate life as a woman according to my own will and according to the given laws of my nature. [4e] It was this that conditioned my line of vision.[4f] And [4g] in fact I have [4h] succeeded in structuring my intimate life according to my own standards and I make no secret of my love experiences [4i] anymore than does a man.[4k] Above all, however, I never let my feelings, the joy or pain of love take the first place in my life inasmuch as creativity, activity, struggle always occupied the foreground.

I managed to become a member of a government cabinet, of the first Bolshevik cabinet in the years 1917/18. I am also the first woman ever to have been appointed ambassadress, a post which I occupied for three years and from which I resigned of my own free will.[4l] This may serve to prove that woman certainly can stand above the conventional conditions of the age. The World War, the stormy, revolutionary spirit now prevalent in the world in all areas has greatly contributed to blunting the edge of the unhealthy, overheated double standard of morality. We are already accustomed not to make overly taxing demands, for example,[4m] on actresses and women belonging to the free professions in matters relating to their married life.

Diplomacy, however, is a caste which more than any other maintains its old customs, usages, traditions, and, above all, its strict ceremonial. The fact that a woman, a "free," a single woman was recognized in this position without opposition shows that the time has come when all human beings will be equally appraised according to their activity and their general human dignity. When I was appointed as Russian envoy to Oslo, I realized that I had thereby achieved a victory not only for myself, but [4n] for women in general [4o] and indeed, a victory over their worst enemy, that is to say,[4p] over conventional morality and conservative concepts of marriage.

When on occasion I am told that it is truly remarkable[4r] that a woman has been appointed to such a responsible position, I always [4s] think to myself that in the final analysis, the principal victory as regards women's liberation does not lie in this fact alone. Rather, what is of a wholly special significance here is that a woman, like myself, [4t] who has settled scores with the double standard and who has never concealed it,[4u] was accepted into a caste which to this very day staunchly upholds tradition and pseudo-morality. Thus the example of my life can also serve to dispel[4v] the[4w] old goblin of the double standard also from the lives of other women. And this is a most crucial point of my own existence, which has a certain social-psychological worth and contributes to the liberation struggle of working women.

To avoid any misunderstanding, however, it should be said here that I am still far from being the type of the positively new women who take their experience as females with a relative lightness and, one could say, with an enviable superficiality, whose feelings and mental energies are directed upon all other things [5] in life but sentimental love feelings. [6] After all I still belong to the generation of women who grew up at a turning point in history. Love with its many disappointments, with its tragedies and eternal demands for perfect happiness[7] still played a very great role in my life. An all-too-great role! It was an expenditure of precious time and energy, fruitless and, in the final analysis, utterly worthless. We, the women of the past generation, did not yet[8] understand how to be free.

The whole thing was an absolutely incredible squandering of our mental energy, a diminution of our labor power which was dissipated in barren emotional experiences. It is certainly true that we, myself as well as many other activists, militants and working women contemporaries, were able to understand that love was not the main goal of our life and that we knew how to place work at its center. Nevertheless we would have been able to create and achieve much more had our energies not been fragmentized in the eternal struggle with our egos and with [9] our feelings for another. It was, in fact, an eternal defensive war against the intervention of the male into our ego, a struggle revolving around the problem-complex: work or marriage and love?

We, the older generation, did not yet understand, as most men do and as young women are learning today, that work and the longing for love can be harmoniously combined so that work remains as the main goal of existence. 10] Our mistake was that each time we succumbed to the belief that we had finally found the one and only in the man we loved, the person with whom we believed we could blend our soul, one who was ready fully to recognize us as a spiritual-physical force.[11]

But over and over again things turned out differently, since [12] the man always tried to impose his ego upon us and adapt us fully to his purposes. Thus despite everything the inevitable inner rebellion ensued, over and over again since love became a fetter. We felt enslaved and tried to loosen the love-bond. And after the eternally recurring struggle with the beloved man, we finally tore ourselves away and rushed toward freedom. Thereupon we were again [13] alone, unhappy, [14] lonesome, but free–free to pursue our beloved, chosen ideal ...work.

Fortunately young people, the present generation, no longer have to go through this kind of struggle which is absolutely unnecessary to human society. Their abilities, their work-energy will be reserved for their creative activity. Thus the existence of barriers will become a spur.[15]

It is essential that I relate some details here about my private life. My childhood was a very happy one, judging by outward circumstances. My parents belonged to the old Russian nobility.[16] I was the only child born of my mother's second marriage (mother was separated and I was born outside the second marriage, and then adopted). I was the youngest, the most spoiled, and the most coddled member of the family. This, perhaps, was the root cause of the protest against everything around me that very early burgeoned within me. Too much was done for me in order to make me happy. I had no freedom of maneuver either in the children's games I played or in the desires that I wanted to express. At the same time I wanted to be free. [17] I wanted to express desires on my own, to shape my own little life. My parents were well-to-do.

There was no luxury in the house, but I did not know the meaning of privation. Yet I saw how other children were forced to give up things, and I was particularly and painfully shocked by the little peasant children who were my playmates (we lived almost always in the countryside, on the estate of my grandfather, who was a Finn). Already as a small [18] child I criticized[19] the injustice of adults and I experienced as a blatant contradiction[20] the fact that everything was offered to me whereas so much was denied to the other children. My criticism sharpened as the years went by and the feeling of revolt against the many proofs of love around me grew apace. [21] Already early in life I had eyes for the social injustices prevailing in Russia.

I was never sent to school because my parents lived in a constant state of anxiety over my health and they could not endure the thought that I, like all other children, should spend two hours daily far from home. My mother probably also had a certain horror of the liberal influences with which I might come into contact at the high school. Mother, of course, considered that I was already sufficiently critically[22] inclined. Thus I received my education at home under the direction of a proficient, clever tutoress who was connected with Russian revolutionary circles. I owe very much to her, Mme. Marie Strakhova.

I took[23] the examinations qualifying me for admission to the university when I was barely sixteen (in 1888) [24] and thereafter I was expected to lead the life of a "young society woman."[25] Although my education had been unusual and caused me much harm (for years I was extremely shy and utterly inept in the practical matters of life), it must nevertheless be said that my parents were by no means reactionaries. On the contrary, they were even[26] rather progressive for their time. But they held fast to traditions where it concerned the child, the young person under their roof. My first bitter struggle against these traditions revolved around the idea of marriage. I was supposed to make a good match [27] and mother was bent upon marrying me off at a very early age.

My oldest sister, at the age of nineteen, had contracted marriage with a highly placed gentleman who was nearly seventy. [28] I revolted against this marriage of convenience, this marriage for money[29] and wanted to marry only for love, out of a great passion. [30] Still very young, and against my parents' wishes, I chose my cousin, an impecunious young engineer whose name, Kollontai, I still bear today. My maiden name was Domontovich. The happiness of my marriage lasted hardly three years. I gave birth to a son. Although I personally raised my child with great care, [31] motherhood was never the kernel of my existence. A child had not been able to draw the bonds of my marriage tighter.

I still loved my husband, but the happy life of a housewife and spouse became for me a "cage." More and more my sympathies, my [32] interests turned to the revolutionary working class of Russia. I read voraciously. I zealously studied all [33] social questions, attended lectures, and worked in semi-legal societies for the enlightenment of the people. These were the years of the flowering of Marxism in Russia (1893/96). Lenin at that time was only a novice in the literary and revolutionary arena. George Plechanov was the leading mind of the time. I stood close to the materialist conception of history, since in early womanhood I had inclined towards the realistic school. I was an enthusiastic follower of Darwin and Roelsches.

A visit to the big and famous Krengolm textile factory, which employed 12,000 workers of both sexes, decided my fate. I could not lead a happy, peaceful life when the working population was so terribly enslaved. I simply had to join this movement. At that time this led to differences with my husband, who felt that my inclinations constituted an act of personal defiance directed against him. I left husband and child and journeyed to Zurich in order to study political economy under Professor Heinrich Herkner. Therewith[34] began my conscious life on behalf of the revolutionary goals of the working-class movement. When I came back to St. Petersburg–now Leningrad–in 1899, I joined the illegal Russian Social Democratic Party. I worked as a writer and propagandist.

The fate of Finland, whose independence and relative freedom were being threatened by the reactionary policy of the Czarist regime at the end of the '90's, exercised a wholly special power of attraction upon me. Perhaps my particular gravitation towards Finland resulted from the impressions I received on my grandfather's estate during my childhood. I actively espoused the cause of Finland's national liberation. Thus my first extensive [35] scientific work in political economy was a comprehensive investigation [36] of the living and working conditions of the Finnish proletariat in relation to industry. [37] The book appeared in 1903 in St. Petersburg. My parents had just died, my husband and I had been living separately for a long time, and only my son remained in my care.

Now I had the opportunity to devote myself completely to my aims: [38] to the Russian revolutionary movement and to the working-class movement of the whole world. [39] Love, marriage, family, all were secondary, transient matters. They were there, they intertwine with my life over and over again. But as great as was my love for my husband, immediately it transgressed a certain limit in relation to my feminine proneness to make sacrifice, rebellion flared in me anew. I had to go away, I had to break with the man of my choice, otherwise (this was a subconscious feeling in me) I would have exposed myself to the danger of losing my selfhood. It must also be said that not a single one of the men who were close to me has ever had a direction-giving influence on my inclinations, strivings, or my world-view. On the contrary, most of the time I was the guiding spirit. I acquired my view of life, my political line from life itself, and in uninterrupted study from [40] books.

In 1905, at the time the so-called first revolution in Russia broke out, after the famous Bloody Sunday, I had already acquired a reputation in the field of economic and social literature. And in those stirring times, when all energies were utilized in the storm of revolt, it turned out that I had become very popular as an orator. Yet in that period I realized for the first time how little our Party concerned itself with the fate of the women of the working class and how meager was its interest in women's liberation. To be sure a very strong bourgeois women's movement was already in existence in Russia. But my Marxist outlook pointed out to me with an illuminating clarity that women's liberation[41] could take place only as the result of the victory of a new social order and a different economic system.

Therefore I threw myself into the struggle between the Russian[42] suffragettes and strove with all my might to induce the working-class movement to include the woman question as one of the aims of its struggle in its program. [43] It was very difficult [44] to win my fellow members [45] over to this idea. I was completely isolated with my ideas and demands. Nevertheless in the years 1906-1908 I won a small group of women Party comrades over to my plans. I [46] wrote[47] an article published in the illegal press in 1906 in which for the first time [48] I set forth the demand to call the working-class movement into being in Russia through systematic Party work. In Autumn of 1907 we opened up the first Working Women's Club.

Many of the members of this club, who were still very young workers at that time, now occupy important posts in the new Russia and in the Russian Communist Party (K. Nicolaieva, Marie Burke, etc.). One result of my activity in connection with the women workers, [49] but especially of my political writings–among which was a pamphlet on Finland containing the call to rise up against the Czarist Duma [50] with "arms"–was the institution of legal proceedings against me which held out the grim prospect of spending many years in prison. I was forced to disappear immediately and was never again to see my home. My son was taken in by good friends, my small household liquidated. I became "an illegal." It was a time of strenuous work.

The first All-Russian Women's Congress which had been called by the bourgeois suffragettes was scheduled to take place in December of 1908. At that time the reaction was on the rise and the working-class movement was prostrate again after the first victory in 1905. Many Party comrades were in jail, others had fled abroad. The vehement struggle between the two factions of the Russian Workers Party broke out anew: the Bolsheviks on the one side, the Mensheviks on the other. In 1908 I belonged to the Menshevik faction, having been forced thereto by the hostile position taken by the Bolsheviks towards the Duma, a pseudo-Parliament called by the Czar in order to Pacify the rebellious spirits of the age.

Although with the Mensheviks I espoused the point of view that even a pseudo-Parliament should be utilized as a tribute for our Party and that the elections for the Duma must be used as an assembling point for the working class. But I did not side with the Mensheviks on the question of coordinating the forces of the workers with the Liberals in order to accelerate the overthrow of absolutism. On this point I was, in fact, very left-radical and was even branded as a "syndicalist" by my Party comrades. [51] Given my attitude towards the Duma it logically followed that I considered it useless to exploit the first bourgeois women's congress in the interest of our Party. Nevertheless I worked with might and main to assure that our [52] women workers, who were to participate in the Congress, emerged as an independent and distinct group.

I managed to carry out this plan but not without opposition. My Party comrades[53] accused me and those women-comrades who shared my views of being "feminists" and of placing too much emphasis on matters of concern to women only. At the time there was still no comprehension at all [54] of the extraordinarily important role in the struggle devolving upon self-employed professional women. Nevertheless our will prevailed. A women-workers' group came forward at the Congress in St. Petersburg with its own [55] program and it drew a clear line of demarcation between the bourgeois suffragettes and the women's liberation movement of the working class in Russia. However, I was forced to flee before the close of the Congress because the police had come upon my tracks. I managed to cross the frontier inter Germany and thus, in December of 1908, began a new period of my life, political emigration.

The Years of Political Emigration

As a political refugee henceforth I lived in Europe and America until the overthrow of Czarism in 1917. As soon as I arrived in Germany, after my flight, I joined the German Social Democratic Party in which I had many personal friends, among whom I especially numbered Karl Liebknecht,[56] Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Kautsky. [57] Clara Zetkin also had a great influence on my activity [58] in defining the principles of the women-workers movement in Russia. Already in 1907 I had taken part, as a delegate from Russia, in the first International Conference of Socialist Women that was held in Stuttgart. This gathering was presided over by Clara Zetkin and it made an enormous contribution to the development of the women-workers movement along Marxist lines.

I put myself at the disposal of the Party press as a writer on social and political questions, and I was also frequently called upon as an orator by the German Party and I worked for the Party as an agitator from the Palatinate to Saxony, from Bremen to south Germany. But I assumed[59] no leading posts either in the Russian party or in the German party.[60] By and large I was mainly a "popular orator" and an esteemed political writer.

I can now openly confess [61] that in the Russian Party I deliberately kept somewhat aloof from the controlling center, and that is explainable mainly by the fact that I was not yet in complete agreement with the policy of my comrades.[62] But I had no desire to pass over to the Bolsheviks, nor could I for that matter since at the time it seemed to me as if they did not attach sufficient importance to the development of the working-class movement in "breadth and depth." Therefore I worked on my own seemingly almost as though I wanted to remain in the background without setting my sights or obtaining a leading position. [63] Here it must be admitted that, although I possessed a certain degree of ambition, like every other active human being, I was never animated by the desire to obtain "a post." For me "what I am" was always of less importance than "what I can," that is to say, what I was in a position to accomplish.

In this way I, too, had my ambition and it was especially noticeable there where I stood with my whole heart and soul [64] in the struggle, where the issue was the abolition of the slavery of working women. I had above all set myself the task of winning over women workers in Russia to socialism and, at the same time, of working for the liberation of[65] woman, for her equality of rights. My book "The Social Foundations of the Women's Question" had appeared shortly before my flight; it was a polemical disputation with the bourgeois suffragettes but, at the same time, a challenge to the Party to build a viable women workers movement in Russia. The book enjoyed a great success. At that time I wrote for the legal and illegal press. Through an exchange of letters I tried to influence Party comrades and women workers themselves.

Naturally, I always did this in such a way that I demanded from the Party that it[66] espouse the cause of women's liberation. I did not always have an easy time of it. Much passive resistance, little understanding, and even less interest for this aim, over and over again, lay as an obstacle in the path. It was not until 1914, shortly before the outbreak of the World War, that finally both factions–the Mensheviks and the Bolsheviks–took up the question in an earnest and practical way, a fact which had on me an effect almost tantamount to a personal commendation. Two periodicals for working women were launched in Russia, the International Working Women's Congress of March 8, 1914, was celebrated. I was still living in exile, however, and could help the so dearly loved women-workers movement in my homeland only from afar.

I was in close contact, also from afar, with the working women of Russia. Already several years earlier[67] I had been appointed by the Textile Workers Union as an official delegate to the Second International Conference of Socialist Women (1910) and, further, [68] to the extraordinary International Socialist Congress in Basle in 1912. Later when a draft of a bill on social insurance was introduced in the Russian pseudo-Parliament (the Duma), the Social Democratic Duma faction (of the Menshevik wing) requested me to elaborate the draft of a bill on maternity welfare. It was not the first time that the[69] faction lay claim to my energies for legislative work. Just before I was forced to go into exile, I had been enlisted by them–as a qualified expert–to participate in the deliberation of the question of Finland in the Imperial Duma.

The task that had been assigned to me, namely, the elaboration of a draft of a bill in the field of maternity welfare, motivated me to undertake a most thorough study of this special question. The Bund für Mutterschutz, and the outstanding work of Dr. Helene Stöcker, also provided me with valuable suggestions. Nevertheless I also studied the question in England, France, and in the Scandinavian countries. The result of these studies was my book "Motherhood and Society," a comprehensive[70] work of 600 pages on maternity welfare and the relevant legislation in Europe and Australia. The fundamental regulations and demands in this field, which I summed up at the end of my book, were realized later in 1917 by the Soviet regime in the first social insurance laws.

For me the years of political emigration were hectic, quite stirring [71] years. I travelled as a Party orator from country to country. In 1911, in Paris, I organized the housewives' strike "La grève des menagères" against the high cost of living. In 1912 I worked in Belgium setting the groundwork for the miners' strike in the Borinage and in the same year the Party dispatched me to the left-oriented Socialist Youth Association of Sweden in order to strengthen the Party's72] anti-militaristic tendencies. Several years earlier, this still merits mention here, [73] I fought in the ranks of the British Socialist Party side by side with Dora Montefiore and Madame Koeltsch [74] against the English suffragettes for the strengthening of the still fledgling socialist working-women's movement. In 1913 I was again in England.

This time I was there in order to take an active part in a protest action against the famous "Beilis Trial" which had been instigated by the anti-semites in Russia. In the spring of the same year, the left wing of the Swedish Social Democratic Party invited me to Sweden. These were truly hectic years, marked by the most varied types of militant activity. Notwithstanding, my Russian Party comrades also laid claim to my energies and appointed me delegate to the Socialist Party and Trade Union Congress. Thus with the help of Karl Liebknecht I also sparked an activity in Germany on behalf of the deported socialist members of the Duma. [75] In 1911 I was called to the Russian Party School in Bologna, where I delivered a series of lectures. The present Russian Minister of Education in Soviet Russia, A.

Lunacharsky, Maxim Gorki, as well as the famous Russian economist and philosopher A. Bogdonov, were the founders of this Party school, and Trotsky delivered lectures at the school at the same time that I was there. The present Soviet Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs, G. Chicherin, who at that time worked as secretary of a relief agency for political refugees, oftentimes called upon me to hold public lectures on the most disparate cultural problems of Russian life in order to help fill the relief agency's almost empty kitty. At his behest I travelled all over Europe but Berlin was my fixed abode. I felt at home in Germany and have always greatly appreciated the conditions there so ideally suited for scientific work. But I was not allowed to give speeches in Prussia. On the contrary, I had to keep as quiet as possible to avoid expulsion by the Prussian police.

Then the World War broke out and once again I arrived at a new turning point in my life.

But before I talk about this important period of my intellectual existence, I still want to say a few words about my personal life. The question rises whether in the middle of all these manifold, exciting labors and Party-assignments I could still find rime for intimate experiences, for the pangs and joys of love. Unfortunately, yes! I say unfortunately because ordinarily these experiences entailed all too many cares, disappointments, and pain, and because all too many energies were pointlessly consumed through them. Yet the longing to be understood by a man down to the deepest, most secret recesses of one's soul, to be recognized by him as a striving human being, repeatedly decided matters.

And repeatedly disappointment ensued all too swiftly, since the friend saw in me only the feminine element which he tried to mold into a willing sounding board to his own ego. So repeatedly the moment inevitably arrived in which I had to shake off the chains of community with an aching heart but with a sovereign, uninfluenced will. Then I was again alone. But the greater the demands life made upon me, the more the responsible work waiting to be tackled, the greater grew the longing to be enveloped by love, warmth, understanding. All the easier, consequently, began the old story of disappointment in love, the old story of Titania in "A Midsummer Night's Dream." [76]

The outbreak of the World War found me in Germany. My son was with me. We were both arrested because my identity papers were not in order. During the house search, however, the police found a mandate from the Russian Social Democratic Party appointing me as delegate to the World Congress of Socialists. Suddenly the gentlemen from Alexander Platz became utterly charming: they figured that a female Social Democrat could not be a friend of the Czar and consequently certainly not an enemy of Germany. They were right. [77] I was in fact no enemy of Germany and still less a Russian patriot.

To me the war was an abomination, a madness, a crime, and from the first moment onwards–more out of impulse than reflection–I inwardly rejected it and could never reconcile myself with it up to this very moment. [78] The intoxication of patriotic feelings has always been something alien to me, on the contrary I felt an aversion for everything that smacked of super-patriotism. I found no understanding for my "anti-patriotic" attitude among my own Russian [79] Party comrades, who also lived in Germany. [80] Only Karl Liebknecht, his wife Sofie Liebknecht, and a few other German Party comrades, like myself, espoused the same standpoint and, like myself, [81] considered it a socialist's duty to struggle against the war. Strange to say, I was present in the Reichstag on August 4, the day the war budget was being voted on. The collapse of the German Socialist Party struck me as a calamity without parallel. I felt utterly alone and found comfort only in the company of the Liebknechts.

With the help of some German Party friends I was able to leave Germany with my son in August of 1914 and emigrate to the Scandinavian peninsula. I left Germany not because I had felt the slightest manifestation of unfriendliness towards me but only for the reason that without a sphere of activity I would have been forced to live in idleness in that country. I was impatient to take up the struggle against the war. After arriving on Sweden's neutral soil, I immediately [82] began the work against the war and for[83] the international solidarity of the world working class. An appeal to working women made its way, along illegal channels, to Russia and to different other countries. In Sweden I wrote and spoke against the war.

I spoke at public meetings, most of which had been called by the leftist-leaning world-famous [84] Swedish Party leaders Zeta Höglund and Frederic Strön. I found in them the pure echo of my ideas and [85] feelings and we joined forces in a common task for the victory of internationalism and against the war hysteria. It was only later that I learned of the attitude which the leading minds of the Russian Party had taken towards the war. When the news finally reached us, by way of Paris and Switzerland, it was for us a day of ineffable joy. We received assurance that both Trotsky and Lenin, although they[86] belonged to different factions of the Party, had militantly risen up against the war.

Thus I was no longer "isolated." A new grouping was proposed [87] in the Party, the internationalists and the "social-patriots." A Party periodical was also founded in Paris. [88] In the middle of my zealous activities, however, I was arrested by the Swedish authorities and brought to the Kungsholm prison. The worst moment during this arrest was born of my concern over the identity papers of a good friend and Party comrade, Alexander Schlapnikov, who had just arrived illegally in Sweden from Russia, which I had taken over for safe-keeping. Under the eyes of the police I managed to hide them under my blouse and somehow make them disappear. Later I was transferred from the Kungsholm prison to the prison in Malma and then banished to Denmark.

As far as I know I was one of the first of the European socialists to be jailed because of anti-war propaganda. In Denmark I continued my work but with greater prudence. Nevertheless [89] the Danish police did not leave me in peace. Nor did the Danish Social Democrats exhibit friendliness for the internationalists. In February of 1915 I emigrated to Norway where together with Alexander Schlapnikov we served as a link between Switzerland, the place of residence of Lenin and of the Central Committee,[90] and Russia. We had full contact with the Norwegian socialists. On March 8 of the same year I tried to organize an international working women's demonstration against the war in Christiania (now Oslo), but the representatives from the belligerent countries did not show up.

That was the time when the decisive rupture in Social Democracy was being prepared, since the patriotically minded socialists could not go along with the internationalists. Since the Bolsheviks were those who most consistently fought social-patriotism, in June of 1915 I officially joined the Bolsheviks and entered into a lively correspondence with Lenin (Lenin's letters to me have recently been published in Russia).[91]

I again began to do a prodigous amount of writing, this time for the international-minded press of the most different countries: England, Norway, Sweden, America, Russia. At this time one of my pamphlets, "Who Profits from the War?," appeared. Deliberately written in a very popular view, it was disseminated in countless editions, in millions of copies, [92] and was translated into several languages, German included. 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, [93] was to fight against the war and call a new Workers International into being.

In the autumn of 1915 the German section of the American Socialist Party invited me to journey to America to deliver lectures there in the spirit of "Zimmerwald" (a gathering of international-minded socialists). I was immediately ready to cross the ocean for this purpose, despite the fact that my friends determinedly advised me against it. They were all deeply worried about me because the journey had become very hazardous as a result of submarine warfare. But the aim enticed me enormously. My propaganda tour in America lasted five months, during which time I visited eighty-one cities in the United States and delivered lectures in German, French, and Russian. [94] The work was extremely strenuous, but also as fruitful, and I had warrant to believe that as a result the internationalists in the American Party were strengthened.

Much opposition to the war, passionate debates, also existed overseas, but the police did not bother me. [95] The newspapers, by turns, branded me either as a spy of the German Kaiser or as an agent of the Entente. I returned to Norway in the spring of 1916. I love Norway with its incomparable fjords and its majestic mountains, its courageous, gifted, and industrious people. At that time I lived on the famous Holmenkollen near Oslo and continued to work with the view 'of welding together all the forces of the internationalists in opposition to the World War. I shared Lenin's view which aimed at spreading the conviction that the war could be defeated only by the Revolution, by the uprising of the workers.

I was in substantial agreement with Lenin and stood much closer to him than many of his older followers and friends. [96] But my sojourn in Norway was not a long one because only a few months after my arrival I had to embark upon a second journey to America, where I remained till shortly before the outbreak of the Russian Revolution. For me the situation in America had changed insofar as, in the meanwhile, many Russian Party comrades had come over, Trotsky among others. We worked zealously for the new Workers International but America's intervention in the war aggravated our activity. [97]

I had already been in Norway for several weeks, when the Russian people rose up against absolutism and dethroned the Czar. A festive mood reigned among all our political friends. But I harbored no illusions because I knew that the overthrow of the Czar would be only the beginning of even more momentous events and difficult social struggles so I hastened [98] back to Russia in March 1917. I was one of the first political emigrants who came [99] back to the liberated homeland. Torneo, the tiny frontier town lying north of the Swedish-Finnish frontiers, through which I had to pass, was still in the grip of a cruel winter. A sleigh carried me across the river which marks the frontier. On Russian soil stood a soldier. A bright red ribbon fluttered on his chest. "Your identity papers, please, citizenness!" "I have none.

I am a political refugee." "Your name?" I identified myself. A young officer was summoned. Yes, my name was on the list of political refugees who were to be freely admitted into the country by order of the Workers' and Soldiers' Soviet. The young officer helped me out of the sleigh and kissed my hand, almost reverently. I was standing on the republican soil of liberated Russia! Could that be possible? It was one of the happiest hours of my whole [100] life. Four months later, by order of the Kerensky regime (the Provisional Government), the same charming young officer placed me under arrest as a dangerous Bolshevik at the Torneo frontier station ...Such is life's irony.

The Years of Revolution

So overwhelming was the rush of subsequent events that to this very day I really do not know what I should describe and emphasize: what have I accomplished, desired, achieved? Was there altogether an individual will at that time? Was it not only the omnipotent storm of the Revolution, the command of the active, awakened masses that determined our will and action? Was there altogether a single human being who would not have bowed to the general will? There were only masses of people, bound together in a bipartite will, which operated either for or against the Revolution, for or against ending the war, and which sided for or against the power of the Soviets. Looking back one perceives only a massive operation, struggle, and action. In reality there were no heroes or leaders. It was the people, the working people, in soldiers' uniform or in civilian attire, who controlled the situation and who recorded its will indelibly in the history of the country and mankind. It was a sultry summer, a crucial summer of the revolutionary flood-tide in 1917! At first the social storm raged only in the countryside, the peasants set fire to the "nests of gentle folk." In the cities the struggle that raged was between the advocates of a republican-bourgeois Russia and the socialist aspirations of the Bolsheviks ...

As I have previously stated, I belonged to the Bolsheviks. Thus immediately, from the first days onwards, I found an absolute enormous pile of work waiting for me. Once more the issue was to wage a struggle against the war, against coalescence with the liberal bourgeoisie, and for the power of the workers' councils, the Soviets. The natural consequence of this stand was that the bourgeois newspapers branded me

This is the first time that the complete autobiography which Alexandra Kollontai wrote in 1926 has been published. The sentences and paragraphs in italics were crossed out in the galleyproofs and left out in her time. Variants were indicated in footnotes which likewise were rejected and crossed out. The reader thus will have an idea of the extent and the intensity of corrections made by the author under the pressure of the gradually sharpening Stalinist control.

The Aims and Worth of My Life

Nothing is more difficult than writing an autobiography. What should be emphasized? Just what is of general interest? It is advisable, above all, to write honestly and dispense with any of the conventional introductory protestations of modesty. For if one is called upon to tell about one's life so as to make the events that made it what it became useful to the general public, it can mean only that one must have already wrought something positive in life, accomplished a task that people recognize. [1] Accordingly it is a matter of forgetting that one is writing about oneself, of making an effort to abjure one's ego so as to give an account, as objectively as possible, of one's life in the making and of one's accomplishments. I intend to make this effort but whether it will turn out successfully is something else again.

At the same time I must confess that, in a certain sense, this autobiography poses a problem for me. For by looking back while prying, simultaneously, into the future, I will also be presenting to myself the most crucial turning points of my being and accomplishments. In this way I [2a] may succeed in setting into bold relief that which concerns the women's liberation struggle and, further, the social significance which it has.[2] That I ought not to shape my life according to the given model, that I would have to grow beyond myself in order to be able to discern my life's true line of vision was an awareness that was mine already in my youngest years.

At the same time I was also aware [3] that in this way I could help my sisters to shape their lives, in accordance not with the given traditions but with their own free choice to the extent, of course, that social and economic circumstances permit. I always believed that the time inevitably must come when woman will be judged by the same moral standards applied to man. For it is not her specific feminine virtue that gives her a place of honor in human society, but the worth of the useful mission accomplished by her, [4a] the worth of her personality as human being, as citizen, [4b] as thinker, as fighter. Subconsciously this motive was the leading force of my whole life and activity.

To go my way, to work, to struggle, to create side by side with men, and to strive for the attainment of a universal human goal [4c] (for nearly thirty years, indeed, I have belonged to the [4d] Communists) but, at the same time, to shape my personal, intimate life as a woman according to my own will and according to the given laws of my nature. [4e] It was this that conditioned my line of vision.[4f] And [4g] in fact I have [4h] succeeded in structuring my intimate life according to my own standards and I make no secret of my love experiences [4i] anymore than does a man.[4k] Above all, however, I never let my feelings, the joy or pain of love take the first place in my life inasmuch as creativity, activity, struggle always occupied the foreground.

I managed to become a member of a government cabinet, of the first Bolshevik cabinet in the years 1917/18. I am also the first woman ever to have been appointed ambassadress, a post which I occupied for three years and from which I resigned of my own free will.[4l] This may serve to prove that woman certainly can stand above the conventional conditions of the age. The World War, the stormy, revolutionary spirit now prevalent in the world in all areas has greatly contributed to blunting the edge of the unhealthy, overheated double standard of morality. We are already accustomed not to make overly taxing demands, for example,[4m] on actresses and women belonging to the free professions in matters relating to their married life.

Diplomacy, however, is a caste which more than any other maintains its old customs, usages, traditions, and, above all, its strict ceremonial. The fact that a woman, a "free," a single woman was recognized in this position without opposition shows that the time has come when all human beings will be equally appraised according to their activity and their general human dignity. When I was appointed as Russian envoy to Oslo, I realized that I had thereby achieved a victory not only for myself, but [4n] for women in general [4o] and indeed, a victory over their worst enemy, that is to say,[4p] over conventional morality and conservative concepts of marriage.

When on occasion I am told that it is truly remarkable[4r] that a woman has been appointed to such a responsible position, I always [4s] think to myself that in the final analysis, the principal victory as regards women's liberation does not lie in this fact alone. Rather, what is of a wholly special significance here is that a woman, like myself, [4t] who has settled scores with the double standard and who has never concealed it,[4u] was accepted into a caste which to this very day staunchly upholds tradition and pseudo-morality. Thus the example of my life can also serve to dispel[4v] the[4w] old goblin of the double standard also from the lives of other women. And this is a most crucial point of my own existence, which has a certain social-psychological worth and contributes to the liberation struggle of working women.

To avoid any misunderstanding, however, it should be said here that I am still far from being the type of the positively new women who take their experience as females with a relative lightness and, one could say, with an enviable superficiality, whose feelings and mental energies are directed upon all other things [5] in life but sentimental love feelings. [6] After all I still belong to the generation of women who grew up at a turning point in history. Love with its many disappointments, with its tragedies and eternal demands for perfect happiness[7] still played a very great role in my life. An all-too-great role! It was an expenditure of precious time and energy, fruitless and, in the final analysis, utterly worthless. We, the women of the past generation, did not yet[8] understand how to be free.

The whole thing was an absolutely incredible squandering of our mental energy, a diminution of our labor power which was dissipated in barren emotional experiences. It is certainly true that we, myself as well as many other activists, militants and working women contemporaries, were able to understand that love was not the main goal of our life and that we knew how to place work at its center. Nevertheless we would have been able to create and achieve much more had our energies not been fragmentized in the eternal struggle with our egos and with [9] our feelings for another. It was, in fact, an eternal defensive war against the intervention of the male into our ego, a struggle revolving around the problem-complex: work or marriage and love?

We, the older generation, did not yet understand, as most men do and as young women are learning today, that work and the longing for love can be harmoniously combined so that work remains as the main goal of existence. 10] Our mistake was that each time we succumbed to the belief that we had finally found the one and only in the man we loved, the person with whom we believed we could blend our soul, one who was ready fully to recognize us as a spiritual-physical force.[11]

But over and over again things turned out differently, since [12] the man always tried to impose his ego upon us and adapt us fully to his purposes. Thus despite everything the inevitable inner rebellion ensued, over and over again since love became a fetter. We felt enslaved and tried to loosen the love-bond. And after the eternally recurring struggle with the beloved man, we finally tore ourselves away and rushed toward freedom. Thereupon we were again [13] alone, unhappy, [14] lonesome, but free–free to pursue our beloved, chosen ideal ...work.

Fortunately young people, the present generation, no longer have to go through this kind of struggle which is absolutely unnecessary to human society. Their abilities, their work-energy will be reserved for their creative activity. Thus the existence of barriers will become a spur.[15]

It is essential that I relate some details here about my private life. My childhood was a very happy one, judging by outward circumstances. My parents belonged to the old Russian nobility.[16] I was the only child born of my mother's second marriage (mother was separated and I was born outside the second marriage, and then adopted). I was the youngest, the most spoiled, and the most coddled member of the family. This, perhaps, was the root cause of the protest against everything around me that very early burgeoned within me. Too much was done for me in order to make me happy. I had no freedom of maneuver either in the children's games I played or in the desires that I wanted to express. At the same time I wanted to be free. [17] I wanted to express desires on my own, to shape my own little life. My parents were well-to-do.

There was no luxury in the house, but I did not know the meaning of privation. Yet I saw how other children were forced to give up things, and I was particularly and painfully shocked by the little peasant children who were my playmates (we lived almost always in the countryside, on the estate of my grandfather, who was a Finn). Already as a small [18] child I criticized[19] the injustice of adults and I experienced as a blatant contradiction[20] the fact that everything was offered to me whereas so much was denied to the other children. My criticism sharpened as the years went by and the feeling of revolt against the many proofs of love around me grew apace. [21] Already early in life I had eyes for the social injustices prevailing in Russia.

I was never sent to school because my parents lived in a constant state of anxiety over my health and they could not endure the thought that I, like all other children, should spend two hours daily far from home. My mother probably also had a certain horror of the liberal influences with which I might come into contact at the high school. Mother, of course, considered that I was already sufficiently critically[22] inclined. Thus I received my education at home under the direction of a proficient, clever tutoress who was connected with Russian revolutionary circles. I owe very much to her, Mme. Marie Strakhova.

I took[23] the examinations qualifying me for admission to the university when I was barely sixteen (in 1888) [24] and thereafter I was expected to lead the life of a "young society woman."[25] Although my education had been unusual and caused me much harm (for years I was extremely shy and utterly inept in the practical matters of life), it must nevertheless be said that my parents were by no means reactionaries. On the contrary, they were even[26] rather progressive for their time. But they held fast to traditions where it concerned the child, the young person under their roof. My first bitter struggle against these traditions revolved around the idea of marriage. I was supposed to make a good match [27] and mother was bent upon marrying me off at a very early age.

My oldest sister, at the age of nineteen, had contracted marriage with a highly placed gentleman who was nearly seventy. [28] I revolted against this marriage of convenience, this marriage for money[29] and wanted to marry only for love, out of a great passion. [30] Still very young, and against my parents' wishes, I chose my cousin, an impecunious young engineer whose name, Kollontai, I still bear today. My maiden name was Domontovich. The happiness of my marriage lasted hardly three years. I gave birth to a son. Although I personally raised my child with great care, [31] motherhood was never the kernel of my existence. A child had not been able to draw the bonds of my marriage tighter.

I still loved my husband, but the happy life of a housewife and spouse became for me a "cage." More and more my sympathies, my [32] interests turned to the revolutionary working class of Russia. I read voraciously. I zealously studied all [33] social questions, attended lectures, and worked in semi-legal societies for the enlightenment of the people. These were the years of the flowering of Marxism in Russia (1893/96). Lenin at that time was only a novice in the literary and revolutionary arena. George Plechanov was the leading mind of the time. I stood close to the materialist conception of history, since in early womanhood I had inclined towards the realistic school. I was an enthusiastic follower of Darwin and Roelsches.

A visit to the big and famous Krengolm textile factory, which employed 12,000 workers of both sexes, decided my fate. I could not lead a happy, peaceful life when the working population was so terribly enslaved. I simply had to join this movement. At that time this led to differences with my husband, who felt that my inclinations constituted an act of personal defiance directed against him. I left husband and child and journeyed to Zurich in order to study political economy under Professor Heinrich Herkner. Therewith[34] began my conscious life on behalf of the revolutionary goals of the working-class movement. When I came back to St. Petersburg–now Leningrad–in 1899, I joined the illegal Russian Social Democratic Party. I worked as a writer and propagandist.

The fate of Finland, whose independence and relative freedom were being threatened by the reactionary policy of the Czarist regime at the end of the '90's, exercised a wholly special power of attraction upon me. Perhaps my particular gravitation towards Finland resulted from the impressions I received on my grandfather's estate during my childhood. I actively espoused the cause of Finland's national liberation. Thus my first extensive [35] scientific work in political economy was a comprehensive investigation [36] of the living and working conditions of the Finnish proletariat in relation to industry. [37] The book appeared in 1903 in St. Petersburg. My parents had just died, my husband and I had been living separately for a long time, and only my son remained in my care.

Now I had the opportunity to devote myself completely to my aims: [38] to the Russian revolutionary movement and to the working-class movement of the whole world. [39] Love, marriage, family, all were secondary, transient matters. They were there, they intertwine with my life over and over again. But as great as was my love for my husband, immediately it transgressed a certain limit in relation to my feminine proneness to make sacrifice, rebellion flared in me anew. I had to go away, I had to break with the man of my choice, otherwise (this was a subconscious feeling in me) I would have exposed myself to the danger of losing my selfhood. It must also be said that not a single one of the men who were close to me has ever had a direction-giving influence on my inclinations, strivings, or my world-view. On the contrary, most of the time I was the guiding spirit. I acquired my view of life, my political line from life itself, and in uninterrupted study from [40] books.

In 1905, at the time the so-called first revolution in Russia broke out, after the famous Bloody Sunday, I had already acquired a reputation in the field of economic and social literature. And in those stirring times, when all energies were utilized in the storm of revolt, it turned out that I had become very popular as an orator. Yet in that period I realized for the first time how little our Party concerned itself with the fate of the women of the working class and how meager was its interest in women's liberation. To be sure a very strong bourgeois women's movement was already in existence in Russia. But my Marxist outlook pointed out to me with an illuminating clarity that women's liberation[41] could take place only as the result of the victory of a new social order and a different economic system.

Therefore I threw myself into the struggle between the Russian[42] suffragettes and strove with all my might to induce the working-class movement to include the woman question as one of the aims of its struggle in its program. [43] It was very difficult [44] to win my fellow members [45] over to this idea. I was completely isolated with my ideas and demands. Nevertheless in the years 1906-1908 I won a small group of women Party comrades over to my plans. I [46] wrote[47] an article published in the illegal press in 1906 in which for the first time [48] I set forth the demand to call the working-class movement into being in Russia through systematic Party work. In Autumn of 1907 we opened up the first Working Women's Club.

Many of the members of this club, who were still very young workers at that time, now occupy important posts in the new Russia and in the Russian Communist Party (K. Nicolaieva, Marie Burke, etc.). One result of my activity in connection with the women workers, [49] but especially of my political writings–among which was a pamphlet on Finland containing the call to rise up against the Czarist Duma [50] with "arms"–was the institution of legal proceedings against me which held out the grim prospect of spending many years in prison. I was forced to disappear immediately and was never again to see my home. My son was taken in by good friends, my small household liquidated. I became "an illegal." It was a time of strenuous work.

The first All-Russian Women's Congress which had been called by the bourgeois suffragettes was scheduled to take place in December of 1908. At that time the reaction was on the rise and the working-class movement was prostrate again after the first victory in 1905. Many Party comrades were in jail, others had fled abroad. The vehement struggle between the two factions of the Russian Workers Party broke out anew: the Bolsheviks on the one side, the Mensheviks on the other. In 1908 I belonged to the Menshevik faction, having been forced thereto by the hostile position taken by the Bolsheviks towards the Duma, a pseudo-Parliament called by the Czar in order to Pacify the rebellious spirits of the age.

Although with the Mensheviks I espoused the point of view that even a pseudo-Parliament should be utilized as a tribute for our Party and that the elections for the Duma must be used as an assembling point for the working class. But I did not side with the Mensheviks on the question of coordinating the forces of the workers with the Liberals in order to accelerate the overthrow of absolutism. On this point I was, in fact, very left-radical and was even branded as a "syndicalist" by my Party comrades. [51] Given my attitude towards the Duma it logically followed that I considered it useless to exploit the first bourgeois women's congress in the interest of our Party. Nevertheless I worked with might and main to assure that our [52] women workers, who were to participate in the Congress, emerged as an independent and distinct group.

I managed to carry out this plan but not without opposition. My Party comrades[53] accused me and those women-comrades who shared my views of being "feminists" and of placing too much emphasis on matters of concern to women only. At the time there was still no comprehension at all [54] of the extraordinarily important role in the struggle devolving upon self-employed professional women. Nevertheless our will prevailed. A women-workers' group came forward at the Congress in St. Petersburg with its own [55] program and it drew a clear line of demarcation between the bourgeois suffragettes and the women's liberation movement of the working class in Russia. However, I was forced to flee before the close of the Congress because the police had come upon my tracks. I managed to cross the frontier inter Germany and thus, in December of 1908, began a new period of my life, political emigration.

The Years of Political Emigration

As a political refugee henceforth I lived in Europe and America until the overthrow of Czarism in 1917. As soon as I arrived in Germany, after my flight, I joined the German Social Democratic Party in which I had many personal friends, among whom I especially numbered Karl Liebknecht,[56] Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Kautsky. [57] Clara Zetkin also had a great influence on my activity [58] in defining the principles of the women-workers movement in Russia. Already in 1907 I had taken part, as a delegate from Russia, in the first International Conference of Socialist Women that was held in Stuttgart. This gathering was presided over by Clara Zetkin and it made an enormous contribution to the development of the women-workers movement along Marxist lines.

I put myself at the disposal of the Party press as a writer on social and political questions, and I was also frequently called upon as an orator by the German Party and I worked for the Party as an agitator from the Palatinate to Saxony, from Bremen to south Germany. But I assumed[59] no leading posts either in the Russian party or in the German party.[60] By and large I was mainly a "popular orator" and an esteemed political writer.

I can now openly confess [61] that in the Russian Party I deliberately kept somewhat aloof from the controlling center, and that is explainable mainly by the fact that I was not yet in complete agreement with the policy of my comrades.[62] But I had no desire to pass over to the Bolsheviks, nor could I for that matter since at the time it seemed to me as if they did not attach sufficient importance to the development of the working-class movement in "breadth and depth." Therefore I worked on my own seemingly almost as though I wanted to remain in the background without setting my sights or obtaining a leading position. [63] Here it must be admitted that, although I possessed a certain degree of ambition, like every other active human being, I was never animated by the desire to obtain "a post." For me "what I am" was always of less importance than "what I can," that is to say, what I was in a position to accomplish.

In this way I, too, had my ambition and it was especially noticeable there where I stood with my whole heart and soul [64] in the struggle, where the issue was the abolition of the slavery of working women. I had above all set myself the task of winning over women workers in Russia to socialism and, at the same time, of working for the liberation of[65] woman, for her equality of rights. My book "The Social Foundations of the Women's Question" had appeared shortly before my flight; it was a polemical disputation with the bourgeois suffragettes but, at the same time, a challenge to the Party to build a viable women workers movement in Russia. The book enjoyed a great success. At that time I wrote for the legal and illegal press. Through an exchange of letters I tried to influence Party comrades and women workers themselves.

Naturally, I always did this in such a way that I demanded from the Party that it[66] espouse the cause of women's liberation. I did not always have an easy time of it. Much passive resistance, little understanding, and even less interest for this aim, over and over again, lay as an obstacle in the path. It was not until 1914, shortly before the outbreak of the World War, that finally both factions–the Mensheviks and the Bolsheviks–took up the question in an earnest and practical way, a fact which had on me an effect almost tantamount to a personal commendation. Two periodicals for working women were launched in Russia, the International Working Women's Congress of March 8, 1914, was celebrated. I was still living in exile, however, and could help the so dearly loved women-workers movement in my homeland only from afar.

I was in close contact, also from afar, with the working women of Russia. Already several years earlier[67] I had been appointed by the Textile Workers Union as an official delegate to the Second International Conference of Socialist Women (1910) and, further, [68] to the extraordinary International Socialist Congress in Basle in 1912. Later when a draft of a bill on social insurance was introduced in the Russian pseudo-Parliament (the Duma), the Social Democratic Duma faction (of the Menshevik wing) requested me to elaborate the draft of a bill on maternity welfare. It was not the first time that the[69] faction lay claim to my energies for legislative work. Just before I was forced to go into exile, I had been enlisted by them–as a qualified expert–to participate in the deliberation of the question of Finland in the Imperial Duma.

The task that had been assigned to me, namely, the elaboration of a draft of a bill in the field of maternity welfare, motivated me to undertake a most thorough study of this special question. The Bund für Mutterschutz, and the outstanding work of Dr. Helene Stöcker, also provided me with valuable suggestions. Nevertheless I also studied the question in England, France, and in the Scandinavian countries. The result of these studies was my book "Motherhood and Society," a comprehensive[70] work of 600 pages on maternity welfare and the relevant legislation in Europe and Australia. The fundamental regulations and demands in this field, which I summed up at the end of my book, were realized later in 1917 by the Soviet regime in the first social insurance laws.

For me the years of political emigration were hectic, quite stirring [71] years. I travelled as a Party orator from country to country. In 1911, in Paris, I organized the housewives' strike "La grève des menagères" against the high cost of living. In 1912 I worked in Belgium setting the groundwork for the miners' strike in the Borinage and in the same year the Party dispatched me to the left-oriented Socialist Youth Association of Sweden in order to strengthen the Party's72] anti-militaristic tendencies. Several years earlier, this still merits mention here, [73] I fought in the ranks of the British Socialist Party side by side with Dora Montefiore and Madame Koeltsch [74] against the English suffragettes for the strengthening of the still fledgling socialist working-women's movement. In 1913 I was again in England.

This time I was there in order to take an active part in a protest action against the famous "Beilis Trial" which had been instigated by the anti-semites in Russia. In the spring of the same year, the left wing of the Swedish Social Democratic Party invited me to Sweden. These were truly hectic years, marked by the most varied types of militant activity. Notwithstanding, my Russian Party comrades also laid claim to my energies and appointed me delegate to the Socialist Party and Trade Union Congress. Thus with the help of Karl Liebknecht I also sparked an activity in Germany on behalf of the deported socialist members of the Duma. [75] In 1911 I was called to the Russian Party School in Bologna, where I delivered a series of lectures. The present Russian Minister of Education in Soviet Russia, A.

Lunacharsky, Maxim Gorki, as well as the famous Russian economist and philosopher A. Bogdonov, were the founders of this Party school, and Trotsky delivered lectures at the school at the same time that I was there. The present Soviet Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs, G. Chicherin, who at that time worked as secretary of a relief agency for political refugees, oftentimes called upon me to hold public lectures on the most disparate cultural problems of Russian life in order to help fill the relief agency's almost empty kitty. At his behest I travelled all over Europe but Berlin was my fixed abode. I felt at home in Germany and have always greatly appreciated the conditions there so ideally suited for scientific work. But I was not allowed to give speeches in Prussia. On the contrary, I had to keep as quiet as possible to avoid expulsion by the Prussian police.

Then the World War broke out and once again I arrived at a new turning point in my life.

But before I talk about this important period of my intellectual existence, I still want to say a few words about my personal life. The question rises whether in the middle of all these manifold, exciting labors and Party-assignments I could still find rime for intimate experiences, for the pangs and joys of love. Unfortunately, yes! I say unfortunately because ordinarily these experiences entailed all too many cares, disappointments, and pain, and because all too many energies were pointlessly consumed through them. Yet the longing to be understood by a man down to the deepest, most secret recesses of one's soul, to be recognized by him as a striving human being, repeatedly decided matters.

And repeatedly disappointment ensued all too swiftly, since the friend saw in me only the feminine element which he tried to mold into a willing sounding board to his own ego. So repeatedly the moment inevitably arrived in which I had to shake off the chains of community with an aching heart but with a sovereign, uninfluenced will. Then I was again alone. But the greater the demands life made upon me, the more the responsible work waiting to be tackled, the greater grew the longing to be enveloped by love, warmth, understanding. All the easier, consequently, began the old story of disappointment in love, the old story of Titania in "A Midsummer Night's Dream." [76]

The outbreak of the World War found me in Germany. My son was with me. We were both arrested because my identity papers were not in order. During the house search, however, the police found a mandate from the Russian Social Democratic Party appointing me as delegate to the World Congress of Socialists. Suddenly the gentlemen from Alexander Platz became utterly charming: they figured that a female Social Democrat could not be a friend of the Czar and consequently certainly not an enemy of Germany. They were right. [77] I was in fact no enemy of Germany and still less a Russian patriot.

To me the war was an abomination, a madness, a crime, and from the first moment onwards–more out of impulse than reflection–I inwardly rejected it and could never reconcile myself with it up to this very moment. [78] The intoxication of patriotic feelings has always been something alien to me, on the contrary I felt an aversion for everything that smacked of super-patriotism. I found no understanding for my "anti-patriotic" attitude among my own Russian [79] Party comrades, who also lived in Germany. [80] Only Karl Liebknecht, his wife Sofie Liebknecht, and a few other German Party comrades, like myself, espoused the same standpoint and, like myself, [81] considered it a socialist's duty to struggle against the war. Strange to say, I was present in the Reichstag on August 4, the day the war budget was being voted on. The collapse of the German Socialist Party struck me as a calamity without parallel. I felt utterly alone and found comfort only in the company of the Liebknechts.

With the help of some German Party friends I was able to leave Germany with my son in August of 1914 and emigrate to the Scandinavian peninsula. I left Germany not because I had felt the slightest manifestation of unfriendliness towards me but only for the reason that without a sphere of activity I would have been forced to live in idleness in that country. I was impatient to take up the struggle against the war. After arriving on Sweden's neutral soil, I immediately [82] began the work against the war and for[83] the international solidarity of the world working class. An appeal to working women made its way, along illegal channels, to Russia and to different other countries. In Sweden I wrote and spoke against the war.

I spoke at public meetings, most of which had been called by the leftist-leaning world-famous [84] Swedish Party leaders Zeta Höglund and Frederic Strön. I found in them the pure echo of my ideas and [85] feelings and we joined forces in a common task for the victory of internationalism and against the war hysteria. It was only later that I learned of the attitude which the leading minds of the Russian Party had taken towards the war. When the news finally reached us, by way of Paris and Switzerland, it was for us a day of ineffable joy. We received assurance that both Trotsky and Lenin, although they[86] belonged to different factions of the Party, had militantly risen up against the war.

Thus I was no longer "isolated." A new grouping was proposed [87] in the Party, the internationalists and the "social-patriots." A Party periodical was also founded in Paris. [88] In the middle of my zealous activities, however, I was arrested by the Swedish authorities and brought to the Kungsholm prison. The worst moment during this arrest was born of my concern over the identity papers of a good friend and Party comrade, Alexander Schlapnikov, who had just arrived illegally in Sweden from Russia, which I had taken over for safe-keeping. Under the eyes of the police I managed to hide them under my blouse and somehow make them disappear. Later I was transferred from the Kungsholm prison to the prison in Malma and then banished to Denmark.

As far as I know I was one of the first of the European socialists to be jailed because of anti-war propaganda. In Denmark I continued my work but with greater prudence. Nevertheless [89] the Danish police did not leave me in peace. Nor did the Danish Social Democrats exhibit friendliness for the internationalists. In February of 1915 I emigrated to Norway where together with Alexander Schlapnikov we served as a link between Switzerland, the place of residence of Lenin and of the Central Committee,[90] and Russia. We had full contact with the Norwegian socialists. On March 8 of the same year I tried to organize an international working women's demonstration against the war in Christiania (now Oslo), but the representatives from the belligerent countries did not show up.

That was the time when the decisive rupture in Social Democracy was being prepared, since the patriotically minded socialists could not go along with the internationalists. Since the Bolsheviks were those who most consistently fought social-patriotism, in June of 1915 I officially joined the Bolsheviks and entered into a lively correspondence with Lenin (Lenin's letters to me have recently been published in Russia).[91]

I again began to do a prodigous amount of writing, this time for the international-minded press of the most different countries: England, Norway, Sweden, America, Russia. At this time one of my pamphlets, "Who Profits from the War?," appeared. Deliberately written in a very popular view, it was disseminated in countless editions, in millions of copies, [92] and was translated into several languages, German included. 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, [93] was to fight against the war and call a new Workers International into being.

In the autumn of 1915 the German section of the American Socialist Party invited me to journey to America to deliver lectures there in the spirit of "Zimmerwald" (a gathering of international-minded socialists). I was immediately ready to cross the ocean for this purpose, despite the fact that my friends determinedly advised me against it. They were all deeply worried about me because the journey had become very hazardous as a result of submarine warfare. But the aim enticed me enormously. My propaganda tour in America lasted five months, during which time I visited eighty-one cities in the United States and delivered lectures in German, French, and Russian. [94] The work was extremely strenuous, but also as fruitful, and I had warrant to believe that as a result the internationalists in the American Party were strengthened.

Much opposition to the war, passionate debates, also existed overseas, but the police did not bother me. [95] The newspapers, by turns, branded me either as a spy of the German Kaiser or as an agent of the Entente. I returned to Norway in the spring of 1916. I love Norway with its incomparable fjords and its majestic mountains, its courageous, gifted, and industrious people. At that time I lived on the famous Holmenkollen near Oslo and continued to work with the view 'of welding together all the forces of the internationalists in opposition to the World War. I shared Lenin's view which aimed at spreading the conviction that the war could be defeated only by the Revolution, by the uprising of the workers.

I was in substantial agreement with Lenin and stood much closer to him than many of his older followers and friends. [96] But my sojourn in Norway was not a long one because only a few months after my arrival I had to embark upon a second journey to America, where I remained till shortly before the outbreak of the Russian Revolution. For me the situation in America had changed insofar as, in the meanwhile, many Russian Party comrades had come over, Trotsky among others. We worked zealously for the new Workers International but America's intervention in the war aggravated our activity. [97]

I had already been in Norway for several weeks, when the Russian people rose up against absolutism and dethroned the Czar. A festive mood reigned among all our political friends. But I harbored no illusions because I knew that the overthrow of the Czar would be only the beginning of even more momentous events and difficult social struggles so I hastened [98] back to Russia in March 1917. I was one of the first political emigrants who came [99] back to the liberated homeland. Torneo, the tiny frontier town lying north of the Swedish-Finnish frontiers, through which I had to pass, was still in the grip of a cruel winter. A sleigh carried me across the river which marks the frontier. On Russian soil stood a soldier. A bright red ribbon fluttered on his chest. "Your identity papers, please, citizenness!" "I have none.

I am a political refugee." "Your name?" I identified myself. A young officer was summoned. Yes, my name was on the list of political refugees who were to be freely admitted into the country by order of the Workers' and Soldiers' Soviet. The young officer helped me out of the sleigh and kissed my hand, almost reverently. I was standing on the republican soil of liberated Russia! Could that be possible? It was one of the happiest hours of my whole [100] life. Four months later, by order of the Kerensky regime (the Provisional Government), the same charming young officer placed me under arrest as a dangerous Bolshevik at the Torneo frontier station ...Such is life's irony.

The Years of Revolution

So overwhelming was the rush of subsequent events that to this very day I really do not know what I should describe and emphasize: what have I accomplished, desired, achieved? Was there altogether an individual will at that time? Was it not only the omnipotent storm of the Revolution, the command of the active, awakened masses that determined our will and action? Was there altogether a single human being who would not have bowed to the general will? There were only masses of people, bound together in a bipartite will, which operated either for or against the Revolution, for or against ending the war, and which sided for or against the power of the Soviets. Looking back one perceives only a massive operation, struggle, and action. In reality there were no heroes or leaders. It was the people, the working people, in soldiers' uniform or in civilian attire, who controlled the situation and who recorded its will indelibly in the history of the country and mankind. It was a sultry summer, a crucial summer of the revolutionary flood-tide in 1917! At first the social storm raged only in the countryside, the peasants set fire to the "nests of gentle folk." In the cities the struggle that raged was between the advocates of a republican-bourgeois Russia and the socialist aspirations of the Bolsheviks ...

As I have previously stated, I belonged to the Bolsheviks. Thus immediately, from the first days onwards, I found an absolute enormous pile of work waiting for me. Once more the issue was to wage a struggle against the war, against coalescence with the liberal bourgeoisie, and for the power of the workers' councils, the Soviets. The natural consequence of this stand was that the bourgeois newspapers branded me as a "mad female Bolshevik." But this bothered me not at all. My field of activity was immense, and my followers, factory workers and women-soldiers, numbered thousands.[101] At this time I was very popular, especially[102] as an orator,[103] and, at the same time, hated and viciously attacked by the bourgeois press. Thus it was a stroke of luck~ that I was[104] so weighed down with current work that I found hardly any time to read the attacks and slanders against me. The hate directed against me, allegedly because I had been in the pay of the German Kaiser for the purpose of weakening the Russian front, grew[105] to monstrous proportions.

One of the most burning questions of the day was the high cost of living and the growing scarcity of vital necessities. Thus the women of the poverty-stricken strata had an indescribably hard time of it. Precisely this situation prepared the terrain in the Party for "work with women" so that very soon we were able to accomplish useful work. [106] Already in May of 1917 a weekly called "The Women Workers" made its debut. I authored an appeal to women against the high cost of living and the war. [107] The first mass meeting, packed with thousands of people,[108] that took place in Russia under the Provisional Government, was organized by us, by the Bolsheviks. Kerensky and his ministers made no secret of their hatred of me, the "instigator of the spirit of disorganization" in the Army.

One particular article of mine in "Pravda" in which I interceded for German prisoners of war unleashed a veritable storm of [109] indignation on the part of patriotic-minded circles. When in April Lenin delivered his famous programmatic speech within the frame of the Soviets, I was the only one of his Party comrades who took the poor to support his theses. What hatred this particular act kindled against me! [110] Often I had to jump off tramcars before people recognized me, since I had become a topical theme of the day and often bore personal witness to the most incredible abuse and lies directed against me. I should like to cite a small example which can show how the enemy worked with might and main to defame me.

At that time the newspapers hostile to me were already writing about the "Kollontai party dresses" which particularly then was laughable because my trunk had been lost en route to Russia, so I always wore the one and the same dress. There was even a little street ballad that commented on Lenin and me in verse. [111] There was also nothing extraordinary in the fact that, threatened as I was by irritated mobs, I was always protected from the worst only by the courageous intercession of my friends and Party comrades. Nevertheless I myself personally experienced little [112] of the hatred around me and, of course, there was also a great number of enthusiastic friends: the workers, the sailors, the soldiers who were utterly devoted to me. [113] Moreover, the number of our followers [114] grew from day to day.

Already in April, I was a member of the Soviet executive which, in reality, was the guiding political body of the moment, to which I belonged as the only woman and over a long period. In May of 1917 I took part in the strike of women laundry workers who set forth the demand that all laundries be "municipalized." The struggl as a "mad female Bolshevik." But this bothered me not at all. My field of activity was immense, and my followers, factory workers and women-soldiers, numbered thousands.[101] At this time I was very popular, especially[102] as an orator,[103] and, at the same time, hated and viciously attacked by the bourgeois press. Thus it was a stroke of luck~ that I was[104] so weighed down with current work that I found hardly any time to read the attacks and slanders against me. The hate directed against me, allegedly because I had been in the pay of the German Kaiser for the purpose of weakening the Russian front, grew[105] to monstrous proportions.

One of the most burning questions of the day was the high cost of living and the growing scarcity of vital necessities. Thus the women of the poverty-stricken strata had an indescribably hard time of it. Precisely this situation prepared the terrain in the Party for "work with women" so that very soon we were able to accomplish useful work. [106] Already in May of 1917 a weekly called "The Women Workers" made its debut. I authored an appeal to women against the high cost of living and the war. [107] The first mass meeting, packed with thousands of people,[108] that took place in Russia under the Provisional Government, was organized by us, by the Bolsheviks. Kerensky and his ministers made no secret of their hatred of me, the "instigator of the spirit of disorganization" in the Army.

One particular article of mine in "Pravda" in which I interceded for German prisoners of war unleashed a veritable storm of [109] indignation on the part of patriotic-minded circles. When in April Lenin delivered his famous programmatic speech within the frame of the Soviets, I was the only one of his Party comrades who took the poor to support his theses. What hatred this particular act kindled against me! [110] Often I had to jump off tramcars before people recognized me, since I had become a topical theme of the day and often bore personal witness to the most incredible abuse and lies directed against me. I should like to cite a small example which can show how the enemy worked with might and main to defame me.

At that time the newspapers hostile to me were already writing about the "Kollontai party dresses" which particularly then was laughable because my trunk had been lost en route to Russia, so I always wore the one and the same dress. There was even a little street ballad that commented on Lenin and me in verse. [111] There was also nothing extraordinary in the fact that, threatened as I was by irritated mobs, I was always protected from the worst only by the courageous intercession of my friends and Party comrades. Nevertheless I myself personally experienced little [112] of the hatred around me and, of course, there was also a great number of enthusiastic friends: the workers, the sailors, the soldiers who were utterly devoted to me. [113] Moreover, the number of our followers [114] grew from day to day.

Already in April, I was a member of the Soviet executive which, in reality, was the guiding political body of the moment, to which I belonged as the only woman and over a long period. In May of 1917 I took part in the strike of women laundry workers who set forth the demand that all laundries be "municipalized." The struggled. The foundation was laid for work with the women of the East (Mohammedans). Two world conferences of communist women took place in Moscow. The law liberalizing abortion was put through and a number of regulations of benefit to women were introduced by our Coordinating Office and legally confirmed. At this time I had to do more writing and speaking than ever before...[160] Our work received wholehearted support from Lenin. And Trotsky, although he was overburdened with military tasks, unfailingly and gladly appeared at our conferences. Energetic, gifted women, two of whom are no longer alive,[161] sacrificially devoted all their energies to the work of the Coordinating Office.

At the eighth Soviet Congress, as a member of the Soviet executive (now there were already several women on this body[162] ), I proposed a motion that the Soviets in all areas contribute to the creation of a consciousness of the struggle for equal rights for women and, accordingly, to involve them in State and communal work. I[163] managed to push the motion through and to get it accepted but not without resistance. It was a great, an enduring victory.

A heated debate flared up when I published my thesis on the new morality. For our Soviet marriage law, separated from the Church to be sure, is not essentially more progressive than the same laws that after all exist in other progressive democratic countries. Marriage, civil marriage and[164] although the illegitimate child was[165] placed on a legal par with the legitimate child,[166] in practice a great deal of hypocrisy and injustice still exists in this area. When one speaks of the "immorality" which the Bolsheviks purportedly propagated, it suffices to submit our marriage laws to a close scrutiny to note that in the divorce question we are on a par with North America whereas in the question of the illegitimate child we have not yet even[167] progressed as far as the Norwegians.

The most radical wing of the Party was formed around this question. My theses, my sexual and moral[168] views,[169] were bitterly fought by many Party comrades of both sexes:[170] as were still other differences of opinion in the Party regarding political guiding principles.[171] Personal and family cares were added thereto and thus months in 1922 went by without fruitful work. Then in the autumn of 1922 came my official appointment to the legation of the Russian Soviet representation in Norway. I really believed that this appointment would be purely formal and that therefore in Norway I would find time to devote to myself, to my literary activity. Things turned out quite differently. With the day of my entry into office in Norway I also entered upon a wholly new course of work in my life which drew upon all my energies to the highest degree. During my diplomatic activity, therefore, I wrote only one article, "The Winged Eros," which caused an extraordinarily great flutter. Added to this were three short novels, "Paths of Love," which have been published by Malik-Verlag in Berlin.[172] My book "The New Morality and the Working Class" and a socio-economic study, "The Condition of Women in the Evolution of Political Economy," were written when I was still in Russia.

The Years of Diplomatic Service

I took up my duties in Norway in October of 1922 and as early as 1923 the head of the legation went on holiday so that I had officially to conduct the affairs of the Soviet Republic for him. Soon thereafter, however, I was appointed as the representative of my country in his stead. Naturally this appointment created a great sensation since, after all, it was the first time in history that a woman was officially active as an "ambassador." The conservative press and especially the Russian "White" press were outraged and tried to make a real monster of immorality and a bloody bogy out of me. Now especially a profusion of articles were written about my "horrid views" in relation to marriage and love. Nevertheless I must stress here that it was only the conservative press that gave me such an unfriendly reception in my new position.

In [173] all the social relations which I had during the three[174] years of my work [175] in Norway, I never once experienced the least trace of aversion or mistrust against woman's capabilities. To be sure, the healthy, democratic spirit of the Norwegian people greatly contributed to this. Thus the fact is to be confirmed that my work as official Russian [176] representative[177] in Norway was never, and in no wise, made difficult for the reason that I belonged "to the weaker sex." In connection with my position as ambassadress I also had to assume the duties of a Trade Plenipotentiary of the Russian governmental trade representation in Norway. Naturally both tasks in their special way were new to me.

Nevertheless I set myself the[178] task of effecting the de jure recognition of Soviet Russia and of re-establishing normal trade relations between the two countries which had been broken by the war and the revolution.[179] The work began with great zeal and the most roseate hopes. A splendid [180] summer and an eventful winter marked the year of 1923! The newly resumed trade relations were in full swing: Russian corn and Norwegian herring and fish, Russian wood products and Norwegian paper and cellulose. On February 15, 1924, Norway in fact[181] recognized the U.S.S.R. de jure. I was appointed "chargé d'affaires" and officially introduced into the diplomatic corps. Now negotiations for a trade treaty between the two countries began. My life was as crammed with strenuous work and highly interesting experiences alike.

I [182] had also to settle grave questions connected with the further development of trade and of shipping. After several months, in August of 1924, I was appointed "Ministre Plenipotentiere" and handed over my warrant to the king of Norway with the usual ceremonial. This, of course, gave the conservative press of all countries another occasion to spew their invectives upon me. After all, never before in all history had a woman been accepted as ambassador with the customary pomp and ceremony.

The trade agreement was concluded in Moscow[183] at the end of 1925 and in February I countersigned the ratified treaty in Oslo with the president of the Norwegian cabinet, I. L. Mowickl.[184]

The signing marked the successful accomplishment of my whole mission in Norway. I could hasten towards new goals and for this reason[185] I left my post in Norway.

If I have attained something in this world, it was not my personal qualities that originally brought this about. Rather my achievements are only a symbol of the fact that woman, after all, is already on the march to general recognition. It is the drawing of millions of women into productive work, which was swiftly effected especially during the war and which thrust into the realm of possibility the fact that a woman could be advanced to the highest political and diplomatic positions. Nevertheless it is obvious that only a country of the future, such as the Soviet Union, can dare to confront woman without any prejudice, to appraise her only from the standpoint of her skills and talents, and, accordingly, to entrust her with responsible tasks. Only the fresh revolutionary storms were strong enough to sweep away hoary prejudices against woman and only the productive-working people is able to effect the complete equalization and liberation of woman by building a new society.

As I now end this autobiography, I stand on the threshold of new missions and life is making new demands upon me [186]

No matter what further tasks I shall be carrying out, it is perfectly clear to me that the complete liberation of the working woman and the creation of the foundation of a new sexual morality will always remain the highest aim of my activity, and of my life.[187]

In July of 1926

Signed: Alexandra Kollontai

Footnotes

Footnotes

2026 Editor's note: A lot of the footnotes here I deemed unimportant and have been removed. The vast majority of which were simple notes such as, "[39] crossed out" or, "[101] Author's note: delete". These were almost 200 footnotes that significantly impacted the readability on ebook devices, resulting in many pages of poor content to turn through. What remains is what I believe at least added some useful information or context

4. For it is not her specific womanish virtue that gives her a place of honor in human society, but the worth of her useful work accomplished for society, the worth of her personality as human being, as creative worker, as citizen, thinker, or fighter. To go my way, to create, to fight side by side with men for the realization of our social ideals, but, at the same time, to shape my personal life as a woman according to my will.

Subconsciously this was the guiding force of my whole life and activity. Above all, however, I never let my feelings, joy in love, or sorrow take the first place in my life: productive work, activity, struggle always stood in the foreground.

41. I realized that in Russia little had yet been done to draw women workers into the liberation struggle. To be sure, a quite strong bourgeois women's movement already existed in Russia at that time. But, as a Marxist, it was clear to me that the liberation of women could not be achieved through bourgeois feminism.

94. I had to cross the whole of the United States from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean and deliver lectures in the most different languages along the lines of the Internationalists.

106. This gave our Party occasion to initiate enlightenment and political work among working women.

123. So far as I knew, it was the first time in history that a woman held such a position.

132. The most important achievements of our People's Commissariat, the Ministry for Social Welfare, in the first months after the October Revolution were the following.

140. Written in Russian, on laws which “obligated” twelve-year-old girls to become mothers and suchlike.

154. Those who recognized the task of the political education of working women as a serious aim of the Party and helped us in our work.

161. Inessa Armand and Samoslova.

172. I wrote little: three short stories, Free Love, my first attempt at short-story writing, a sociological Winged Eros, and other unimportant articles.

186. I was sent to Mexico as ambassadress of the Soviet Union.

Red Love (1927)

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Foreword to the English Edition

This novel is neither a study in “morals,” nor a picture of the standard of life in Soviet Russia. It is a purely psychological study of sex-relations in the post-war period.

I have chosen the environment of my own country and made my own people protagonists, for I know them better and could give a more vivid picture of their inner life and characters. Many of the problems presented are not exclusively Soviet-Russian; they are world-wide facts, which can be noted in all countries. These silent psychological dramas, born of the change in the sexual relations; this evolution, especially, in the feelings of women, are well known to the younger generation of Europe.

Do we ever judge a man for his conduct in love-affairs? Generally, if he does not overstep certain, very flexible limits, we say that his sexual life is his own “private affair.” The character of a man is evaluated not by his conduct in family morals, but by his efficiency in work, by his intellect, his will, his usefulness to the State and Society. As long as the majority of women had no direct duties to the State or to Society, as long as their whole activity was concentrated within the family limits, civilized nations demanded no other qualities in woman than that she display “good morals” in sexual and family life.

Now, when more than half of the grown-up women-citizens in most countries toil and struggle, just as the men do, Society puts new demands on the women. Their ability to respond to the social duties of a citizen begins to have more value than their “goodness” and “stainlessness” in family-morals. Family life is not the unique field of activity for women nowadays; often enough her family duties come into bitter conflict with her out-of-home work and her public duties. It is only natural, therefore, that the method of evaluating a woman today is different from that of our grandfathers and grandmothers.

Though a woman may, at the present time, attain “perfection” in the current bourgeois standard of family morals, and be “esteemed” by her own people, she may neither receive the real appreciation of society nor the “respect” of the State. She will merely be “overlooked.” On the contrary: a woman may not be “spotless” from the point of view of current bourgeois sex morals, but if she is an outstanding figure in politics, art, science, etc., one will not even “whisper” about her behind her back. Were one to put into the balance two women: one with “good morals,” but who never did any useful work for the country or humanity, and the other, whose “family morals” are not free from criticism, but who is an efficient public worker – there would be no doubt about the choice.

Our criteria in sex morals are always changing. There is never a standstill. There are merely periods in human history when the evolution of morals goes on more rapidly; other periods (with a general stagnation in all fields of life) when change seems to relax. Only half a century ago Dumas-fils wrote of a “divorcee” as of a “fallen” creature, while today France openly discusses the question of equalizing the rights of non-legal mothers with those of legally married women. There remains less and less of the old bourgeois hypocrisy in our way of thinking and judging of sex morals.

I do hope that this book will aid in combating the old, bourgeois hypocrisy in moral values and show once more that we are beginning to respect woman, not for her “good morals,” but for her efficiency, for her ingenuity with respect to her duties toward her class, her country and humanity as a whole.

Mexico City, March 10th, 1927

Chapter I

Vassilissa was a working-girl twenty-eight years old, a knitter by trade.

Thin, anemic, a typical child of the city. Her hair, cut short after typhus, grew in curls. From a distance she looked like a boy. She was flat-chested, and wore a shirtwaist and a wornout leather belt. She was not pretty. But her eyes were beautiful: brown, friendly, observant. Thoughtful eyes. Those eyes would never pass by another’s sorrow.

She was a Communist. At the beginning of the war she had become a Bolshevik. She hated the war from the first. Collections had been made in the shop for the front; people were ready to work overtime for the Russian victory. But Vassilissa objected. War was a bloody horror. What was the good of it? War brought hardships to the people.

And you felt so sorry for the soldiers, the poor young fellows – like sheep being led to the slaughter. When Vassilissa met a detachment on the street, going to war in full military array, she always had to turn away. They were going to meet death, but they shouted and sang at the top of their lungs! And how lustily they sang, as if they were out for a holiday. What forced them?

They should have refused: We won’t go to our death; we won’t kill other men!

Then there would be no war.

Vassilissa was able to read and write well; she had learned from her father, a compositor. She read Tolstoy and liked his work.

In the shop she was the only one “for peace.” She would have been discharged, but all hands were needed. The manager looked askance at her, but did not let her go. Soon Vassilissa was known throughout the district: she is against the war, a follower of Tolstoy. The women stopped speaking to her: she doesn’t want to have anything to do with her country; she doesn’t love Russia. She is lost!

Reports of her reached the local organizer, a Bolshevik. He became acquainted with Vassilissa, and talked with her; soon his opinion was formed; “A girl of character; knows what she’s about. The party could use her.”

She was drawn into the organization. But Vassilissa did not become a Bolshevik immediately. She quarreled with the members of the Party. Asked them questions, and went away furious. After long deliberation she came back of her own accord, saying: “I want to work with you.”

During the Revolution she helped in the work of organization, and became a member of the Workers’ Council. She liked the Bolsheviki and admired Lenin because he opposed the war so uncompromisingly.

In her debates with the Mensheviki and the Social Revolutionists she spoke skilfully, heatedly, tempestuously, never at a loss for words. The other women, working-women, were timid, but Vassilissa always spoke up without hesitation whenever it was necessary. And what she said always was clear and to the point.

She won the respect of her comrades. Under Kerensky she was a candidate for the municipal Duma. The girls in the knitting-shop were proud of her. Now her every word was law. Vassilissa knew how to manage women, speaking amicably, upbraiding them, as the case required. She knew everyone’s troubles, for she had been in the factory herself since her girlhood. And she defended their interests. Her comrades sometimes rebuked her: “Can’t you forget your women? We have no time for them now – there are more important things.”

Vassilissa flared up, gave the Comrades a good berating, and quarreled with the district secretary. But she did not withdraw her demands. “Why are women’s affairs less important? This idea is a habit with all of you. That’s why women are ‘backward.’ But you can’t have a revolution without the women. Woman is everything. Man does what she thinks and suggests to him. If you win over the women, half your work is done.”

Vassilissa was very belligerent in ’18. She knew what she wanted; and she did not compromise. The others relaxed a bit in the last few years, lagged behind and stayed at home. But Vassilissa carried on. Always fighting, always organizing something, always insisting on a definite point.

She was tireless. Where did she get her energy? She was delicate, with not a drop of blood in her face – only eyes. Sympathetic eyes, intelligent and observant.

Vassilissa received a letter, the long and hungrily expected letter from her man, her comrade, her lover. They had been separated for months. There was nothing they could do about it. First the civil war, and now the “economic front.” The party was mobilizing all its members. The Revolution was no game; it demanded sacrifices from everybody. So Vassilissa, too, brought her sacrifice to the Revolution. Nearly always she had to live without her lover, far away from him. They were torn apart, at opposite ends of Russia. Her friends said: “You’re better off this way. He’ll love you longer, because he won’t get tired of you.” Perhaps they were right; but life was sad without him. True, Vassilissa had little free time. From early morning until late at night she was overwhelmed with work for the Party and for the Soviet, one crowding out the other. Important, urgent, fascinating work. But when she came to her little room her heart was convulsed with longing for her lover. She felt an icy draught. She would sit down to drink tea and to think. It seemed as if no one needed her. As if she had no comrades, although she had worked with them all day – as if she had no goal for which she was striving. What was the use of it all? Who wanted it? Mankind? Men couldn’t appreciate it. Today, again, they had spoiled something, called one another names, made complaints.

Everyone was working for himself alone. They refused to understand that they must live for society. They could understand.

Even Vassilissa had been insulted, rudely abused, reproached for her worker’s payok (ration-card). The devil take it – she didn't need it! Her comrades had persuaded her. Now her strength was leaving her; she felt dizzy. There she sat, leaning on the table, and drank her tea, nibbled rock candy, and brooded over all the affronts of the day. Now she could see nothing good or splendid in the Revolution. Only failure, vexation and struggle.

If only her lover had been there. Then she could have talked and unburdened her heart. He would have caressed her tenderly.

“Why so dejected, Vasya? A tomboy like you, afraid of no one, challenging everybody, overlooking nothing – and now look at her: there she sits with ruffled feathers, like a puffed-up sparrow under the gable!”

He would pick her up; he was strong, would carry her about the room like a child and sing a lullaby. They would laugh – her heart ached with joy. Oh, how Vassilissa adored her lover, her man and comrade. A handsome fellow, tender and loving – so tender.

Thinking of him, Vassilissa felt even more wretched. Her attic was so desolate, so lonely. She sighed. Clearing away the tea things, she scolded herself. What in the world do you want? Do you expect only joy from life? You love your work. You have the esteem of your comrades. And then you have your lover. Isn’t that more than enough, Vassilissa Demen-tyevna? The Revolution is no holiday; everyone must sacrifice. “Everything for the commonweal; everything for the triumph of the Revolution.”

Thus Vassilissa in the winter. But now it was spring. The sun shone so gayly, the sparrows chattered under the gables. Early in the morning Vassilissa watched them, smiling as she remembered her lover calling her a puffed-up sparrow. Spring sounded a call to life. It was more and more difficult to work. Vassilissa was anemic, and her lungs were affected.

Vassilissa had organized a community house, a task she had taken over of her own accord, and which was entirely independent of her general Party and Soviet work. This community house was dearest of all to her. She had long had the idea of organizing a model house, where the Communist spirit should prevail. Not an ordinary community house, where everyone would live for himself, where no one cared for his neighbor, where squabbling, bickering, and dissatisfaction were the rule, where no one was willing to work for the common good, where everyone was constantly making demands. No, Vassilissa had planned something quite different. Patiently, almost secretly, she had got the house ready. How many difficulties she had had! The house had been taken away from her twice. It had involved her in innumerable disputes. But finally she had succeeded. Had organized a community kitchen, a laundry, a nursery, a dining room – Vassilissa’s pride, with curtains at the windows, and geranium plants – and a library, furnished like a club room.

At the beginning everything went well. The women who lived in the house covered Vassilissa with their moist kisses: “There’s our little darling. Our guardian angel. You’ve made everything so easy for us. It's too wonderful.” But then the trouble began. The house rules were broken. It was impossible to teach the women cleanliness. They fought over the pots and pans in the kitchen. They let the washtubs overflow, almost flooding the house. And every mistake, every quarrel, every disturbance brought complaints against Vassilissa, as if she were the “landlady,” as if she had been at fault. Punishments became necessary. The tenants grew angry, felt offended; some of them moved away.

Matters went on in this fashion, growing worse and worse. Constant quarrels and differences. There were a couple of real trouble-makers, the Fedosseyevs; nothing could please them. Always nagging and nagging, though they didn’t know themselves what they wanted; never satisfied. And they stirred up the others. Chiefly because they had been the first to move into the house, and felt as if it belonged to them. But what did they want? What didn’t they like? Vassilissa couldn’t understand. And they embittered her life, caused trouble every day.

Vassilissa was weary, vexed to tears. She saw the failure of her plan. Then, a new order: everything must be paid for with cash on delivery. Water and electricity. Taxes must be paid, assessments must be covered. Vassilissa was beset on all sides. There was no use! The new exchange rate. Nothing could be done without money. Vassilissa worked like a slave. It might have been better to drop the whole business. But she was not that sort. Once she put her hand to anything, she saw it through.

She went to Moscow, visiting various bureaus day after day. She approached the highest authorities. Her reports and accounts were received very favorably; finally she won her community house. They even assisted her with an allowance for repairs. But in the future she would nevertheless have to make the house self-supporting.

Vassilissa returned delighted. The Fedosseyevs, however, were sulky. They were cross with her, as if she had harmed them by winning her fight for the community house.

Now new worries began. The rumor spread that Vassilissa did not keep her house accounts straight, that she made a little profit on the side.

It was hard, then, without her lover. She needed a close comrade. She wrote to him, called him. But important affairs prevented his coming. he had a new position of great responsibility. He had to systematize and reorganize the affairs of the firm in which he had formerly been a clerk. He had been complaining all winter; it was a difficult task. It was impossible for him to get away. Everything rested on his shoulders.

So Vassilissa remained alone in all her difficulties, drained to the dregs the cup of man’s unfairness. And who was unfair? Her own people, her comrades, the workers! This hurt more than anything else. If it had only been the burshui!

When the Fedosseyevs were to be put out, the two of them begged Vassilissa to forgive them, assured her that they had always esteemed her. But she could not enjoy her victory. She was tired, worn out, too exhausted to be glad. She fell ill.

Then she returned to her work. But in her soul something had died.

She no longer loved the community house. It was as if her child had been violated. Like an incident of her childhood: her brother, Kolyka, showed her a piece of candy. But when she reached out for it he laughed spitefully, saying: “Now I’ll make it disgusting for you.”

And he spat on it. “Why don’t you eat your candy, Vassilissa? It’s good.”

But Vassilissa turned away in tears. “You dirty thing! You bully! You good-for-nothing! Why did you spoil my candy?”

This was how she felt about the community house now. She was sick of it. True, the management was still in her hands, but her heart wasn’t in it. If only she could get away! Her relations with the tenants had been spoiled. Were they not against her? Didn’t they side with the Fedosseyevs? And why? Why?

On the whole, she lost her interest in people. Before, Vassilissa had been much more warm-hearted. She had thought of everyone, pitied everyone, worried about everyone. Now she wanted only one thing: leave me alone. Don’t touch me! I’m tired.

Chapter II

Spring was peeping through the window of Vassilissa’s attic, high up under the roof. The warm sun peeped in, and the spring sky, with its fleecy clouds, white, delicate, melting away. Next door was the roof of what had been a gentleman’s house, and now was used as the Mothers’ Home. Behind it lay a garden; the buds were beginning to swell. Spring, beloved spring was late, but it had come at last.

Today there was spring in Vassilissa’s heart also. It had almost frozen in the winter; always lonely, always alone.

Constant worries, struggles, irritations. But today was a holiday, a real holiday. There was a letter from her lover, from her dearest Volodya. And what a letter! It was a long time since she had got a letter like that.

“Don’t torture me, Vasya; my patience is at an end. How often you’ve promised to come to me for a visit! But you always disappoint me, you hurt me, you tireless tomboy of mine. Have you been fighting with everybody again? There were rumors about you even among the comrades here. They say you even got into the papers. But since you came out on top in this business, come to your beloved Volodya now. He can hardly wait for you.

“You’ll see, we’ll live like fine people. I have a horse and a cow of my own, and an automobile always at my disposal. I have servants, so that you will have no work to do in the house, but can take a good rest. Spring is at its height here; the apple trees are in full bloom. Vasya, darling tomboy – we’ve never spent a spring together. But our life must always be like the spring.

“Anyway, I need you very much just now. I’m having trouble with the Party Committee here. They have it in for me. They can’t forget that I was once an anarchist. It started on account of Savelyev, as I wrote you. You’ll have to straighten out this business. I’m sick of all these meddlers. They don’t let you breathe! It’s hard for them to find anything against me. I’m doing my duty well. But all the same, I need you very much now.

“I kiss your brown eyes.

“Yours forever, “Volodya.”

Vassilissa sat beside the window, watching the white clouds in the sky, and thinking. Her eyes were smiling. A good letter! Volodya loved her, very much. And how she loved him! She laid the letter on her knees and stroked it as if it were Volodya’s head. She didn’t see the blue sky, the roof, the clouds She saw only her handsome Volodya with his mischievously twinkling eyes. Vassilissa loved him, loved him so, that it hurt. How had she ever lived through the entire winter without him? She hadn’t seen him for seven months. And it seemed to her that she had little thought of him, little longing for him. She had no time to think of her man, or to yearn for him. How much trouble and worry she had had during the winter! The child of her heart, the community house, was safe; but she had had to quarrel with stupid, uncomprehending, uncultured people. And she had hidden her love and longing for Volodya in the innermost corner of her heart. Her love for him dwelt in her heart, unchangeable. Thinking of him, Vassilissa felt that he was there, in her heart. A sweet burden, she actually felt the weight of her love. Probably because she always had to be worrying about him. If only nothing happened to him. He did not maintain discipline. The comrades were right. Vassilissa knew it. They accused him of being an “anarchist.” He didn’t like to follow instructions, preferred to do things in his own way. But he made up for this with his work.

This was why they lived separately, so that they wouldn’t disturb each other; for she too was in her work with all her heart and soul. But when Volodya was around, she would be drawn to him, and her work would suffer.

“First our work, and then our love, don’t you think so, Vasya? said Vladimir, and Vasya agreed. Their ideas were the same. And it was so wonderful that they were not merely man and wife, but comrades as well. Now, again, he summoned her to help him like a comrade, to overcome his difficulties. What sort of difficulties? Vassilissa read the letter again.

A mist seemed to form before her eyes. If it was on account of Savelyev, it would be a nasty affair. This Savelyev was a speculator; he was crooked. Why did Volodya have anything to do with him? A manager, such as Volodya was now, had to be as blameless as a saint, had to avoid all rogues. Volodya, however, was a trusting soul. He felt sorry for Savelyev, stood up for him. Still, no one should feel sorry for such men, who were stealing the property of the people. Let them suffer the penalty for their misdeeds.

But Volodya was kind-hearted; and the others could not understand him. They would have other explanations for this friendship. Volodya had many enemies, for he was hot-headed, unable to control his tongue. If only matters wouldn’t develop as they had three years ago. If only no action were brought against him. It was easy to lose one’s reputation. A charge could be trumped up against anyone. Vassilissa’s experience had taught her that. Hadn’t people been stirred up against her all winter long? Now it was Volodya’s turn.

She would have to go to him, and help him. She had to stand by him, so that his comrades there would be ashamed of themselves. What was there to think about? She would get ready and go.

But the house? She didn’t care. There was nothing to salvage now. Everything was going to ruin anyhow. Even though Vassilissa had won the fight, the Fedosseyevs were the actual victors. It was impossible to save anything. Vassilissa sighed. Going to the window, she looked down into the court. As if she were bidding the house farewell. She stood there for a long time. Gravely, sadly.

Suddenly it struck her. “Soon I’ll see Volodya again!” Her cheeks flushed, her heart beat with joy.

My beloved, my dearest. I’m coming, coming to you.

My Volodya.

Vassilissa was sitting in the coach, sleeping. It was her second day of travel. Another twenty-four hours lay ahead of her.

This trip was different from her others. She was provided with every comfort, like a burshuika. Vladimir had sent her the money for the trip, (everything had to be paid for nowadays), and had asked that she go in the sleeping-car. Besides, he had sent her a piece of cloth for a suit. A manager’s lady had to be well dressed. Vassilissa had to laugh when a comrade came from Vladimir Ivanovitch, the director, and brought her the money and the cloth. He praised the quality like a true salesman. Vasya laughed and teased the Comrade. But he seemed offended. He had not been joking; the material really was excellent. Vasya said nothing more. These new Comrades, the economists, were beyond her comprehension.

For a long time Vasya turried the cloth over and over. She was not used to thinking of clothes. But if Volodya wanted it, so that his wife would not be too conspicuous – all right. She would have a fashionable suit made, such as everyone was wearing.

She went to a friend, the seamstress Grusha, and told her the story. “Make it nice and stylish, Grusha, like the clothes others wear.”

Grusha pulled out some fashion magazines that a comrade had brought her from Moscow the previous fall. She had sewed according to it all winter, to the satisfaction of all.

“That’s fine, Grusha. You select something. I don’t understand such things. If it’s neat and not torn, I’m satisfied. I know nothing about the styles.”

Moistening her finger-tips, Grusha spent some time in turning over the leaves of the much-used magazine. At last she found her choice.

“There! This’ll be good for you. You are thin, you need something to make you seem fuller. This is just the thing for you. A little fullness in the sides, and pleats in front, then you won’t look so flat. I’ll fix it so that your man will like you.”

“Then that’s settled.”

They agreed on a price, and kissed. Vassilissa went away happy. It was a good thing there were dressmakers in the world. She would never have been able to make a dress by herself. Volodya, however, was a connoisseur of women’s clothes. Of course, for in America he had been employed in a fashionable women’s wear shop. And now his knowledge was useful to him. The Red merchants must know something of women’s clothes; they were a form of merchandise.

Vassilissa was sitting at the window of her sleeping compartment. She was alone. Her neighbor, a “Nep” girl, very loud, dressed in silks, heavily perfumed, her ears weighed down with rings, had gone into the next compartment, where she was laughing loudly with her “cavaliers.”

She had given Vassilissa the cold shoulder, curling her lips contemptuously. “Beg pardon, dear, but you’re sitting on my shawl. You’ll crease it.” Or, “Won’t you go out into the corridor, dear, while I get undressed for the night?” As if she, the perfumed Nep-girl, owned the compartment, and had let Vassilissa in only out of the kindness of her heart. Vassilissa didn’t like the Nep-girl’s calling her “dear.” But she didn’t want to start a quarrel. Let her go to the devil!

Night was falling. Bluish gray shadows covered the young fields. Over the distant purplish-black strip of woods the sun hung like a red ball of fire. The rooks had risen from the fields, and were circling in the air. The wires were rising and falling between the telegraph poles.

With the twilight an unaccountable anxiety and longing crept into Vassilissa’s heart. Not sadness, but longing. She had prepared for the journey, settled her affairs. And suddenly everybody had been sorry to see her leave. Perhaps she would never return.

The Fedosseyev woman had come to her, had embraced her, had wept and begged her pardon. It had been painful. In her inmost heart Vassilissa was not angry with Fedosseyeva; but she had no respect for her, as she was unable to respect others of her kind.

Vassilissa’s comrades had accompanied her to the station. The children of the community house had brought paper flowers they had made themselves. And Vassilissa realized that she had not given her strength and energy in vain. The seed was sown; something would grow.

When the train began to roll out, the tears rose to her eyes. They were waving their caps. Suddenly she loved them all so much. It was hard to leave them.

But hardly had the city dropped behind her, hardly had the wooded strips and suburban settlements begun to approach her and then hasten away, as if they were running a race, than Vassilissa forgot her community house, the joys and sorrows of the winter. Swifter than the train, her thoughts rushed far ahead to him for whom she longed.

Why was Vassilissa so melancholy now? Whence the longing that had crept into her heart? It was as if a cold vise were gripping her heart. What was she longing for? Perhaps it was because with the community house a piece of her life had dropped into the past, never to return, had disappeared like those narrow fields that shone like amber in the spring sun.

She began to cry. Softly, imperceptibly. She wiped away her tears, and felt relieved, as if the cold little lump of yearning that had tortured her heart had dissipated together with the tears on the skirt of her new dress.

The lights were turned on in the car, the shades pulled down. It suddenly became cozy, and her loneliness disappeared.

Vassilissa’s heart, not her mind, knew very clearly: two more nights and then she would see Volodya, would see him, embrace him. She felt his burning lips and strong arms, heard his voice.

A sweet languor throbbed through her body, her eyes were laughing. If it hadn’t been for the Nep-girl, who was fussing before the mirror, Vassilissa would have sung with joy. Loudly, as the birds sing of spring.

The Nep-girl was gone, the door banged. Stupid woman! Closing her eyes, Vassilissa thought of Vladimir, her lover. Dreaming, she read page after page of the story of their love. They had been in love for five years. She could hardly believe it – five years.

She felt as if they had met only yesterday.

She settled down more comfortably in the corner of her compartment, her feet drawn up, her eyes closed. The gentle rocking of the car relaxed her entire body. Her thoughts, however, hurried on and on.

The voice of memory. What was it like? Their first meeting?

It was at an assembly, shortly before the October days. A time of restlessness. They were only a handful of Bolsheviki – but how they worked! The Mensheviki were in power, and the noisy Social Revolutionaries. The Bolsheviki were attacked from all sides, people almost used physical violence against them, the “German spies,” the “traitors.” Yet the group increased from day to day. They did not know themselves exactly what was to be, but they knew one thing: there must be peace come what may, and the “patriots,” the “traitors,” must be thrown out of the Soviets. This was certain, and they fought. Obstinately, ardently, uncompromisingly, full of faith. An unspoken resolve shone in the eyes of all: We will die, but never compromise. No one thought of himself. Did anyone consider the individual then?

Remembering this time, Vassilissa saw not herself, but only the group. The Social-Revolutionary and Menshevik papers had printed some items about her – pure fiction, lies, slander. But let them revile her. It couldn’t be otherwise. Anyway, people didn’t read everything in the papers. They simply believed that justice was on the side of the Party, of the Bolsheviki.

"Have you no pity for your mother? You re disgracing the entire family! Getting mixed up with the Bolsheviki! You’re selling your country to the enemy!” wept the old woman.

Unwilling to listen to such reprimands at home Vassilissa went to live with another girl. She could not sympathize with her mother’s tears. Strangers seemed closer to her. Only one goal stood clearly before her: the victory of Bolshevism. She seemed to be urged on by some force. It was impossible to stop. Though this force might hurl her into an abyss she would go on nonetheless, would struggle. She would fight....

The controversy became more acute, the air more sultry. A storm was inevitable. There was news from Petrograd. The resolutions of the Congress. Trotzky’s speeches. The proclamations of the Petrograd Soviets.

Then they met. The assembly was crowded, the hall was packed. People were standing on the window sills, sitting on the floor in the aisles. There was hardly room to breathe. What sort of meeting was it? Vassilissa had forgotten. For the first time a Bolshevik was elected chairman, and the committee, too, consisted of Bolsheviki and left-wing Social Revolutionaries. Among them was an Anarchist, an Independent, known in the city as “the American” – Vladimir.

It was the first time she saw him. But she had heard much of him. Some were delighted with him, and said: “He’s a real man. He knows how to make people listen to him." Others found fault with him. “A braggart.” But he had the union bakers and the commercial clerks behind him. He had to be reckoned with. The Bolsheviki were glad when he scored against the Mensheviki, and were angry when he said something against them. What in the world did he want?

The Party secretary couldn’t endure him. “He’s crazy, we’re better off without such friends.” But Stephen Alexeyevitch, the most esteemed Bolshevik of the city, laughed into his gray beard as he said: “Wait a bit, be patient. He will yet become a splendid Bolshevik. He’s anxious to fight. Just wait until he’s lost his American spleen.”

So Vassilissa had heard of him; but she paid no attention to him. So many people would pop up without anyone’s knowing the least thing about them. It didn’t pay to bother with them. She came late to the meeting, all out of breath. She had been speaking at the “brick-yard.” There were meetings everywhere; it had to be so in those days.

She was an orator then. People liked to listen to her. Her speaking won general commendation because she was a woman, a working-girl. Vassilissa spoke objectively, was neither wasteful nor sparing with her words. She had mastered this manner of speaking, terse, but lucid. She could hardly meet all the demands made on her.

When she came to the meeting she went directly to the platform. It had been announced that she would speak. Comrade Yurotchkin – he was dead now, killed at the front – pulled her sleeve. “We’ve won! The Bolsheviki won out in the election of the chairman. Two left-wing Social Revolutionaries, and the American besides. He’s almost a Bolshevik now. He’s go-ing to speak in a minute.”

Vassilissa glanced at the American, and something about him surprised her. So that is how an Anarchist looks! She would have thought him a gentleman. He wore a stiff collar and a tie, and his hair was parted. A handsome fellow. Long eye-lashes. His turn was just coming. He stepped forward, cleared his throat, and held his hand before his mouth. Like a gentleman, she thought, and could not help laughing.

His voice was pleasant, engaging. He spoke for g long time, frequently making his audience laugh. Vasya laughed, too. He was a smart fellow, after all, the Anarchist. Vasya applauded. When he returned to the speakers’ table, he accidentally bumped against Vasya. When he turned to apologize Vasya blushed. And, embarrassed at blushing, she colored even more. It was annoying. But the Anarchist didn’t notice it.

He sat down, leaned back carelessly in his chair, and smoked a cigarette.

The chairman turned to him, pointed to the cigarette. “We’re not accustomed to smoking here.” Shrugging his shoulders, Vladimir continued to smoke. “I want to smoke, and I will. Your rules don’t apply to me.” He took a few more whiffs, and, seeing that the chairman was busy with something else, threw the cigarette away.

Vasya had forgotten nothing of all this. Later she had teased Vladimir about it. But at that time he had not yet noticed her. He became aware of her only when she began to speak.

She spoke very well that evening; and though he was behind her she felt the American’s eyes on her. She deliberately lauded the Bolsheviki as opposed to the Mensheviki, the Social Revolutionaries, and the Anarchists, although she didn’t even know then what the Anarchists were. She wanted to strike the American; he acted too much like a gentleman.

Vasya remembered how her hair came undone as she spoke. At that time she had beautiful long hair, which she braided and wound about her head. She was speaking with all her heart, passionately, and the pins fell out of her hair. It was unpleasant, her hair was in her way, she tossed it back. She didn’t know that her hair had cast a spell over Vladimir.

“I didn’t see you while you were speaking. But when your hair fell over your shoulders I saw clearly that you were no orator, but Vasya, my tomboy! A woman! And such a funny one. She was embarrassed, but held her ground. She waved her arms, and abused the Anarchists, then her hair came undone, curly little snakes were coiled on her back like threads of gold. Then, Vasyuk, I realized that I would have to know you.”

Vladimir told her that later, after they had fallen in love. But she didn’t know it at the meeting. After her speech was finished she began to braid her hair. Yurotchkin picked up the hair-pins for her.

“Thank you, Comrade.”

It was very embarrassing; everyone was staring at her. She was afraid to look at the American. He had surely noticed, and had his own opinion of her. Something or other annoyed her; she was angry at the American. But why did she bother about him?

The meeting was over. Everybody was going away. The American stood before her.

“May I introduce myself?” He told her his name and explained who he was. He pressed her hand; praised her speech. And again Vasya flushed. They began to talk, to argue. She was for the Bolsheviki, he in favor of the Anarchists. Going with the crowd, they reached the street. It was a rainy and windy night.

A cab belonging to the Party was waiting. The American suggested that he take Vasya home. She agreed, and they climbed into the cab. It was dark in there, and the cab was narrow. They sat close together. The horse shied, and splashed in the mud-puddles with its hoofs.

Vassilissa and Vladimir stopped disputing, sat there quiet and silent. Both grave and yet happy.

They talked about trifles, about the rain, about the meeting that would take place the next day in the soap works, about the assembly at Party Headquarters. But their hearts were full of gladness.

They were at Vasya’s house, and bid each other good-night. Both were sorry that they had to part so soon, but neither said so.

“Are you sure your feet didn’t get wet?” Vladimir asked anxiously.

“My feet?” Vasya was amazed, but happy about something. For the first time in her life someone had thought of her, had been concerned about her. And Vasya laughed, her regular white teeth shining. Vladimir would have liked to take her into his arms then, to kiss those moist, white, regular teeth.

The door opened; the watchman let Vasya into the house.

“Good-bye until tomorrow, at headquarters. Don’t forget. The meeting opens at two sharp. We do things in the American way.”

Vladimir raised his soft hat, and took his leave with a profound bow. Vasya turned in the doorway as if she were expecting something more.

The door banged, Vasya was alone in the dark little court. And suddenly the happy mood was gone. Her heart was uneasy, sick with longing. Something grieved her; something hurt her.

She seemed so small to herself. So useless.

Chapter III

Vasya was sitting in the car, her head pillowed on her woolen shawl. She was not sleeping, but she saw the past as in a dream, as in a moving picture: reel after reel, scene after scene, joy and misery, all her life with Vladimir, with Volodya. Beautiful memories. And as she remembered them even her sorrows seemed pleasant. She settled down more comfortably. The car rocked soothingly, luxuriously.

In her mind’s eye, Vassilissa saw the meeting of the union, a noisy, shouting, restless assembly. The bakers were an obstreperous, stiff-necked, unruly crowd. Vladimir was in the chair; he alone knew how to manage them. It was difficult, but finally he succeeded.

The veins of his forehead were swollen with the effort, but he had carried his point. He hadn’t noticed Vasya’s coming. She sat modestly beside the wall, and watched.

It was resolved to present the government with a vote of lack of confidence, and to put the union in the hands of the workers. An administrative committee of their own was elected immediately. Shareholders, members of the municipal Duma, and burshui were struck off the list, and their contributions cancelled. Thenceforth the union would no longer be a municipal affair, but would belong only to the bakers and the employees of the union.

But the Mensheviki were not to be caught napping. They sent their confidential agents to notify the proper parties.

The assembly was beginning to disperse, only the administrative committee was remaining for a meeting, when suddenly, to everybody’s consternation, there appeared in the doorway the Menshevik Commissar, the highest authority in the city, a follower of Kerensky. Behind him the leaders of the Mensheviki and the Social Revolutionaries. When Vladimir saw them his eyes twinkled craftily.

“Comrades, the meeting is adjourned. Only the administrative committee of the Revolutionary Bakers’ Union will remain for a session. Tomorrow there will be a general meeting to discuss current affairs. Now, everybody go home!”

Vladimir’s voice resounded, calm and resolute. The audience rose noisily.

“Stop, Comrades, stop!” came the irate voice of the Commissar. “I beg you not to adjourn the meeting.”

“The Commissar is too late. The meeting has already been adjourned. But if you wish to acquaint yourself with our resolutions, you are welcome to them. Here they are. We had intended to send a delegation to you. But now you have come in person. So much the better. This is as it should be in times of revolution. It’s high time for the people to learn that it is not the duty of the organizations to run to the government officials with their reports, but that the officials must come to the workers’ organizations for their news.”

Vladimir stood there unmoved, gathered up his papers, and in his eyes, under the long lashes, the little devils were laughing and dancing.

“He’s right! He’s right!” cried the crowd. Many laughed. The Commissar attempted to protest. He went up to Vladimir, became excited, and shouted. Vladimir remained entirely calm, only his eyes laughed; his voice was loud and clear. His answer to the Commissar was audible throughout the hall. The public laughed and applauded. They were delighted to hear Vladimir invite the Commissar to a supper where the passage of the union from the burshuis to the bakers would be celebrated.

“A Smart fellow, this American. He has a tongue in his head.”

The Commissar had to leave without accomplishing his purpose. He threatened to use force.

“Just you try it,” cried Vladimir, his eyes flashing. And the entire hall repeated. “Just you try it! Try it!” The atmosphere became threatening. The Commissar and his Mensheviki beat a hasty retreat through a side door.

But the tumult in the hall continued. The administrative session was postponed for the evening. People had to eat first. They were exhausted, for the meeting had been going on since morning.

Vasya went toward the door, with the crowd.

Suddenly Vladimir stood before her. Calm, his eyes laughing. How different he seemed from the others in his neat blue suit. But now she no longer saw him as a “gentleman.” Today she had felt: “He belongs to us.” After all, how did he differ from a Bolshevik? And he was brave, afraid of nothing. He would face bullets if necessary, in spite of his stiff collar. Suddenly there rose in Vasya not merely the thought, but the desire to lay her hand trustingly into Vladimir’s strong hand. She would like to go through life with him, side by side, happily and confidently. But what was she to a man like Vladimir? Comparing herself to him, Vasya sighed. He was handsome, had seen much, had been in America.

And she? Not much to look at, ignorant; and she had never been outside her province. How could he pay any attention to her! He hadn’t noticed her today either.

However, Vasya had hardly formulated these thoughts when she heard Vladimir’s voice beside her: “Delighted to see you, Comrade Vassilissa. Didn’t we put that Commissar’s nose out of joint, though? He won’t try these tricks again. He’ll never come back here. You can bank on that. Besides, we tell him of our resolutions merely as a matter of form.”

Vladimir was excited, enthusiastic. Vasya caught his spirit. They began to talk, both laughed and were happy.

If his comrades hadn’t come for Vladimir they would have stayed much longer in the ante-room, talking of the Commissar and the resolutions.

“Well, I must go now, I can’t stay any longer, Comrade Vassilissa.” Vasya heard regret in his voice. Her heart beat joyfully; she raised her tenderly observant eyes to his. Vasya’s soul was mirrored in her eyes.

Vladimir looked into them. Silently, as though he were lost in them.

“Why don’t you come, Comrade Vladimir? Don’t keep the people waiting. We’re up to our ears in work.”

“I’m coming.”

Hastily he pressed her hand, and left.

Vasya wandered through the city, not knowing where she was going, seeing neither streets nor people, only Vladimir.

This was something new for her.

A clear, frosty winter’s night. Stars, countless stars, twinkling in the sky. The freshly fallen snow still white and spotless. It covered the streets, had settled down on the roofs and barns, had bespangled the trees with its loose flakes.

Vassilissa and Vladimir were coming from a meeting. The “October Days” had come and gone. Now the power was in the hands of the Soviets. The Mensheviki and the right-wing Social Revolutionaries had been dislodged. Only the “internationalists” remained. The power of the Bolsheviki was growing. The Party ruled over all. All the workers were for the Bolsheviki. Only the burshuis, the popes and the army officers opposed them. The Soviet was waging a campaign against them. Life had not yet taken its proper course, the waves of the Revolution had not yet calmed down. The streets were patrolled by Red Guards; there were occasional clashes. But the worst seemed over.

Vassilissa and Vladimir were talking of the days when they had seized the power. Vladimir’s bakers had stood in the gap then. Fine, resolute fellows. Vladimir was proud of them. And they had put him in the Soviet.

Vladimir and Vassilissa were walking side by side, through the quiet streets. The Red Guard patrols demanded the password. Vladimir, too, had a narrow red band on his sleeve. He was wearing a fur cap; he had enlisted in the Workers’ Guard, and had been under fire. A bullet had passed through one of his cuffs; he showed it to Vasya. Though they had seen each other a good deal during this time, they had never had a chance to talk. There was no time for that.

That day, however, they had gone out together, without any previous arrangement. They had so much to tell each other; they felt as if they were old friends meeting again to talk things over. Yet, suddenly, both were silent. They felt closer to each other. They had gone past Vasya’s house without noticing it; they had reached the end of the suburb, where the truck gardens began. Where in the world had they landed! Stopping, they laughed in amazement. They looked up to the sky, where the stars were twinkling and sparkling.

“We had no clocks in our village, so we had to tell time by the stars. My father knew them particularly well. He could always tell exactly what time it was."

Vladimir spoke of his childhood. They had been a large family in a poor peasant’s household. There was too little of everything. Volodya wanted to go to school, but it was too far away. So he made a bargain with the pope’s daughter. He watched her geese, and she taught him to read.

Vladimir recalled his village, the fields and woods of his home. He grew tender and melancholy. .

“So that's what he’s like.” Vassilissa was surprised.

And he became even dearer to her.

He told her about America, how he had come there as a boy, having resolved to make his own way in the world. After spending two years on board a transport, he had worked in the dockyards. Finally he was driven away, forced to go to another state. He was starving, took any work he could get. For a time he was a waiter in a great palatial hotel. How many rich people he did see there! And as for the women! All dressed up in silks, and laces and diamonds.

Then he was a porter in a large fashionable store, where he was well paid. He wore a gallooned uniform; and he was liked because of his good figure. But he soon became sick of it. All these wealthy customers got on his nerves. He tried being a chauffeur, traveled through America with a rich cotton dealer, covered hundreds of miles in an elegant auto. However, this too became tiresome. After all, he was little better than a serf. The merchant introduced him into the cotton business, where he became a salesman, and learned book-keeping.

And then – the Revolution. Dropping everything, he hurried back to Russia. He had belonged to the organization even in America. He had been arrested once after a clash with the police. But the cotton merchant had come to his aid, for he liked him as a chauffeur, and held him in esteem although he knew him to be an Anarchist. He always shook hands with him, too. America was different from Russia!

Vladimir loved America in his way.

On and on they went, through the streets. Vasya listened; Vladimir’s flow of words was inexhaustible. He seemed to be confessing his entire life to her. Again they reached the door of Vasya’s house.

“Won’t you invite me in for a glass of tea, Comrade Vassilissa?” asked Vladimir. “I’m parched with thirst. And I really don’t want to sleep yet.”

Vasya was doubtful. Her friend surely was in bed by this time.

“That doesn’t make any difference. We’ll wake her up. The three of us will have a real party.”

And why shouldn’t she ask the American to come in? She didn’t want him to go away, for they had become friends.

They went in, put up the samovar, Vladimir helping.

“One must always help the ladies. That’s what we do in America.”

They lingered over their tea, joking, teasing Vasya’s friend, whom they had pulled out of bed, because she blinked her eyes so sleepily.

And again Vladimir talked about America, about the beautiful silk-stockinged ladies who came up in their autos to the great store before which he stood in his gallooned doorman’s uniform, with a feather in his three-cornered hat. One of them had slipped him a note, fixing a rendezvous. But he didn’t go. He didn’t care for women. They could only cause trouble. Another had given him a rose....

Listening to Vladimir’s stories of the beautiful American women with their silk stockings, Vasya felt more and more insignificant and unattractive.

The joy in her heart died, and the world seemed dark.

“And I suppose you fell in love with these beauties?”

Vasya’s voice sounded hollow. She was chagrined at having let the question slip out.

Vladimir looked at her attentively and tenderly. He shook his head.

“All my life, Vassilissa Dementyevna, I have guarded my heart and my love. I am keeping them for a pure girl. But these fine ladies? They’re much too fast, all of them. Worse than prostitutes.”

And again joy flooded her heart, only to ebb again without filling it. He was keeping his heart for a pure girl? But Vasya was no longer undefiled. She had had an affair with Petya Razgulov, of the machine department, until he went to the front. Then there had been the Party organizer; she had said she was engaged to him. He, too, had gone away, had stopped writing. And she forgot him. But what to do now? Only a “pure girl”?

Vasya was looking at Vladimir, was listening to his voice, but she did not hear what he was saying. Her heart was aching so. Vladimir thought she was bored with his stories.

He stopped talking, and rose. Hastily, coldly he took his leave.

Vasya struggled against her tears. She wanted so to throw herself into his arms. But he didn’t need her! He had seen so many beautiful women. And he was keeping his heart for a “pure girl.”

Vasya cried all night. She determined to avoid this American. What could she mean to him?

Vasya had firmly made up her mind to keep out of the American’s way, but Fate had decided to bring them even closer.

Coming to a Committee meeting one day, Vassilissa found a violent dispute in progress. A new City Commandant was to be appointed. Some proposed Vladimir, others refused to consider him. The Secretary of the Partcom was especially antagonistic. It was not to be thought of. The entire city was up in arms against the American. His papacha pushed to the back of his head, he rode about the town in the union cab as though he were a governor. He irritated the people; he recognized no discipline. Fresh complaints had come in about him. He didn’t follow union regulations.

Vasya defended Vladimir. It hurt her to hear him spoken of in that way, to hear him called an Anarchist. Stupid, this suspicion. Didn’t he do better work than the Bolsheviki? Stepan Alexeyevitch also was in favor of Vladimir. The vote was cast.

Seven against Vladimir, six for him. Well there was nothing to be done. After all, Vladimir was a bit to blame too. He tried to show off too much.

But Vladimir was angry. Why didn’t they trust him? Wasn’t he with the Revolution with all his heart and soul? When he learned of the Committee’s vote he became furious. He deliberately began to insult the Bolsheviki.

“Partisans of the state! Centralists! They want to institute another police regime!”

He spoke of America, mentioned his I. W. W. wherever he could. The Committee grew excited, and demanded that Vladimir comply with the regulations. The breach widened from day to day. Vasya worked hard in Vladimir’s defense, disputed till she was hoarse.

The matter was brought before the Soviet. The union had again failed to follow orders.

Vladimir, however, repeated over and over: “I don’t recognize your police ordinances. Every institution is its own master. Discipline? I don’t give a damn for your discipline. We didn’t make the Revolution, shed blood, drive out the burshuis to let ourselves be chained again. Why do we need Commandants? We can command ourselves!”

Wrangling, shouting.

“If you refuse to submit we will expel you from the Soviet,” threatened the presiding officer.

“Just you try it!” yelled Vladimir, his eyes flaming. “I’ll recall all my bakers’ boys from the militia. Who’ll defend you then? Soon you’ll be in the hands of the burshuis again. And that’s where your Soviet’s heading! It’s no Soviet – it’s a police district!”

Vassilissa’s heart missed a beat. Why had he said that? Now all of them would pounce upon him. She was right. The meeting stormed with indignation. What? He had called the Soviets names? Vladimir stood there, white-faced, defending himself. But there was a tempest round about him. People were pushing forward.

"Expel him. Arrest him. Throw him out. The blackguard!”

Thanks, Stepan Alexeyevitch. He helped him. He asked Vladimir to go into the next room. The Soviet would discuss the incident in his absence.

Vladimir went, and Vasya followed. She felt mortified. It had been so stupid of him. And she was angry at the Soviets, too. How could they condemn a man for his words? They should judge by his deeds. Everybody knew that Vladimir was on the side of the Soviet. If not for him the Bolsheviki might not have come out ahead in the October Revolution. It was he who had disarmed the officers. It was he who had forced the head of the city to flee, who had led the most obstinate of his opponents out into the street. There, shovel the snow! Why was he to be expelled from the Soviet? Because of a hasty word?

Greatly perturbed, Vasya went into the back room Vladimir was sitting at the table, brooding, leaning his head on his hand.

As he looked up at her she saw pain, chagrin and distress in his eyes. Suddenly he seemed small and helpless as a child.

Vassilissa’s heart filled with compassion. She would do anything to spare him suffering.

“Well, are the ‘partisans o f the state’ alarmed?" Vladimir asked pretentiously. “Did I frighten them with my threats? Things have not yet reached such a pass....” He stopped short.

Vasya looked at him affectionately. There was reproach in her gaze.

“You are in the wrong, Vladimir Ivanovitch. You’re harming yourself. Why did you say that? Now it looks as though you were against the Soviet.”

“And I will be against it, if the Soviet is to be another police department.” Vladimir still was stubborn.

“Why do you say something you don’t believe yourself?” Vasya came very close to him, looked at him like a mother, gravely, tenderly. Raising his eyes to hers, Vladimir was silent.

“Admit that you lost your temper.”

Vladimir bowed his head.

“I couldn’t keep it back. I was furious.”

And again he looked into Vasya’s eyes, like a boy confessing a fault to his mother.

“Nothing to be done about it now. It’s all over.”

He motioned her away. But Vasya came even closer to him. Her heart was full of sorrow and tenderness. He had become so dear to her. She laid her hand on his head, stroked it.

“Don’t, Vladimir Ivanovitch! Why do you lose heart? Aren’t you an Anarchist? That’s not the way, Vladimir! You must believe in yourself, mustn’t let others bother you.”

Vasya was bending over Vladimir, stroking his head as if he were a little boy. And he leaned his head trustingly on her heart, as though he sought support in her. So big, and yet as woebegone as a child.

“I’m having such a hard time. I thought the Revolution, the Comrades – everything would change.”

“And it will. But you must try doing things in a friendly, brotherly way.”

“No; good will won’t help now. I don’t know how to deal with people.”

“You’ll learn. I’m sure you will."

Vasya raised Vladimir’s head and looked in his eyes. His gaze, however, was anxious and troubled. Bending down, Vasya gently kissed his hair.

“We’ll have to straighten out this matter. You'll have to apologize, say that you were hasty, that they misunderstood you.”

“All right,” Vladimir agreed obediently, seeking support in her eyes. Suddenly he threw his arms about her, crushed her to his heart until it hurt. And his burning lips clung to Vasya’s mouth.

Vasya ran back to the platform, to the executive committee, directly to Stepan Alexeyevitch. Matters stood thus and thus. Vladimir Ivanovitch had to be helped out of the mess.

The incident was closed.

But the hostile attitude against Vladimir did not disappear. The Soviet was divided into two camps. The happy days of peace were over.

Vasya didn’t want to remember more. But her thoughts flew on. There was no stopping them.

How had they come together? It was soon after the episode in the Soviet.

Vladimir was escorting her home. They always left together in those days. They were seeking each other. When they were alone their conversation was tenderly intimate.

Vasya’s friend was out. And Vladimir, taking Vasya into his arms, kissed her ardently, passionately. She still remembered those kisses. But she released herself, stepped back, and looked him straight in the eyes.

“Volodya, you mustn’t kiss me. I won’t stand for any deception.”

Amazed, he failed to understand.

“Deception? Do you think I want to deceive you? Can’t you see that I’ve loved you ever since I’ve known you?”

“That’s not it! That’s not it, Volodya! Of course, I believe you. But, you see, I... I... No, don’t kiss me. You’re keeping your heart for a ‘pure girl.’ And I’m not a virgin any more, Volodya. I’ve had lovers.”

As she spoke she thought, trembling: Now, my happiness is shattered.

Vladimir interrupted her. “What do I care for your lovers? You belong to me. No one can be purer than you, Vasya; your soul is pure.”

Passionately, he pressed her to him.

“You love me, Vasya, don’t you? Don’t you love me? Don’t you belong to me? To me? And to no one else. And look here – don’t you ever again mention your lovers. Don’t tell me anything. I don't want to know anything. I don’t want to. You belong to me, and that’s the end of it” This was the beginning of their union.

Chapter IV

The compartment was dark. The Nep-girl had gone to bed, after perfuming the entire car with Eau de Cologne. Vassilissa was lying quietly in her upper berth. If only she could fall asleep. But memories of the past insisted upon coming up. As if she were settling her accounts. But why settle them? All her life was still before her. Love and happiness awaited her. Yet somewhere, in an obscure corner of her heart, Vasya felt that things weren’t as they used to be. The happiness of four years ago was gone. Their love had changed, and Vassilissa, too, was different.

Why? Whose fault was it?

Her hands folded beneath her head, Vassilissa lay there, thinking. In all these years she had never had time to think. She had lived and worked. But now she had a feeling of having forgotten or neglected something. Why? Dissension within the Party; trouble in the institutions.

Everything had been different then. Volodya, too, had been different. True, she had had her hands full with him. He would fall out with the authorities. But Vasya always was able to reason with him. He trusted her, and always followed her advice.

The Whites commenced their offensive; the city was in danger. Vladimir decided to enlist for the front. And Vasya did not hold him back. She only tried to persuade him to join the Party before he left. He resisted at first. But finally gave in.

Thus he became a Bolshevik, and went away.

They corresponded very little. Now and then he would come back for a day or two.

And then more weeks and months of separation. As if it had to he so. They didn’t even miss each other very much – there was no time for such things.

Then Vasya learned, at a Committee meeting, that a charge was being pressed against Vladimir. What could that mean? He was working for the artillery, and they said he wasn’t managing his affairs properly, that he wasn’t entirely straight and aboveboard.

Vasya flared up. That wasn’t true. She didn’t believe it. It was a conspiracy, or slanderous gossip. She rushed out to find out more. It seemed a serious affair. The case had not yet been brought into court, but he had been removed from his post. She begged Stepan Alexeyevitch to bring about her transfer to a transport train bearing gifts to the front.

And in three days she was on her way.

It was very hard to get through.

Delays everywhere. The trains missed one another. There was something wrong with the papers. The gift-bearing car wasn’t coupled on. She was exhausted and worried. The case might already have come to court.

Only then did Vasya realize how she loved Vladimir, how much he meant to her. And she trusted him, as much as it was possible to trust anyone. The more others suspected him, for they felt that an Anarchist was capable of anything, the more vigorously she defended him. No one knew his heart as well as she, Vasya. And his heart was tender as a woman's. His harshness and obstinacy were only on the surface. Vasya knew that kindness and gentleness could always lead him on the right path.

But it was true that he had become embittered. Life of the proletarians was hard.

Finally Vassilissa reached headquarters, where, after much difficulty, she learned where Vladimir lived was forced to walk all the way across the town, in a pouring rain. It was a good thing that a Comrade went with her. She was tired, shivering with the cold. But she was glad, for now she knew that the investigation was not yet over. There was no evidence; opinions varied within the army itself. Rumors and denunciations were current. Vasya was confused only by the disagreeable smile with which people looked at her, by their air of hiding something when she openly called herself his wife. She had to try to understand everything.

And then she would have to go to Comrade Toporkoff of the Central Administration knew Vladimir and his work. This prosecution would have to stop. Why did they harass him? Others too, had once been Mensheviki or Social-Revolutionaries, but no one hounded them. Why was an Anarchist worse than they?

They reached the little wooden house where Vladimir lived. The windows were lighted, but the door was locked. The Comrade knocked. No answer. Vasya’s feet were soaked to the ankle; her clothes were wet, and she was cold. She was thinking not of the joy of seeing Vladimir again, but only of getting into the warm room as soon as possible to change her dress and stockings. She had been sitting in the heated baggage car for five days, had had practically no sleep.

“Let’s knock on the window,” suggested the Comrade.

He broke off a birch rod, tapped on the window with it.

Someone pulled back the curtain, and Vasya saw Volodya’s head. He seemed to be wearing only a shirt. As he strained his eyes to see in the dark, a woman’s head bobbed up from behind his shoulder, only to disappear again.

Vasya felt her heart sinking. A sharp, sickening pain.

“Why don’t you open the door, Comrade? I’ve brought you your wife.”

The curtain was drawn, hiding Volodya and the woman. Vasya and her companion mounted the steps leading to the door. They waited. Why did it take so long? To Vasya the time seemed endless.

At last the door opened. Vladimir took Vasya in his arms, pressing her to him and kissing her. His face was radiant, his eyes wet with tears.

“You came! You came to me! My friend Vasya! My comrade!”

“Take her things, at least,” grumbled her escort. “What’ll I do with them?”

“Come right into the house! We’ll have some supper. You must be soaked through and freezing” They entered the house. It was bright and clean. A dining room, with a bedroom behind it. At the dining room table sat a nurse with a white kerchief about her neck and a red badge on her sleeve.

She was pretty. Vasya felt another stab at her heart Volodya introduced the two.

“This is Sister Barbara. My wife, Vassilissa Dementyevna.”

They shook hands and looked at each other searchingly, as if each wanted to sound the other.

“What’s the matter, Vasya? Take off your wraps.

Aren’t you the lady of this house? See how well I live here. Better than in your little room. Let me have your coat. How wet it is. We must hang it up next to the stove.”

The nurse had remained standing.

“Well, Vladimir Ivanovitch, we’ll let our business discussions go until tomorrow. I don’t want to disturb your domestic bliss tonight.”

She shook hands with Vasya and Vladimir, and went out together with Vasya’s escort.

Vladimir picked up Vasya and carried her about the room. He fondled her, kissed her, was beside himself with joy.

Vasya’s heart felt less heavy, and she was ashamed of herself. Still she asked, casually, between kisses: “Who was that nurse?” And she bent back her head the better to look into Vladimir’s eyes.

“The nurse? She came to see me about the provisioning of the hospital. Deliveries must be made more quickly. There are delays along the line. They can’t get along without me, though they made me stop my work. As soon as something goes wrong, they come to me.”

He turned the conversation to the charges against him, spoke of the thing that worried them both. He set Vasya down, and they went into the bedroom. Once more Vasya felt that stab. The bed was untidily made, as if someone had hurriedly thrown the covers over it.

She glanced at Vladimir. Placing his hands on his back, a gesture Vasya knew and loved, he paced up and down the room. He told her of his case, what had happened, how it had begun.

Listening, Vasya suffered for him. She felt clearly that it was all envious gossip. Her Volodya’s hands were clean. She was convinced of that; it could not be otherwise.

She took a pair of stockings from her suitcase. But she had no other shoes. What to do?

Vladimir noticed it.

“That’s how you are! You haven’t even an extra pair of shoes. Of course I can get some leather, and our cobbler will make a pair for you, as a special favor. But now let me take off your shoes. How wet they are".

He drew off her shoes, threw Vasya’s wet stockings on the floor, took her cold feet into his warm hands.

“What tiny feet you have. Like a doll. Oh, Vasyuk mine, my darling.” Bending down, he kissed her feet.

“What are you doing, Volodyka? You silly boy.” She laughed; her heart was joyful again.

They drank tea, talked and held council. Vladimir told her everything. How he had been rude at the wrong time, how he had disregarded instructions and had done things his own way. He couldn’t stand orders. He told her of the times when he had furthered the cause, and of the “undesirables” he had employed. But as for being light-fingered, Vasya surely could not believe that of him. Vladimir stood before her, choking with rage.

“So you, too, could think that of me? You Vasya?”

“No, no, Volodya. I was only afraid that your accounts might be a bit muddled. They’re so strict nowadays.”

“You needn’t worry about my accounts. Those who started this business will find their finish in it. My accounts are clear as crystal. The bookkeeping I learned in America has come in handy.”

Vassilissa felt a load off her heart. All that was necessary now was to meet the Comrades, consult with them, and explain the how, when, and where.

“It was so clever of you to come here,” said Vladimir. “I didn’t dare expect you. I know how hard you work, and assumed you’d be too busy for your husband, for your Volodyka.”

“Why, don’t you know that I have no peace when you’re not with me? I’m always worrying: what’s he doing? How does he feel? Has anything happened to him?”

“You’re my guardian angel, Vasya. I know that.” He spoke very gravely, and kissed Vasya. His eyes became sad and thoughtful. “I’m not worthy of you, Vasya. I love only you. I love you above all things. You believe me, don’t you? I love you, love you. No one but you. Anything else is absurd....”

Here Vasya didn’t understand him. His unusual vehemence, his agitation puzzled her.

They went into the bedroom. It was time to go to sleep. Intending to make the bed, Vasya threw back the covers. What was that? Her temples pounded, her knees trembled. A woman’s bandage – a bloodstain on the sheet.

“Volodya! What’s that?” Her voice faltered. She moaned.

Vladimir rushed to the bed, savagely threw the bandage to the floor.

“That hussy, that landlady of mine. She lay down here again when I was out. Soiled the bed.” He threw the sheets on the floor.

“Vladimir.”

Wide-eyed, Vasya stood before him. Her look said everything.

Vladimir gazed at her and remained silent.

“Why that, Volodya? Why?”

Wringing his hands, Volodya threw himself on the bed.

“It’s all over. It’s all over. But I swear to you, Vasya, I love only you, only you.”

“Why did you do it? Why didn’t you think of our love?”

“I’m young, Vasya. All alone for months. And they’re forever running after you, these common hussies. I hate them all. All of them. These filthy women.”

He stretched out his arms toward her. Tears were rolling down his cheeks, large, burning tears.

“You must understand, Vasya. You must. Or I can’t live. You must pity me. Life is so hard ” Vasya bent down and kissed his head, as in the Soviet, long before. And again she pitied him, again she was filled with compassion for this big, helpless, childlike man. Who would understand him if not she? Even now everyone was ready to throw stones at him. Should she really drop him because he had hurt her? Had she not once been ready to bear the brunt of every blow destined for him? A poor thing, her love, if she would leave him the first time he had made her suffer.

Bending over Vladimir, Vasya silently stroked his hair, seeking a way out.

Someone knocked at the door, a harsh, commanding knock. What was that?

They exchanged a glance, and both understood. A hurried embrace, a passionate kiss, and they went into the hall. They had guessed right.

The investigation had been closed, and Vladimir was arrested. The ground seemed to be trembling beneath Vasya’s feet.

Vladimir remained calm. He collected his things, told Vasya where to find his papers, whom to summon as witnesses, who could give her information. Then they took him away.

That was years ago, but Vasya would never forget that night. She had never lived through anything more dreadful than that night.

Her heart was racked with twofold pain. The century-old, insurmountable suffering of woman, and the distress of the friend, the comrade, at the wrong done her beloved, at the malevolence of men, at the injustice of the world.

Vasya walked about the bedroom as though she were mad. She could not rest.

Here, before she came, in this room, on this bed Vladimir had loved, kissed, embraced the other woman. That pretty woman with the full lips and the voluptuous bosom. Might he not love her? Might he not have lied to Vassilissa, out of pity?

She wanted the truth, the truth only. Why had they taken away Vladimir just then? If only he had been there she would have found out everything, would have asked him. If only he had been there, she would have freed herself of her own agonizing thoughts, would have been consumed with pity for him.

Her woman’s heart was aching. And she grew furious at Vladimir. How had he dared do such a thing? He would never have taken another woman if he had loved her. And if he didn’t love her, he should have told her so frankly, instead of torturing her with his lies.

Vassilissa paced from one corner to the other. She could not rest.

And suddenly a new thought pierced her heart. Suppose the charges against Vladimir really were to be taken seriously? Suppose there really was a reason for his arrest? Suppose the “undesirables,” the scoundrels, had got him into trouble, leaving the entire responsibility on his shoulders?

Her heartache was forgotten, forgotten the red-lipped nurse. Now she was only trembling with an agonizing fear for Vladimir, racked and crushed by her suffering for him. They had robbed him of his reputation, had ruthlessly arrested him. Those were his Comrades.

Compared to that, what was her feminine grief? What had they done to her beloved Vladimir – his own Comrades? She felt hurt not at his having been with the woman, but at the failure of even the Revolution to bring an era of truth and justice.

Vassilissa forgot her weariness as if her body had disappeared. Only her soul remained, her heart, torn by the sharp claws of her harrowing thoughts. She waited for the morning, and with the morning came the resolve to fight for Vladimir. They should not touch him. She would liberate him from those envy-filled schemers. Single-handed she would convince everyone that he was stainless. Their slanders were false, false their libelous attacks on his good name.

Chapter V

Early that morning a Red Guard brought her a note from Volodya.

“Vasya, my wife, my beloved comrade. I don’t care about the case against me now. Let them ruin me. Only one thought torments me, maddens me – that I might lose you. I can’t live without you, Vasya. You must know that. If you no longer love me, make no efforts in my behalf. Let them shoot me. Yours, only yours – Volodya.”

And on the side, diagonally, “I love only you. Whether you believe me or not. And I will insist on it until I die.”

Another sentence, in a corner, “I’ve never re-reproached you with your past. Try to understand and forgive me now. Yours, with all my heart and soul.”

Vasya read the note over and over, and felt happier. He was right. He had never reproached her that she had not been a virgin.

After all, men were like that. What could he do when that hussy threw herself on his neck? Act like a monk?

She read the note again, kissed it, folded it carefully, and put it in her pocket. And now to get busy, to get Volodya out of trouble.

She wore herself out, rushing from pillar to post,. growing excited, running afoul of bureaucracy and the indifference of men, giving up, losing all hope. Then, summoning all her strength, she began to fight with renewed courage. She would not permit the triumph of the wrong, she would not let those scheming slanderers worst Volodya.

She gained her most important point. Comrade Toporkov took the matter in his own hands. And after looking into it he made the following decision: “As the charges are groundless, the case is to be dropped. Zviridov and Malitchenko are to be arrested.”

The next morning Vasya could not leave her bed. She had contracted typhus. In the evening she recognized no one, not even Volodya, when he returned.

In her memory Vasya’s illness seemed a dull dream. It was night when she regained consciousness. She looked about. An unfamiliar room, medicine bottles on the table, a nurse with a white neckerchief sitting beside her bed. Wiry, no longer young, a severe expression on her face. As Vasya looked at her, it bothered her to see a nurse sitting there. The white kerchief irritated her. Why? She hardly knew herself.

“Would you like a drink?” Leaning forward, the nurse held a glass to her lips.

Vasya drank, and lost consciousness again. Vaguely, as in a dream, she felt Volodya bending over her and adjusting her pillow. She became entirely unconscious. She had a, dream; perhaps it was real? There were two shadows in the room; no, not shadows – women, but not real women. One white, one gray. Turning, twisting, their arms entwining. Not a dance, but a struggle. And now Vasya understood. Life and death had come to her, were fighting for her. Which would win?

Vasya was frightened, so frightened that she wanted to scream. But she could not utter a sound. This frightened her even more. Her heart beat, pounded, as though it would burst any moment. Ping. ping. Ping. There was shooting on the street.

She opened her eyes. In the feeble light of the night-lamp she saw that she was alone. It was night. She listened. A scratching – mice – as if they were rolling something under the floor. Ever nearer, ever closer. And now Vasya was torn by a new fear. She felt that the mice were trying to get on her bed, on her. And she would not be able to drive them away.

Beginning to cry, she called feebly: “Volodya. Volodya. Volodya.”

“Vasya darling. My little sweetheart. What’s the matter?”

Volodya was bending over her, anxiously peering into her eyes.

“Volodya, are you alive? Really?” Her strengthless hand felt about Volodya’s head.

“I’m alive. We’re both alive, my dearest. Why are you crying? What’s the matter with my Vasyuk? Were you dreaming? Are you delirious again?”

Tenderly he kissed her hands and stroked her damp short hair.

“No, no, I wasn’t dreaming. The mice were scratching so.... ” she defended herself, with a faint smile.

“The mice?” Volodya laughed. “My Vasyuk has become so brave that it’s afraid of mice! I told the nurse that you shouldn’t be left alone. It’s a good thing I came home just now.”

Vasya would have liked to ask him where he had been. But she was so weak that, she couldn’t talk. A delicious weakness, however, a sort of drowsiness. And the nicest part of it all was his sitting beside her. She held his hand in her feeble grasp, would not let go.

Her smiling lips whispered: “He’s alive.”

“Of course, I’m alive,” laughed Vladimir. Gently he kissed her forehead.

Vasya opened her eyes. “But what happened to my hair? Did they cut it off?”

“That’s nothing. Don’t worry about that. Now you’re a real boy, a real Vasyuk.”

Vasya smiled. She was happy.

Volodya did not leave her. As she dozed he sat on the chair beside her and watched over her sleep.

“Sleep, Vasya, sleep. You mustn't look at me with your big eyes. You’ll have plenty of time to look at me when you’re well again. If you don’t sleep now you’ll be sick again, and the doctor’ll scold me. He’ll tell me I’m a poor nurse.”

“You won’t go away?”

“Where would I go? I sleep here every night, on the floor beside you. I’m less worried when I’m able to see you. In the daytime I’m working hard.”

“Working? In the commissariat?”

“Yes, indeed. Everything’s all right again. Those rogues have been arrested. But you’re not to talk, you impossible Vasyuk. Sleep. If you don’t go to sleep, I’ll go away.”

Her helpless fingers tightened their hold on his hand. But she closed her eyes quite submissively.

It was so wonderful, so sweet to fall asleep with Volodya sitting beside her, looking at her so anxiously and tenderly.

“My darling....”

“You must sleep, you bad, naughty boy.”

“I’m asleep. But I love you.”

Volodya bent over her and kissed her eyelids, long, very gently, tenderly.

And Vasya could have wept with joy. She wad willing to die right then and there. No greater happiness could ever be hers.

The memory of what she had felt then made Vasya start. Was such a thing impossible now? Had her heart been right when it told her that she could never know greater happiness?

And now that joy, that happiness would be no more. She was going to him, to her beloved. He had asked for her, was waiting for her. He had sent a comrade to tell her to hurry. And he had sent her money for the trip. And a dress. So he must love her. Why, then, would she never be so happy again? Vasya wanted so much to believe in her happiness; but doubt rankled in her breast. She had no real faith.

In a brown study, Vasya again thought of the past. They had parted quite suddenly that time. The front was shifted. When Vladimir went away, Vasya still was so weak that she could hardly walk. They parted on the best of terms. The nurse was not mentioned again. Vasya had come to understand that the nurse had meant no more to him than a glass of whiskey. “You drink it, and it’s forgotten.”

Vasya had gone back home, and immediately returned to her work.

At that time she believed that everything was as it had been, that everything was all right again. Now Vasya remembered that even then there had been a load on her heart. Something, somewhere, was raising its head. Was it bitterness because of the red-lipped nurse, or was it suspicion? Yet Vasya loved Volodya.

The fear they had shared, and her illness had bound them even closer together. They had loved each other before, too; but they had not felt so near to each other. Now, after the distress they had gone through together, their hearts were more united. Still, Vasya could no longer find the joy of a bright spring morning her love. It had become gloomier, overcast with clouds. Yet it had grown deeper and stronger.

Besides, how could one have been in the mood for love and joy?

There were the fronts, the partings, the conspiracies, the mobilization of the Communists. They were threatened from all sides, were head over heels in work. Working in the Housing Bureau of the Soviet, Vasya had to take care of the refugees. It was there that she had developed her idea of organizing a community house to conform with her views, Alexeyevitch had helped her with word and deed. And Vasya had plunged into her work.

She lived thus for months. Of course she thought of Vladimir, always had him in her heart. But she did not have much time to yearn for him. And he too had his work. Everything seemed to be running along smoothly. He had stopped trying to show off so much, and was at peace with the “Executive.”

Suddenly he surprised Vasya in her attic. Quite unexpectedly. He had been wounded m a skirmish during the retreat. Nothing dangerous, but he needed a rest. He was given leave, and had come to board with his wife.

Vasya was glad. Yet she could not help thinking: Why just now? Could it not have been two months before, or a month later? Vasya was so worried just then, and overwhelmed with work. A Congress was in session at the moment, and the Housing Bureau was being reorganized. She was fighting for her community house. Impossible to tell when the work would be finished. She had almost had to tear herself in two. And now Volodya was there, wounded, in need of care. How would she manage?

Troubled, she could not be really happy.

Vladimir, however, was delighted as a child.

He had brought her a pair of shoes, keeping the promise he had made on her first day in his house.

“Put them on, Vasya. I want to see how your little doll’s feet look in them.”

Vassilissa had no time. There was a meeting of the Housing Bureau. But she did not want to hurt Vladimir.

She put them on, and felt that she saw her feet for the first time. They really looked like a doll’s.

Radiant with joy she looked at Volodya – she even forgot to thank him.

“I want so much to pick you up, Vasyutka. But I can’t, on account of my hand. I love your little feet. And your brown eyes.”

Vladimir was content, excited and happy. He talked and joked.

But Vasya, who should have been at the meeting long before, listened only half-heartedly. She glanced at the alarm clock beside the little mirror on her dresser. The minutes were slipping way. They were waiting for her at the meeting. They would be angry. She was keeping everybody waiting and it wasn't proper for the chairman to be late.

Vassilissa came back home late, toward evening.

She was tired. There had been unpleasant incidents.

She was worried.

Climbing the stairs to her attic she thought, It's nice, after all, to have Volodya there. I’ll talk over my troubles with him.”

But when she entered the room Volodya wasn't there.

Where might he be? His cap was there, his coat was hanging in its proper place.

He had probably gone out for a moment. She cleaned up the room, and put the teakettle on the petroleum burner. But Volodya had not come back.

Where could he be? She went out into the hall – he was not in sight. She waited, grew worried.

Again she went into the hall. There was Vladimir, coming out of the Fedosseyevs’ apartment. They were laughing, parting like the best of friends. Why had Volodya gone to them? He knew of their duplicity.

At last you ve come back, Vasya. Your cage depressed me so, I was ready to hang myself. All alone the livelong day. I was glad to meet Comrade Fedosseyev. He took me along with him.”

“Don’t have anything to do with them, Volodya. You know they’re always scheming.”

“You wouldn’t ask me to die of boredom in your cage? Don’t run away for the whole day, then I won’t go to the Fedosseyevs.”

“But I have work to do. I’d be only too glad to come home to you earlier, but I can’t. It’s impossible.”

“Of course, you’re busy. But how did I manage to sit beside you at night when you had typhus? And I used to get away in the daytime too, to look after you. I came to you on sick leave, Vasya I still have some fever.”

Vasya heard the reproach in his voice. He was offended at her having been away all day. But what could she do? There was the reorganization of her department, the coming Congress.

“I believe you’re not overjoyed to have me here,” Vladimir said. “I didn’t think I’d find you like this.”

“How can you say such a thing? I’m not glad? I? My dearest. My beloved. My sweetheart.”

She threw herself into his arms. They almost upset the petroleum burner.

“There, there. And I was ready to think you had stopped loving me. That you might have someone else. You seemed so cold, so indifferent. Even your eyes were strange. Not at all tender.”

“I’m so tired, Volodya. I’ve no energy left....”

"You’re my tireless little tomboy I” Pressing Vassilissa to him, Vladimir kissed her.

Thus they lived together in their "cage" in the attic. In the beginning they managed. Although Vasya found it hard to devote herself to both her work and her man, she was happy nonetheless.

There always was someone to talk to, to advise her, to sympathize with her when she was disappointed, to help her plan for the future.

But the housekeeping was a nuisance. Vladimir had become accustomed to good food at the front. But Vasya’s household? She brought her dinner from the public kitchen. She had no sugar with her tea but only rock-candy. For the first few days they lived on the groceries Vladimir had brought.

"I've brought you some food: flour, sugar, sausage. For I know how to live, like a sparrow under the gables, without a bite to eat in the house."

When they had used up Volodya’s provisions, however, they were dependent on the public kitchen. And Volodya didn’t like it. He grumbled: "Why are you forever feeding me millet and millet gruel? I'm no rooster.”

“There’s nothing else to be had. I have to live on my ration.”

“What are you talking about! The Fedosseyevs have no more than you, but yesterday they served me a real dinner, and a wonderful one at that. Fried potatoes and herring and onions.”

“Fedosseyeva has the time for housekeeping. But I – don’t you see that I’m wearing myself out without attending to anything but my affairs?”

“You’ve undertaken too much. That’s the trouble. Why do you bother about this community house? The Fedosseyevs were saying....”

“I know what the Fedosseyevs are saying!” exploded Vasya. She was hurt at Vladimir’s associating with her enemies. “And you’re not acting like a comrade when you listen to them, and join them against me.”

They quarreled. Both lost their tempers. Then both were ashamed of themselves, and they made peace. Vasya, however, grew more worried over her inability to take better care of her man. He had come to her, wounded, and she had offered him food from the public kitchen. He had taken better care of her the other time, and he had brought her a pair of shoes.

It grieved her to see Voloyda eating nothing. He would swallow two or three spoonfuls of soup, and would push away the plate.

“I’d rather go hungry than eat this dishwater. Make some tea, and try to get some bread somehow or other. I’ll send you some flour later, from the front, so you’ll be able to return it.”

Impossible to go on that way. She had to find some way out.

Vasya hurried to the meeting. But her head was a jumble of resolutions and millet gruel. What could she give Volodya for dinner?

If only she had time she would find a way, would think, and prepare something.

She was delighted to meet her cousin on the way. Just at the right time. The cousin had a daughter, a lively, capable girl just out of school. Now she was living with her parents, had no definite occupation, but was helping her mother with the housework. Her name was Styosha.

There was no difficulty about the arrangements. Styosha would spend the day with them and keep house. In exchange, Vasya would share her payok with her cousin. A load off her mind, Vasya, hurried on to her meeting. Tomorrow Volodya would have decent meals.

Styosha proved to be capable. And she got along well with Volodya. They kept house together exchanged some of their supplies, while Volodya received a number of things from the union for old times’ sake. Vasya was content. Volodya no longer complained about the food. But now he had another grievance against her.

“You take care of everybody, but I mean nothing to you.”

Again Vasya was distressed. Thus was she torn back and forth between Volodya and her work. But why had he come at such a feverish time?

She tried to explain to Vladimir. But he was angry, pretended not to understand.

“You’ve grown so cold, Vasya. You've even forgotten how to kiss.”

“I’m so tired, Volodya. All my energy’s gone,” was her excuse.

But Volodya was angry. Vasya herself realized that things couldn’t go on that way. Here her lover had come to visit her, after an endlessly long time, and she was gone all day, working, returning only late at night, dead tired, scarcely able to tumble into bed. How could she think of kissing!

There were painful incidents. One evening Volodya began to caress her. But she fell asleep the moment her head touched the pillow.

The next morning Vladimir teased her. Where was the fun in petting a lifeless body? He was laughing, but she saw that he was offended. She too felt unhappy about it, felt that she was to blame. He could really believe that she no longer loved him. But where was she to get the energy for everything?

One day Vasya came home earlier than usual.

Vladimir was preparing the dinner for himself.

“What’s the matter? Where is Styosha?”

“Your Styosha is a little devil. I threw her out. If she dares to show her face here again I’ll throw her down four flights of stairs.”

“Why, what happened? What did she do?”

“Take my word for it, she’s a devil. I wouldn’t have chased her away for nothing. I don’t have to tell you the whole story. You’ll only get excited. She’s a vulgar, filthy creature. I don’t want to see any trace of her here.”

Vasya saw that he was furious at Styosha, and determined to ask no more questions. She probably had stolen something, she thought. Such things often happened. And Vladimir was very strict about his things. Though he was very liberal otherwise, and always glad to share what he had with his comrades, yet he had that possessive instinct. Let anyone dare take something of his without his permission, never forgive him.

“What’ll become of our household?”

“Let the house go to the devil! I’ll go to the hotel. And I’ve found some friends. I won’t starve!”

Styosha went to see Vasya in the Housing Bureau, demanded her payok.

“What happened between you and Vladimir Ivanovitch, Styosha? What did you do?”

“I didn’t do a thing.” Styosha’s eyes flashed as she pushed her comb more firmly into her hair. “Your Vladimir Ivanovitch always was fresh to me so I slapped his face good and hard for him. He spit blood for quite a while. And he won’t try it again.”

“How silly you are, Styosha. Vladimir Ivanovitch was only playing with you.”

Vasya was trying to remain calm, but her head was swimming.

“A nice sort of play that was. Why, he had me down on the bed! It’s a good thing that I’m strong. No one can have me against my will.”

Vasya tried to convince Styosha that it had all been meant playfully, as a joke, and that now Vladimir Ivanovitch was really cross with her. But Styosha looked more stubborn. What was the difference what it was all about. She would never cross that threshold again.

Gloom enveloped Vasya’s heart. She didn’t blame Volodya, didn’t even feel hurt. It was her own fault, after all. Why was she so cold? She had offended Volodya. He might actually believe that she no longer loved him. But this was nasty. Why had he touched the girl? Styosha was barely out of her childhood. It was a good thing that she knew life. What might not have happened otherwise? The incident preyed on Vasya’s mind. She was undecided as to whether she should tell Vladimir that she knew everything, or whether she should remain silent.

But Vasya had no more opportunity of talking with Vladimir.

A new order was inaugurated. Vladimir hunted up his old friends, the employees of the union. He disappeared for days at a time. They never saw each other. In the morning, when Vasya went to the Housing Bureau, Volodya was still sound asleep. When she stopped in during the day he wasn’t there. When she came home at night the attic was still empty.

Vasya would be nervous. She didn’t know whether she should go to bed or wait to have tea with him. She heated her supper on the petroleum burner, arranged her papers for the morning, listened to the steps in the hall.

That wasn’t Vladimir.

She put out the fire, for economy’s sake, and took up her papers again. She looked over reports, sorted petitions. Someone was hurrying up the stairs. Was it he? No, it wasn’t Vladimir.

Vasya would go to bed alone, would soon be sleeping the sleep of exhaustion. But even in her sleep she would listen. It was so cold and dreary without him.

Sometimes he would be merry when he came home; he would wake up Vasya, and make love to her. He would be burning to tell her everything, would have thousands of plans up his sleeve.

Then Vasya would feel so happy, so content. All her troubles would disappear.

Sometimes, however, Vladimir wasn’t entirely sober when he came; walking heavily, he would look about him scowling, with watery eyes. He was full of self-reproach on these occasions, but he blamed Vassilissa too. What a life! In a cage, under the roof! No pleasure, no diversions – a woman, and yet not a woman! And they had no child.

This, particularly, stabbed Vasya. Although she had not wanted a child, she would have liked to have one for his sake. But it seemed impossible. She never became pregnant. Other women wept and wailed because of their inability to avert the flood of children. But it seemed that she, Vasya, was to be denied the joys of motherhood.

“Anemia,” was the doctor’s opinion.

In order to cheer up Vasya, Vladimir decided to take her to the theatre; he procured the tickets.

Vasya came home at the appointed time. Vladimir was preening himself before the mirror. He had put on fine clothes, and looked like a “gentleman” again. Laughing, Vasya teased him. She loved her handsome man.

“And what’ll you put on ?” He looked at her anxiously. “Haven’t you a Sunday dress?”

Vasya laughed again. What in the world was a Sunday dress? He must have learned that in America, where people dress up in a different outfit every day. She would put on a clean blouse, and the new shoes Volodya had brought her. That was all her finery.

Vladimir looked cross. He scowled at her so that she grew frightened.

“Do you think people will look only at your feet in the theatre? And the rest of your clothes can be sackcloth?”

“I don’t understand why you’re angry, Volodya.”

“How can one help being angry at these organizers of ours! They’ve arranged our lives as if we were in prison. Here you’ve no real amusement, no real home, no decent dress! You have to live in a cage, drink water, eat garbage and wear coarse clothes! Why, I Was better off when I was out of work in the United States!”

“But you can’t expect everything at once. You know – the collapse.”

“Don’t talk to me about the collapse. What sort of organizers have we, anyhow? They’ve torn down everything with their own hands, but if anyone wants to do something constructive they shout: ‘Do you want to become burshuis? Hands off'!’

“No, you don’t know how to live! That’s why everything goes to pieces. I’m sure I didn’t go through the Revolution to lead such a life!”

“Why, the Revolution wasn’t for us!”

"For whom, then?”

“For everybody.”

“The burshuis, too?”

“Don’t be silly! Of course not for the burshuis! For the workers, the proletariat!”

“And what do you think we are? Not workers, not proletariat?”

They disputed and disputed, almost coming late to the theatre.

Through the streets they went, through the slush of spring. Vladimir walking ahead silently, with huge steps, so that Vasya barely could follow.

“Don’t run so, Volodya. I’m all out of breath.”

Suddenly he stopped and waited. After that he walked more slowly, but still refused to say a word.

In the theatre, Vladimir met some friends, with whom he spent the intermissions. And Vasya had to sit alone.

The theatre gave her no pleasure. Why had she wasted the evening? Now, she would have to work twice as hard in the morning.

The Congress opened shortly before Vladimir’s departure. He attended it, although he was not a delegate. There was wrangling; antagonistic groups were formed. Vladimir was on Vasya’s side. Leaving his friends, he worked for her group wholeheartedly, Now Vasya and Vladimir became inseparable. They went to and from the Congress together, discussed their stand at home. The Comrades of her group crowded Vasya’s room. They drew up resolutions. Vladimir wrote on the typewriter they had procured. Everyone was working swiftly, hurriedly; they seemed welded together. They would become agitated, would quarrel. Then they would laugh again, for no reason but their youth. They liked the battle for its own sake. It kept their minds off their troubles.

Stepan Alexeyevitch was there too, sitting at the table and stroking his fine gray beard. His genial, animated eyes watched youth. Vassilissa was always whispering about something with him. He spoke very highly of her, said she was above the average. But he seemed rather cool toward Vladimir. Vasya was sorry to see it. Why this attitude? Vladimir, too, was distant in his manner.

“Your Stepan Alexeyevitch is too oily for me. He smells of incense. He’s no Communist fighter. Just a toady, that’s all.”

Vasya’s faction was defeated. But she had received more votes than she had expected. That too, was a victory.

As the Congress was drawing to a close, the time of Vladimir’s departure approached. Again Vasya was torn in two. She had to equip him for his trip and the Congress was still going on.

But deep down in her heart Vasya was glad. Once more she had felt that her man was not only her lover but her friend. She was proud of him, for he had been a great help to her group. The Comrades wouldn’t let him go.

“Now good-bye, my Vasyuk. My little sparrow will stay all alone under its gable. Now it won’t have anyone to tell its troubles to. But to make up for that no one’ll disturb you in your work.”

“Did you ever bother me?” She embraced him, fondled him.

“Didn’t you say yourself that your man was taking up your time? Didn’t you complain about the housekeeping?”

“Oh, don’t talk of that. It’s much worse without you.”

And she hid her head against his breast.

“You’re not only my sweetheart, but my comrade, too. That’s why I love you.”

They parted tenderly, on the best of terms.

After seeing off Vladimir she hurried back to the Congress, thinking: no matter how nice it is to be together, you’re better off alone. The presence of your lover distracts your thoughts, makes your work progress too slowly.

Now she could again devote herself entirely to her work. Work and rest. She had never had enough sleep when he was there.

“Did you see your husband off?” Stepan Alexeyevitch asked her at the Congress.

“Yes, Vladimir has gone.”

“That’s better for you. He only got you into debt.”

Vasya was amazed. How had Stepan Alexeyevitch known? But she did not answer. If she had admitted it her lover’s prestige might have suffered.

Chapter VI

The train was to arrive in the morning. And Vassilissa was up with the first pale light of dawn had to collect her things, and dress, to please her beloved Volodya. They had been hard, those seven months of separation.

Vassilissa was happy, gay, joyful. She felt the spring in the air.

The Nep-girl was still in bed, lying on her back, and gazing at her reflection in a hand mirror. But Vasya had already washed herself, carefully brushed her curls, and put on the new dress Grusha had made for her. Vassilissa looked into the mirror on the wall. She saw only her eyes. They sparkled so that her entire face looked beautiful.

Everything seemed to be allright. This time Volodya wouldn’t lecture her for running around in “rags. ” A station. Vassilissa looked out the window. It was early in the morning, the sun was shining. In the North one could hardly see that it was Spring, but here everything was in bloom. The trees, too, were full of flowers. Strange, very odd trees. Leaves like those of the black alder, but more delicate in color; and the boughs covered with white blossoms, resembling lilac blossoms; but they were not lilacs. Their perfume, sweet and very strong, was pouring in through the window.

“What sort of tree is that?” Vasya asked the conductor. “We don’t have them in our country.”

“White acacias.”

“White acacias? They’re pretty.” The conductor broke off a few branches and gave them to Vasya.

How sweet their scent was. And Vasya was so happy that she was almost in tears. Everything about her was so beautiful, so fascinating. But the most important thing: “In another hour, I’ll see Volodya.”

“Will we be there soon?” Again Vasya turned to the conductor. To her it seemed that the train wasn’t moving at all. It had stopped again, at a siding. At last it moved on.

Now the city was in sight. The cathedrals. The barracks. The suburbs. The platform of the station. But where was Volodya? Where?

Vasya looked out of the open window. Volodya, however, had come in through the other end of the car, and took her into his arms.

“There you are, Volodya. How you frightened me.”

They kissed.

“Quick, let me have your things. This is our secretary. Please take the things, Ivan Ivanovitch. We’re going to the auto. I have a couple of horses now, Vasya, a cow and a car. And I am intending to get some little pigs. We have a lot of room; it’s a regular farm. You’ll see for yourself. You’ll live like the lady of the manor. Things are getting along well. Not long ago we opened a branch in Moscow.”

Vladimir talked on and on. He could not tell her quickly enough of the things he was busy with, which filled his thoughts. Sitting in the auto, Vasya listened. And although she was very much interested in what Volodya had to say she would have liked to talk about her own affairs, to find out how he had got along without her. Had he longed for her very much? Had he waited very anxiously for her?

They drew up before the house. A one-family house with a garden. A half-grown youth, an errand-boy in a gallooned cap, was standing guard at the door. He helped them out of the car.

“Now, Vasya, we’ll see how you like our house. Whether you’ll find it better than your cage under the roof.”

Carpet on the stairs. A mirror. A reception hall. Vasya took off her hat, dropped her coat. They went into the living-room. Sofas, rugs. A huge clock in the dining room. Some still life's in gilded frames. Antlers on the wall.

“Well, how do you like it?” Vladimir was radiant with pride.

“I like it,” Vasya replied uncertainly, looking about. She didn’t know herself whether she cared for it, Everything was so strange, so unfamiliar.

“And this is our bedroom.” Vladimir opened the door wide. There were two windows opening on the garden. This pleased Vasya at once.

“Trees,” she cried, delighted. “White acacias.” She hurried to the window.

“Look around the room first; you’ll have plenty of time to run around the garden. Isn’t it nice, what I’ve prepared for you? I picked out and arranged everything myself. I’ve waited for you since the moment I moved in.”

“Thanks, darling.” Vasya stretched to kiss Volodya. But he seemed not to see it, took hold of her shoulders and turned her so that she faced the long mirror in the wardrobe.

“See how convenient it is. When you dress you can see yourself from top to toe in the mirror. There are shelves inside: for your underwear, for your hats, for all sorts of gewgaws....”

“Why, how many hats and gewgaws do you think I have? You’ve hit the nail on the head.” Vasya laughed.

But Volodya went on: “Will you look at the bed? A silk quilt – I had a hard time finding it. It belongs to me; I didn’t get it among my supplies. And here’s a pink lamp to light at night.”

Vladimir showed Vasya around, pointing out every trifle, delighted as a child.

“Didn’t I feather a cozy little nest for my little girl?” Vasya listened, smiling at his happiness, but still not quite at ease. She couldn’t deny it, the rooms were nice, splendid. Rugs, curtains, mirrors! But not familiar. As if she had come into somebody else’s house. The things were not what Vasya needed. There were no tables where she could spread her books and papers. Only one thing really pleased her. That she could see white acacias from the windows facing the garden.

“Get ready, now, and wash up; then we’ll have some breakfast,” said Vladimir, going over to the window to let down the shades.

“What are you doing that for?” objected Vasya. “It’s so nice to look out into the garden.”

“But it won’t do. The shades have to be down by day, or the upholstery will fade.”

Down sank the gray shades; like heavy eyelids they hid the green of the garden shining in through the window. And the room became gray, monotonous, even less familiar. Vasya washed her hands, and combed her curls before the mirror.

“What’s that you have there? Did you have a dress made of the material I sent you?”

“Why, yes...,” expecting a word of praise, Vasya looked up at Volodya inquiringly.

“Let’s have a good look at you.” He turned her about. She could tell from his expression that he wasn’t pleased.

“Where in the world did you get the idea of piling all that stuff on your hips? You’ve a narrow figure, just the thing for the new fashions. Why did you get this monstrosity?”

Vasya was confused, flushed to the roots of her hair. She felt guilty.

“Why a monstrosity? Grusha says that’s stylish now.

“What does your Grusha know about it? She made a mess of the material. You look like the wife of a pope. You’d do better to take off that dress and put on your every-day skirt. You’d look more like yourself. This way you’re neither fish, flesh, nor fowl.”

Volodya did not see the disappointment in Vasya’s face. He went out into the dining room to see about breakfast.

With a heavy heart Vasya pulled off Grusha’s handiwork, and hastened to put on her old skirt and the blouse with the leather belt.

She was not at all happy. Two little tears dropped on the old blouse. They dried quickly. And there was an unpleasant coldness in Vasya’s eyes.

The “manager’s housekeeper” came to pay her respects during breakfast. Marya Semyonovna. A robust woman of middle age and respectable appearance.

Vasya shook hands with her.

“That wasn’t necessary,” said Vladimir after Marya Semyonovna had left the dining room. “If you don’t act like the lady of the house you’ll have them all on your neck.”

Vasya looked at him in amazement. “That’s something I simply can’t understand.”

Vladimir served Vasya. But she had no appetite, felt ill at ease.

“Here, look at the tablecloth, Morosov linen. The napkins have the same design, too. But I didn’t have them put out, it costs too much to wash them.”

“Where did you get all these things? Did you really buy everything?” Vasya looked searchingly at Vladimir.

“Such an idea! Why, do you know what these furnishings would cost nowadays? Billions! Do you really think that my manager’s salary enables me to buy such luxuries? All these things were supplied to me. I was lucky enough to come at the time when it was possible, with the assistance of some friends to obtain such furnishings from the authorities. Now they’ve put a stop to all this. No one can have his house furnished like this today. Not unless he pays cash. Besides, I bought several things on my own account during the winter; the wardrobe with the mirror, in the bedroom, the silk quilt, the drawing room lamp....” Vladimir enumerated everything, happily, contentedly.

Vasya’s eyes grew colder and colder, shone with wrath. They no longer seemed brown, but green, like a cat’s eyes.

“And how much did all these splendid things cost you?” Vasya’s voice trembled. Vladimir did not notice, but continued eating his chop and drinking his beer.

“Well, if you calculated the total, including what I’ve taken on credit, on the instalment plan, it amounts to....”

Slowly, so as to impress Vasya, Vladimir mentioned a very considerable sum. Raising his laughing eyes to her face, he seemed to say: now do you see what a fine fellow I am?

“Why, Vasya, what’s the matter with you?

She had jumped to her feet, was standing over him with angry green eyes.

“Where did you get the money? Tell me at once – where?”

“What’s the matter, Vasya? Calm yourself. You surely don’t believe that I got it dishonestly? Or don’t you know anything about money values? Compare it with my salary, and you’ll see.” He told her the amount of his monthly drawing account and bonus.

“That’s your salary? Your monthly salary? But how dare you, a Communist, spend it for such trash, for such nonsense? Poverty’s increasing! Misery and famine are round about! And the unemployed? Have you forgotten them? Was there nothing irregular about your becoming the manager?”

The furious green eyes came closer to Vladimir. “Well, Sir Manager, will you be good enough to answer?”

Vladimir did not give up, but wanted to bring Vasya to reason, to convince her good-naturedly. He laughed at her. “You live like a sparrow under the gables, and have no idea of what money is worth. Others are earning even more, and live quite differently. They make a really elegant appearance.”

But Vasya was not the sort to be defeated with words. She had made up her mind to demand an account. Why didn’t he live as a Communist? Why did he throw away his money on foolish trifles while poverty and famine held sway round about him?

Vladimir realized that he couldn’t get at her by this means. He would have to try another way. He would have to attempt a political explanation. That it was all a part of the manager’s task. Instructions from headquarters. The main thing was to do all he could to make the undertaking flourish, to increase the earnings of his company. And this was his strongest point. Vasya must wait until she saw what he had accomplished in a year. He had built up everything in a deserted place, had increased the output, so that now the entire trust was dependent on his supervision. She would see for herself. Though he lived “like a human being” he was none the less concerned with every one of his employees, with the most humble shipping clerk. Let her only get an insight into the matter, then she would think differently. But he had not expected that his friend, Vasya, his wife, his comrade, would come there to join in the chorus of his enemies. It was so hard to work that way. He gave all his energy to the cause, and these were his thanks. Even his wife was against him, wanted to condemn him.

Vladimir was offended and furious. His eyes were those of an angry wolf. They flashed fire at Vasya, as though to burn her. Because of her suspicion and condemnation.

Vasya listened thoughtfully. He might be right. Everything was different now. The most important thing was that his accounts were straight and the work done. The national wealth must be increased. She was not disputing that.

“Because I get some things, establish my own household? Am I to live in community houses forever? And. why are we worse than American laborers? You should see how they live there. They have their own piano, their own Ford, their own motorcycle.”

In the meantime the worthy Marya Semyonovna had looked into the dining room several times. She wanted to serve the fritters; and she saw that these two quarreled the moment they met. That’s how it had been with the “real gentlefolk” whom she had served before the Revolution. They, or the Communists – they were all alike. Only, it was too bad about the fritters, they would spoil with the standing.

Vladimir took Vasya everywhere, showed her the offices, the warehouses and the homes. He took her to the bookkeeping department, too. “Just take a look at our books, you won’t find such a system of accountancy anywhere else. See how wonderfully I’ve arranged things, and then tell me that I’m wasteful.”

He asked the bookkeepers to explain to Vasya the principle of their system, which was simplified, but accurate. It had received special commendation from headquarters.

Vasya listened carefully. Although she couldn’t understand everything she saw that they were trying hard and loved their work. Volodya, too, was in it with all his heart and soul. He took her to the homes of the employees, purposely asked their wives whether they were satisfied. He looked at Vasya triumphantly.

Everyone said the same thing: Were they satisfied?

Nowadays it was impossible to be better off “We owe our lives to your providence, Vladimir Ivanovitch.”

“There! And you say I’m a spendthrift! Believe me, I took care of our employees first. I got as much as I could for them. And only then did I think of myself. You see how they live. The workingmen are just as well off as the office force. I made special efforts in their behalf. Really, I did everything I possibly could.”

“Very well, you did all that. But what about them?

What did they do for themselves?”

“What peculiar ideas you have, Vasya. Don’t we have the same interests, they and I? Before, of course, the manager stood on one side, and the workers on the other. But not now, not here. You’ve become moss-grown in your little bog.”

He was joking, yet Vasya felt that Vladimir wasn’t pleased, that she had offended him. He spent the entire day taking her about the various buildings of the works. Vasya grew tired. Her temples began to throb; she had a stitch in her side, a backache. If only she could go home, lie down and go to sleep. Her head was still buzzing with the noise of the train-wheels. But Volodya had just told her that there would be guests for dinner. She was to receive them.

They came home, entered the hall. The errand-boy opened the door, and remained standing, as though expecting a command. Looking at him, Vladimir took a notebook from his pocket, scribbled a few words, and gave the note to the boy.

“Now hurry, Vassya, so there’ll be no delay. You’ll bring the answer to me personally. Understand?”

He turned to Vasya again, looked at her with an odd expression on his face, half guilty, half inquiring.

“What’s the matter with you, Vasyuk? Why do you stare at me so?” His voice sounded uncertain.

“Nothing’s the matter. But – the errand-boy’s name is Vassya, too?”

“Yes; don’t you like the idea of there being two Vasya’s in my house? Can you imagine! She’s jealous ! But you needn’t worry. There’s not another Vasya like you in the world.”

Gently he put his arm about her, gazed into her eyes, and kissed her. It was the first time he had caressed her all day. They went into the bedroom arm in arm.

The dinner-guests arrived: Savelyev and Ivan Ivanovitch, the secretary of the administration. Savelyev was a tall, lean man, in a light gray suit. His thin hair was neatly combed, and he wore a seal-ring on his index-finger. Clever, rather crafty eyes, an unpleasant smile on his smooth-shaven face. As though he were watching everything, and as if everything were the same to him as long as he was well off. That’s how it seemed to Vasya.

When he met Vasya he raised her hand to his lips. She pulled it away.

“I’m not used to that.”

“As you say. But I never object to kissing the hand of a young woman. It’s pleasant, and the husband can’t be jealous. You must be very jealous, Vladimir Ivanovitch? Confess!”

As he spoke he slapped Volodya’s back. Vladimir laughed.

“Vasya is a model wife, there’s no need of being jealous of her.”

“So she doesn’t follow her husband’s example?”

Savelyev winked at Vladimir. And Vladimir’s eyes suddenly grew big and frightened.

“I don’t think I’ve ever done anything to ..

Savelyev interrupted. “Never mind. We know how you are, you married men. I’ve been through it myself. But now I’m leading a bachelor’s life.”

Vasya didn’t like Savelyev. Didn’t like him at all. But Volodya talked with him as with a friend. About business, about politics. Vasya wouldn’t have discussed politics with this “speculator,” wouldn’t have laughed with him at the Chairman of the Executive Committee. She would have to reason with Volodya, persuade him to drop this friendship.

They had wine for dinner. The secretary, Ivan Ivanovitch, had brought it in a basket. They were worried about some large shipments that had failed to arrive, and which they were afraid would come too late for the fair.

Vasya listened, trying to grasp the meaning of it all. But it seemed to her that these things weren’t so very important, as if the main point were not being mentioned. The throbbing and hammering of her temples bothered her, and her eyes hurt. If only the meal were over.

Vladimir ordered the auto right after dinner. He had to attend an important meeting concerning the shipment.

“Are you really going to the meeting today? The day your wife came? You ought to stay with her.

It’s not nice of you, Vladimir Ivanovitch.” Savelyev looked at Vladimir with a crooked smile.

“Impossible,” interrupted Vladimir, carefully lighting a cigarette. He would have been glad to stay – business, you know.

Savelyev could not refrain from saying, “There are two sides to everything.”

And again Vasya thought he was winking at Vladimir, laughing at him. A disgusting speculator.

“If I were in your place I’d drop everything else today, and spend the first evening with your wife. Your business won’t run away.”

Vladimir didn’t answer, but picked up his cap angrily.

“Well, Nikanor Platonovitch, are we ready to go?”

They drove off, Ivan Ivanovitch going with them. Vasya was left alone. Alone, in the great empty house that was so strange to her. She went through the rooms. Dreary, lonely, cold. She stood beside the window. Then she lay down on the bed with the silk quilt, and fell asleep at once.

She awoke with a start. It was dark. Lighting the lamp, she glanced at the clock. A quarter past twelve. Had she really slept so long? Past midnight. Vladimir had not come in.

Getting up, Vasya bathed her face and went into the dining room.

The supper-table was set, the light was burning. The room was empty and still, the rest of the house dark. She went into the kitchen, where Marya Semyonovna was straightening things.

“Hasn’t Vladimir Ivanovitch returned?”

“No. Not yet.”

“Does he always come back so late from his meetings?”

“It depends.”

Marya Semyonovna was sullen, and sparing with her words.

“How about you? Are you waiting up for him? Aren’t you going to bed?”

“Vassya and I take turns. One day he stays up, the next day I do.”

“Will Vladimir have supper when he comes?”

“If he brings any guests I guess he’ll have some. Otherwise he goes straight to his room.”

Vasya stayed a little while longer, silent. She saw that Marya Semyonovna was busy with her own affairs, and paid no attention to her.

Going back to the bedroom, Vasya opened the window. A cool, quiet spring night. The air was filled with the strong perfume of the acacias. The frogs croaked loudly, curiously. At first Vasya thought they were night birds.

The sky was dark, and dotted with many, many twinkling stars. Vasya gazed into the dark garden, looked up at the sky and stars. Her heart became calmer. She forgot the speculator, Savelyev, forgot the pain Vladimir had involuntarily caused her during the day. Now she felt with all her soul that she had come to him, to her beloved, to help and guide him. One who associates with Nep-people cannot help leaving the right road. That was why he had summoned her, his friend and wife.

Remembering how Vladimir had arranged everything, Vasya was proud of him. How energetic he was. Now she saw things in a different light. Everything seemed clearer, more intelligible, more cheerful than during the day.

Vasya was so absorbed with her thoughts that she failed to hear either the car drawing up or Vladimir walking over the rugs and carpets to her. The sound of his voice made her start.

“What were we thinking about so hard, little Vasyuk of mine?”

As Vladimir bent over her, his eyes seemed anxious and loving.

“Have you really come, dear? I’ve been waiting so long.”

She threw her arms about his neck.

Vladimir picked her up as in the first months of their love, and carried her through the room like an adored child.

Vasya felt happy and gay. Volodya loved her, loved her as always! How silly she had been! Why had she felt hurt in the morning?

They drank tea together, had an intimate and affectionate talk. Vasya pronounced her opinion of Savelyev. “It’s better not to be a friend of his.”

Vladimir did not deny it. He admitted that he, too, had no respect for him; but he was useful; the whole business would have been impossible without him. He had many connections from before, and enjoyed the confidence of the merchants; it was possible to come in contact with them through him. Volodya, too, had learned much from him. Frankly speaking, he was not worth much as a man. A genuine burshui; but in business he was indispensable. That was why Volodya had defended him when the highest authorities, the “super-clever fellows,” had arrested Savelyev. And he was highly esteemed in Moscow. The local authorities had been given a good calling-down on his account.

“Yes, but didn’t you write me that his hands aren’t clean?”

“How can I make it clear to you? He’s our representative. Of course he doesn’t neglect himself. But he’s no worse than the others. Besides, the other fellows dawdle about and do nothing, while he works conscientiously. And he knows his work, likes it.”

All this notwithstanding, however, Vladimir promised to see less of him. Business was business, but it didn’t necessitate a friendship.

Having finished their tea, they returned to the bedroom arm in arm. Vladimir pressed Vasya’s head to his breast, kissed her curls, and spoke thoughtfully, tenderly. “Such a dear little head. It’ll always be mine, won’t it? Another friend like you, Vasya, doesn’t exist. I love only you, my Vasya, my little tomboy.”

Vasya woke up late. Vladimir had gone to work long before.

She didn’t feel well. She had shooting pains in her side, felt feverish, and was beginning to cough. Had she caught cold on the trip? Although it was a beautiful sunny day she wrapped a shawl about her. She didn’t want to move, and didn’t want to get up. Marya Semonovna came into the room, stood in the doorway, folded her hands before her, and looked at Vasya as though she were expecting something.

“Good morning, Marya Semyonovna.”

“Good morning,” was the dry response. “What will you order for dinner? When he left, Vladimir Ivanovitch said you’d attend to everything. You're having guests.”

Vasya was at a loss. She had no idea what she should order. At home, in the community house, she had had only such food as the State supplied.

Seeing that Vasya knew nothing whatever about such matters, Marya Semyonovna suggested various dishes. Vasya agreed to everything. But she inquired as to the cost. Wouldn’t it be very dear? Marya Semyonovna’s mouth snapped shut.

“Well, if you want a good dinner, you can’t save on it. You can’t have anything without money. The Communists have done away with the payoks.”

“Do you have any money?”

“There’s a little left from yesterday, but not enough for today. Meat is expensive, and we’ll have to buy butter, too.”

“So Vladimir left you no money?”

“He left me nothing. He only said: ‘Go to Vassilissa Dementyevna and discuss everything with her.’ ” What should she do now? Marya Semyonovna stood there, waiting for the money, and would not go. Vasya had a little money left, but the household would soon eat it up; and she would be left without a kopek. She didn’t like that idea.

“Why don’t you advance some of your money to me, and then have Vladimir Ivanovitch give it back to you?” suggested Marya Semyonovna.

“Really, that never occurred to me!”

And the matter was settled.

When Marya Semyonovna had gone Vasya went out into the garden. She walked up and down the paths for a long time, until she was tired. She felt so exhausted. Lying down, she took up a book, and fell asleep over it.

Vasya lay stretched on the bed. Her cheeks were burning, her sleep was disturbed by dismal, tormenting dreams. Waking, she looked about fretfully. Why had she gone to sleep? It would have been better to see the sights of the city. She hadn’t come to Vladimir to be sick. Yet she hadn’t the slightest desire to raise her head. She closed her eyes, and her thoughts immediately became confused. It was no proper sleep, not even a doze. But she wasn’t fully conscious, either.

“Vassilissa Dementyevna, Vladimir Ivanovitch will come in for dinner any moment; you should get dressed. Then I could make the bed. He hates to see disorder in the house.”

Marya Semyonovna was bending over Vasya as though, being the elder, she wanted to correct her.

“Is it that late?”

“Almost five. And you haven’t even had breakfast. I wanted to wake you before, but you were sound asleep. That’s from the trip. You haven't gotten over it yet.”

“It might be the trip, or I may have caught cold. I feel chilled.”

“You should put on your woollen dress; it’ll by warmer. The little rag you’re wearing isn't any good.”

“My suit turned out badly. My husband didn’t like it at all.”

“Why do you say that? It’s not so bad. There may be too many pleats on the hips, and the waistline isn't just where it should be. Nowadays they’re wearing the waistline... I’ve been a dressmaker, too. I know all about clothes. Just you let me remodel the skirt. We’ll change that dress so Vladimir Ivanovitch won’t recognize it.”

“Will it be ready by dinner-time?”

“That’s asking a little too much. No, we’ll do it slowly; we won’t rush it. Now you put on your black skirt and wear the coat of your suit over it. That’ll look very well.”

Never before had Vasya spent so much time before the mirror. Marya Semyonovna was forever finding something to change. Here she fastened something with pins, there she made some long stitches. She found a lace collar, too. The effect was quite good. Simple, yet elegant. Even Vasya liked it. What would Vladimir say about it?

Almost as soon as she was finished Vladimir came with his guests: an employee of the G. P. U. (what had been the Cheka) and his wife. The ends of his mustache had been waxed to needle points; he was foppishly dressed, with tan boots that reached to his knees. And that called himself a Communist!

Vasya didn’t like him at all. And his wife dressed up like a street-walker! She wore a thin dress, white shoes and a fur scarf across her shoulders; her fingers were glittering with rings. Vladimir kissed her hand, jested with her. What were they talking about? She couldn’t understand it. It was all nonsense. Vladimir was bending over her gallantly, his eyes flirting with hers.

Vasya sat beside the man from the G. P. U. He was a Communist. But she had no idea of what to say to him.

They had wine again. Vladimir touched glasses with the lady; she whispered something to him, and both laughed. It annoyed Vasya. But he paid no attention to her. As if she didn’t belong to him. Queer! She didn’t like it.

Jokingly they mentioned the fasts. The lady said that she was religious and went to confession, even though she did not fast. How could that be? A Comrade of the G. P. U. married to a believer? Vasya scowled. She was out of humor. Because of Vladimir, too. What sort of friends did he have? Toward the end of the meal, Ivan Ivanovitch came in to tell them that Savelyev had taken a box in the theatre, and had invited them.

“We’ll go, won’t we, Vasya?” asked Vladimir.

“With Savelyev?” Vasya tried to catch his eyes; but he pretended not to understand.

“Yes, of course, with Nikanor Platonovitch. With the whole crowd. They’re giving a new operetta. It'll amuse you.”

“No, I won’t go.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t feel quite well. I must have caught cold on the trip.”

Vladimir looked closely at her.

“Really, you don’t look well, Vasya. Your eyes are quite sunken. Let me have your hand. Why, it’s terribly hot. Of course you can’t go. And I won’t go either.”

“But why not? Do go!”

The guests, too, persuaded Vladimir, and he gave in.

In the hall Vladimir embraced Vasya in the presence of the others, and whispered in her ear: “You look unusually pretty today, Vasya.”

He asked Marya Semyonovna to take care of Vassilissa Dementyevna.

“Go to bed right away, Vasya. I’ll be back soon. I won’t stay to the end.”

They drove off.

Vasya wandered about the rooms, quite forlorn.

She didn’t like this life. She couldn’t say just what was wrong with it. But everything was new and unfamiliar. And she was a stranger here; no one had need of her. Vladimir might love her, but he thought of her so little. He had put his arms around her, kissed her and gone away. It was different when he had to go to a meeting, to work. But this time it was the theatre! Why had he gone without her? Hadn’t he seen enough of the theatre during the winter? Something was troubling Vasya, haunting her. She couldn’t express it. She felt ill at ease.

“I’ll stay here a week,” she decided. “I’ll see how things stand with Volodya, and then I’ll go.”

But there was the rub. Where would she go? Back to the community house? Her room there, her attic under the roof was gone. Her friend, Grusha the seamstress, was living in it. Besides, the Fedosseyevs were there; there would be gossip and worry. Once more she would have to fight everybody for the house. And she felt too worn out for that. Besides, she had lost faith in the soundness of the proposition. And that was the most important point.

No, she had no place where she could go.

This thought made her heart even heavier, stabbed it as with a steel blade.

Vasya was cold. Shivering, she drew her hands into her sleeves. She wandered through the dark empty rooms.

She felt as if this strange house were preparing sorrow for her. A lurking disaster.

A premonition?

Could a Communist believe in premonitions? But it must be that. Else, why this melancholy? This infinite, nameless, fruitless melancholy?

Part Two: Menage

Chapter VII

Vladimir came home early, as he had promised. Vasya was in bed.

He sat down beside her, and inquired how she felt. He looked into her eyes as he spoke, and his grave, sad gaze puzzled Vasya. His eyes seemed to bespeak suffering.

“What’s the trouble, Volodya? You’re so gloomy.”

Burying his head in the pillow beside her, Volodya spoke in a despondent tone. “Life isn’t a bed of roses, Vasya. You don’t know how hard it is for me. You see only one side of my life. And you refuse to understand. If you could read my heart, how hard I tried all winter, you wouldn’t condemn me. You’d pity me. You’re so good, Vasya.”

She stroked his head, quieted him. And though she felt sorry for him her heart was full of joy. She felt that they had the same thought, had suffered the same pain. It wasn’t easy for a proletarian to act like a manager. She told him so.

But Volodya shook his head mournfully.

“It’s not only that, Vasya, not only that. There’s something else that torments me, that lets me have no peace.”

“Are they plotting against you?”

Volodya remained silent; it seemed that he wanted to say something, but couldn’t make up his mind.

Vasya put her arms about him. “Tell me what’s bothering you, dear.”

She laid her head on his shoulder.

“What smells so of perfume? When did you put on perfume?” Raising her head she looked at him.

“Perfume?” Volodya seemed embarrassed. He withdrew a bit. “I probably got it with my shave today. The barber must have put it on.”

Vladimir got up, lit a cigarette, slowly, carefully, and left Vasya. He absolutely had to look through some papers that evening.

Vasya coughed a little. She felt rather ill and feverish, had shooting pains in her side, Vladimir noticed it, although she tried to control herself in his presence. Her coughing disturbed him, and he had his bed made on the sofa in the drawing room.

The days dragged on. It was so dreary. She had nothing to do. Only little household worries now and then. Vladimir was trying to save, but insisted on everything being “just as it should be.” Vasya gave her little reserve to the household, for she didn’t like it when Volodya rebuked her: “Have you really used up all your housekeeping money? It’s impossible to get enough for you women.”

As if it were Vasya who invited guests and wanted three courses for dinner! However, she had no cause to complain of Vladimir. He was very solicitous in other ways. He was worried about Vasya’s health and had gone for the doctor himself. The diagnosis was general debility; and the right lung was affected. She was ordered to lie in the sun as much as possible, and to eat nourishing food. Vladimir was always inquiring whether she was doing everything the doctor had ordered. Marya Semyonovna was to see to it that Vasya had her meals at the proper time. He had procured cocoa for her, and had brought a chaise lounge for the garden, so that she could warm herself in the sun. Vladimir seemed very anxious about her.

When he came home he went to her immediately. They didn’t see much of each other, for Vladimir was very busy just then. It was a time of feverish work; the fair was to open soon. Vladimir seemed worried, thoughtful and rather depressed.

Lying on her chaise lounge on the little lawn, Vasya sunned herself like a lizard, and enjoyed life. She turned over from one side to the other, grew tanned as a little gypsy. A queer life. No work. No cares. But no joy, either. Like a dream. She was always thinking: Now, now I’ll wake up and I’ll be back home, in the community house. She thought once more of the Housing Bureau, the Comrades, Stepan Alexeyevitch, Grusha. Even of the Fedosseyevs. It had been a trying life, but it had been happier.

She was waiting for Vladimir. He had promised to come home earlier that day. Vasya had the feeling that today she would be able to talk with him. To have a good heart-to-heart talk. But day passed after day, and they never had that talk. There were always guests, or pressing work.

Savelyev no longer visited them, nor the usual guests, but members of the administration, who were strange and uninteresting to Vasya. Their conversation consisted only of consignments and unloadings, of packing and invoices, of sales and rising prices.

Vasya knew that all this was essential for the Republic, that the national economy could not be built up without an exchange of goods, but it bored her to listen to it. When she turned the conversation to Party matters, to Bucharin’s article, or the newspaper reports about the German Communists, they listened to her, and returned to their subject: shipments, con-signments, net and gross. Vladimir wasn’t bored. The Comrades brought him to life. He debated with them, let them advise him. Only when he was alone with her, with Vasya, did he grow downcast. He would sigh, pat her hands, and look at her unhappily. He didn’t ask for her help, didn’t complain. What could be bothering him? The intrigues against him seemed to have come to an end. She had heard nothing of them since her arrival. But what gave him such low spirits? He surely didn’t think that Vasya might die? This idea gladdened her. So he must love her? True, he spent little time with her; but she hadn’t spoiled him, either, when he had been her guest. She, too, had been on the go all day, had hardly had time to think of her man. But she loved him no less for all that.

Lying on her chaise lounge, Vasya was delighted with the treetops standing out against the blue sky. The summer breeze gently swayed them, as with a caress. The crickets were chirping in the grass, the birds were singing loudly in the bushes.

Getting up, Vasya walked along the grass-covered path to a lilac-bush in full bloom. How sweet it smelled. She plucked a branch. Buzz-z-z,– a bee flew past her, settled down on a purple mass, and dusted off its wings.

“Well, well, how brave you are. Aren’t you afraid of people?” laughed Vasya. And suddenly she felt happy, so free, that she was amazed at herself. She looked around as if she were seeing the garden for the first time. The green grass, the strong perfume, the purple lilacs – the little pond covered with duckweed, full of frogs croaking, calling to one another.

Vasya didn’t dare move. She was afraid that this sudden joy, this bright, light-winged joy might fly out of her heart. It was as if she had never known or felt or understood the meaning of life before. But now she had grasped it. No despondency, no rushing about, no work, no joy, no pushing toward a goal, but life pure and simple. Life, like the life of the bee circling over the lilacs, like the life of the birds singing in the trees, like the life of the crickets chirping in the grass. Life! Life! Life! Why couldn’t one spend all one’s life among the lilacs? Why couldn’t man be like all of God’s creatures? “God’s?” She was angry with herself. Since when was she thinking of God? That was the result of her idleness, of her burshui life, of Volodya’s good food. She might easily become a real Nep-girl if she continued this way.

Vasya hurried into the house. She was afraid of becoming soft.

But the joyful feeling stayed with her. She was in high spirits. Had she grown stronger, regained her health?

Hardly had Vasya come into the bedroom and put the lilacs into the vase when Vladimir drove up in the car.

He hurried over to her.

“Now they’ve begun. They’ve let me alone long enough, these gossiping schemers. Now they’ve found new energy to dig up old matters. They’ve just summoned me before the Supervisory Commission. They’re bringing an action against me. But we’ll see. We’ll see who’ll come out ahead.”

Vladimir was running about the room, one hand at his back, a sign of agitation.

His Anarchism had been thrown up to him, too, and lack of discipline and the devil alone knew what more!

Here he was, killing himself with work to get things going, but instead of helping, those fellows of the Executive Committee were only putting spokes in his wheels.

“If they keep on with this persecution, I’ll leave the Party. I’ll leave it of my own accord. They needn’t threaten me with expulsion.”

Vasya saw it as a serious matter. She felt anxious, oppressed. Was this the lurking disaster? But she gave no sign of her thoughts. Instead, she tried to calm Vladimir, to bring him to reason.

“And your beloved Stepan Alexeyevitch – he’s a fine fellow! They asked him about me. And, if you please, he could think of nothing better than to praise my work and say that for the rest I’m afflicted with self-complacency and moral instability. What sort of priests are they, judging a man not by his work and actions, but by his morals? I don’t live as a 'Communist’! Do they want to order me to become a monk? Are they any better? Now look! They re not dragging the head of the propaganda division into court, although he deserted his wife and three children and married a common street-walker. Do you think that’s right? Should a Communist act like that? Why do they expect me to live like an ascetic? What business of theirs is my private life, anyway?”

Here Vasya no longer agreed with Vladimir. The C. P. was right. It was not in keeping with the dignity of a Communist to imitate the burshuis. A Communist, and a manager besides, must lead an exemplary life.

“But where the devil do you find me to blame? Of what does my non-Communism consist? Of my refusing to live in filth? Of my work forcing me to know every muckworm? Why don’t they prescribe whom one may invite into one’s house, how many chairs one may have, how many pairs of pants a Communist may own?”

Vladimir was raging. He disputed with Vasya, but she was grateful for the opportunity to speak out everything she had been keeping in her heart. She didn’t know herself just what was wrong, but it seemed to her that Vladimir’s life and actions were not those of a Communist. Vladimir was trying to say that business would not go as well if there were no mirrors or rugs in the manager’s home; but she didn’t believe it. She wasn’t convinced that it was necessary to be good friends with Savelyev, or that business went better because Vladimir kissed every woman’s hand.

“So you agree with them? I knew it. I thought so. You didn’t come as my friend, but as my judge. You join in the chorus. And now I know that you despise me as the others do. Why don’t you say so openly? Why do you suppress your rage? Why do you torment me?”

Vladimir was livid, his eyes were flashing. His voice was full of fury and indignation. Vasya did not understand. Why did he flare up so? Wasn’t it permitted to contradict him nowadays? Such conceit! If only he wouldn’t have cause to regret it later.

“Oh, Vasya, Vasya. I didn’t think that of you. I didn’t suppose you’d desert me in my need. But I see I was mistaken. So let everything go to the devil! If I’m destined to perish, all right. Then, at least, everything’ll be over.”

He brought down his fist on the table, upsetting the vase. The fragrant purple masses fell to the floor; a shining rivulet of water flowed over the silk scarf.

“Now, look what you’ve done.”

Waving her away, Vladimir went to the window. He stared out sullenly. Looking at him, Vasya felt great pity for him, as usual. It wasn’t easy for him. But things were hard for every proletarian. it was difficult to see one’s way, to know what was right, what was permissible.

“Let’s stop, Volodya. Why are you so discouraged? It’s too soon for that. This matter still has to be investigated. And you’ve committed no crime. So it’s only a question of your insubordination. Just you wait, I’ll go to the Committee myself and try to find out what the trouble is. Everything’ll be set to rights again.”

Standing beside Vladimir, she laid her hand on his shoulder and tried to look into his face. But he seemed not to notice, stood there gloomily, absorbed in his thoughts. He hadn’t heard her at all. What was the matter with him? Why were they so strange to each other, so little like “comrades”? Vasya brooded silently. All the joy had gone out of her heart. There remained only anxiety, dull, oppressive anxiety.

The next day Vasya went to the Party Committee. The more she had questioned Vladimir the more alarmed she had become. Though the accusations seemed biased they were not to be taken lightly. How would the matter turn out?

Vasya hurried through the strange city, asking the way of passers-by, but wasting not a glance on the sights. She wanted to get to the Party Committee as quickly as possible. She couldn’t get rid of her alarm.

It was in a separate large building. The red flag flying over the entrance. The sign beside the door seemed so familiar, made her feel as if she were at home, in her own province. And suddenly she was happy, yearned to see “her own people.” She didn’t consider the Comrades who visited Vladimir members of the Party.

She asked for the Chairman’s office. The boy at the information table gave her directions.

“Write down your name and why you’ve come. It’s possible that he’ll see you today, but you might have to wait till Thursday.”

What sort of bureaucracy was that? Vasya didn’t like it, but there was nothing she could do about it. Sitting down at a table, she filled out the blank. “Here, take this to the secretary,” the information clerk handed the paper to the office boy. “Go up the stairs, turn to your left. That’ll bring you to the waiting room. Just take a seat there.”

He uttered these directions in a bored voice.

Suddenly he woke up: “Manyka, Manyka, how did you get here?”

She was a half-grown girl, wearing a short skirt and fashionable hat. Her eyes sparkled coquettishly.

“I’m going to see some friends. Why shouldn’t I come to your Party Committee?”

Disapprovingly Vasya appraised her as a street-walker. “In the old days such a creature wasn’t allowed to visit friends in Party Headquarters.”

Vasya walked through the long, bright hall; employees, male and female, hurried past her. There was no inactivity. Everybody was busy. Only she was superfluous.

In the waiting room she was received by the tendant clerk, a beardless youth. With an important air he asked for her name, and looked it up in a record book kept by a hunchback.

“It’s long before your turn. Your business isn’t urgent. You’ll have to wait.”

Vasya sat down in the back. There were others waiting too. Among them several laborers with peaked, miserable faces and threadbare coats. They were engaged in an animated discussion. Evidently a delegation. A tall, well-dressed gentleman with glasses – a specialist, of course – was absorbed in the reading of an old newspaper. A little old woman, a working woman – with a waterproof shawl, was sitting there patiently, sighing.

Then there was a Red Guard, a jolly young fellow in the pink of health. A peasant in a short jacket, and, beside him, a pope in his cassock. Why might he be there?

“It’s your turn, Father,” said the attendant, showing him into the Chairman’s office. “He belongs to the Living Church,” he explained to the rest. “A very clever fellow. He can be useful to us.”

Various clerks came in, bob-haired Communist girls in short, worn-out skirts, bustling back and forth, bringing papers to sign, making inquiries of the attendant. They whispered to him, and ran away again.

A very fashionably dressed woman came in. She behaved like a “fine lady,” but actually she was the wife of a prominent Party worker, and didn’t belong to the Party herself. Vasya knew her. She asked to be shown in before her turn. She had a note from a member of the Central Committee. Having come from Moscow, she had no time to wait. The attendant was firm. But the letterhead of the C. C. seemed to shake him. Finally he said he could not break the rules. If it was a personal matter she would please wait her turn. The “pseudo-lady,” as Vasya thought of her, was indignant. She couldn’t understand these provincial regulations. In Moscow she would have been given an audience immediately. In Moscow they were fighting against bureaucracy, but here! Forever inventing new rules! “Officials!”

She sat down, deeply offended, and carefully smoothed her dress.

A corpulent man rushed in noisily, his cap on the back of his head, his overcoat unbuttoned “A Nep-fellow,” thought Vasya.

“I say, Comrade, what sort of system do you have here? My time is valuable; we’re just making a shipment, and they’re delaying me with all sorts of nonsense. Want me to fill out blanks! Announce me – Konrashev.”

And he threw back his head with a self-satisfied air, as though he were Lenin himself. Vasya felt all her old hatred of the burshuis boiling up in her. That fellow ought to be arrested, to be brought to court. That monkey-face, that impudent monkey-face!

The attendant apologized. But it couldn’t be done. Rules. The Nep-fellow refused to listen. He became insistent in his demands, and won his point secretary went into the other room to announce him. But he returned with fresh apologies.

“The Chairman asks that you take a seat. He has to see two others before you on urgent business.”

“What the devil sort of system is this! And they want a fellow to do business with them! They demand everything of us, and make threats besides. Call us saboteurs. I’d like to know who is committing sabotage here!”

He wiped off his perspiration with his handkerchief. The “pseudo-lady” nodded in approbation. The bespectacled gentleman peered disapprovingly at her from behind his paper. The laborers were busy with their own affairs, as if they hadn’t noticed the noisy Nep-fellow.

They were the next to be called in. After them the “specialist” with the glasses had his turn.

It was a tiresome wait. Going to the window, she looked down into a garden, where two children were running about, chasing a dog. Their high clear voices were audible upstairs.

“Pull Bobka’s tail. Then he’ll howl. But he doesn’t bite. Here, Bobka! Catch him, catch Bobka!...”

Now it was Vasya’s turn. The Chairman was a, small man, hardly visible behind his big desk. He wore a pointed beard and glasses. He was so emaciated that his shoulder bones stood out through his coat.

He glanced ungraciously at Vasya, and gave her his hand without looking up.

“What do you want? Something personal?” He spoke briefly, dryly, as if she had made a plea.

“I’ve come to report at headquarters.” It would be better not to mention Volodya’s affair at first, thought Vasya. He’d never meet her half way.

“I came here a little while ago.”

“So I have heard. Are you here for any length of time?”

“I have a two months’ leave of absence, but I may stay here longer, because of my delicate health.”

“Are you simply resting, or do you want some work?”

As he spoke he didn’t look at Vasya, but arranged his papers. As if to show her that he had no time for idle talk.

“I wouldn’t accept any regular position. But you could use me in your propaganda work.”

“I could use you, yes. We’re beginning the work of transition to a local budget next week. Didn’t I hear that you have specialized in housing problems?” Again he glanced at Vasya, only to return to his papers.

“I’ve worked in the Housing Bureau for two years. I’ve organized some community houses.”

“Ah! That sounds interesting. You must teach us how to make the community houses self-supporting.”

Vasya shook her head. “I can’t do that. When we wanted to become self-supporting everything went to pieces. A community house is on the order of a school to develop the Communist spirit.”

“But, you see, this isn’t the time for such things. Give us a reasonable idea of the cost, a financial estimate, to take the burden of the state budget. But how can you want to combine the housing question with education? We have schools and universities for that.” The Chairman smiled a very superior smile that irritated Vasya.

Suddenly she rose.

“Good day, Comrade.”

“Good-bye.”

This time he looked more carefully at her. Vasya, too, looked coolly into his eyes.

“You might go to the propaganda department, and register there. Then you could stop in the women’s division, they always need workers there.”

“I also wanted to ask you how the matter of Vladimir Ivanovitch stands.” As she asked this she looked keenly at the Chairman. He, too, had his finger in the pie.

“Why, what could I tell you?” Wrinkling his forehead, the Chairman shifted his cigarette to the corner of his crooked mouth. “It’s quite serious. I’ve heard of you, that your standing in the Party is very good. But I’m not the right man to tell you anything about Vladimir Ivanovitch.”

“Of what do you accuse him? Vladimir Ivanovitch has done nothing criminal, couldn’t do anything of that sort.”

“What do you mean by criminal? But I’ve nothing to do with this business. Try to find out something from the S. C. Good-bye.”

He nodded to her, and again buried himself in his papers. Don’t bother me, I’m busy.

Scowling, furious, Vasya left the Chairman. Even a non-Communist wasn’t given such a reception in her province. She had come to her people, and had been treated like a stranger. Vladimir was right. They had become offcials, with the manner of military governors.

Vasya walked on thoughtfully, without even noticing that she had come on a man from home, Michailo Pavlovitch, a worker in the machinery division of the factory where Vasya had been employed.

“By all the saints, what do I see! The fair Vassilissa! Good morning.”

“My dear Michailo Pavlovitch.”

They embraced and kissed.

“Are you visiting your husband?”

“And what are you doing here?”

“I’m cleaning up the Party. I’m a member of the S. C. and we’re forever cleaning up, but we can’t get rid of all the muck.”

He laughed into his red beard. His eyes were warm, cordial. Still good through and through, as he always had been.

Both were delighted, asked and answered questions. Michailo Pavlovitch took Vasya to his cell beside the main entrance. In the good old days the janitor had lived there. Michailo Pavlovitch had settled there temporarily on his arrival, and had stayed there. An insignificant little room: a bed, a basket containing his personal belongings, two chairs, and a table covered with newspapers, glasses and tobacco.

They were glad to have met each other, and their conversation flowed on smoothly. They spoke of friends and comrades. Provincial questions came up; they discussed what was sound and what rotten. They spoke of the Nep, too. Michailo Pavlovitch was thoroughly sick of the Nep. Nor could he stand the Chairman of the provincial Committee.

“A little man, but very proud of himself. ‘I, Me and Company.’ Of course, he’s a hard worker, energetic and not stupid. But he wants to be everything. He’d like to be Chairman of the light that comes in through the window. The workers can’t stomach that. They say that the Congress has decided on democratization, but that our bureaucracy has only increased. There is more fawning and a great deal of gossip. They’re forming cliques that disturb our work, and undermine the authority of the Party. It’s the Chairman’s job to hold them all together impartially, like a father. But he drives people apart.”

“By the way, Michailo Pavlovitch, how do Vladimir’s affairs stand? What is he accused of? Is it serious? Tell me, as a friend.”

Michailo Pavlovitch stroked his red beard. He thought for a while before he answered. “In itself the matter isn’t worth a straw. If our Communists were to be brought to court for such things almost all of them would have to be condemned. The whole trouble is that Vladimir Ivanovitch couldn’t agree with the Chairman from the very beginning. Each insisted on his rights. The Chairman issued orders which Vladimir Ivanovitch did not follow, saying that they were the business of the Party, and did not concern him. ‘I’m not your subordinate, I’m connected with the economic organization only. Let that judge whether I do my work properly.’ There were conflicts, and the matter was taken up in Moscow, where some supported the Chairman while others defended the manager. No definite decision was reached. Both were right.

“So matters went from bad to worse. Neither would give in. Both would send denunciatory letters to Moscow at every opportunity. After things had gone on that way a while there came a commission from Moscow to smooth over the quarrel. They worked out a strict agreement. But the moment the commission had gone the squabbling began all over again.”

Now the matter was before the S. C. Michailo Pavlovitch would try to settle it peaceably. The manager was working in his own domain. The Central Committee was satisfied. And there really was nothing with which he could be charged. There couldn’t be. Michailo was convinced of that. Didn’t he know the “American,” the Anarchist? He still remembered how they had established the Soviet together in ’17, how they had worked together. And as for his living in great style, his unexemplary conduct, and his uncomradelike manner – were any of them without blame in this respect?

However, the Chairman and the other members of the Commission were all for going into the matter, for making an example of the manager, and for showing that the Party didn’t take such things lightly. To discourage others from doing the same.

“But what does Vladimir Ivanovitch do? Is it because his house is nicely furnished? But that isn’t his own; it belongs to the State, and has been put at the disposal of the manager.”

“It’s not only the furnishings. People are wondering where he gets the means to support two households.”

“How has he two households? Do you think that Vladirnir has been supporting me? How could you imagine such a thing? If you really want to know, I’ve even contributed my own money to the household. Because Vladimir can’t manage with his. His work compels us to receive people, to have dinner-guests.”

As Michailo Pavlovitch listened to Vasya she thought she read pity of some sort in his eyes. She didn’t like that. Why should he pity her? Because she was defending the “Anarchist”? Long ago, when she had first become associated with Vladimir, Michailo Pavlovitch had opposed her election.

“Why are you against me? Don’t you believe me? How could you think that I would press him for money?”

“I’m not speaking of you, my darling. But it’s not proper for him to have such objectionable friends.”

He looked searchingly at Vasya as he spoke.

“Are you alluding to Savelyev?”

“Yes, Savelyev, too. And the others.

“Savelyev doesn’t come to us any more. Vladimir has promised me not to have any but business relations with him. And as for the others, it’s all in his work. There are a great many people he doesn’t like, who are strangers to us. But what can he do? They’re in the business, shareholders or technicians.”

“Yew-es!” drawled Michailo Pavlovitch, thoughtfully stroking his beard.

Vasya told him that she, too, couldn’t understand many things. Sometimes she didn’t know herself what was right and what was wrong. What was permissible, and what should a Communist not do? People had changed and so had the work.

She would have liked to stay longer with her friend, but Michailo was sent for to go to the S. C.

As they parted they arranged that Michailo Pavlovitch would acquaint Vasya with his factory boys. As for the question of the manager, he would think it over. But she should understand this: if Vladimir would go on that way he would run the risk of expulsion.

Chapter VIII

“At last my tomboy’s come back! Where were you fighting? At Party Headquarters? What did they say there?”

Vladimir met Vasya on the stairs.

He must have been waiting for her at the window.

He listened to Vasya’s report, walking up and down the room and smoking. His face was worried. “You say they’re accusing me of keeping up two households. And suppose I had five households. What business is it of theirs, the hypocrites? My accounts are in order, I’m not stealing any goods or accepting any bribes; what in the world do they want?”

And again Vasya didn’t bother about the significance of “two households.”

She remained firm concerning Savelyev. That would have to stop. Let him go to the office, but keep him out of the house. She also inquired about the workingmen: Was it really true that Vladimir was foul-mouthed and abusive?

“That’s fiction pure and simple. Nonsense.

Defamation., Of course, it happens that I shout at them, or even curse them.

But it’s all for the cause and never without a reason. They can’t be left to themselves. Especially the shippers – a lazy, dull-witted group.”

Vasya didn’t tell Vladimir that he was threatened with expulsion. He was sufficiently depressed without that. But now she determined to organize the household properly. Simpler food, no more unnecessary guests. Vladimir would have to get rid of the horse he had bought. Why did he need a horse when he had the car?

Vladimir flared up again. It was a well-broken saddle horse, would even take a side saddle! “It’s impossible to get such a thing nowadays.

It was a special opportunity, and a great bargain. Today a horse represents capital.”

“Capital? Have you any intention of becoming a capitalist?

Don’t joke that way, Vladimir! You may have to weep over it later.”

“Do you think they’ll throw me out of the Party? What’s become of the Party, that it’s expelling people for ‘moral’ reasons? Let them do it. I’ll work with the economic organization.”

Seeing that his temper was running away with him, Vasya did not contradict. She only insisted that everything would have to be changed. Everything would have to become simpler, quieter. And, most important of all, they would have to avoid all objectionable relationships.

She promised to speak with Michailo Pavlovitch again. If it came to the worst she would go to see Toporkov in Moscow.

Sitting there on the window sill Vasya looked so pale and thin. Nothing but eyes. And even her eyes were not happy.

Vladimir looked at her-. Throwing his cigarette to the floor, he walked over to her, put his arms about her, and pressed her close, close.

“Vasya, you dear friend of mine. Don’t desert me, Vasya, not now. Help me, advise me. I know that I’m to blame. Not before them – before you!”

He laid his head on her knee, like a little boy.

“How are you to blame, Volodya?”

He hesitated.

“Don’t you understand, Vasya? Don’t you feel it?”

“Because you’re harming yourself? because you're betraying your proletarianism? Don’t accuse yourself before me, but before yourself.”

“Oh, Vasya, Vasya.” Vladimir turned away, as though he were disappointed. Abruptly changing the subject, he asked: “Is dinner ready? I want to eat.

I haven’t had a bite since morning.”

Vasya was returning from a meeting. She way working with the girls of the hemp-binding works, and was helping the woman in charge of the organization work to get the factory going. She was working with the crowd again, quite naturally, as if she were at home. Michailo Pavlovitch saw a good deal of her, and she had become friends with his “boys.” The group was not exactly homogeneous, but they stuck together, “fought” against the Chairman of the Provincial Committee, and objected to the policy of the “economists.” Their admiration was centered on a former workingman who had become the manager of the steel foundry. He was one of their “own people.” He hadn’t dissociated himself from the crowd or taken on “the manner of a military governor.”

Vladimir’s case had not yet come up for trial. Michailo Pavlovitch said that new material had come in, and that it wasn’t favorable. He advised Vasya to warn Vladimir. He really must be more cautious, must avoid Savelyev. Savelyev’s reputation wasn’t of the best. Let the “economists” protest as much as they wanted, the G. P. U. wouldn’t permit him to run about at large much longer.

Vasya’s mind was troubled. She was suffering for Vladimir. Particularly just now. He was working from morning to night. And as soon as he came home he would settle down with his accounts. The Central Administration had ordered him to reorganize the bookkeeping system. He had taken on a specialist, a bank employee, to help him; and the two of them would be bending over the books till three o’clock in the morning. Vladimir had grown thin, and did not sleep well. It was only natural, with his twofold cares. He held a responsible post, and had the intrigues and gossip to worry about besides. Vasya’s heart ached for him. It was overflowing with tenderness for him.

They received no more guests. Nor was anything heard of Savelyev. He must have gone away. It was better thus. Vladimir had stopped going to the theatre, no longer visited his friends. He spent all his evenings at home. Troubled, silent, gloomy.

Vasya didn’t know how to take his mind off his worries, how to make his work easier for her man, her friend.

She could forget him only in the hemp-binding works, while she worked for the Party. The factory girls led a wretched life. They earned very little. There had been no time to look over the rates, and the pay was in arrears. The administration was not able to manage. Silly fools! Vasya besieged them, stood up for the interests of the shop girls. She had set their union going, and had brought the matter as far as the accounting department.

She was kept very busy at the factory. She would forget everything else, and the day would be over before she realized it. One evening Vasya was walking home with the organizer, Lisa Sorokina. Lisa was a working-girl, young and sensible. Vasya liked her. As they walked they worked out a plan. Whom should they arouse to action, so that the accounting department would be given a push forward in the matter?

They reached Vasya’s house almost before she knew it. As she went in Vladimir came to meet her. He was quite different now. Gay, his eyes shining, sparkling with delight.

The moment Vasya came in he put his arms around her.

“Congratulate me, Vasyuk. There’s a letter from Moscow. I’m getting a new position. An advancement. I’m to be at the head of an entire district. We’ll have to stay here about two months longer, until I’ve finished up everything. And then we’ll see what our S. C. will do. What will the Chairman say?”

“Don’t be too happy about it. The action against you might come in between.”

“Nonsense. The Central Administration wouldn’t let them insult me any more. You don’t realize that I’ve become a most important personality.” Elated as a boy, he fondled Vasya and kissed her. “You tireless tomboy of mine, I’m so happy that I’ve brought a present for you, too.”

He took her into the bedroom. Some blue silk and white batiste lay on the bed.

“Here’s some blue silk for a dress. Dress yourself nicely, sweetheart. That grayish-blue will become you. And here’s some batiste, for underwear.”

“For underwear? What in the world are you thinking of, Volodyka?” Vasya laughed. “This material for underwear?”

“It’s just the right thing for that. Soft white batiste for ladies’ underwear. You ought to stop wearing that sackcloth stuff. It makes you look like a bag of flour.”

“No, I’d rather have some blouses made of it. But as for the silk, you might just as well have not bought it, though it’s pretty. And I suppose you paid cash for it? Why are you such a spendthrift?”

Vasya shook her head. Volodya’s presents gave her no joy. And they would accuse him of extravagance again. But she didn’t want to hurt his feelings.

“Don’t you like it?” asked Vladimir.

“The material’s pretty, of course. But what can I do with it? Use your judgment. Is it for the theatre? Do you want me to go to the theatre with you as the ‘manager’s lady’ ?” Vasya laughed as she tried to picture herself in this blue dress. “But I thank you, anyway – thank you for your kindness and your love.”

Rising to her toes, she embraced Vladimir, and kissed him long, fervently.

“At least you haven’t forgotten how to kiss, Vasyuk! And I was beginning to think you had stopped loving me. You’ve exiled me from the bedroom. You never come to me, never make love to me.”

“But we haven’t time for such things, and you aren’t in the mood for them.”

“And you still love me?”

“I? You?”

“Do you want me to remind you how we used to love each other?”

They laughed, the two of them, as if they had been separated and now had found each other again.

Vasya was hurrying to the factory. On the stairs it occurred to her that she had forgotten Bucharin’s “A B C of Communism.” It was in Volodya’s book-ease. Hurrying back to the study, she opened the glass door. A package fell on the floor, the paper came undone. Vasya stooped down, and felt as if her heart would stop beating. It was a piece of the silk Vladimir had given her, a piece of the same batiste. And a bundle of lace and inserts besides. Why? For whom?

Dimly she remembered: “He’s keeping up two households.” Impossible. Vasya was afraid to think of it, afraid to look the truth in the face. But her jealousy was aroused.

“He’s keeping up two households.” He was so variable. Now he would be distant, would hardly look at her, then, again, he would be inordinately affectionate, as if to make good a fault. She remembered that Volodya always smelled of perfume when he returned from the theatre. She recalled how he would always preen himself before the mirror when he went out in the evening. And she thought again of the long-forgotten nurse with the full lips – of that bed...

Vasya’s eyes grew dim, her hands seemed petrified. Her heart was heavy with unspeakable pain. Volodya, her beloved, her comrade, was betraying her, his friend, his Vasyuk. He had other women – behind her back – while she was there. It would have been different if they had not been together. She would ask him no questions then. But this way! He caressed Vasya, and she felt that they were one, felt it with all her heart, with all her love and tenderness.

What could it mean? Didn’t he love her any more? That was impossible! Vasya’s heart couldn’t believe in such anguish. She sought for a straw to which to cling. If he no longer loved her, how could he be so loving and solicitous? Would he have called her? Anyway, how could such a thing happen? How could Volodya stop loving her? They were so close to each other, so intimately bound up with each other. They were friends, comrades. What hadn’t they gone through together! And now, again, disaster was looming. Vasya didn’t believe in it, refused to believe in it. But the serpent of jealousy dripped its venom into her heart.

Why had he spent so little time at home? Why was he so melancholy, so gloomy? Why didn’t Vasya delight him as before? Why had he sought an excuse – her cough – to sleep alone?

The serpent’s fangs were sharp, so sharp that Vasya almost moaned with pain. She didn’t want to hear its hissing. Vladimir loved her, loved Vasya! He loved her! Otherwise would he caress her as he had yesterday? And this material might be intended for someone else. Volodya might have bought it for somebody. How did she know that the package belonged to him? There was no evidence. She had simply imagined it.

Vasya was ashamed of her suspicion, of having tried to check up on her husband like an old woman.

But the serpent of jealousy still was gnawing at her. Keep still, you evil snake! When Vladimir would come back she would ask him, would have a long talk with him, so that everything would be explained and she would know the truth.

Taking up the “A B C” she hastened to the hemp-binding works, for it had become very late.

Vasya was hurrying homeward. She was afraid she would be late for dinner. At the factory the serpent in her heart had remained still. But hardly had she reached the street when it stirred again.

“He’s keeping up two households.” Two pieces of silk, two pieces of batiste. How did Volodya know that this material was used for underwear? And who used it? Girls of easy virtue, and Nep-women with easily earned money. What had he called Vasya’s things? Sackcloth – flour-bags. But what difference could underwear make? Hadn’t he loved her in this underwear? And in the old days he wouldn’t have left her alone the day she came. A meeting, he had said. But why had he dressed so carefully before the mirror? Why had he smelled of perfume? Why did he no longer look at Vasya with tenderly mischievous eyes? She would ask him when she got home: This is how matters stand. Tell me the truth. For whom is the material? Why did you hide it in the book-case? If it had been bought for someone else he would have thrown it on the table. No evasions! No lies! That I’d never forgive!

Vasya ran up the steps, and rang the bell. She was in a hurry.

The automobile was standing before the door, so Vladimir must be at home. She would go to him at once, and demand an answer. She wouldn’t forgive deception. She wouldn’t permit him to play with her as husbands played with their unloved, lawfully-wedded wives.

Vasya became flushed with her anger. Why didn't someone open the door?

She heard the bolt being pushed back. At last!

"There are guests from Moscow,” Marya Semyonovna told her. “Six people. And they’re all supposed to get enough to eat. That’s not so easily done!”

“Guests? Who are they?”

She heard voices in the drawing room. Animated conversation. Vladimir was there too, playing the host. He introduced his wife, Vassilissa Dementyevna. The guests were members of the syndicate; they had brought a new program for the work.

Vassilissa would have liked to ask them for news from Moscow, and about the political litigation that everybody was interested in at the moment. But Marya Semyonovna was in the doorway, beckoning mysteriously, calling Vasya. She must need help. Vassya, the boy, had been sent for wine; Ivan Ivanovitch had gone to fetch entrees. And the worthy Marya Semyonovna was in despair. She had to cook and to set the table. Vasya would have to help her, for Vladimir wanted everything to be just so. The table should look well.

Both the women worked hard. It was a good thing that Ivan Ivanovitch returned, and also helped.

Vasya had no time to think of the blue silk. And the serpent in her heart gave no sign of life, seemed to be gone. Vasya wanted only to help her man so that he would make a good impression on the members of the syndicate.

The errand-boy, Vassya, came back, all out of breath, with the wine. Ivan Ivanovitch uncorked the bottles. The table looked splendid enough for Easter. There were appetizers, wines, flowers, Morosov napkins, silver cutlery.

The guests were asked to come in. Vladimir glanced anxiously at the table, and seemed content. But why didn’t he at least look gratefully at Vasya? She had tried so hard. She felt hurt, offended.

Vasya conversed with her guests. But she could not stop thinking of that blue silk. For whom was it intended? For whom?

She glanced at Volodya. She saw him with different eyes, as though he were a stranger. And if he were close to her, if he belonged to her, he would have pitied her. He would never have let that accursed serpent enter her heart.

Vasya was tormented throughout the evening. At night she had to put up the visitors. She sent the errand-boy for pillows, and arranged a dormitory in the study. There she couldn’t help looking at that damned book-case again and again. The blue material was lying there. For whom? For whom?

She was exhausted. She had served tea. The guests spoke only of their own affairs, of various kinds of goods, of different methods of packing, of specifications and calculations.

They were business men. They had been merchants. Among them were two Communists who were seeking their salvation in trade. Real “Red„ merchants”.

Vladimir grew animated. He was proud of his business, of being ahead of all the others. His business was barely a month old, but it was developing. The merchants’ respect for him was evident. Everybody listened to him. No one paid any attention to the other members of the administration.

Vasya watched them. Under ordinary circumstances she would have been happy for Vladimir. But today he seemed a stranger. Business, nothing but business, not a thought of her. Nor did he see how weary her spirit was after this day. And if he had deceived her, lied to her, might he not be a little crooked in business P Might not the Party Committee be justified in calling him to account?

And what didn’t these syndicate people discuss! If only she could be alone with Vladimir. If only she could find out something about the blue material.

Vasya undressed for the night, and waited for Vladimir. He was to sleep with her that night, for the syndicate people had taken possession of all the other rooms. She listened for his steps. The guests had already said good-night. Now he was only giving Ivan Ivanovitch instructions for the morning.

He was coming. Vasya’s heart pounded, her knees trembled. She sat down on the bed. She would ask him as soon as he came in.

But Vladimir gave her no chance to ask her question; he was too full of news himself. He wanted her advice: how should they reorganize the machine so as to strengthen the Communists, so that the members of the Party would prevail over the members of the syndicate, over the burshui?

“Advise me, Vasya. Think it over carefully. Tomorrow we’ll go over the new project together. But first you read over the program by yourself, and think about it. These ‘bay-windows’ would like to get the power; they’re secretly plotting against us proletarians. Let them plot! We weren’t born yesterday, either. It’s our job to construct the machine so that nothing can be done without the Party, without the Communists.”

“Then why don’t you follow the Party regulations? Don’t you often say that expulsion from the Party isn’t the worst thing that can happen to you, that you can live without the Party?”

“Oh, one can say so many things without meaning them,” laughed Vladimir. “You understand that But how can one live without the Party? Will we ever leave it?”

Vladimir spoke thoughtfully, pulling off his shoes all the while. “If only I had this stupid case off my chest. And how we’ll live, Vasya – wonderfully. You’ll see what a model Communist I’ll be as soon as I’m transferred to another district. And I won't have any more fights with the Chairman. they’ll canonize me.”

Volodya was happy, not sulky as he had been so often in the last few days. His eyes were again laughing mischievously.

“Let’s go to sleep.”

Vladimir wanted to put out the light, but Vasya held his hand.

“No, wait.... I have to... I want to ask you something...”

She raised herself on her elbow, the better to see his face. Her heart pounded, her voice sounded curiously unfamiliar. Vladimir started.

“Go ahead. What is it?”

He was looking not at Vasya, but at the wall.

“I wanted to ask you. Why do you have material lying in your book-case? Silk – and batiste?”

“Silk? Do you mean the samples?”

“No, not samples. A piece, a big piece, exactly the same as the one you gave me.... For whom?...”

She stared into Vladimir’s face.

“You want to know for whom it is? Can’t you guess, really?”

“No.”

“Ivan Ivanovitch asked me to get the same stuff for his fiancee. He wants to have everything I have, you know. He copies me in everything.”

He explained it so simply, so calmly, that the blood rushed to Vasya’s face. She was ashamed of herself.

“Ivan Ivanovitch? His fiancee? And I thought...”

“What did you think?” laughed Vladimir, turning to face her.

“You dear sweet darling of mine! My Volodyka.”

Vasya kissed him. How could she have thought of such a thing? How could she have doubted him? Suspected her friend?

“Why, what did you think? Oh, you little detective! 'Such a cross-examiner.”

Volodya put his arms about Vasya. But his eyes seemed worried.

“And now to bed, no more kissing. We’ll have a hard time getting through with our work tomorrow anyway, on account of the guests. We’ll have to get up early.”

He put out the light.

Vasya felt a load off her heart. But the moment he was asleep the serpent stirred again. Why did he call me a little detective? And a cross-examiner? There must be something to be found out!

Vladimir slept soundly. But Vasya lay there curled up like a porcupine, wide awake, staring into the dark.

To believe or not to believe? To believe or not to believe?

The syndicate people had gone. Now Vladimir’s work was doubled. The work of reorganization caused him endless worries. But there had been a joyful compensation. Michailo Pavlovitch had called Vasya to his room, and told her of some secret instructions from the Central Administration. As the manager could not be accused of any real offense, and as the whole thing practically amounted only to subordination and improper behavior, the matter was to be hushed up as quietly and unobtrusively as possible.

Vasya drew a breath of relief, almost fell back into her old habit of saying “Thank God.” She barely succeeded in controlling herself.

Michailo Pavlovitch was glad, too. On Vasya’s account. He liked her, and felt sorry for her.

Vasya, however, was unsuccessful. The accounting department had decided in favor of the management. The girls of the hemp-binding shop grew restless. A strike seemed imminent. Working under the cloak of Bolsheviki unaffiliated with the Party, the Mensheviki were doing their best to fan the flames.

Although she coughed and felt feverish, she was at the works every day. She fought against the management, insisted, demanded concessions. Then, again, she sought to calm the shop girls. And her work absorbed her so completely that she forgot the blue silk entirely. She had no time for it. Only once did the serpent in her heart give a sign of life; it had gained a firm foothold there and wasn’t easy to drive out.

This time it was the dog, the white poodle.

Vassya, the boy, had brought it home. It wore a silk bow between its ears.

“Whose dog is that? Why did you bring it here? Where does it come from?”

Vassya replied that Vladimir Ivanovitch had given him orders to keep the dog in the house for the time being. It belonged to Savelyev, who had gone out of town, leaving the poodle alone and neglected in the empty house.

Surprised, Vasya wondered about Vladimir's sudden liking for dogs. Did he want to do Savelyev a favor? And her resentment against Savelyev was aroused again. Why did Vladimir continue being friends with him, with this speculator, this thief?

When Vladimir came, the poodle rushed to meet him as though it had found a long-lost master. Petting it, Vladimir began to talk to it.

“Where does the dog come from, Volodya? Savelyev’s?”

“Why, no! It belongs to Ivan Ivanovitch’s fiancee. She’s gone out of town and Ivan Ivanovitch asked me to keep it here for a while.”

“But Vassya said it belongs to Savelyev.”

“Nonsense! It’s true that the dog was in Savelyev's house for the past few days. Vassya took it from there. That’s why he thinks it belongs to Savelyev.”

Vasya listened as if she understood everything clearly.

But the serpent stirred, gripped her heart in its coils. Should she believe him?

The moment Ivan Ivanovitch came Vasya flew at him. Whose poodle was it?

With great detail, Ivan Ivanovitch told her of his fiancee, who had asked him to care for her poodle. But how could he do it? He never was at home So he sent it to Savelyev. There, however, there were only the servants, who would go away and lock the poodle in the house.

It might have been true.

But Vasya didn’t like the poodle.

Vladimir Ivanovitch had gone away for a few days. Something about the syndicate. Vasya was alone. She had thought she would be lonely and sad. But it was different. Though she was alone she seemed to feel happier, more free. She was relieved of the burden which, in Vladimir’s presence, weighted her down like a stone. And she no longer felt the depressing disregard of Volodya, who ignored her as if she didn’t exist at all. She knew he was busy, that his head was full of other things; but her heart, her silly woman’s heart was sad, longed for affection.

She was better off without Vladimir. When she was alone there was nothing to do about it. She expected nothing, listened for nothing, didn’t feel hurt.

She invited her friends to her house: Lisa Sorokina, the factory boys, Michailo Pavlovitch. She gave a supper party. She was happy when she entertained her friends.

After supper they discussed Party affairs, went into the garden, sang together. It was beautiful. Everyone was gay, but Vasya most of all. Quite different, this, from the conversations with the syndicate people, or with Savelyev, in the drawing room. She hardly noticed how quickly the days of Vladimir’s absence passed.

He came home on an early morning train, and found Vasya at the tea table.

Jumping to her feet, Vasya hurried to meet him. He didn’t kiss her, but he pressed her hand to his lips for a long time. When he raised his head she saw tears in his eyes. Her heart grew heavy.

“What’s the matter, Volodya? Has something happened again?”

“No, Vasya, nothing’s happened. It’s only....life is so hard for me, Vasya. I’m so tired of it all.”

He sat down at the table, leaned his head on his hand, and let his tears flow freely.

“But what’s the trouble, Volodya? What is it? Please tell me, dear, you’ll feel better” “Will I, Vasya?” he asked wretchedly. “I’ve been turning it over and over in my mind; I’ve been wondering... I’ve gone through so much, Vasya. No, things can’t become better. There’s no way out.”

And again Vasya’s heart was convulsed in an agony of fear.

“Don’t torment me, Volodya! Tell me the truth can’t go on this way any longer. I’m tired – I can't rest...”

She could not go on, for she began to cough.

“There! You’re coughing again! How can I talk to you/” Was it a reproach or was it sorrow that she heard in Volodya’s voice?

And Vasya coughed. His annoyance plainly showing in his face, Vladimir lighted a cigarette.

“Why don’t you drink some tea? That might stop it,” he advised her.

“No, I’ll take some of my medicine.”

Her fit of coughing over, Vasya gave Vladimir some tea, and he told her again, in his ordinary tone, how difficult it was to keep things going. The shipping clerks had just raised a row. They demanded higher pay for overtime, although their usual wages had been reduced. The syndicate was losing money on their account, but they were threatening to strike if their pay was not raised. Possibly it was the work of agitators. After all, one could not see everything.

“Ivan Ivanovitch came with his report the moment I stepped out of the train, and you expect me to be happy! I go away for a couple of days, and I come back to find a fight on my hands. What in the world do the other members of the administration do? They shouldn’t have let the matter go so far. Now there’ll be trouble. And the Chairman has found something new, too.”

“So that’s why you said life was so hard, and that there’s no way out? On account of the shipping clerks?”

“Why, of course! What did you think?”

Puffing at his cigarette, Vladimir slowly stirred his tea, and spoke of the dispute again. How could it be smoothed over without a public scandal? But Vasya listened only half-heartedly. Should she believe him? Had he really wept only on account of the shipping clerks? It wasn’t like him. He had something else on his mind. The blue silk... Vladimir might really be tired. The S. C. had tormented him so that now every little thing could make him lose control of himself. She was trying to convince herself, to believe that Vladimir’s worries were of a purely business nature. It was the members of the administration who were to blame for this business of the shipping clerks.

Chapter IX

At last Vasya had carried her point at the hemp-binding works. She had succeeded in obtaining concessions from the management. The shop girls were jubilant, escorted Vasya to her door. But she knew that matters would never have turned out so well without the Chairman. She had come to esteem him. He was inflexible, and anything but indulgent toward the economists.

When she reached her house Vasya found the entire courtyard full of shipping clerks. A babel of voices, disputing, shouting. “The highest rates! No concessions! Or we’ll stop work! Let the managers and office clerks do the loading!”

Vasya mingled with the crowd, listening, asking questions.

They recognized her, surrounded her, drowned her voice. Everybody wanted to tell her all about it at once. Their pay was too low, and they got nothing for overtime. The accounts were not drawn up correctly. They crowded about Vasya, uttered threats against the management. Wasn’t she the manager’s wife? Let her explain the whole business to him. There could be no family considerations in a case of this sort.

Vasya listened and asked questions. She knew and understood their grievances well. The managers and office employees were well treated and well fed, but the shipping clerks were slaves. Their children had nothing to wear. Things couldn’t be permitted to go on that way; the union would have to exert pressure on the management. Nothing could be done without organization and a program. The leaders came forward to arrive at an understanding with Vasya. They would state their demands on paper. And if the management were to refuse all concessions, they would appeal directly to the accounting department.

Vasya’s blood was up. Forgetting her position as the manager’s wife she took the shipping clerks’ cause as her own. How could she help supporting “her own people” with word and deed? They were an inexperienced mob, inefficiently led.

She asked the leaders into the house, there to formulate their demands.

They went in, the shipping clerks looking askance at the manager’s house furnishings as they went through the reception rooms into Vasya’s bedroom. Only then it occurred to Vasya that she should not have brought the men into the house. But it was too late to turn back.

They sat down at Vasya’s table and drew up their demands.

There was less noise in the courtyard, no more shouting. The men had separated into groups, were talking and smoking.

Then suddenly the uproar began again. An auto had stopped before the house. The manager. He was entering the courtyard.

“What sort of business is this? You’re holding a meeting here? You’ve come here to make threats? You’re dissatisfied?” Vladimir’s voice rumbled like thunder. “I haven’t the slightest intention of negotiating with you here! This is my private residence. Go to the office. You don’t like the accounting? Go to the union! The management has nothing to do with that. It has other things to worry about. You’re going to strike? That’s your affair. Go ahead and strike, if the union says so. But get out of here this very moment. I won’t listen to you. I’ll see you in the office!”

Vladimir banged the door, and, going through the house, went directly to Vasya, to the bedroom.

When he came in he stopped as though paralyzed. Vasya was sitting at the table with the shipping clerks, “drawing up” demands.

“And what’s this? Who let you in here? How did you dare come in here without permission? Get out of here! Get out!”

“But Vladimir Ivanovitch, we didn’t come in on our own hook.... Your wife...”

“Get out, I say, or...”

Vladimir was white as a sheet; he was raising his arm. The men retreated toward the door.

“Are you crazy, Vladimir? How dare you! I called them in! Stop, Comrades! Where are you going?”

Vasya ran after them, but Vladimir stepped in her way and grasped her arm so tightly that she cried out.

“You invited them? Who gave you permission? Who asked you to meddle in my affairs? You’re not responsible to the syndicate! If you want to start any strikes, go to your hemp-binding works!”

“Oh! So you’re driving me away? Because I’m siding with my brothers. Because I want the truth. Because I don’t consider your managerial interests, because I lower your bonus.”

“You should be ashamed of yourself. You disgusting hypocrite.”

Vasya felt as if he had lashed her with a whip. Disgusting? She, Vasya, was disgusting?

They faced each other furiously, like enemies. But her heart was filled with agonizing, excruciating pain. Was her happiness gone forever?

The shipping clerks had dispersed, and Vladimir had gone to the office. Lying across the bed, her face buried in the quilt, Vasya was letting her tears wet the silk. But her sorrow could not be relieved by tears.

She was heartbroken, not at his having called her disgusting, but at their estrangement, their inability to understand each other. Like enemies, in two hostile camps.

The days that followed were dismal, cheerless. Vladimir spent much time at home. But what good did that do? They were just like strangers, spoke only when it was absolutely necessary. Each lived his own life. Vasya was ill again. Ivan Ivanovitch had gone for the doctor, who had ordered a complete rest for her, and had forbidden all excitement.

Vladimir was very busy with his work. He would sit up half the night in his study with Ivan Ivanovitch and the bookkeeper. They would come out for supper, but their thoughts were wrapped in their business; they were taciturn and in bad humor.

Occasionally Lisa Sorokina would visit Vasya to tell her about the hemp-binding works. The girls were sorry that she was ill.

Yet her illness did not distress Vasya as much as the knowledge that she and Volodya had become estranged. Neither could forget the quarrel about the shipping-clerks. Neither could forgive the other.

Vasya thought of going home to her province. She wanted to be back home. But where could she go? Grusha was living in her attic under the roof; it would be very crowded for two. She could not think of going to her parents to recuperate, for they would weep over her, and would rail against the Bolsheviki. Where, then? Vasya wrote to Grusha, asking her to get a room for her. And she wrote to Stepan Alexeyevitch, asking him to procure some work for her, with the Party, with the masses. She would go as soon as she heard from them. Why should she stay here? No one needed her. Volodya would get along without her. The days dragged, slowly, heavily.

It was midsummer. The cherries in the garden were ripe; the plums were covered with a purplish bloom. The lilies, white and delicate, shone on their tall, dewy stalks. But nothing delighted Vasya now. As she wandered through the garden she would remember how she had lain in the chaise lounge in the spring, how glad she had been that she was alive. And the memory made her heart even heavier.

She felt as if she had been quite another Vasya then, a young, confiding Vasya. Something had gone out of her. What was it? She didn’t know exactly. But this much was certain. It had gone out of her, and would never come back.

Sometimes Vladimir would stand at the window and watch Vasya walking about the garden, indifferent, drooping. He would stand at the window a while; then, turning away abruptly, would return to Ivan Ivanovitch and his work.

Then Vasya would sigh with fresh disappointment. She had expected him to come down to her, to the garden. And he hadn’t come. There it was. It was clear that he had no more feeling for her. To him business was more important than the anguish of a woman’s heart.

Some noise woke Vasya. It was morning. Vladimir was rummaging in his wardrobe, taking out something.

“What are you doing there so early, Volodya?”

“I have to meet a train, there’s a consignment coming in.”

“Must you go yourself?”

“I have to supervise.”

Vladimir was standing before the mirror, putting on his new tie; but he couldn’t quite manage it. As Vasya looked at him she suddenly felt once more that he was so close, so deeply bound to her.

“Come here, Volodya. Let me help you.”

He came obediently, sat down on the bed. Vasya made his tie. They looked at each other, and suddenly, without a word, they were in each other’s arms.

“My little Vasyuk! My darling. It hurts so to live beside you, and yet so terribly far away. Can’t it be different?” he asked plaintively, pressing Vasya’s curly head to his breast.

“Do you think it doesn’t hurt me? I don’t want to live any more.”

“But why do we quarrel, Vasyuk?”

“I don’t know. There’s some barrier between us.”

“No, Vasya. No, nothing can stand between us. My heart is all yours, only yours.”

“And you haven’t stopped loving me?”

“You silly little thing.” He kissed her. “Come, let’s stop quarreling. It’s stupid, and makes both of us suffer. And I can’t afford to lose you, Vasya. can’t live without you. So now we won’t hurt each other any more?”

“You won’t try to play a managerial role any more?”

“And you won’t set the shipping clerks against me?”

They laughed.

“But now you go to sleep. If you don’t sleep you’ll be sick again for the day. I’ll be back in about two hours.”

Covering her, he kissed her eyes and went. Vasya felt happy, light of heart. She fell asleep as if all her joy had come back to her, as if she had lost nothing.

Vladimir didn’t come back from the station, but telephoned that he would have to go to the office. He would be back for dinner. Vasya was feeling better, but she didn’t go to the hemp-binding works. Instead, she busied herself about the house, helping Marya Semyonovna to straighten up the house.

Not long before dinner the telephone rang. Vasya answered.

“Hello.”

“Is Vladimir Ivanovitch at home?”

“No, not yet. Who’s speaking?”

“The administrative office.”

“But why do you call here? He’s still in your office.”

“No, he’s not here; he left the office some time ago. Please forgive me.”

That woman’s voice again. Who was it? Vasya didn't like that voice. During the first few days of her stay it had called often. Then it had stopped. Vasya once asked Ivan Ivanovitch, quite casually, who it might be that was forever telephoning from the office, and during working hours at that. Ivan Ivanovitch explained that it was the clerks. Queer, that their voices should be so much alike. And again Vasya felt the serpent’s fangs.

Vladimir brought home two members of the administration for dinner.

They discussed the morning’s consignments. Nevertheless he found time to ask how Vasya was feeling whether she had been sunning herself, as the doctor had ordered.

“No, I didn’t lie in the sun."

Dryly Vasya brought the conversation to a close, adding carelessly: “The young lady who’s forever phoning you from the office called again.”

“What young lady?” Vladimir looked surprised. “From the office, you say? Then it must be the Shelgunov woman – some young lady, that one! A venerable materfamilias. You’ve seen her, Vasya – the fat woman with the wart on her face.”

He spoke so simply, so naturally. But Vasya felt uneasy.

No. Something was wrong there.

After dinner the gentlemen of the management went away. Vasya was glad. She wanted to be alone with Vladimir, to warm her spirit. The morning’s promise of joy would be fulfilled.

But the guests had hardly left when the telephone buzzed in the study. Vladimir went to answer it.

“Yes, it’s I.” Curtly, “Didn’t I ask you not to telephone?”

A short laugh. “Family matters, of course.” Reproachfully, “By no means, I forbid it most decidedly.” Vehemently, “All right, all right.” Relenting, “But not for long. Good-bye.”

Vasya was in the next room, listening.

With whom was he speaking? Whom did he promise: “But not for long?” To whom could he say: “I forbid it.”

Vladimir went from the study straight into the bedroom, passing Vasya as though he didn’t see her. She followed him. He was standing before the mirror, combing his hair.

“To whom were you speaking, Volodya?”

“To Savelyev.”

“To Savelyev? Has he come back?”

“This morning.”

"Did you meet him?”

“Look here, what sort of cross-examination is this? You know I was supervising the unloading of a shipment this morning.” He seemed disturbed.

“And you’re going to him right away? Did you promise?”

“Yes, I’m going there.”

Silence.

Vasya felt her heart hammering, pounding. As if it would burst. If only it would. She could endure this agony no longer. She went quickly over to Vladimir, gently took his hand. “Don’t do that, Volodya. Don’t start that business again....”

“What do you mean?” he asked suspiciously, uneasily.

“Don’t have anything to do with that crooked speculator. I’ve been warned. After all, that’s the principal thing they have against you, your association with objectionable people.”

“Ah. There you go again. Talking like one of your Supervisory Committee. Do you insist on tormenting me? Tyrannizing me? Do you Want to tie me to your apron strings?”

Flushed, he pushed Vasya’s hand away.

“Stop, Vladimir. Stop. What did you say? Did I ever attempt to chain you to me? Try to keep your head. I’m talking about you, not myself. Don't dig a pit for yourself. You have enemies enough. And if you resume your friendship with Savelyev...."

“What has Savelyev to do with this?”

“What do you mean? What has he to do with this? Aren’t you going to him?” Vasya’s eyes were troubled.

“Of course I’m going to him. But what of it? Can’t you understand that I’m going to him on business? It can’t be helped.”

“I don’t believe you,” she cried hotly. “Postpone it for tomorrow, tell him to come to the office.”

“What a child you are, Vasya,” he said, altering his tone. “All right, I’ll tell you the truth. It’s true that Savelyev didn’t call me over to discuss business. That can be attended to in the office. He’s simply having a jolly little crowd at his house. And he asked me to come over for a game of cards. You know yourself, Vasya, that I went nowhere for almost a month. I was at home, and taken up with business, all the time. Let me get a breath of air for a change, Vasya. I’m young. I want to live. I can’t be a hermit.”

“I understand, Volodya,” she said sadly. “Yes, everything’s as you say. And your getting a little diversion is no calamity. But you must understand one thing. You mustn’t start up again with this Savelyev, this speculating scoundrel. You have no respect for him yourself. What do you need him for? People will be saying right away that Vladimir Ivanovitch and Savelyev are hand and glove again. And then the whole business’ll start all over again. Volodya darling. Please don’t go there today. Cancel it.”

“What nonsense!” Volodya was losing his patience. “If the Provincial Committee has nothing to do but take legal action against a fellow because of his acquaintances, then it’s no Provincial Committee but a cesspool. You’re exaggerating, Vasya.”

“But I don’t like to see you go there. I know he can’t stand me. He asks you over only to hurt me. Didn’t I hear you say over the phone that you couldn’t come on account of your family? And then you laughed. Volodya...” She was becoming agitated “It hurts me to see you laughing with a stranger about me, and with Savelyev at that. As if I didn’t let you go.

“Well. You don’t.”

“So that’s how you put it. Very well, then, go! But remember...,” her eyes flashed. “Remember that my patience is at an end. I’ve helped you, suffered for you, stood up for you. That’s enough. Go if you want to. But then I’ll know what I have to do.” Her voice rose to a shrill, hysterical shriek.

“I’m sick of your hysterics! Why do you nag me – what do you want of me?”

“Volodya!” There were tears in Vasya’s voice. “I’ve never asked you for anything. But today I beg you to stay. For your sake, and mine.”

“Oh, you women. You’re all the same. Disgusting.” Rushing past her, he hurried through the hall; the front door banged. The motor purred.

“I’ve come to you, Lisa. Take me in. I’ve gone away from him forever.”

Her voice failed her, but her eyes were dry. Her misery was too great for tears.

“You’ve come away from him? You should have done it long ago! We’ve all been wondering that you’ve stood it so long...”

“We’ve become estranged, Lisa. That’s the terrible thing,” wailed Vasya.

“Of course. How in the world can you love him?”

Vasya ignored the question. She could hardly believe what had happened. She could never forgive, never forget this indignity. It had been the first time she had begged him for something. And what had he done? He might just as well have walked over her dead body. And why? Why? To play cards with that thief, that speculator, Savelyev, and a crowd of his filthy fellows! It was all the same to him that Vasya was dying of grief. As long as he was having a good time, as long as he was getting the entertainment he wanted. Was that love? Was that her friend and comrade? Was that a Communist?

Lisa was unable to make head or tail out of Vasya’s incoherent speech. What had happened? What did Savelyev have to do with it?

“What does he have to do with it? Why, it was all on his account, on account of that crooked speculator. Vladimir went to him.”

“You think he went to him?”

“Why, to whom do you think? Don’t you believe it?”

“But what is there to believe? The whole town knows it; only you seem to be blind. Or do you refuse to see it? Do you refuse to realize it?”

“See what, Lisa? Tell me!”

“Why, that your Vladimir has a friend!”

“A friend?”

Vasya did not understand at once, but stared at Lisa. She was neither shocked nor grieved, but only surprised.

“A friend you say. Who is it?”

“Not one of us, not a working girl. One of the office employees.”

“Do you know her?”

“I’ve seen her. The whole town knows her.”

“Why?”

“She’s always so dressed up. That’s why the Comrades are so angry at your Vladimir. Michailo Pavlovitch told you of this friendship, too. How could you help knowing about it? You’re not so stupid otherwise. But in this again you’ve acted like a real goose!”

Vasya, however, was concerned with something quite different.

“Does he love her?”

“How should I know? He must love her; he’s been running around with her for so many months. People thought the affair would stop when you came. But nothing of the sort. He’s forever going to her in his car.”

“Does she have a home of her own?”

“The chances are it's more elaborate than yours.”

So that’s what it was. “He’s keeping up two households.”

Now Vasya understood everything. Everything but one point. Why had Volodya lied to her, tormented her, deceived her?

“What do you expect? Was he to come to you as the contrite sinner? Or was he to beg you for permission to visit his friend? It was your business to see it. If you didn’t, you were a fool, and have only yourself to blame.”

“Why do you insist on talking about my being a fool, Lisa? That’s not important. The question is this: Does he really love her, or does it only look like it?”

“How do you mean? I don’t know what you’re talking about! He must love her. Doesn’t he support her entirely, and give her expensive presents?”

“Do you think so? But, you see, I don’t know....”

“You surely don’t believe that he loves you? Don’t fool yourself, Vasya. It’ll only hurt you all the more. He likes and esteems you, of course. You’re his wife and comrade. But as for loving you. That was over long ago. I know...”

Vasya shook her head. “But, you see, I don’t agree with you."

Her stupidity annoyed Lisa, who now told her about Volodya’s friend. Beautiful as a picture. And her clothes. Always dressed in silks and always surrounded by admirers. Savelyev was one of them; knew her well. It was very gay there in the evening. And there were rumors that both Vladimir and Savelyev were keeping her.

For some reason or other this idea was particularly distasteful to Vasya.

Had Vladimir actually changed so? Could he really love a woman like that? Vasya didn’t believe the stories she heard. She didn’t believe them. Something was wrong there.

Lisa, however, was offended. “All right, don’t believe me. It’s your own affair. Ask anybody; everyone’ll tell you the same thing. She was in the office as Savelyev’s secretary, until she let the manager keep her. But it’s possible that others are making use of her, too. They’re talking about Ivan Ivanovitch, too. And some members of the administration visit there occasionally. She’s a real one, only not registered. Her luck that they don’t have to have permits nowadays.”

“But Vladimir would never have fallen in love with a woman like that,” objected Vasya.

“Why do you think that? Men like that kind, especially men like your Vladimir. You can see it in his face: the worse the woman, the better he’ll like her.”

“Be still, Lisa! How dare you! You don’t know him. How can you judge him like this?”

“Why do you stand up for him? Didn’t he make you the laughing stock of the town? But you, you defend him like a fortress!”

“Made me a laughing stock! And how, if you please? What have Vladimir’s actions to do with me? I’m not responsible for him. You don’t understand, Lisa. That isn’t why I’m suffering. That’s not it at all.”

“I know. You’re suffering because he doesn’t love you any more.”

“No, Lisa, that’s not it, either. It hurts, of course. But it’s not the most important thing. I know what I mean, but I can’t find the words. What is it? We were such comrades, so close and intimate and suddenly you say: Vladimir turned away from me, lied to me, was afraid of me. Of me! How could he? Would I have stood in his way? Would I have kept him from his love? He couldn’t, Volodya couldn’t think that! There must be something else. He can’t love that girl so much.”

“Now you’re beating about the bush,” said Lisa, waving her away angrily. “It’s impossible to talk to you. You’re still in love with Volodya: ‘Strike me, wipe your feet on me – it’s all the same to me, I’m still your obedient wife – I’ll lick your boots’ – I’m not like that. I’d have got even with him long ago. I’d have given him something to think about.”

Vasya didn’t deny it. But the more Lisa condemned Vladimir, the more ardently Vasya defended him. She wanted to convince Lisa that he was wrong not in taking a friend, not in loving another woman, but only in his not having told her, Vasya, about it. As if she weren't his friend and comrade, but a stranger. What was more, she meant less to him than a stranger, for he had no faith in her. Did he think that she would fight for her rights like a legitimate wife?

“You must fight for them,” shouted Lisa. “Of course you must fight for them. How dared he make you ridiculous? Then you surely must leave him.”

Vasya objected. It was always like that. In her heart she often condemned Vladimir, disagreed with him entirely. But the moment some one else attacked him she took his side and grew indignant. People didn’t understand him. She alone knew Vladimir, the American. Only when she said “The American” did the tears come. She remembered Vladimir, the American, leading the members of their group, fighting for the Soviet.

Weeping, she fell in Lisa’s arms. She was not thinking of Vladimir, the manager, but she was mourning for the “American,” was suffering for him inconsolably, mortally.

“It’s so hard for me, Lisenyka. I’m exhausted.”

“I know, darling. Only be patient. It’ll pass. I went through the same thing last year. But when we meet nowadays it doesn’t bother me at all.”

Vasya was unable to sleep, although Lisa had given her her own bed, sleeping on a couple of chairs herself. Lisa had worked all day; now she was sleeping soundly. Vasya turned restlessly from side to side, now sitting up, now lying down again. She couldn’t rest. Countless thoughts raced through her head, tortured and broke her heart. It was like that dreadful night when she had found the bandage, when Vladimir had been arrested.

It wasn’t jealousy that was tormenting her. But Volodya’s lack of confidence hurt her. If not for that, she would forgive everything. Man cannot control his heart. But Vasya did not believe that he loved the other girl. She did not believe it. It was only a “liaison.” For months he had lived alone, he of the ardent temperament. (She remembered Styosha.) He had begun an affair with her, and it went on. She probably wouldn’t let him go. Lisa, too, said he was a ladies’ man. And if it was that, it couldn’t be a case of love. Therefore she was looking out for her own advantage. Volodya would have liked to tear himself away, but he could not. Vasya remembered how moody, how variable he had been; now loving, now distant. He had suffered agonies. How could one live with the person one loved while the other was sharpening the knife behind his back? She remembered how frequently Vladimir had tried to confess something, how he had always stopped short. He had been about to say something on the morning of the clash with the shipping clerks. Vasya had felt he had it on the tip of his tongue. She, too, had been frightened, and unfortunately had begun to cough. Then Vladimir said nothing more; did he, therefore, pity her? And if he pitied her, he loved her. But did he love her? It was easy to say he did. But what about the blue material? The same for both of them?

“I have bought you a present, my beautiful sweetheart; and I haven’t forgotten that wearisome wife of mine. Here, take the silk, and say nothing.”

Damn him! Vasya clenched her fists as though she wanted to fight with Vladimir. She thought: so he didn’t go to Savelyev yesterday? And Savelyev had nothing to do with it. He had been only a screen. Had she known that he had a friend who pretended to love him, she would not have been angry with Vladimir. She would have been unhappy; still, she would have understood. But to humiliate Vasya for that vulgar speculator, Savelyev! She would have understood the affair with his friend; yet, would she have forgiven? As she had forgiven him for the nurse, for Styosha? Would she have been able to like the white poodle, to forget the blue silk?

Chapter X

Lisa had hardly left for work in the morning when the door opened and Marya Semyonovna appeared, a black lace shawl wrapped about her head, She was gasping for breath. It was hot – midsummer.

“Good morning, Vassilissa Dementyevna. I’m bringing you a letter from your husband. He wanted me to take a cab, to get here faster. But where can one be found nowadays? I’m all out of breath.”

As Vasya tore open the envelope bearing the address of the office, her fingers seemed petrified.

“Vasya!

What does this mean? What are you doing to me? Why do you torture me so unmercifully? Do you want a scandal throughout the district to give my enemies new material to ruin me? You’ve often said you were my friend; but you’ve joined my foes. You’ve destroyed my soul. I can’t go on with this life. If you no longer love me, say so openly. Why do you stab me from behind.

You know I love only you. Everything else everyone says about me is nonsense, ephemeral. Listen to me! I swear to you that I was not with Savelyev yesterday! I swear to you that I kept faith with you where I was yesterday. My heart beats for you only. I’m all worn out, Vasya. Have pity.

Come to me, let me look into your dear eyes and tell you everything. The whole truth! If you’re my friend and comrade, you’ll come. If not – then, good-bye. But this you must know: that I won’t live without you.

“Your wretched Volodya.”

Vasya read the letter twice. Now her heart was filled with tenderness, and the tears welled up in her eyes. “Ephemeral.” “I love only you.” Then again she raged: She had “tortured” him! He asked her to pity him! Had he had pity with her? Had he not tormented her? Her eyes were dry, her pale lips pressed together in a thin line.

“Wretched!” You don’t say!

Wretched! All night long he had made love to another woman; he had given her blue silk. How she had begged him yesterday: Stay! She had put all her soul into her eyes. But he had pushed her away; had shouted at her like a real law ful husband, and had gone. Now he wrote: “I love only you!” He was lying. He did not love her. A fine sort of love, that! Only pain and bitterness! Yet why had he written “Goodbye! But this you must know: that I won’t live without you.” Surely he wouldn’t... ? Nonsense. It was merely a threat, to make her relent, to make her come to him at once, like a fool.

She read the letter once more.

In the meanwhile Marya Semyonovna seemed quite unconcerned, wiping off her perspiration, fanning herself with her handkerchief.

“Vladimir Ivanovitch came home yesterday almost as soon as you had gone. He asked where you were He went into the study and began to write. About midnight he came into the kitchen to ask whether you had come back. ‘No,’ I said, and he went away. Then he took Ivan Ivanovitch to the door, and went into the bedroom. He must have seen your note there. I heard him crying like a heart-broken little child. And he didn’t lie down all night, but walked around all the time. This morning he didn’t even drink tea. „I don’t want anything,’ he said to me. ‘Go and look for Vassilissa Dementyevna. Go to all her friends, till you find her. Don’t you dare come back without her! ” Vasya listened, aching with the old love for Vladimir. He had waited for her alone through the night, had wept and suffered, had called her, Vasya. And how hard it had been for her. How she had yearned for him. She had been jealous. So the threads that had bound their hearts together were not broken; their love was not gone entirely! Why prolong the agony? Should she go back? Back to him for a good talk?

“What was Vladimir Ivanovitch doing when you left? Was he going to the office?”

“When I left? Why, he was just telephoning to the ‘little lady,’ probably wanted to tell her his troubles.

Or maybe he wanted her to share in his joy. Who can understand these men? If only there’ll be no scandal!”

He had called up the “little lady”? Now? At such a time? He had written a letter to Vasya, and then telephoned to his lady? Lisa might be right. He was clinging to Vasya only to avoid a scandal. If his wife had not been held in such high esteem he would not have bothered about her. And he was calling her only to humiliate her again. No! She had had enough. She would not go to him, would not fall into the trap. Her head was reeling.

“Tell Vladimir Ivanovitch that there’s no answer. That’s all. And hurry. Please go!”

“I can’t go any faster. And it doesn’t pay to hurry in such things. You should have thought of this before, Vassilissa Dementyevna. Of course, Vladimir Ivanovitch did wrong by you, for you’re his wife; but you aren’t altogether in the right either. Who would leave such a young man all alone for months? And if you think about it, Vladimir Ivanovitch is a good husband after all. Always worrying about you. Always wanting to know whether you’re drinking your cocoa, whether I’ve fetched fresh eggs for you. He cares more for your clothes than you do. He’s never refused you anything. And where women are concerned – who is blameless there? You’re his wife; people respect you. But on the other side? He pays her and gives her presents – that’s all.”

As Marya Semyonovna spoke Vasya’s heart was growing heavier. How simple everything would be if she, too, could think that. But Marya Semyonovna did not understand just what had hurt her. Vladimir was no longer her friend. She had lost faith in him; and how could they live together without faith?

“Don’t you think you ought to wait till evening, Vassilissa Dementyevna? Couldn’t I go home and tell your husband that you want to think things over, and will give your answer in the evening? That’d be more sensible. But to talk this way, deciding on the spur of the moment – . It’s easy to make a mistake when you’re angry. I want to save you regrets and tears.”

“No, Marya Semyonovna. Don’t try to persuade me. It’ll be as I’ve said. I’m never coming back. It’s all over.”

Her lips trembled as she spoke, and big tears rolled slowly down her hollow cheeks.

“Well, it’s your own business. I’ve said enough. You have to do the deciding!” And Mary Semyonovna went.

Again Vasya wanted to moan like a wounded animal, to sob loudly so that she could be heard throughout the house and on the street; for it was all over. There was no going back. Farewell, Volodya. Farewell.

Vasya wept inconsolably, until finally she fell asleep, buried in Lisa’s pillow. For she had not closed her eyes all night.

She was awakened by the sound of an auto chugging away under her window.

Whose car? She jumped to her feet. Was Vladimir coming for her? Hope and joy awoke in her heart. She pushed the window open – Vassya, the boy, was standing at the door.

“Vassilissa Dementyevna, something terrible has happened. Vladimir Ivanovitch has taken poison.”

“How? What?” Vasya flew over to the boy, seized his hand. “Is he dead?”

“No, not yet. He’s still alive. But he’s writhing; he’s in agony. He’s calling for you. Ivan Ivanovitch sent me in the car.”

Hatless, barely dressed, Vasya entered the auto. Her teeth were chattering, she was trembling as from a fever.

She had killed him! Had hurt him mortally! She had refused her pity and her help. And he had begged for her in the morning – how he had begged for her!

She stared before her with wide-open eyes. They expressed not sorrow, but death, the inevitable.

Vassya didn’t see her eyes. He was telling, with an important air, just what had occurred. He liked the idea of such interesting things happening.

Vladimir Ivanovitch had gone to the office in the morning; then, after half an hour, he had come home. He had gone into the study, and Vassya had seen him going to the closet where he kept samples of dyes that were being tested for their stability. Then Vassya was busy sweeping in the courtyard. When he had finished and returned to the house, he heard someone groaning in the study. He went in to see what was wrong. There was Vladimir Ivanovitch lying on the sofa, only the whites of his eyes showing, his mouth open and foaming. And then the fun began...

Vassya had run for the doctor, who lived around the corner. He was just eating. But Vassya told him how matters stood: “The man’s dying, you can eat later.” Vassya had to make two hurried trips to the druggist in the car. Ivan Ivanovitch came over. The whole house was turned upside down.

Vasya listened without hearing a word. She herself was more dead than alive. Nothing remained but Vladimir and his sufferings. They filled her mind completely. If Volodya should die her life would be at an end, too. There would be only emptiness, an emptiness more dreadful than the grave.

She entered the house with the boy. Ivan Ivanovitch was just taking the doctor to the door.

“Is he alive?”

“We’re doing everything possible. We won’t be able to know anything definite before the morning.”

She tiptoed into the bedroom. Vladimir’s groans became more and more distinct. She seemed to be moaning herself. Could Vladimir be detached from her, from Vasya? The bedroom was changed, different. The rug was rolled up, the bed had been moved. But the bed was empty. Where was Volodya? Something big, white, long lay on the divan. Its face was a bluish gray, its eyes were closed. The moaning stopped.

What was that? Was he dead?

“Volodya! Volodya!”

The physician turned on her furiously.

“Silence! No hysterics!”

Assisted by a white-capped nurse, the doctor was busy with Vladimir. Both looked grave and severe; they did not let Vasya come near Vladimir.

He opened his eyes and breathed more rapidly; he was alive!

“Doctor,” Vasya whispered pleadingly, “tell me the truth. Is there any hope?”

“There’s always hope as long as the heart is beating,” the doctor answered angrily, as if she were asking silly questions.

What did that mean? “As long as the heart is beating?” And suppose it should stop?

But she asked nothing more. The doctor was busy; he and the nurse were raising Vladimir’s head, pouring something into his mouth.

Once more Vladimir began to moan. Short, plaintive cries. Vasya listened. She no longer felt anything, but was absolutely numb, as if grief had paralyzed her senses, as if her being had stopped.

Twilight, and darkness. The night-lamp burning in the bed-room. Other physicians came, consulted. The errand-boy was rushed to the Health Bureau for special medicine.

Vasya was not permitted to see Vladimir; nor did he ask for her. He seemed unconscious, occasionally uttered short, sobbing moans. She thought that as he moaned his spirit was leaving him, that his soul was struggling against his body; but the body refused to liberate the soul.

Helplessly superfluous, Vasya walked among the physicians, knowing' of nothing she could do.

Suddenly it struck her like a thunderbolt: there must be rumors afloat, in the city. People would say: A Communist – and a suicide! Why? And the gossiping would begin. She would have to hurry, hurry, to forestall gossip. She would have to think of something. What happened and why? An inspiration: mushrooms! He had had mushrooms for breakfast, and now he was near death. She remembered such a case in her grandmother’s village while she had visited there. A tailor, who had come from the city to visit his brother, had gathered some mushrooms himself, had cooked them, eaten them, and died.

Vasya began to telephone. Michailo Pavlovitch came first. She would tell him the details when she saw him; now she merely wanted to tell him of the tragedy. Briefly, it was this: Vladimir Ivanovitch had been poisoned by mushrooms, and lay on the point of death. Then she telephoned the Chairman, and other Comrades.

She had prompted Ivan Ivanovitch, who was explaining matters to the members of the administration, advising the office. And very minutely she told Vassya, the errand-boy, and Marya Semyonovna what they would have to say. Vassya, keen and quick-witted, curled his lip, shrugged his shoulders, and said nothing. Let it be so! It was all the same to him. Marya Semyonovna, however, was offended, pressed her lips together and folded her hands over her apron. She re f used to agree to the mushroom story.

“How can a man be poisoned so badly by mushrooms? Everybody’ll say: ‘Why wasn’t the cook more careful?’ ” But Vasya insisted. The story had been told to everybody: he had eaten mushrooms, and they had made him ill.

“Have it your own way! But it wasn’t a very clever idea. If it had been something else – but mushrooms! Who would cook bad mushrooms?”

Vasya left the kitchen. Marya Semyonovna, however, couldn’t regain her composure, banged about furiously with the pots. “Here they make a mess of things, get everything all mixed up, and now I’m to blame. First they make a bed the devil himself couldn’t sleep in, and now I have to lie in it, if you please! Marya Semyonovna is responsible! I can’t tell the difference between good and bad mushrooms! How can they insult a person like that? I’ve been in the kitchen for twenty years – there’s no other cook like me; I’m as good as a chef! You should see my pile of references. Even the late Madame Gollolobova, the general’s wife, who always was so proud, never called me anything but Marya Semyonovna; and the Pokatilovs, the millionaires, gave me a gold watch and chain for Christmas because my sauces were so good. And now just look at what they’ve thought up! ‘Marya Semyonovna gave the manager poisonous mushrooms!’ I didn’t think such an outrage was possible. Didn’t I do everything I could? I felt sorry for this Vassilissa, never breathed a word to her about her husband’s sweetheart But that’s how people are! Nothing but injustice! And they’re Communists...!”

“Why are you angry, Marya Semyonovna? Why do you feel offended?” Vassya spoke thoughtfully, eating his soup the while with great relish.

“Does it make any difference what they tell us to say? The truth will out. You won’t be held responsible; they've invented the story about the mushrooms only to keep down the scandal. But I like it. It’s an interesting business! There’s passion for you! What are the movies compared to this?”

“And you’re having a good time, you silly boy! A person’s dying, and you think it’s fun! What has the world come to! Nobody cares about life. The least little thing happens, and – bing, bang – they’ve shot the fellow. That’s why people don’t really want to live any more. It’s all because they’ve forgotten God!”

“Oh, forget about God yourself! I’m not a Communist, but I don’t believe in God, either.”

“And it’s wrong of you not to believe. There he sits and chatters without doing any work. Why don’t you help me clear away the plates? These fellows, these doctors use up so many dishes. They’re forever wanting tea and everything else. God’s will be done. That’s what I told that dressed-up minx, the maid of Vladimir Ivanovitch’s sweetheart. I was just finished with serving supper for the doctors when she comes running in by the back door, rustling her skirts, wearing a little batiste apron, sporting a butterfly on her head, and wagging her tail. ‘My lady sent me to find out how Vladimir Ivanovitch is getting on.’ ‘He’s getting on so well,’ I said, ‘that I guess he’ll be standing before his God pretty soon, for God punishes everyone for his sins. But as for your mistress, that hussy, just tell her she’d better go to church and do penance. After all, she’s the only one who’s to blame.’ ” In Vassilissa’s presence, Marya Semyonovna was very silent. But the moment she found someone else to talk to there was no stopping the torrent of her words.

The house grew still. People had come during the day: members of the administration, fellow workers; the physicians had been consulting. Lisa shared the night-watch with Vasya, so that she would not be alone as she suffered and waited for the end. Lisa felt that she, too, was partly responsible; for she had aroused Vasya against Vladimir.

“Don’t say that, Lisa. I worked myself up against him. It took mortal danger to make me realize that nothing in the world is dearer to me than he. How can I live without him? His blood will be on my head.”

Her curly head supported on her hand, Vasya sat beside Vladimir’s bed, thinking. Suppose Volodya should die, so that she could no longer live with him – what then? The Revolution The Party? The Party could use only those who had no crime on their conscience. But Vasya would never be able to forget that she had killed Vladimir. If there had been some good reason.... But because of a woman’s jealousy. If he had had crooked dealings with thieves like Savelyev, if he had acted against the interests of the people, there would have been a reason. But to make her friend die because of a woman! And such a friend! She had thought he did not love her. But he must have loved her, since he had gone to his death. So life without her meant nothing to him? In spite of her sorrow this realization moved her to tears, to sweet, penitent tears. Gazing at her beloved man, Vasya whispered tenderly: “Will you forgive me, my darling? Will you be able to forget, my dear friend?”

He stirred, moved his head restlessly.

“Water... Water....”

Gently Vasya raised his head from the pillow, as the nurse had shown her, and gave him water.

Vladimir drank. His eyes opened and looked at her, but seemed not to see her: “Do you feel better, Volodetchka?”

She bent over him anxiously.

He didn’t answer. He opened his eyes and closed them again.

“Is Ivan Ivanovitch here?” he asked feebly.

“No, he’s gone. Do you want him?”

He nodded. “Call him – phone him.”

“But the doctor forbade you to bother about business.”

Vladimir looked impatient and fretful.

“Please don’t torment me, now at least. Get him.” His eyes closed.

Vasya felt a dagger. Why had he said that? “Please don’t torment me, now at least!” So he had not forgiven her for causing him this mortal agony.

She summoned Ivan Ivanovitch.

When he came, Vladimir asked Vasya to leave him alone with Ivan Ivanovitch. She went into the garden.

The red roses had withered away, but the dahlias were in full bloom. The sun was blazing down on her hands, her shoulders, her head. It no longer caressed her as in the spring, hut burned painfully. The garden was neglected, the honeysuckle vines entwined the lilac bushes like ivy. The sky was not blue – the heat made it look like molten silver.

Vasya walked over the baking ground.

No. Vladimir wouldn’t forgive her! He would not forget. If she had come when he called her that morning, nothing would have happened. Now she had lost him – lost him forever. Not her adored lover, but her friend, her comrade. Volodya would not trust her any more, would not lean on her again. Vasya was standing beside the acacia tree that had been so full of white blossoms in the spring. She closed her eyes. Why hadn’t she poisoned herself? Why did she still live?

“Vassilissa Dementyevna, Vladimir Ivanovitch wants you,” Ivan Ivanovitch called to her as he entered the car and went away.

Where was he going? Was he taking a message to Vladimir’s friend? But Vasya no longer cared.

The past would never return.

It was hot. The scorching sun of summer was exhausting. The shades had been lowered. Vladimir was sleeping; Vasya knelt at the foot of his bed, driving away the flies.

He had to sleep, to regain his strength. He had suffered enough.

Vasya and Volodya were alone in the house; Marya Semyonovna had gone shopping. Vassya, the boy, had been sent away.

Vasya liked being alone with Volodya. She felt as if he belonged to her, as if he were her property. He was so weak and helpless.

If only he could understand, if only he could read her heart. He would see how ardently she loved him, how she was suffering, how she longed for his caresses, how her loneliness starved her. Why was Volodya always so taciturn, so hostile toward her? He never looked into her eyes. When she did not arrange the pillows quite properly he would say irritably: “And that calls itself a nurse! She doesn’t even know how to fix the pillows.”

Of course, one can’t expect much from a, sick man; still – why was he like that? Could he really not forgive her? Never? And if they stayed together would it always be as now, lonely, dismal, bleak?

She looked at Vladimir, at the dear, familiar face with its long eye-lashes. Vasya had fallen in love with them at the very beginning. And he had been captivated by her hair. But her hair was gone....

It was like the old fairy-tale. Her hair had bewitched him; when it was cut off her lover left her. How they had loved each other then, in ’17. And later, when the White offensive began. The night when, together, they arrested the conspirators. “If I fall, Vasya, don’t lose a single hour of your work; your tears can wait till later.” “And the same goes for you, Volodya. We promise each other.” They had held each other’s hands, had looked into each other’s eyes, and had gone to their work, without delay. It had been cold then, the stars had been shining, the snow had creaked under their feet as Vasya and Vladimir had gone with their men.

At the memory Vasya’s heart grew tender; as if the warmth radiating from her lost happiness were melting it. Vasya had not wept when the disaster had come upon her; she had not lamented, had forgotten herself. But now the tears were running down her cheeks. Not bitter, scalding tears, but gently sorrowful ones. She was weeping for the happiness of long ago.

“Vasya – why – Vasya! – what is it?”

Volodya had raised his head from the pillows, and was looking at her. His eyes were distant no longer, no longer seemed to look past her. They weren’t cold. They were “his” eyes, Volodya’s loving, sympathetic eyes, although their expression still was sad.

“What is it, Vasyuk? Why are you crying, poor child?”

He laid his hand on her curls lovingly.

“Volodya, my darling. Will you forgive me? Will you forgive?”

“Silly Vasya. What do you want me to forgive? Now, stop crying, so we can talk. Sit down here, closer to me. Here we live our lives side by side, saying nothing and suffering so.”

“But you must not get excited now – I’m afraid for you, dear. Some other time.”

“No, it wouldn’t go so well some other time. Let me talk, Vasya. I’m so wretched. That’s why I wanted to die. And even now, though I want to live, I see no way out....”

“We’ll look for it together, Volodya. After all, I’m not a stranger to you.”

“Are you sure you know everything, Vasya?”

She nodded. “I know.”

“Now you understand what was hurting me? And you were always reproaching me with silly things, forever harping on Savelyev.”

“I know, Volodya.”

“And you made another mistake. Did you think that was love? Did you? No, Vasya, I love only you, you, my guardian angel, you, my faithful friend. But there, Vasya, it’s different, entirely different. Call it whatever you want, call it lack of self-control, whatever you want, only not love! But you were jealous of me, you suspected me, spied on me.”

“Never, Volodya. Never.”

“How can you say that? Think of the blue silk! Think of your cross-examinations: ‘Why do you smell of perfume?’ And ‘Where does Savelyev live? Show me!’ ” “I didn’t spy on you, Volodya; no, I didn’t. But I was imagining all sorts of dreadful things. I wanted to drive away those fancies, Volodya. I wanted to believe in you, to keep my faith in you.”

“Oh, don’t talk about your fancies! You were jealous all the same. You didn’t say so openly, but you tormented me, tortured me. Why go over all that? We’re both to blame!”

Silence. Both were thinking.

“Is our life to go on like this, Volodya?” Vasya, asked mournfully.

“I don’t know, Vasya. I’m lost myself. I don't know what to do.”

Again both were silent. Both had much to say; but they could not reach each other.

“Might you not really be happier with the other girl, Volodya?” Vasya asked cautiously. She was surprised that the question did not hurt her.

“Vasya, Vasya! I see that you don’t trust me. Can’t you see whom I love? Didn’t I try to kill myself because I had lost you?” There was reproach in both his voice and his eyes.

Her heart was trembling with joy.

“Volodya!”

They embraced; their lips sought each other.

“No, not like that, Vasya! Calm down, Vasyuk! My strength hasn’t come back yet, you see – I can't even kiss you....”

Smiling, Vladimir patted Vasya’s head; but his eyes were sad again. No; the wall between them could not be broken down. They could not find the path that led through the thorny hedge of misunderstanding from one heart to the other.

Chapter XI

Vladimir had returned to his work for the first time, had gone to the office. Vasya was rejoicing in her freedom. In the morning she rushed to the Party Committee, and thence to the hemp-binding works. Lisa was asking for help, preparations had to be made for the meeting of the union.

On the way to the Party Committee Vasya smiled. She felt as though she had escaped from a cage. Everything delighted her. She felt as if she had not seen her Comrades for an incredibly long time; and they were glad, too. They had missed her. Vasya was a general favorite. She did so much, gossiped not at all, and sympathized with everybody’s troubles. The moment she reached Party headquarters she was given work to do – she had to determine what was to be discussed at the meeting, and to classify the material with the speakers.

Vasya looked at the clock. Impossible! It way almost eight! Vladimir must have waited for her impatiently. Had they given him a dinner conforming with the doctor’s orders? Vasya had forgotten all about it.

She walked with Lisa, discussing the news that a Comrade of the Central Administration had brought from Moscow. Many peculiar things were happening in the Party these days. Lisa was in complete disagreement with the new policy; she stood with the boys of the factory. They were going to put up their own candidates at the Party Conference – there would be another fight against the Chairman.

Vasya envied her. Since her arrival she had taken no really active part in anything, as if she were not a member of the Party, but only a “sympathizer.”

“That’s because you’re a manager’s wife. If you had been living by yourself you would have come back to work very soon.”

Vasya sighed. Lisa didn’t have to tell her that; she knew it herself. But she had no time to think of such things. As soon as Vladimir should have completely recovered she would go back to her province.

“Oh, you won’t go! You’re much too fond of your Vladimir Ivanovitch. You’re only a wife nowadays,” Lisa objected irritably.

Vasya remained silent. What could she say? Lisa was right; but she did not complain. She had gone through too much. Let Volodya only live, live without suffering.

When Vasya came home he was not there.

“Where is Vladimir Ivanovitch? Hasn’t he come back yet?”

“Of course he came back. He was here from three o’clock, and waited for you to come for dinner. But he couldn’t wait so long. When you didn’t come he ate with Ivan Ivanovitch. They went away not long ago,” Marya Semyonovna told her. “But there’s a note for you on the table.”

Vasya took it up.

“Dear Vasya, we’ve agreed always to be frank with each other; and you said you’d always understand me. I absolutely must be there today. I’ll tell you why later. Then you’ll understand that I couldn’t help it. I beg you to stand by our agreement, and not to grieve. Your Volodya.”

When Vasya had read the note her hands dropped on her lap.

Again? So it was not over. But why had she thought it was over? Had Volodya ever said so? Hadn’t she known that Ivan Ivanovitch was always going back and forth, forming the connecting link between Vladimir and the other woman? Volodya was honest, as she had begged him to be. Frankness, only frankness! Why did it hurt so? Why did bitter resentment and indignation rise in her heart, as if Volodya had deceived her again?

Marya Semyonovna was setting the table and looking disapprovingly at Vasya.

“Do you want to eat?” she asked. “Are you starting this business all over again? Nobody eats, and a person is expected to cook! Then there’ll be more of your endless quarrels and tears. You may resent it or not, Vassilissa Dementyevna, but I must tell you the truth; you’re not the woman for Vladimir Ivanovitch. Now you’re broken-hearted over his letter, and you’re crying because he’s gone to his mistress. But I tell you that you’re to blame, too. The man just rose up from the dead, so to speak. He took poison on account of you. But the moment he walked out the door you were gone yourself. If it were your work, it would be different. Business demands its rights. But you just run around from one meeting to another, enlightening our silly women. Why don’t you clean up your own house before you try to teach others? It’s a disgrace to work for you!”

Banging the door, she disappeared into the kitchen. But after a few minutes Marya Semyonovna returned, a little gentler, with a hot omelet and a cup of cocoa.“ Eat, Vassilissa Dementyevna, and stop thinking. You can’t think of everything, after all.

Marya Semyonovna sat down at the table beside Vasya and recounted her own experiences. Something of the sort had happened in the house of the late Madame Gollolobova, the general’s wife. All on account of the French governess. But then the general and his wife were reconciled and lived together very well until she died. What was more, they even were happy.

Vasya listened half-heartedly, but did not interrupt. She had come to know Marya Semyonovna during Vladimir’s illness. Marya Semyonovna pitied Vasya, and recognized one of her own people in her. She hated the specialists, the doctors, and the managers, thought them all burshuis. But now Vasya had to listen to Marya Semyonovna’s endless stories of how the millionaire Pokatilovs had lived; and what the general’s wife used to like for dinner. They bored Vasya; but she didn’t want to hurt Marya Semyonovna’s feelings. She was a kindly old soul, though she seemed rather sulky at first glance.

Her stories were particularly disagreeable to Vasya just now. She wanted to weigh everything, to clear up matters in her own mind, to think things over from beginning to end.“ Thanks for the supper, Marya Semyonovna. Now I’ll have to go to my papers.”

“Is that all you ate? If I’d known that I wouldn't have cooked anything for you. You’ll kill yourself, Vassilissa Dementyevna; and the whole business isn't worth that. For, to tell you the truth, I wouldn’t give a kopek for Vladimir Ivanovitch’s sweetheart! She isn’t worth your little finger.”

Lisa had said the same thing.

“Why do you say that, Marya Semyonovna? She is supposed to be so very beauti ful.”

“What’s beautiful in her? She’s painted and powdered like a clown, She isn’t interested in anything but clothes, so that she can get more and more out of the men.”

“Do you know her? Did you ever see her?”

“Of course I know her. How often didn’t she sleep here before you came, the dressed-up hussy! She has all sorts of notions. She has to have hot water at night, needs this, that, and the other. She pretends she’s a lady, and says she’s been used to this life since she was a child. But she’s lying – she doesn’t look like that. Real gentlefolk are more polite. They always say ‘Please’ and ‘Thank you’ to the servants. But this hussy can only give orders: ‘Bring me this! Do that! Clear these things away!’ ” “What’s her name?”

“Her name? Nina Constantinovna. I can’t remember her last name. Everybody in town calls her just Nina Constantinovna.”

“I’d like to see her sometime,” Vasya said thoughtfully, turning Volodya’s note in her hands.

“Nothing could be simpler. She goes walking in the City Park every day when the band plays. Let’s go there tomorrow, and you can take a look at the minx. In the old days that kind used to walk the streets of Moscow at night.”

“When the music plays, you say? All right, Marya Semyonovna; let’s go there. Maybe I’ll feel better after I’ve seen her.”

Marya Semyonovna shook her head doubtfully; but she made no attempt to dissuade Vasya. She was anxious to see how the two rivals would look at each other.

Vasya went through the dark house. She didn’t want any light; she felt that the darkness soothed her. She could not sleep.

In the morning everything seemed fine; Volodya was well and working again, and she, too, was busy. For she would soon return to her province. She didn’t want to be the “manager’s lady”. Since she and Vladimir had agreed always to be frank, she felt better. But the pain was still there. It was not jealousy. Nor had Vladimir broken his word; he had told the truth to Vasya as to a friend. Still, she did not feel quite happy.

She scolded herself: what in the world did she want? Surely she had not thought that Vladimir had come back to her altogether, that he had torn the other out of his heart. But that was just it. That was what Vasya had thought, hoped for, longed for.

And what was the upshot of it all? They had suffered so much, and had progressed not an inch. Vladimir was again spending his evenings with the other woman while Vasya wandered alone through the dark house. He had no pity for her. Whom did he love? Her, Vasya, his friend and comrade, or the other? He said he loved Vasya; but it wasn’t true. These thoughts only increased her suffering. If she knew that he had stopped loving her she would go away. But as matters stood, how could she go? Suppose she was mistaken. Suppose he should attempt suicide again. Vasya could not leave Vladimir. How could she live far away from him with this agony in her heart? It was more bearable when he was there.

Come what might, she loved Vladimir. If she didn’t love him could she suffer such torment because of him?

She loved him: but she understood him less every day. As if they had entered a forest by two divergent paths. The farther they penetrated into the forest the greater the distance between them. She loved Volodya; but in her heart she condemned him more and more. Why had he had anything to do with such a creature P If it had been one of her own people, a Communist girl, she would not have felt so hurt. But this was a real burshuika. Volodya himself had told Vasya that she was a stranger, a young lady of the aristocracy. Spoiled. She could not understand the Bolsheviki and the Communists, but longed for her old life. She had been brought up in luxury. There had been seventeen servants in her home. She had had a horse of her own, accustomed to the side-saddle. Her father had been a White soldier. Her mother had died during the Revolution. Her brother, an officer, had been reported missing. Only she was left. She had looked for work. As she knew many languages she was taken on in the administrative offices as a secretary. Volodya met her there; she fell in love with him, wrote him letters.

Vasya was far away, Volodya was always alone.

So their affair began. It was soon noticed in the office; Nina Constantinovna was frowned upon, and had to give up her position. Savelvev made her his secretary.

Only his secretary?” Vasya couldn t hold back the question. For one thing, she wanted to irritate Vladimir; besides, she wanted to learn the truth about the other.

“What sort o f gossip are your repeating there?” Vladimir flared up. “Aren’t you ashamed to say such vile things? I didn’t think you would sling mud at her, like any other woman. Why, Vasya?

It doesn't become you!”

He told Vasya that Savelyev was a sort of father or guardian, to Nina Constantinovna. He had known her parents; and when Nina stood alone in the world he took care of her, gave her advice and material assistance, procured the position in the administrative office for her. Then, when she left, he helped her again. She had to vacate her room. Where could she go? To Vladimir? That couldn’t be done. Savelyev offered to take her into his house. But Nina Constantinovna didn’t want that. Was she to be left on the street? Savelyev found a small house where he arranged to have his office, and offered Nina a home there. “For he is something like a guardian of hers. He feels sorry for her, takes care of her...."

“And makes love to her!” Again Vasya could not control herself. She was angry; Volodya spoke too favorably of her. He always had been a trusting soul. Vasya, however, was suspicious of the girl. Everybody said she was a regular one....

“It’s a lie, a slanderous lie! Why do you find pleasure in repeating such filth? If you want to know the truth, ask me. Nina thinks of no one. Nina loves only me. And even if it were true, Savelyev would not be the only one to make love to her. Do you know Maklezov, of the Foreign Trade Office? He offered her a life of luxury, but Nina showed him the door. I won’t deny that Savelyev may like Nina. Maybe his love for her isn’t purely paternal. But Nina can’t stand him – as a man, that is. There’s nothing doing there. It’s not to be thought of. I know Nina, you can be sure of that.”

She saw that he was growing quite excited, as if he wanted to convince not Vasya, but himself. But what hurt her most was Savelyev’s connection with everything. She had disliked him from the first day. There had been a reason for the S. C. telling her that Vladimir Ivanovitch ought to keep away from him.

“But I don’t see why Savelyev has to be mixed up with it. That’s why they say that you keep her together, share and share alike.”

“If anyone dares say that to you, spit in his face! You must understand me, Vasya. That’s the terrible part of it, that Nina was a virgin when I took her. She was pure....”

“Pure?”

Vasya felt a stab in her heart, as if a fine needle were piercing it. Long ago, in ’17, at that evening tea in Vasya’s room, he had said: “I’m keeping my heart for a pure girl.” And then that first night, he had caressed her and said: No one in the world can be purer than you.”

“Pure? What nonsense are you talking there, Vladimir? What has the body to do with purity? You're beginning to think like a burshui!”

“Try to understand me, Vasya. I don’t think so, but she does. It’s a great tragedy for her that I took her without marrying her. Now, she thinks, she’s ‘lost.’ You can’t know what she suffers. She cries all the time. Try to understand, Vasysa. She thinks differently than we proletarians do. The first man who has her has to marry her, too” “Why didn’t you tell me that before? Who's preventing you from marrying her? I?”

“Oh, Vasya, Vasya. You’re so clever – but when it comes to love you’re a woman, like all the rest. How can I marry her, Vasya? We’re strangers – we’re different in every respect. It’s not love. It's rather pity. You can see it yourself.”

Only pity? Really? She wanted to believe it was only pity.

“If you don’t love or understand each other, why don’t you separate? It’s tormenting both of you!” Vasya didn’t mention herself.

“How can I leave her? It’s not such a simple matter, Vasya. Where can she go if I leave her? On the street? Should Savelyev keep her? Or should she register as a prostitute?”

“Why all this fuss? Let her look for work!”

“Work! That’s more easily said than done nowadays, when everybody’s laying off. Besides, what sort of work? After all, Nina can’t go into a factory!”

Vasya wanted to say: Why not into a factory? Why not, that hussy? But she wanted to spare Vladimir. He was not yet well, and the doctor had ordered him to avoid all excitement. He was already visibly affected by their conversation.

Later, as she roamed through the dark house, Vasya was sorry. Why hadn’t she cried out the truth? Why hadn’t she told Vladimir everything she thought of the woman? She didn’t believe that Nina Constantinovna loved him. She was merely ensnaring him, to gain a double advantage. Vasya hated her, not because she was reputed to be of loose character, but because her heart was not pure. Plenty of prostitutes were better than the so-called decent women. Vasya remembered the curly-haired Sinka, who had been shot by the Whites, and who cried, as she died: “Long live the Soviet Government! Long live the Revolution!” She had been on the streets, the lowest of the low; but when the Revolution broke out she revealed herself, undertook the most difficult and most dangerous tasks. She had worked in the Cheka with all her heart and soul. Vasya could have understood Vladimir’s falling in love with a woman like that. But this “lady,” this burskuika! She was a stranger, after all. And she had no heart, she was simply fooling Vladimir. He, trusting soul, believed in her. That was what hurt so badly. Vasya would never be able to reconcile herself to that.

What was her hold on him? His pity for her? I’m so weak, so helpless! He said she had been pure! Pure! Rut now there remained not the tiniest trace of that purity. She had exchanged it long ago for presents from men. He, however, still believed in her, Vasya was furious at the other woman.

“How long are you going to run around the house this way, Vassilissa Dementyevna?” grumbled Marya Semyonovna, breaking Vasya’s train of thought. “You ought to take care of yourself; you need your strength for your meetings. Why don’t you try to sleep? There’s no sense in your staying up for your husband. You won’t want to have him in your room anyway, when he comes from the other one. I’ll make his bed in the drawing-room.”

Vasya threw her arms about Marya Semyonovna. But she felt even more sad. A stranger was sorry for her. But he, her lover, her husband, her friend, pitied only the other, the heartless, wily woman who wound herself about him like a serpent.

“Are you asleep, Vasyuk?” Coming into the bedroom, Vladimir lit the lamp. Vasya lay in bed, her eyes wide open. How could she sleep with this agony in her heart?

“No, I’m not asleep.”

“Is Vasyuk angry with me?”

He sat down on the bed and tried to kiss Vasya. She pushed him away vehemently.

“So you are angry with me. What about our agreement? I told you the truth as I would a friend. You asked me to, yourself. And now... ? Is it better to lie?”

Vasya did not answer.

“It’s not good for us, darling, to begin our squabbles and reproaches all over again. Why are you angry? Because I visited Nina? Just think it over, Vasya. I was together with you all the time; and she is alone. Do you think she didn’t worry and suffer enough when I was ill?”

Vasya wanted to scream: “What has that to do with me?” But she pressed her lips together. She said nothing; only her heart was beating furiously.

“You must not think that anything happened, Vasyuk. I wasn’t alone with her. Savelyev was there, too, and Ivan Ivanovitch came in. We had something to discuss. Would you like to know why I was there today? Well, Vasya – I went there to say good-bye, Why do you stare so? Don’t you believe me? Ask Ivan Ivanovitch. That’s why I had him come here, so that he would arrange everything. Help Nina Constantinova to get away from here, pay her rent, and all the rest of it.”

“Where is she going?” Vasya’s voice sounded hollow.

“To Moscow. Savelyev will take her there; he has relatives there, with whom Nina will live. And she will look for a position. It’ll be easier for all of us that way.”

Vasya remained silent. There was suspicion in her eyes.

Why the sudden change? What had happened? Didn’t he love her any more?

“Let’s not talk about love. That’s quite another question. But Nina, too, understands that things can’t go on this way. She’s fully made up her mind to go to Moscow; she decided that long ago. She told me she would go the morning you went away from me. She telephoned me, and said she would not go on with this life. Either the one thing or the other. Or she would go to Moscow....”

“Ah, so that’s it. That’s why you took poison! One woman had gone, and the other was threatening to leave if you didn’t marry her. Now I see it all. You were afraid you’d lose her! What a fool I am. What a silly fool. I thought it was because of me that you were despondent and wanted to die.” Vasya laughed bitterly, hysterically.

“How you twist everything, Vasya. How spiteful you’ve become. You’re not the Vasyuk you used to be,” Vladimir said sadly, getting up from the bed. “There’s really no sense in our talking. I wanted to tell you everything, so there would be no secrets between us. But now I see that the more truthful I am the worse matters become. You’ve become different, cruel.”

“Oh, no! Stop, Volodya!” Vasya’s voice was like breaking glass, quivered with all the despair of her heart. “If we’re going to talk things over, let’s do it. Why do you send her to Moscow? You love her, not me. If you loved me you would have stayed with me today. But you consider only her, you pity only her.”

“Vasya, Vasya. How unjust you are. If you only knew what Nina has gone through in these months. She is so young – almost a child. She hasn’t a single close friend. Everybody slings mud at her. And why, Vasya? Because she had the misfortune of falling in love with me. You, Vasya, have your Party, your friends. But she has only me. I’m her only protector, her only supporter.”

Walking up and down the room, his hand on his back, Vladimir told Vasya that Nina had expected a child. His child – his dream! So much joy, and so much sorrow.

“Where is the child?” Vasya asked, trembling.

“You surely don’t think Nina could have kept it! The scandal! And how you would have suffered! We thought of you. Nina cried her heart out. But for your sake, Vasya, we decided to do even that.”

For her sake? He had discussed it with a strange woman, had “thought of her” with a strange woman, of her, Vasya, as if she were not his friend and comrade, but some enemy. He had not come to her with his troubles, but to the other, to Nina. So she was nearer to him – she, not Vasya, belonged with him now.

“The day you came I found out that Nina was pregnant. Now you know what was tormenting me, Vasya” She nodded silently.

Vladimir went on, telling her that Nina had gone to another city, to prevent gossip. Savelyev had found a place for her to live there. And she had had her abortion there. But the operation had not gone off smoothly. There had been complications. Vladimir had gone to see her.

“Was that when the shipping clerks were going to strike?”

“Yes, about that time.”

Hm.... So that was why he had wept in the dining room that day. On account of Nina. Not because of the shipping clerks, of course.

“And she came back the morning Savelyev arrived, didn’t she?” Vasya went on.

“Yes.”

“I understand.”

Neither spoke; both waited. Now the hard, cruel words would come again. Later they would regret them; but they could not be taken back. They distorted love, mutilating it until it was like a pockmarked face. No more beauty, no more heart-warming happiness.

“Vasya!” Vladimir broke the oppressive silence. “Why all this heartache? Who’s to blame? I swear to you, I spared you, spared you as long as I could.”

“That wasn’t necessary, Volodya. I only wanted you to believe that I’m your friend.”

Sitting down again beside her, Vladimir took her hand.

“Yes, Vasya, I know you’re my friend. That’s why it’s so hard for me.” He laid his head on Vasya’s shoulder, as he had always used to do. Stroking that head, Vasya felt a sweet joy tempering her pain. In spite of everything he was there, with her! He still loved her, in his way.

“Mightn’t it be better, Volodya, if I go away, and she stays?” she asked cautiously.

“Don’t start with that again, Vasya. Don’t torture me. Instead of helping me you drive me off the right path. I’ve revealed my soul to you as to a friend. I’m keeping no secrets from you. And here you say you want to go away.”

“For your sake, Volodya; i f you love her.”

“What do you mean by love, Vasya? Love must be returned; and I feel it so clearly, that Nina and I have nothing in common, that she isn’t a comrade, that she can never be a friend like you to me. I'm sorry for her, I take care of her. What would become of her if I were to leave her, if we were to part? I feel responsible for her. Can’t you understand? After all, she was a virgin when I took her.”

“That’s nonsense, Volodya. Why are you responsible for her? She wasn’t a child; she must have known what she was doing. Besides, who bothers about such things nowadays?”

“You have proletarian ideas; but Nina is different. It’s a real tragedy for her.”

“I know. That’s why I say I’ll go away and you should marry her.”

“There you go again, Vasya! Didn’t I beg you not to torment me? Besides it’s too late. Everything's been decided. Nina Constantinovna goes to Moscow Thursday. That’s all there’s to it! Let’s stop talking about it.”

Vladimir spoke so calmly, with so much assurance, that she had to believe him.

“But you be patient, Vasya, for another few days. Don’t do anything rash. She’ll go away, and we'll live as before. No, it’ll be better than ever before. Now we have suffered together, and that’ll bring us closer to each other.”

Volodya put his arms around Vasya, and kissed her eyes.

“I’d like to sleep with you tonight, Vasyuk. Do you mind? I’m so tired, my head’s reeling.”

Lying down, he laid his head on Vasya’s shoulder, and fell asleep at once.

Vasya, however, did not sleep. If he loved her, he would have caressed her. If he loved her, he would have understood her grief. She gazed at him. That familiar head, hiding such strange, incomprehensible thoughts. Those long lashes, veiling tender glances not meant for her. Those warm lips, covering another woman with yearning kisses, arousing her passion.

She pushed Voldya’s head from her shoulder. He was a stranger to her!

“Why do you drive your precious Voldya away?” Vladimir whispered in his sleep.

“Your precious Voldya?” Whose pet name was that? Not Vasya’s. He had confused them. He thought of the other even in his sleep.

Vasya scowled at her sleeping husband. Was that her lover? Had he once been her friend and comrade? Was he the man whom she had loved when, together, they had fought for the Soviet?

He was a stranger. A stranger.

She shivered. She was so lonely.

Chapter XII

The Park. Dusty, withered by the oppressive heat of the summer. The long and anxiously awaited rain did not come; it would have washed the dust of the city from the trees, would have quenched the thirst of the grass.

The band was playing before a small audience. Children were running about; a few Red Guards were there, sitting in groups, or walking along with their sweethearts. On a shady bench sat a priest in a monk’s gown, leaning on his staff, lost in thought. Beside him was a nursemaid, watching a little child.

Vasya and Marya Semyonovna sat down on the bench; although they were a trifle to one side they could see everything.

They waited for Nina Constantinovna.

“Why hasn’t our little lady come yet? Generally she’s here the moment the music begins, to show off her clothes. All the fine ladies come here to see what’s stylish this year. They find out from Nina Constantinovna, because she’s always dressed up to the minute.”

Vasya listened absent-mindedly. She was eager to see Nina. How would she be? At the same time she was afraid. How could she bear to look at her?

“Is that she, Marya Semyonovna? On that bench there, to the right of the band? The one in the pink dress?”

“How in the world could you think that? Nina Constantinova isn’t like that. You’ll see the difference between her and the others right away. She’s a real fashionable lady.”

They sat there, waiting. But Nina did not come. Only when they were about to go home, intending to return the next day, did she appear. She was coming from the other end of the park, and stopped before the band. She was talking to Savelyev and two members of the Red Committee, and seemed unconscious of the eyes that stared at her.

So this was how she looked! She was wearing a thin white dress that enveloped her body in soft folds, and revealed the curve of her breasts. She had on long sand-colored gloves and a hat to match, pulled down over her eyes. Vasya could not distinguish the features, but saw only the lips, shining red as blood.

“What red, red lips !”

“That’s the rouge,” explained Marya Semyonovna. “You should see her eyes. They look as if she’d smeared soot over them. Somebody ought to take a sponge and wash the dirt off her face. And then you ought to look at her! I could be beautiful too, if I used powder and rouge.”

Nina Constantinovna was leaning on her white parasol, tapping the ground with the point of her white shoes. She laughed, throwing back her head a little. The members of the Red Committee laughed too.

Apparently bored, Savelyev had stepped to one side, and was tracing figures in the sand with his cane.

“Her hat hides her whole face,” Vasya complained.

“Come, let’s walk past her. Then you can get a better look at the hussy. But I advise you not to look her way. She isn’t pretty. When I was working for Madame Gollolobova, that’s when I saw real fine ladies and real beauties. Compared to them, she’s nothing!”

But Vasya’s curiosity bothered her. She had to know why Volodya loved the other girl.

Just as Vasya and Marya Semyonovna were getting up to walk past Nina, she said good-bye to the members of the Red Committee, exclaiming loudly enough for Vasya to hear: “We’ll meet again in Moscow.” Turning she went on toward the gate, Savelyev following.

“You surely don’t want to run after her? You mustn’t do that, Vassilissa Dementyevna. You’ll have to let her go, that bird. People know you – and that’s no way of stopping gossip.”

Though she slackened her pace, Vasya kept her eyes fixed on the other.

She was tall, slender; her shoulders swayed a little as she walked. Her head was bowed as she went away from the bandstand. Vasya thought Nina was crying. Savelyev bent toward her, seemed to be trying to persuade her. But Nina shook her head. No, she said, raising her tan-gloved hand to her face, as if to wipe away a tear. Could she weep? Had she come to bid the music farewell? Or – or did she love Volodya? Was she not merely trying to get something from him? Vasya was disturbed. She felt no better now that she had seen Nina Constantinovna. It was no longer jealousy that bothered her, but another, new feeling. Something like pity for Nina. Why had she cried? Why had she come to hear the music? To bid her happiness good-bye?

A new load on Vasya’s heart. She was furious at herself. That was all that was needed! To suffer with the other woman, with the one who had got in her way. A fine state of affairs.

Nina had gone to Moscow. Almost two weeks had passed since she and Savelyev had left the city. Logically, Vasya should have enjoyed life now. The interloper was gone. Vladimir had stayed behind with Vasya; so she surely was dearer, more precious to him, and the other affair was merely temporary?

Vasya smiled. Vasya laughed. She coughed less and visited the Party Committee regularly. Vladimir was working, too; he was reorganizing the business according to the plans of the syndicate people. When that would be finished he and Vasya would go to Moscow, whence he was to be transferred to his new district. Vladimir was happy, entirely taken up with his work.

But the real, heart-felt joy of other days was lacking. There was nothing to be done about it. Vladimir was not exactly cool; but he had changed. Frequently he would be moody, would lose his temper.

Why did Vasya come home so late from the Party Committee? It was annoying for their guests, for they would not have dinner without the hostess. Again, he would flare up about the collars: not a single one was clean. Then Vasya, too, would be cross. She wasn’t responsible for that; let him take care of it himself. Let him go to Marya Semyonovna. Vasya was no laundress. Both would be furious when they parted – and why? On account of a stupid collar! One day Vasya came home in the rain. To save her hat, she had left it at Party Headquarters, and had put a shawl on her head. When he saw her Vladimir frowned, and snarled: “How you dress! Your shoes are run down at the heels, your skirt is filthy, you come in with a shawl on your head like a peasant woman. Slovenly!”

Again she lost control of herself.

“We can't all strut around like fashion plates. But I don’t have to accept any favors from Savelyev.”

Vladimir looked daggers at her; he said nothing. Vasya thought he would strike her.

But he restrained himself.

Something was wrong here. Vasya and Vladimir wanted to be friends; but the slightest provocation filled them with hatred for each other. Vladimir was always dreaming of his new position. How he could furnish the house, how he could arrange everything.

This was boring for Vasya. Why furnish a house? What was the pleasure in that? It would be different if it had anything to do with the common good. Vladimir disagreed with her, reproached her with narrow-mindedness.

Vasya told of a dispute in the Marxists’ Club on whether history was determined by economic questions alone or by ideas also. She grew animated, wanted Vladimir to hear everything that had been said. But he was bored. All this was empty talk. Increasing the profits of his enterprise – there was something worth doing! And they quarreled again.

When the two of them were alone together they had nothing to talk about. What could they do? They telephoned Ivan Ivanovitch. His presence made them feel more at ease.

Vasya was expecting letters from her province. But none came. Neither Grusha nor Stepan Alexeyevitch wrote a line. What could be the matter?

Although Vasya did not want to admit it even to herself, she suspected, deep down in her heart, that she would be called back to her province to work. Should she go? Should she stay?

A registered letter from home. From Stepan Alexeyevitch. Short, and to the point. He proposed that Vasya take over the group of the textile factories, and organize the work there in a new way, as the Central Administration would prescribe. Vasya would live there, not in the city. He asked for an answer.

Vasya’s heart pounded. She longed for her own people. For what was her life here? No work, no joy, only one worry: if only nothing happens! She seemed to be bound hand and foot. She remembered a jackdaw her brother Kolyka had owned. He had caught it in the woods, and had bound its wings so that it couldn’t fly away. The bird hopped about on the floor, opened its beak, and turned its bright black eyes toward the window. It tried to flap its wings, but they were bound fast. It tried again, a third time, cawed with distress and – resumed its solemn walk on the floor as if it had never attempted to fly. This was what was happening to Vasya now. Her wings were bound, too, and it was impossible for her to fly. But what was binding her wings? Joy, or love? No; neither of these. She was fettered by apprehension, by the fear that again something might happen to Vladimir. By her gratitude to him for staying with her, for sending away the ‘hussy.’ Slender threads. But they were bound tightly about Vasya. She seemed hopelessly entangled in the net.

Lisa said: “I don’t understand you, Vassilissa. I tell you, you’re becoming a real ‘manager’s lady.’ You can’t get away from it.”

How could she break these threads, tear the net?

Vasya held Stepan Alexeyevitch’s letter in her hand. She felt loath to put it away. It seemed to be a talisman that would help her find her way, as in the fairy-tale.

“Vassilissa Dementyevna, the beer is all gone. You’ll have to tell Vladimir Ivanovitch to have some more sent out from the factory. Otherwise we’ll get unexpected guests for dinner and we won’t know where to get it from. You can’t make it out of the air.”

Marya Semyonovna looked disapprovingly at Vasya.

“You’re always glum, Vassilissa Dementyevna. And why, if I might ask? That dressed-up minx has finally landed in Moscow, thank God, and Vladimir Ivanovitch is with you now, never goes out anywhere. Why do you sulk so? The men don’t like that. They want their wives to be jolly, want to hear them laugh, want to have some pleasure at home after the day’s work and worries.”

As she listened, Vasya smiled and thought: Perhaps she’s right. Perhaps I ought to rouse myself and again become the tomboy Vasya of ’18. There was a lot of work in those days, but a lot of laughter, too.

Should she go to see Volodya in the office? An unexpected visitor? Tell him about the letter – and, laughingly, say that she would refuse, that she could not leave her Volodya! He would see how she loved him. He would be glad, would put his arms around her joyfully, would kiss her brown eyes. He would call her Vasya, his tomboy.

She chose a white blouse and put on a blue tie. She stood before the mirror as she put on her hat and arranged her curls. She wanted to please Volodya today. For she was bringing him a gift – a priceless gift! Her refusal of Stepan Alexeyevitch’s offer! She would go with Vladimir to his new position, and would undertake some work there.

When she reached the administration building Vasya went to the manager’s office. It was empty. The manager was at a conference. But it would soon be over; he would probably be back in about ten minutes.

Vasya waited, looked through the Moscow papers. She had to smile at herself. Now she would make up to Volodya for everything – for his parting from the other, for his greater devotion to herself.

Someone brought in the mail, laid it on the manager’s desk. Might there not be some letters for Vasya? She looked over the business envelopes. There – suddenly her heart throbbed wildly, then seemed to miss a heat. A narrow, tinted envelope – a delicate handwriting, as though engraved. That could only be the other woman: Nina Constantinovna.

Everything was not over? Everything was as before? Lies? Vasya felt as though she were flying, soaring – long, long, endlessly.

She must have lost her balance, for she knocked down the ashtray that stood on the desk.

As she looked at the narrow, tinted envelope, Vasya felt that it contained her destiny. There! It disappeared in her pocket. Now she would learn the truth. Now there would be an end to the lies.

Vladimir entered together with a member of the administration.

“You’re here, Vasya? Did you want something, or are you just visiting me?”

“There’s no more beer. You’ll have to order more from the factory.”

“Will you look at that! You’re becoming a housewife! I can’t recognize my tomboy, Vasya,” laughed Vladimir, quite happily.

Laugh. Just you laugh. But I’ll tear through the net in which you have caught me. I’ll go to the root of this deception.

“What’s the trouble, Vasya? Can’t you stay longer? Must you go?”

She nodded silently. She was trembling with a fury that might break loose any moment.

She could not wait until she got home to read the letter. Going to the City Park, she sat down on a bench and impatiently tore open the tinted envelope.

“My precious Volya! My king, my beloved tormenter! Again, not a word from you. The third day without a line. Can you have forgotten me – don’t you love your capricious Nina any more? Your little Egyptian monkey? I don’t believe it! I don’t believe it! But it’s terrible, nevertheless. You’re with her, and I’m all alone! Your ‘mentor’ will be able to change you, she’ll convince you that our love is a ‘sin against Communism’, that you must fast Communistically, give up everything that might delight you, and live only for the fanatics. I’m afraid of her. I know the power she has over you. But, my God! I’m not taking anything from her. I want so little. After all, she’s recognized as your wife. You’re with her always, all the time. And I’m begging only for a few hours for our love. I only beg you to pity me – I have only you, no one else in all this world!

“I wake up at night, trembling: he doesn’t love me any more; he’s going to leave me. What will become of me then? I’m afraid to think of it. You know that Nikanor Platonovitch is lying in wait for me like a spider. Of course he still plays that fatherly role – but we know what he’s hoping for. He’s waiting anxiously for the day when you’ll leave me, when I’ll be alone, with no one to protect or help me. That’ll be a holiday for him. There are times when I hate him, when I’d rather go on the street than be obliged to him in any way. Volya! Volya! My beloved, my madly adored lover! Will there never be an end to this? Will you never rescue your Ninyka? Have you no pity for her? Don’t you want to protect her?

“I’m crying, Volya. You have no pity for your little monkey. You never think of her, you cruel, faithless man. You’re caressing another woman. You love her. I know you love her! And that hurts. Very, very badly.

“I want you, your ardent, insatiable love! Don’t you long for my lips? For my embraces? My satiny arms want to enfold you – my breasts yearn for your caresses....

“I can’t bear it, Volyda! I can’t be away from you any longer. Why did you send me to Moscow? Why?

“But this will have to be our last separation. In your new district you’ll have to find a little house for me outside the town. Nobody’ll know that I live there. ‘The mysterious little house’, where you will go at twilight. And there I’ll teach you that a love like ours is better and more important than anything else in the world. When are you coming to Moscow? Is she really coming here with you? If only we could have a week together, to make up for this! A week for us only.

“Nikanor Platonovitch says that in the new district you’ll have a splendid house for yourself. With a Gothic dining room. But there’s no dining room lamp. I’ve seen a marvelous chandelier here – a bit expensive, but really artistic. I know you’ll like it.

“Now I’ve told you enough. Such a long letter. You won’t be able to hide it. Here I’m joking; but I really want to cry. Can’t you feel how I suffer? Why, oh why, doesn’t life let us have a little happiness? But don’t be alarmed. I won’t complain any more. After all I’ve gone through I’ve gained a little sense. You do whatever you think is right, and I’ll be satisfied with everything. Let me have only one thing – your passionate tenderness, your loving pity for your poor, miserable, capricious Nina.

“Moscow, Ostoshenka I8, Number 7, and not 17 as you wrote last time; the letter almost got lost on account of that.

“I’m yours, from my feet to my lips – only your darling sweetheart.

“Nina.”

And, in the margin: “Imagine how delighted I was to find Coty’s 1’Origan powder in Moscow” Vasya read Nina’s letter slowly, carefully, word for word. Not only with her eyes, but with her heart.

When she had finished she dropped the letter on her knees, looked at the dry, dusty grass, listened to the angry humming of a bee; it flew about busily among the blades, rose into the air, disappointed, and descended into the grass again. In the spring, when the lilac was blooming, there had been bees, too. But those had been different, happy bees; this one was angry, as if the summer had played it false.

Vasya thought she was thinking of the bee, and not of the letter. Her heart was numb, seemed not to ache, seemed indifferent to everything. “Satiny arms,” “passionate tenderness!” It hurt her so! Slowly, painstakingly, Vasya folded the letter, put it back into the envelope.

Getting up, she walked toward the gate, past the bandstand. The park was silent and empty today. No music. Now Vasya knew whom Vladimir loved, knew that not she, but the other, belonged to him.

Vasya stepped through the gate of the dusty City Park into the noisy street. She felt as if she had left a grave behind her in the park. She was going home from a funeral. The burial of her dead happiness.

Chapter XIII

Vladimir had come home earlier than usual. He was smiling with delight, for he had good news: the long-expected summons of the Central Administration, his appointment to the new post, had reached him. He would have to go to Moscow at once.

“To Moscow? All right, go ahead. I’m going away too, but not to Moscow. I’m going home, to my province.”

On the surface Vasya was calm as she spoke. The narrow, tinted envelope was in her pocket – the letter from Nina.

Vladimir didn’t notice the weariness in Vasya’s face. He didn’t see the angry light that flashed in her brown eyes. Nor did he wonder why Vasya was putting her things in order, why she was packing.

“You want to visit your friends? All right. Will we meet in Moscow, or will you go directly to the new district?”

Vasya’s heart had had one last hope: he would object, wouldn’t let her go. Now that, too, was over.

“I’m not going to the new place with you. I’ve been called back to work. And I’m going to stay there.

Not for a little while, but forever. I’ve had enough of my rest in this prison. I’m tired of playing the manager’s lady. You can take a wife who is able to appreciate this sort o f life.”

Something seemed to have given way in Vasya. A torrent of words poured from her mouth. She spoke so quickly she had to interrupt herself. She wouldn’t let herself be deceived any more. She was glad their love had come to an end. It had been an ordeal for her, to be without work among these syndicate people, these burshuis! She had stood it only for Vladimir’s sake; and she was hurt because he no longer needed her. He was using her only as a housekeeper, and as a cloak: “Why, my wife is a Communist.” But it was the other woman who would give him pleasure and love “in the mysterious little house”. A shrewd plan! There was only one thing Vladimir and Nina had forgotten: whether she, Vasya, would agree to lead this disgusting life!

Her eyes were green, spiteful. She had to pause for lack of breath.

Vladimir shook his head in amazement. “Is that you, Vasya? I don’t recognize you! If I ever kept anything from you it was only for your sake.”

“Thanks! I don’t need your pity. I’m strong. Do you think that your love fills my life completely? I’m sick of your love. It’s only a thorn in my flesh. I want only to get away from you as quickly as possible, to tear myself away. I’m not at all interested in what you do. Love, kiss whomever you please. Lie, deceive! Forget who you are! Betray Communism – it doesn’t make any difference!”

“Vasya! Vasya! What of our friendship? What of your promise to understand everything?”

“Our friendship? Where is it? Where’s that friendship? I don’t believe you any more, Vladimir. You’ve killed my faith in you. If you had come to me and said: ‘Vasya, something terrible, something dreadful has happened; I love another’ – do you think I would have held you back, or reproached you? Do you think I would have stood in the way of your happiness? You see, Vladimir, you forget that I’m not merely your wife, but your friend and comrade too. And that’s what hurt me – that’s what I’ll never forgive.”

The tears flowed over her thin cheeks. Wiping them away with her sleeve, she turned her back on Vladimir.

“I believed in you as in a comrade. But you crushed my faith, pitilessly. And how can we live together when our faith in each other is gone? Now I see clearly that our life together, our happiness is over.”

Vasya’s heart was heavy; her thin shoulders shook. She sat down on the bed, crushing the silk quilt in her hands. Sitting down beside her, Vladimir put his arm round her.

“Did you say that we’ve become strangers to each other, that you don’t love me any more? No, Vasya. If you didn’t love me, you wouldn’t suffer so. And I? Have I stopped loving you? Please try to understand! Yes, I love Nina; but in a different way. My love for you is stronger, deeper. I can’t see any course without you, Vasya. Whatever I do, I always wonder: What would Vasya say? What would she advise? You’ve been my guiding star, and I need you.”

“You’re always talking about yourself,” Vasya complained. “You forget me. I can’t live that way. I’m not worrying so much about your getting involved in this affair. What hurts me is that we’re not comrades any more.”

“Do you think I don’t see that? But why? I don’t know. When we’re parted, we long for each other – when we’re together we feel cramped. You said it used to be different. But were we ever together before? We never had any family life. We were always working, saw each other only for a moment. Shall we live that way again, Vasya? Just for the moment! Would you like that? Each to live for himself; and when we want each other, we’ll meet. Yes? Will you? Then Vasya will be my dear tomboy again, the only one in the world. And there will be no more lies. We mustn’t break off everything forever, in the heat of the moment. That’s what hurts. Have pity on me!”

Vladimir buried his head in her lap, as he had always done, and hid his face in her burning hands.

The room was quiet.

A wave of the longing they thought they had forgotten covered both of them with its hot flood. The little ember of passion, buried under the ashes of suspicion and offended feelings, glowed more brightly again.

“Vasya – darling!”

Vladimir’s arms embraced Vasya and pulled her on his knee. He covered her lips with kisses, and her body with passionate caresses.

Unresisting, Vasya yielded to the sweet languor she had almost forgotten.

Let it be so! Now Vladimir loved her as before. Altogether. He belonged to her alone, forget Nina. He was unfaithful to Nina – not only with his body but with his heart and his soul.

Vasya felt a malicious joy out of keeping with her usual character. It grieved her, but she was glad at the same time. Let him be unfaithful.

The days that followed were curiously sultry ember of passion, glowing under the ashes of anger and estrangement, flared up like a charcoal pile fanned into flames by the autumn wind.

Vladimir had become gentle, Vasya was loving and yielding. They seemed to have fallen in love all over again. They could not live without each other. At night they lay clasped in each other's arms, as though afraid that they might lose each other. Vladimir kissed Vasya’s brown eyes, Vasya pressed Vladimir’s head to her heart. They had never loved, never possessed each other like this, with bittersweet longing and joy. Had they found love anew, or were they bidding it farewell? Farewell to their lost, irretrievable happiness?

The while she smiled and joked Vasya was afraid of bursting into tears at any moment. Vladimir caressed her, and looked into her brown eyes; but she read infinite sadness in his gaze. Not the mischievous sparkle of joy. His eyes did not mirror Vasya’s love. They seemed silently to be saying good-bye to her.

To keep from seeing Volodya’s eyes and their tears, to smother that infinite sadness, Vasya put her slender arms around Volodya’s neck. She sought his lips; he pressed her to his heart. She yielded to his passionate caresses. He sought her body, insatiably, until both fell asleep, exhausted.

Those were queer days. Hot, sultry, gloomy. They held no happiness, no carefree joy born of love.

They discussed everything. “In the meanwhile,” Vasya would go home to her work. When Vladimir would be settled in his new place they would arrange, by letter, when they would meet. Where? They said nothing. Not a word was spoken of the separation. Everything seemed so simple now, so clear and comprehensible, as if there were unadulterated truthfulness between them. But there was one thing Vasya never mentioned; that she had taken and hidden Nina’s letter, that she was keeping it because it might some day be useful to her. She insisted herself that he should telegraph to Moscow that he was coming alone. Why did she want this? It hurt her, but somehow it seemed necessary. At first Vladimir refused, and regarded Vasya suspiciously, as if he were afraid of something. But finally he telegraphed nonetheless – and became even more loving and ardent.

It had to be so. They were drinking the last drops of happiness that remained in the cup of life; and they contained the heady wine of passion, the bitter sweetness of parting.

Vasya was gay, animated, lively. Volodya had not seen her so for a long time.

“I didn’t like my skin, so I shed it. What sort of ‘manager’s lady’ am I? You need another sort of wife. Beside, I’m not the least bit suited for the Nep!” Laughing, she teased Volodya.

“I don’t know what you are! I only know that you’ve become Vasya, the tomboy, again. And I won’t give up my tomboy, not even if five Party Committees demand you. For a while, yes; but for good – never!”

Vasya laughed. That was how it had to be. They would meet occasionally, as free comrades. But not as man and wife. That would be better.

Vladimir agreed that it would be better so. But he couldn’t live without Vasya’s clever little curly head.

“There are so few friends in the world, Vasya. Especially nowadays. They’re all gone; everyone thinks only of himself. But we’re tried friends and true, aren’t we, Vasya?”

They talked together as if the wall between them no longer existed; it had been broken down. The serpent in Vasya’s heart lay dormant; she thought her jealousy had disappeared. But suddenly, unexpectedly, she felt the sharp fangs again. Vladimir could not free himself of the past. He would talk of Nina; it showed how frequently he thought of her. She was so well educated, he said. She could speak perfect French with Frenchmen, German with Germans. She had learned that in school.

“If she’s so well educated, why can’t she find work? Or does she prefer to live at the expense of others? I suppose her laziness is in her blood. Besides, it’s much more comfortable to be your mistress.”

Vasya knew she shouldn’t say such things; but she could not restrain herself. The serpent was hurting her; and that was why she wanted to strike Volodya. Let him suffer, too.

Volodya frowned, looked at Vasya reproachfully.

“Why do you say that, Vasya? It’s ugly of you. My tomboy Vasya wouldn’t say that. It was another Vassilissa Dementyevna.”

This stung; Vasya was ashamed of herself. But she could not stop. She tried over and over again to wound Volodya, until he grew furious, and she came to her senses.

“Don’t be angry, dear. Forgive me! I love you. If I didn’t love you, I wouldn’t torment you so....”

Ecstatic kisses, two bodies seeking each other deliriously – to drown thought and suffering; to forget – to hide the inevitable truth.

Vasya bade the Party Committee farewell, packed the things in the house. She was concerned about everything, with the scrubbing rags, the hemp mats, and the straw. She consulted with Marya Semyonovna, held important conferences with her; how to pack everything so that nothing would be damaged or broken, so that everything would arrive safely in the manager’s new home.

“Why do you bother so much about it?” grumbled Marya Semyonovna. “If you’re going back home, why do you work so hard? Mark my word: the moment you’re gone that little lady’ll be there to take your place. And you’re working and worrying for her!”

Why not? Let it be so. She was not helping him as his wife; a wife would never have done it, would have condemned Vladimir: why had he become a burshui? But now this had nothing to do with her. He was living for himself, and she for herself. Each was going his own way. But they were comrades. Why shouldn’t she help him? Not because he was her husband, not because he demanded, expected, or wished it. No; but as a comrade, as a friend. Nor was she angry with him. If he wanted to take along all that trash, and to burden the national freight lines with his cases of dishes and his trunks of silks, it was his own affair! This was the parting of the ways for them. She could not go through life hand in hand with him; but why shouldn’t she help him pack?

Volodya could not believe his own eyes. Since when had she become such a housewife? He sang her praises to Ivan Ivanovitch and the members of the administration. But again and again he asked Vasya who would put his new house in order if she didn’t come along.

“Who? Why, what’s the matter with Nina Constantinovna? Or doesn’t she want to soil her little white hands? She’s a fine lady – everything has to be prepared for her, and handed her on a silver platter. By others, at the expense of others.”

She had hurt Volodya, and she was sorry. Why? He looked at her reproachfully, as if to ask: Why, Vasya?

“My darling, my sweetheart – I’m nasty, I know it! But it’s only because I love you. Don’t be angry, dear. I was only joking.”

She hid her face on Volodya’s breast, endeavored to swallow the tears that were choking her. For she loved him, come what might! She loved him, suffered, was afraid of losing him. It would be better to die!

“My poor darling. My Vasyuk. I know you – that’s why I love you, why I can’t tear my heart away from you.

There’s not another such Vasya in all the world. I’ll never have another friend like you!”

And again that bitter, oppressive delirium dulled their senses – again they sought to drown their suffering in love.

“Will you keep a little corner of your heart free for the rebellious ‘Anarchist’?”

“When you’re happy, will you think of your tomboy, Vasya?”

It was a queer time. Passionate, gloomy....

Part Three: Freedom

Chapter XIV

Knock-knock! Knock-knock!

Vasya was standing before the locked door of her former attic, where Grusha was living now. She knocked. Downstairs they had told her that Grusha had come home from work. But the door was locked. Where was Grusha?

Knock-knock! Knock-knock!

Could she be asleep?

She turned, to see Grusha coming down the hall with a kettle of hot water.

“Grusha!”

“Vassilissa! Dearest! When did you come? So unexpected!”

Setting the teakettle on the floor, Grusha embraced Vasya.

“Do come in. It’s your attic after all. I owe my living here only to you. Only wait until I open the door. They steal in this house – it’s terrible. I even lock the door when I go for water. Not long ago they took a coat that was hanging in Furyashkin’s room. A fall coat, absolutely new. He turned the entire house upside down, and even got the police. But they didn’t find anything.

“So, you’re home now, Vassilissa! Take off your wraps, wash off the dust of your trip. I was just going to make tea. Do you want something to eat? I have eggs, bread, and some apples.”

Home? Grusha had said she was at home. But could people like Vasya have a “home”?

She looked about. The attic was so familiar. But it wasn’t Vasya’s attic any more. There was a sewing machine, a dressmaker’s model in the corner, pieces of cloth lying about, scraps and short threads on the floor. The walls were bare. Neither Marx nor Lenin, nor the group of tenants celebrating the founding of the community house. Instead, a faded red paper fan. Beside it, a postcard with the picture of an egg and a golden inscription: “Christ hath arisen.” An ikon in the corner. Grusha was not a member of the Party. She believed in God and observed the fasts, although she was in favor of the Soviet Government and had many friends among the Communists. She had been engaged to be married; but her fiancee had gone with the Whites, had probably been killed. And if he had been killed, the chances were he had been put to death by the Red Guards. That was why Grusha refused to become a Communist. She cherished the memory of her lover.

“If I should join you he would curse me in the other world.”

Before, Vasya had been unable to understand Grusha. How could she love a White? But now she knew that the heart would not obey orders. Vladimir and she had come to the parting of the ways; but her love still was alive, gave her no peace.

Grusha was glad that Vassilissa had come home.

She didn’t know which would be the best place to give her. She fairly overwhelmed her with news, and wondered why Vasya hadn’t gained when she was with her husband. She had come back as thin as she had been, if not thinner. Vasya said nothing. She had thought that when she would see Grusha she would fall into her arms and, weeping, tell her all her troubles. But when they met, Vasya could not open her mouth, could find no words. How could she tell anyone about this sorrow?

The news of Vassilissa’s arrival spread throughout the house. The old tenants were delighted, while the new ones were curious to see what she was like. One of the members of the House Committee grumbled that now she probably would want to get into the administration again. The first to come to Grusha’s room were the children, Vasya’s old friends of the Children’s Club.

The older among them immediately had a complaint to lodge: the Children’s Club had been broken up at the time of the Nep. They had said it didn’t pay, and that the rooms were needed for other purposes.

But where could the children do their lessons now?

Their collections had been broken up and their library had been scattered; some of it had even been sold.

Vasya listened. Was such a thing possible? She bridled at once. She would not let the matter rest.

She would go immediately to the Party Committee, to the Educational and Housing Bureaus. Let the Nep attend to its own business; but let it keep its hands off the things the workers had built up laboriously.

“I’ll fight them. I won’t permit such a thing. Don’t worry, children; I’ll see to it that you get what’s coming to you, even if I have to go to Moscow for it.”

The older boys laughed with delight. They believed in Vasya. She would surely attend to it; she was going to fight now. The whole house knew her as “the fighter”. That was as it should be. The children were all for Vassilissa.

After the children the old tenants came in to greet her. But the moment they had said: “Good afternoon,” each of them had an urgent request to make of her, everyone had his troubles and wanted to tell her about them. Vasya listened patiently to them all. As always, she was interested in everything, advised and consoled them.

The attic was so crowded that it was impossible to turn around.

“Wait a little, Comrades,” pleaded Grusha. “You’re not giving her a chance to eat. And she’s tired, after traveling for so many nights. But you have to come in with your affairs, and get her all mixed up.”

“Don’t, Grusha. Never mind. I’m not at all tired. What were you telling me, Timofei Timofeiyevitch? Oh yes, about the taxes you’re supposed to pay. How can that be? You’re no property owner, nor an employer or manager...”

As she uttered the word “manager” she thought of Volodya. But her pain was submerged in the troubles of others. She had no time for it.

Her old friends went away, one by one; and, forgetting her weariness, Vasya decided to go to Party Headquarters and get to work immediately.

She buttoned her coat, listening to Grusha’s news the while. One man had married, another had left the Party; this girl had become a member of the Council. Suddenly they heard the voice of the Fedosseyev woman, resounding through the hall.

“Where’s our darling, our defender? My precious Vassilissa Dementyevna!” She threw her arms around Vasya’s neck, and covered her with moist kisses. At the same time bitter tears were rolling down her cheeks and wet Vasya’s face.

“I waited for you so long, dearest! I’ve been so lonesome for you! I waited for you as for the sunshine. When Vassilissa Dementyevna, our protector, comes back she’ll straighten out everything. When she’s here the wretch won’t dare make his wife a laughing-stock. He’ll be ashamed to disgrace the entire house with that slut. She’ll sympathize with me because I have to take care of the little children all by myself. She’ll take him to court. At least he’ll have to submit to the Party. You, our darling, you’re my only hope.”

As a rule Vasya was able to divide the troubles of others from a few words. But this time she couldn’t quite make out what the Fedosseyev woman was wailing about. Of whom was she complaining? Vasya saw that she had changed a great deal, almost beyond recognition. She had been a young, robust, full-bosomed woman – now she had grown thin, old and yellow.

What sorrow was breaking her heart?

Fedosseyev had entered on a love affair with Dora, an “unbaptized” Jewess. He wanted to have nothing to do with his wife, made her the laughing-stock of the entire district. No one could make him ashamed of himself. He had left his own children, was bringing everything to his sweetheart. Here, little girl, that’s for you! Let the family die in their corner! Only don’t chase me away, me, your pock-marked lover.

“What in the world did that goose Dora see in him?” shrieked the Fedosseyev woman. “If he were a real man... ! But he’s disgusting. He’s so damned filthy! I put up with him for eight years, kissed his pock-marked phiz for the children’s sake. Vassilyevitch, I thought, you’re an ass, but fate brought us together and the Church married us, so I’ll have to stand you. When he would be insistent, he’d make me sick. But I endured him, never looked at anyone else. I thought he’d be grateful to me. I gave all my youth to the filthy beast; and that’s what I get for it! I lost my good looks, and he ran after that girl. He had to get mixed up with a Jewish girl! It’s a disgrace for the whole district.”

The Fedosseyev woman wept uncontrollably. Vasya listened; and her own heart seemed filled with a dark flood. Here she found her own grief and indignation all over again. She shuddered with disgust. Where had her pluck gone? She no longer felt any desire to go to the Party Committee. She wanted only to bury her head in her pillow, and to see nothing more.

The other, however, continued to sob, to kiss Vassilissa’s shoulder, to beg her to bring her husband to reason and to defend the interests of the little children. She should threaten him with a court trial.

As she went home from Party Headquarters, Vasya was surrounded by her Comrades. They couldn’t stop talking. And Vasya felt so happy and gay. She had forgotten everything, as if she had never lived for or worried about anything but the Party.

She had grown excited, had quarreled and stood her ground; she had asked questions about everything, and had found out just how the land lay. It had interested and satisfied her. Her head was working, her soul seemed to rise.

She hurried up to her attic without noticing the stairs. Only then she felt her weariness.

While Grusha was preparing supper Vasya lay down on the bed, and fell asleep at once.

Grusha looked at her friend, undecided as to whether she should wake her. She felt sorry for her. Vasya was exhausted; let her sleep.

She undressed Vasya as though she were a child, took off her shoes, and covered her. She hung a shade over the light, and sat down to sew button-holes.

Knock-knock!

Who the devil could be coming now? Grusha muttered angrily. They never let a person alone.

She opened the door. There stood Fedosseyev, the husband.

“What do you want?”

“I want to see Vassilissa Dementyevna. Is she at home?”

“Are you all crazy? She’s had a long trip; she’s tired, hasn’t had a chance to sleep – and you fall on her like a pack of hungry dogs on a bone. Vassilissa Dementyevna is asleep.”

Grusha and Fedosseyev had words. Fedosseyev was obstinate, but Grusha refused to let him in. Tomorrow. They agreed on the next day.

She banged the door in Fedosseyev’s face. A damned filthy fellow. Had a wife and three children, and Dora was big, too. It was beyond Grusha.

She considered that Fedosseyev was in the wrong. And she condemned Dora, too. Why had she started anything with a married man? Weren’t there enough bachelors? Grusha’s morals were very strict. She kept within bounds; for she still remembered her lover.

When Vasya woke up she felt calm and at peace with the world. The autumn sun was shining through the window, throwing a golden light on the seamstress. Grusha was heating her flatiron on the petroleum stove; she was going to iron a dress.

“For whom is it?”

“For a member of the Executive Committee, for a birthday party.”

“What? Are they celebrating birthdays nowadays?”

“I should say so! You ought to see them – it’s better than it used to be with the rich people. The table is covered with appetizers, wine, whiskey...” Grusha’s iron was hissing; she had no time to talk. Vasya stretched on the bed. She remembered it well. It was hard and narrow; yet she had slept in it together with Volodya. How had they ever had room? Now they had been in each other’s way even in a wide bed.

It had been different in the old days.

Was her misery trying to creep into her heart again, to disturb her peace of mind? No, everything was quiet in her heart. The calm that follows a storm.

Grusha remembered the appointment with Fedosseyev, and told Vasya about it.

“I don’t care. Let him come.”

She didn’t want to have too much to do with the Fedosseyevs. She seemed offended because gossips had been overtaken by the same misfortune as she.

She inquired about Dora. Who was she?

“Don’t you remember her?” Grusha was amazed. “She’s dark and pretty – she danced with the tambourine at the Komsomolsk celebration.”

Now Vasya recalled her. Very favorably. She had worked in the tanners’ Cultural Committee. A clever girl; and her youth was no drawback. Besides, she sang well. How could the Fedosseyev woman think of comparing with her?

Grusha’s view was different. She condemned Dora; the laws had to be observed. If the Communists were to permit husbands to act that way, all the men would desert their wives and little children, and would take on young girls. The Party was going to take proceedings against Dora.

“Take proceedings against her? Only the Fedosseyev woman could be behind that. A disgusting creature!” Vasya defended Dora. “No law could force a man to live with a woman he doesn’t love. Do you want to force him to embrace that woman? Even though he loathes her? Even though she’s a common sneak?”

Vasya was quite wrought up. She was furious with the Fedosseyev woman; and why? She hardly knew herself. As she fought about the Fedosseyevs she thought of Vladimir. As she defended Dora she saw the white lace parasol and Nina’s red lips.

Grusha was surprised to see Vassilissa siding with Fedosseyev.

“You act as if they were your best friends. Weren’t you always railing against them? You know how much trouble they caused you. Of course, it’s your own affair; but I’d advise you to keep out of this business. There’s no use in getting mixed up in a dog fight.”

Vasya was stubborn. She would stand up for Dora if there were proceedings against her. “Tell me, if you please: does Fedosseyev’s legal wife think she’s the only one who has rights? No. She’s mistaken. There are other rights, not dictated by human laws. They are the commands of the heart.”

As Grusha pressed the hem of the dress she looked. at Vasya attentively, as if to read her friend’s innermost thoughts.

Vasya frowned. Why did Grusha object? Wasn’t Vasya right? Could any law dictate to the heart?

“Who said so? The heart is most important of all. You can’t be human if you haven’t a heart. But as I look at you now I see clearly that you’re heart-sick, too, Vassilissa, that you’re suffering. That’s why you’re defending Fedosseyev. You're thinking of your man, aren’t you? And you want to find an excuse for him. I’m right.”

Vasya said nothing, but bowed her head.

Grusha asked no more questions. Taking the dress from the ironing-board she shook it out and picked off the loose threads. Now it was finished.

“Are you through?” asked Vasya, thinking of something quite different.

“Yes.”

“Well, then I’ll go to the Party Committee. Let Fedosseyev wait.”

Now came days of hard work for Vassilissa. She was preparing to leave for the weaving works. She conferred with Stepan Alexeyevitch, acquainted herself with her instructions, and spent her evenings at meetings of her responsible co-workers. The hours passed so quickly that she had no time to think, or to listen to her heart.

And then she had her new worries, about the Fedosseyevs and Dora. They and their difficulties gave Vasya no rest.

Fedosseyev had come to her, and had told her everything.

He had met Dora Abramovna in the Cultural Committee. He had been singing in the chorus. Dora Abramovna liked his bass, and took him to a music teacher. She was a musician herself. And she had brought him into the Cultural Committee. That was how it had begun. But his wife soon got wind of it, and then there was trouble.

Fedosseyev complained about his wife; she was spreading all sorts of rumors, and was setting the Comrades against Dora Abramovna. She was wailing that Dora was “robbing” her family, and was letting Fedosseyev support her. The truth was quite the opposite. Not only did Dora refuse to accept a single kopek from Fedosseyev, but she even helped the family, sharing everything with them. She thought of the children, too, had brought the younger ones into the kindergarten, and had given textbooks and copybooks to the oldest boy, who went to school. Of course she didn’t want the wife to know that. Besides, she had made a shirt and tie for Fedosseyev to wear to the concerts. But the malicious gossips had it just the other way.

Fedosseyev was grieved on Dora’s account. It wouldn’t hurt him. But he was worried about her, lest she get into difficulties with the Party because of him. It was all his wife’s fault; she insisted on being in their way.

Listening to Fedosseyev, Vasya couldn’t help thinking of Vladimir and Nina. They too had suffered like this, had sought a way out, had been angry at Vasya because she prevented them from being happy. She had advised the Fedosseyev woman to get out of the way of her own accord. It was impossible to block the happiness of others; no matter how many barriers you would put in its path, you couldn’t keep it from flying over your head. But what was Vasya herself doing? Was not she, too, standing in the way? Was she not still standing guard over the happiness that had been?

Fedosseyev loved Dora. When he spoke of her his face seemed to shine. She had seen the same change in Vladimir when he thought of Nina.

“Dora Abramovna has a heart of gold. In the union everybody’s fond of her, too. Those who don’t belong to the Party don’t think it’ll take any action against her. But if it does, they’ll be only too happy. ‘Let her come to us independents; we’ll take Dora Abramovna’s part, never fear!’ ” Fedosseyev had hardly left Vasya when his wife caught hold of her, kissed her shoulders, and begged her to be on her side.

Vasya, who didn’t like Fedosseyeva, crossly waved her away. Whereupon she filled the entire house with her shouting about Dora, about her husband, and about Vasya, abusing all three of them at once.

Vasya met Dora at Party headquarters. They found a corner where the typists were busily pounding away at their machines, where the noise permitted them to talk without being overheard.

Dora was pretty, with clever eyes. Vasya liked her.

She was trying to hide her pregnancy with a shawl.

Dora began to speak of her own accord. Not of herself, but of Fedosseyev. She looked after him, esteemed him, admired his talent; his voice was excellent, as good as Chaliapin’s. All he needed was to study. That was why Dora wanted to marry him. So that he could break away from his family and from his cobbling, so that he could devote himself entirely to his singing.

But although she spoke highly of Fedosseyev Dora also bewailed his indecision. As long as he was with her he was prepared to do anything, fully determined to leave his wife and put through the divorce. But as soon as he came home it was finished. He would give in, and she would have to begin all over again. She had been working on him for so many months! And unsuccessfully.

Vasya grew disturbed as she listened to Dora. Might not Nina have spoken of Vladimir in the same way?

Dora didn’t care a rap for all the formalities of divorce and marriage. It was all nonsense in her eyes; she favored a free union. But Fedosseyeva would never let them live in peace unless they were registered in the Commissariat; therefore Dora was making the most of her being ‘in the family way’ to move Fedosseyev and induce him to get the divorce. She wasn’t afraid of motherhood. She would be able to take care of herself without a husband too.

To move him? To force him to get the divorce? Had Nina done that, too? Dora, praising Fedosseyev, was expecting Vasya to voice her approval.

But Vasya was thinking of her own troubles. Dora saw only the good in Fedosseyev. Nina probably loved Vladimir in the same way. Vasya was different. She saw Vladimir’s bad points, too. She loved him and suffered for his faults; they distressed her, and she wanted to reform him. Might this not have hurt Volodya?

“Why does his wife cling to him so?” Dora spoke wrathfully. “Because they used to love each other? But that was so long ago! Now there’s nothing to keep them together. She doesn’t really know him – she can’t appreciate him – she doesn’t understand him at all!”

Ah, thought Vasya, that’s how it was with Vladimir and me. He didn’t know what I wanted, and I couldn’t understand his ideas. Our paths went off in different directions.

“He’s a stranger to his wife; they’re different in every respect – in their tastes and in their ideals. She wants to keep him as a husband, but she doesn’t need him as a man. He’s not essential in her life.”

And she, Vasya – did she need Vladimir as a man? Was he essential to her?

As she asked herself this question her heart answered distinctly: No, she did not need him – not as he was now. But Dora could not help going on: “What sort of love is that? They can’t bear each other. It’s a cat-and-dog life. Every man for himself. Neither friendship, nor faith in each other.”

Yes, thought Vasya. Yes; neither friendship, nor faith in each other.

“And we, Comrade Fedosseyev and I, understand each other as if we had only one heart, one soul.”

So that was the love of Vladimir and Nina.

Vasya seemed to understand it only now. She grew thoughtful.

She had much to do. Urgent Party affairs, preparations for her departure. Yet she didn’t forget the Fedosseyevs. She did her best to hasten the divorce, tried to reconcile Fedosseyev with his Comrades, and to defend Dora.

All this seemed important, very important for Vasya. She couldn’t explain why.

Vasya was hurrying home from Party headquarters. She was to leave for the weaving works the next day. Her head was whirling. How reorganize the work, follow orders and adapt herself to the many who didn’t belong to the Party? The independents were just like the Communists nowadays. They wanted to penetrate more and more deeply into everything, to investigate everything themselves. They took nothing on faith. If you didn’t have a sound basis for your statements you might just as well not talk to them.

Her head was full of all this. She seemed to have forgotten her heartache. She felt as if she had never lost her man, her friend – as if she had not lived through an entire summer as “the manager’s lady”.

Vasya hurried along. She had had nothing to eat since morning. And when she thought of food she felt sick, everything seemed to grow dark, her head was reeling. How long? Was she going to be ill, or...

A suspicion rose in her mind. It was almost three months since her last period. Oughtn’t she to look up Marya Andreyevna, the physician? She lived right here, in one of the side streets. They had worked together in the organization of the nursery for the community houses. She would have to find out what the trouble was. Vasya couldn’t go to her new work if she was sick.

She turned into the side street, went up to the little white house, and rang the bell. The physician, Marya Andreyevna, opened the door herself.

“How in the world did you happen to come here? Is it a business matter, or do you want my professional advice?”

Vasya was on pins and needles; she felt embarrassed, and even blushed.

After watching her carefully for a while Marya Andreyevna put her hand on her shoulder.

“Come into my office – I’ll examine you.”

Marya Andreyevna inquired about Vasya’s appetite, her periods, her dizziness. She seemed to know everything in advance. She examined Vasya.

It was disagreeable and embarrassing for Vasya. She had never consulted a gynecologist before. She was almost frightened when she had to sit down on the examination chair.

As she dressed, her hands trembled so that she couldn’t fasten the hooks.

Marya Andreyevna stood before the wash-stand in her white smock, and painstakingly scrubbed her hands with soap and a brush.

For a while neither spoke.

“Well, dear Comrade Vassilissa, I don’t know whether you’ll be glad or sorry, but there’s no doubt about it. You’re in the family way.”

Vasya was surprised. But in a moment a smile flitted over her face. A baby? That would be nice.

“Will you go back to your husband now?” asked the white-smocked physician as she dried her hands on an embroidered towel.

“To my husband? No.” Vasya shook her head. “I’m not going back to him – we’ve separated. Each of us is going his own way.”

“You’ve separated? This is a fine time for it! How will you arrange things now? We may yet be able to stop the business. What do you say? Where will you go all alone with your child? You’re not strong."

“I’m not alone, though. Tomorrow I’m leaving for the weaving works. There’s a fine group there, mostly women, weavers. We’ll all work together there, organize a nursery. Oh, yes, that’s what I wanted to ask you: how did you make the nursery self-supporting? Tell me about it, please, and advise me.”

They discussed the nursery, subsidies, contributions, the payment of professional employees. Vasya forgot the “news” about herself. Marya reminded her of it when she was leaving.

“Don’t undertake too much work! Remember that your health is none too good. I’m afraid for you, my dear!”

She gave Vasya some advice. One thing was prohibited, while another was good for her. Vasya listened, and tried to remember everything. For the child’s sake. It should be a strong baby. It was so little, so helpless...

She reached the street, smiled as she walked along.

A baby! That would be nice. She would show the other women how to raise a child in the Communist way. There was no need for a kitchen, for family-life and all that nonsense. The thing to do was to organize a nursery, a self-supporting community house. Practice was better than preaching.

Vasya was so occupied with the idea of self-support that she even forgot her child. The thought of Vladimir, however, never entered her mind, as though he had had nothing to do with it.

Vasya was packing. A box containing Volodya’s picture and his letters fell over. On the top of the pile lay a narrow, tinted envelope, Nina Constantinovna’s letter.

Vasya looked at it, turned it over and over. She knew it by heart, yet she wanted to read it again. It would revive her heartache; but she could not resist it. Whenever she read it the old pain again gnawed at her heart; then it would freeze – that was her wrath against Vladimir. Why had he lied? Why had he deceived her?

She took up the letter, went closer to the window. It was glowing dark. She unfolded the familiar sheet. She read it carefully, every word.

But the gnawing pain was gone. And the serpent, that venomous tormentor, seemed to have lost its strength.

Instead, Vasya felt pity stirring in her heart. Sympathy for Nina Constantinovna’s tears. Sympathy with the grief, the sorrow, the distress of another woman’s heart. She remembered Nina going away from the bandstand, wiping away her tears with her fingers.

Why had she suffered? Why had she exposed herself to such anguish? She had expected a baby; and she had got rid of it. Why?

Going over to the table, Vasya pushed aside Grusha’s pieces of cloth, set down the ink and began to write a letter.

“Nina Constantinovna!

“I don’t know you, have no idea of what you really are. I’ve seen you only once. And I will tell you quite frankly that I didn’t like you. But when you cried, as you went away from the bandstand, my heart understood your pain and suffered with you.

“I have just reread your letter to Vladimir Ivanovitch. I’m returning it to you; my taking it was quite unwarranted, and I kept it from Vladimir. But it has served its purpose. So you needn’t be angry with me on this account.

"I’ve thought a great deal about your letter. Now that I have just reread it I know that I cherish no grudge against you, that I’m not angry with you any more. I see that you, too, have suffered much because of me. Let me, therefore, tell you what I’ve already told Vladimir: We’ve had enough of this game of hide and seek. You must become Vladimir Ivanovitch’s wife, his legal wife. The two of you are better suited to each other. I’m not the proper wife for him, for our tastes differ, and our lives run in different directions. I never know what he thinks, and he doesn’t understand me.

“When we separated, Vladimir and I, it was not because you had stolen him away from me; you could take possession of his heart only because he no longer loved me. I shall continue to live now just as I used to live before without Vladimir. You, however, actually cannot live without him. It is always so when two people love each other.

“Vladimir Ivanovitch and I lived in a free union, so that no divorce is required.

“I do not reproach you. If I had known sooner how you love each other, I would have done this long ago. Tell Vladimir Ivanovitch that I feel no bitterness toward him, but will always be his friend, as I always used to be. And should you ever need anything I shall always be ready to help you or to be of service to you. There was a time when my heart held little love for you. But now that I understand everything I feel only deep sympathy for you, for all your tears, for the suffering and heartache of a woman. I wish you great happiness, as I would a sister. Remember me to Vladimir, and tell him to take good care of his bride.

“In any case, I’m giving you my new address. If you want to write me, I will answer. For we aren’t enemies, Nina Constantinovna, even though, unintentionally, we caused each other much pain. Neither of us wanted to hurt the other.

“Good-bye. I wish you all the happiness in the world.

“Vassilissa Malygina.”

At the end of the letter she wrote down her exact address. Then she put both letters into an envelope, moistened the flap with her tongue, and pasted it together.

Then, suddenly, her soul – not her reason – told her: this is the end.

The end? But where was the pain?

There was no pain.

Where was her grief? Her gnawing, benumbing grief?

The grief, too, had gone.

Volodya “the American” was there – not Vladimir Ivanovitch. She thought of Vladimir and saw Nina. She thought of Nina, and Vladimir appeared beside her.

As though they had become one for Vasya – one, indivisible, inseparable.

One. The thought of it did not hurt her. Let them be one.

Her heart was calm, full of peace. Like a garden after a tempest.

Vasya stood beside the window, enjoying the sunset. The sun was sinking behind purple, gold-edged clouds, as in a storm. The crows were circling over the earth, cawing, seeking a shelter for the night.

The air smelled of dry leaves, mushrooms and autumn earth. Fragrant, refreshing, familiar. Not spicy and enervating, as in Vladimir’s country.

Vasya drew a deep breath, avidly drinking in the air.

Yes, life was beautiful.

She leaned out of the window. In the little courtyard Grusha was hastening to get the clean clothes off the line while it was still daylight.

“Grusha. Grusha. Come here, quick. I have some news. Good news....”

“I’m on my way.”

She came in, threw the laundry on the bed.

“What’s the news? Did you get a letter?”

“A letter? Yes, it’s a letter; but I didn’t get it – I wrote it. Guess to whom!”

“To none other than Vladimir Ivanovitch, I’m sure.”

“But you’re wrong! Not to him, but to the little lady, his wife, Nine Constantinovna ” Grusha was astonished. “Why did you do that?”

“You see, Grusha, when I read that letter of Nina’s over again I felt so sorry for her. After all she suffered, too, on my account. And she lost a baby because of me. She endured everything, grieved, was miserable. And why? We’re not rivals, after all. We’re not enemies. If she had taken Vladimir from me in cold blood, without love, I would never have forgiven her, would always have been furious at her. But now that I really understand her.... For she loves Vladimir. She loves him very much, more than I do. And she’s right.

“Life without Vladimir means nothing to her. That’s why she writes: ‘I can’t live without you!’ Do I need Vladimir? I’ve thought it over, Grusha, many times; and now I realize that I won’t grieve for him. If Volodya ‘the American’ could come back, it would be different. I long for him, Grusha, for the old Volodya. But, you see, the American doesn’t exist any more! And he’ll never return! So why should I torment Nina? Why disturb the happiness of these two? What do I care about the ‘manager’? I don’t need him.”

“Yes,” agreed Grusha, “you don’t need the manager. That’s the worst of it, the way so many of our men have deserted us to become managers. But don’t be unhappy, Vassilissa. There are plenty of our boys left. Just look at those who don’t belong to the Party! You’ll find true Communists among them, real proletarian Communists.”

“Of course, we’re getting new recruits. But the others? They exchanged their proletarianism long ago for lamps and quilts. They don’t understand us. So, you see, Grusha, I thought: Why torment Nina? Why hold on to Vladimir? He was neither married nor free. What was the sense in that state of affairs? It would have to be stopped; and that without bitterness. They had suffered enough. I didn’t quite understand all this when I left Vladimir. I was still expecting something, hoping for something. I thought that if Vladimir left me for another woman I would die of grief. I was numbed with pain when I came here; I didn’t even notice the trip. But when I went to work in the Party Committee, when others came to me with their worries and troubles, it seemed to me that my sorrow was gone. Will you believe me? I can honestly say that I feel neither bitterness nor jealousy. Everything is calm and quiet.”

“Mother o f God, I thank thee!” Grusha quickly crossed herself, and glanced at the ikon in the corner. “I did not kneel and pray to our Holy Lady all these nights in vain, Vassilissa. ‘Help a woman’s heart,' I prayed. ‘Help Vassilissa.' ” Vasya smiled. “Stop, Grusha! You’re incorrigible! Do you still believe in ikons? But what you said is true: I’m cured. How many months was I walking about like a somnambulist! I wasn’t conscious. I didn’t live. I forgot the Party. But now I’m well again. Everything delights me now, everything’s new to me. The old world still goes round. Vladimir may be gone, but the Party is there. That’s how I felt after I had typhus, when I began to recuperate.”

“I’m only afraid that you’ll have another attack, that your husband’ll write some more of those damned' letters of his.”

“No, Grusha, that won’t happen again!” Thought-fully Vasya shook her head. “My heart has changed altogether. I resent nothing, reproach him with nothing; my jealousy of Nina has disappeared. But my pity for them remains. All three of us were lost in a labyrinth. We were angry at one another. And we couldn’t find the way out before we had lost our bitterness. When I took Nina into my heart I stepped out of that maze of suffering. It was not because I forgave her; what did I have to forgive? But I sympathized with her as with a sister, for she had known a woman’s pain, and had suffered as much as I. Not through her own fault, but because life still hasn’t reached the ideal. I pitied her and I felt better.”

"And it couldn’t be otherwise if you don’t love him any more. Love always brings suffering. It gives you a little joy – but sorrow follows it like a shadow. And when you feel no more pain your love’s at an end, too.”

“That’s not true, Grusha; you mustn’t look at things that way,” Vasya shook her head. “I haven’t stopped loving Vladimir. He’s still in my heart. But my love has changed. It no longer makes me miserable; I’m not angry at him any more. I am grateful to him for the love that has been, for the happiness we felt together. Why should I be vexed with Vladimir? As long as he loved me we were happy. Now he has stopped loving me – who’s to blame for that? I thank him for what has been. I feel as if Vladimir had become my brother, and Nina my sister.”

“I can’t quite see your regarding Nina as a sister. You’re trying to fool yourself, Vassilissa. Don’t try to be too clever – don’t be a super-Communist. Of course it’s better that you’ve forgiven Vladimir about Nina. Forgiven and forgotten. Out of your heart, and out of your mind. But as for love – don’t! Keep your love, your heart for the workers instead. They’re having a hard time now. Many of them have lost faith in themselves. They don’t get much out of your Party doctrines. Give them something more, food and warmth for the heart. I’m not a member of the Party, but I see everything nevertheless. Just ask me, Vassilissa, and I’ll always tell you the truth.”

“I know you’re with us, Grusha; we all know that. But why do you still insist on believing in your ikons? Now, don’t pout, don’t be offended. I won’t say another word. I won’t tease you any more, and I won’t quarrel with you. I’m in such a festive mood today, Grusha. I feel so happy, so gay, so free! And do you know who cured me? Do you? Try to guess!”

“I can’t imagine!”

"The Fedosseyevs.”

“You don’t mean it! Then let that Fedosseyev woman be forgiven for all her sins and meanness!”

They laughed.

“But I haven’t even told you the biggest news of all, Grusha. I saw the doctor. I’m expecting a baby.”

“A baby?” Grusha clapped her hands. “Really? Then how could you let your husband go? Will you let the baby be fatherless, or are you going to be fashionable, and have an abortion?”

“Why an abortion? Let the child grow. I don’t need a man. That’s all they can do – be fathers! Look at the Fedosseyev woman with her three children – they didn’t keep her husband from going to Dora.”

“That’s all very well; but how will you bring it up all by yourself?”

“All by myself? The organization will bring it up. We’ll fix up a nursery. And I’ll bring you over to work there. You like children, too. Then it’ll be our baby. We’ll have it in common.”

Again they laughed.

“But now, Grusha, I have to hurry with my packing. The train leaves early in the morning. I’m going to my work tomorrow. I’m going to arrange everything just as I want it. Stepan Alexeyevitch has given me his blessing. Back to work! Grusha, do you realize the joy of that?”

She seized Grusha’s hands, and the two danced about the room like children. They almost knocked over the dressmaker’s model.

They laughed uproariously. Even the people downstairs in the courtyard could hear them.

“We must live, Grusha! Live!”

Women fighters in the days of the Great October Revolution (1927)

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The women who took part in the Great October Revolution – who were they? Isolated individuals? No, there were hosts of them; tens, hundreds of thousands of nameless heroines who, marching side by side with the workers and peasants behind the Red Flag and the slogan of the Soviets, passed over the ruins of tsarist theocracy into a new future...

If one looks back into the past, one can see them, these masses of nameless heroines whom October found living in starving cities, in impoverished villages plundered by war... A scarf on their head (very rarely, as yet, a red kerchief), a worn skirt, a patched winter jacket... Young and old, women workers and soldiers' wives, peasant women and housewives from among the city poor. More rarely, much more rarely in those days, office workers and women in the professions, educated and cultured women. But there were also women from the intelligentsia among those who carried the Red Flag to the October victory – teachers, office employees, young students at high schools and universities, women doctors. They marched cheerfully, selflessly, purposefully. They went wherever they were sent. To the front? They put on a soldier's cap and became fighters in the Red Army. If they put on red arm-bands, then they were hurrying off to the first-aid stations to help the Red front against Kerensky at Gatchina. They worked in army communications. They worked cheerfully, filled with the belief that something momentous was happening, and that we are all small cogs in the one class of revolution.

In the villages, the peasant women (their husbands had been sent off to the front) took the land from the landowners and chased the aristocracy out of the nests they had roosted in for centuries.

When one recalls the events of October, one sees not individual faces but masses. Masses without number, like waves of humanity. But wherever one looks one sees women – at meetings, gatherings, demonstrations...

They are still not sure what exactly it is they want, what they are striving for, but they know one thing: they will put up with war no longer. Nor do they want the landowners and the wealthy... In the year of 1917, the great ocean of humanity heaves and sways, and a large part of that ocean is made up of women...

Some day the historian will write about the deeds of these nameless heroines of the revolution who died at the front, were shot by the Whites and bore the countless deprivations of the first years following the revolution, but who continued to bear aloft the Red Banner of Soviet power and communism.

It is to these nameless heroines, who died to win a new life for working people during the Great October Revolution, to whom the young republic now bows in recognition as its young people, cheerful and enthusiastic, set about building the basis of socialism.

However, out of this sea of women's heads in scarves and worn caps there inevitably emerge the figures of those to whom the historian will devote particular attention when, many years from now, he writes about the Great October Revolution and its leader, Lenin.

The first figure to emerge is that of Lenin's faithful companion, Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya, wearing her plain grey dress and always striving to remain in the background. She would slip unnoticed into a meeting and place herself behind a pillar, but she saw and heard everything, observing all that happened so that she could then give a full account to Vladimir Ilyich, add her own apt comments and light upon a sensible, suitable and useful idea.

In those days Nadezhda Konstantinovna did not speak at the numerous stormy meetings at which the people argued over the great question: would the Soviets win power or not? But she worked tirelessly as Vladimir Ilyich's right hand, occasionally making a brief but telling comment at party meetings. In moments of greatest difficulty and danger, when many stronger comrades lost heart and succumbed to doubt, Nadezhda Konstantinovna remained always the same, totally convinced of the rightness of the cause and of its certain victory. She radiated unshakable faith, and this staunchness of spirit, concealed behind a rare modesty, always had a cheering effect upon all who came into contact with the companion of the great leader of the October Revolution.

Another figure emerges – that of yet another faithful companion of Vladimir Ilyich, a comrade-in-arms during the difficult years of underground work, secretary of the Party Central Committee, Yelena Dmitriyevna Stassova. A clear, high brow, a rare precision in, and an exceptional capacity for work, a rare ability to 'spot' the right person for the job. Her tall, statuesque figure could be seen first at the Soviet at the Tavrichesky palace, then at the house of Kshesinskaya, and finally at Smolny. In her hands she holds a notebook, while around her press comrades from the front, workers, Red Guards, women workers, members of the party and of the Soviets, seeking a quick, clear answer or order.

Stassova carried responsibility for many important matters, but if a comrade faced need or distress in those stormy days, she would always respond, providing a brief, seemingly curt answer, and herself doing anything she could. She was overwhelmed with work, and always at her post. Always at her post, yet never pushing forward to the front row, to prominence. She did not like to be the centre of attention. Her concern was not for herself, but for the cause.

For the noble and cherished cause of communism, for which Yelena Stassova suffered exile and imprisonment in tsarist jails, leaving her with broken health... In the name of the cause she was like hint, as hard as steel. But to the sufferings of her comrades she displayed a sensitivity and responsiveness that are found only in a woman with a warm and noble heart.

Klavdia Nikolayeva was a working woman of very humble origins. She had joined the Bolsheviks as early as 1908, in the years of reaction, and had endured exile and imprisonment... In 1917 she returned to Leningrad and became the heart of the first magazine for working women, Kommunistka. She was still young, full of fire and impatience. But she held the banner firmly, and boldly declared that women workers, soldiers' wives and peasant women must be drawn into the party. To work, women! To the defence of the Soviets and communism!

She spoke at meetings, still nervous and unsure of herself, yet attracting others to follow. She was one of those who bore on her shoulders all the difficulties involved in preparing the way for the broad, mass involvement of women in the revolution, one of those who fought on two fronts – for the Soviets and communism, and at the same time for the emancipation of women. The names of Klavdia Nikolayeva and Konkordia Samoilova, who died at her revolutionary post in 1921 (from cholera), are indissolubly linked with the first and most difficult steps taken by the working women's movement, particularly in Leningrad. Konkordia Samoilova was a party worker of unparalleled selflessness, a fine, business-like speaker who knew how to win the hearts of working women. Those who worked alongside her will long remember Konkordia Samoilova. She was simple in manner, simple in dress, demanding in the execution of decisions, strict both with herself and others.

Particularly striking is the gentle and charming figure of Inessa Armand, who was charged with very important party work in preparation for the October Revolution, and who thereafter contributed many creative ideas to the work conducted among women. With all her femininity and gentleness of manner, Inessa Armand was unshakable in her convictions and able to defend what she believed to be right, even when faced with redoubtable opponents. After the revolution, Inessa Armand devoted herself to organising the broad movement of working women, and the delegate conference is her creation.

Enormous work was done by Varvara Nikolayevna Yakovleva during the difficult and decisive days of the October Revolution in Moscow. On the battleground of the barricades she showed a resolution worthy of a leader of party headquarters... Many comrades said then that her resolution and unshakable courage gave heart to the wavering and inspired those who had lost heart. 'Forward!' – to victory.

As one recalls the women who took part in the Great October Revolution, more and more names and faces rise up as if by magic from the memory. Could we fail to honour today the memory of Vera Slutskaya, who worked selflessly in preparation for the revolution and who was shot down by Cossaks on the first Red front near Petrograd?

Could we forget Yevgenia Bosh, with her fiery temperament, always eager for battle? She also died at her revolutionary post.

Could we omit to mention here two names closely connected with the life and activity of V.I. Lenin – his two sisters and comrades-in-arms, Anna Ilyinichna Yelizarova and Maria Ilyinichna Ulyanova?

...And comrade Varya, from the railway workshops in Moscow, always lively, always in a hurry? And Fyodorova, the textile worker in Leningrad, with her pleasant, smiling face and her fearlessness when it came to fighting at the barricades?

It is impossible to list them all, and how many remain nameless? The heroines of the October Revolution were a whole army, and although their names may be forgotten, their selflessness lives on in the very victory of that revolution, in all the gains and achievements now enjoyed by working women in the Soviet Union.

It is a clear and indisputable fact that, without the participation of women, the October Revolution could not have brought the Red Flag to victory. Glory to the working women who marched under that Red Banner during the October Revolution. Glory to the October Revolution that liberated women!

What has the October Revolution done for Women in the West? (1927)

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What the October Revolution has achieved in terms of the emancipation of working women in the Soviet Union is well known to all, is clear and indisputable. However, what effect has the Great October Revolution had on the movement for the emancipation of women in other, bourgeois countries abroad? What has it contributed to the creation of the 'new woman' involved in the tasks and aspirations of the working class?

World war, which, in Europe and North America, drew enormous numbers of women from the poorer sections of the population, and those with moderate means into the whirlpool of production and state administration, undoubtedly served to advance considerably the cause of female emancipation. The rapid growth of female labour brought with it unparalleled changes in family life, and in the overall mode of life of women in bourgeois countries. However, this process of female emancipation would scarcely have advanced any further, without the powerful example of the October Revolution. The October Revolution helped to bring about a new evaluation of women, to reveal and confirm the view of women as socially useful labour units. From the very first days of the October Revolution it became clear that women's energies are needed not only by the husband and the family, as had been thought for thousands of years, but also by society, the whole social collective, the state.

However, that this phenomenon is an inevitable historical fact, that the formation of a new type of woman is linked to a general shift towards the creation of a new, working society, is something that the bourgeoisie cannot and does not wish to recognise. If it were not for the October Revolution, it would still be generally believed that the woman earning her own living is a temporary phenomenon, and that the woman's place is in the family, standing at the back of her husband bread-winner. The October Revolution changed many concepts. This radical change in the evaluation of the tasks and vocation of women in the Soviet Union has affected the attitude to women far beyond the borders of the Soviet Union. We can now meet the new woman everywhere, in every corner of the world. The new woman is a mass phenomenon, with the exception, perhaps, of women in the semi-colonial and colonial countries, where the development of the productive forces is impeded by the predatory rule of the imperialists. However even there, given the struggle for national self-determination and against imperialism, the new woman is being moulded in the very process of struggle. It is impossible to succeed in the struggle between social groups and classes without the co-operation of women.

The new woman is essentially an independent labour unit whose energy is used not to serve the interests of a private family economy, but to perform socially useful and necessary labour. She is being liberated from those inner moral characteristics which marked the woman of the past. Female triviality, conservatism and restricted range of ideas, her envy and malice towards other women as rivals in the hunt for a provider-all these characteristics are no longer necessary in that sphere where she is now struggling to survive. As soon as the woman starts to live by her own work, she needs to develop different qualities and acquire new habits, and millions of working women throughout the world are hastening to morally re-arm themselves.

It is interesting to observe how, not only in our country but also abroad, women are learning to be efficient and workers whose labour is necessary. They are fully aware that their own well-being, and often also the existence of their children, depends directly on them, on their work and qualifications. Externally and internally they are adapting to the new conditions in which they live. Internally, psychologically, they are ceasing to be those patient, obedient beings who gave themselves wholly to husband and family. Now women have no time to be'sentimental', and even less can they be 'obedient' and patient. It is more important that they be sure of their own strength, resolute in their actions, and not distracted by their emotions...

In addition to their efficiency and their attempts, by raising their qualifications and improving their health and physical strength, to increase their value on the labour market, the new working women differ from the women of the past also in their strong feelings for and consciousness of their links with their class, with the collective. Women are involved in politics and, once again, if war drew large numbers of women into the political struggle, it was only the October Revolution which recognised publicly, by its laws, by the entire practice of the new Soviet system, that once the woman is working in and for society, she should be recognised as an active citizen. The enormous shift in the position of women in the Soviet Union has encouraged contending social groups to attempt to draw women onto their side.

Everywhere, in every country, the political activity of women has shown unprecedented growth over the last ten years. Women are becoming members of government (Bang in Denmark-minister of education; Margaret Bondfield in the Ramsay MacDonald cabinet in Britain), they are entering the diplomatic corps and becoming the inspirational force behind major revolutionary movements (as for example Sun Tsin-lin, the wife of Sun Yat-sen). Women are learning to head departments, to take charge of economic organisations, to guide policy.

Would this have been possible without the Great October Revolution? Could the new woman-citizen and socially useful worker have emerged without the great whirlwind that blew across the world? Could the working women of other countries have taken such giant strides towards their own comprehensive emancipation without the October Revolution? Anyone who pauses to think realises that the answer is clearly no. This is why working women throughout the world cannot but feel that this tenth anniversary of the October Revolution is the great festival of workers of the world.

The October Revolution affirmed the importance of working women. The October Revolution has created those conditions which will ensure victory for the 'new woman'.

Great Love (1929)

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I. A Great Love: I-IV

I

ALL this happened long, long ago, at a time when humanity knew nothing of the horrors of war, and the monumental changes of the Revolution still lay in the dim and distant future.

It happened in those years when Russia still writhed in the clutches of darkest reaction, in the days of the Czar; the actors of this little drama were "emigrants," men and women who had been exiled, or had fled from their mother country because of political activity in behalf of the stricken masses of their native land.

Since then a new world has dawned in Russia, but these pitiful, human tragedies still exist.

It is for us to learn and to try to understand.

Seven months, seven long, endless months had passed since last she had seen him. When they had parted, it had been with the firm determination never to meet again.

His head buried in her shoulder and his eyes closed with the agony of their suffering, he had told her of his decision. He no longer had the strength to carry on the struggle, and to bear the constant conflicts their love had brought. His face was so thin, she thought, as she gazed at him, thin and worn with care and suffering, yet pathetically childlike and weak in its abject helplessness.

The doctors had found that his wife was suffering from a serious heart disease and must have absolute rest and freedom from excitement.

"I should feel like a criminal, no, like an executioner, if I caused her the slightest uneasiness. You understand, Natascha, that I must release her from this martyrdom of uncertainty, to give her every chance to recover? .... I can't carry on this deception any longer. Then there are the children. Sascha's sharp little eyes are beginning to suspect... the children must feel that I belong to them unstintingly, with all my heart and soul."

"But is that possible, Ssenja? Can you return to your family after all that has happened between us? Will you be able to forget how near, how dear we have been to each other? Where else will you find that complete, wordless understanding that has bound us together? Won't you be lonely without me?"

There was not a thought of herself in her anxious remonstrances – only of him, and of the life that lay before him.

"What else is there to do? I have no choice! Will I be lonely, Natascha? My heart will be cold and miserable – oh, more than I can tell you." He drew her close into his arms and closed his eyes in silence. "Natascha, I see no other way." As if to drive away the troubled thoughts, his lips sought hers with a man's searching, coaxing kisses, and her heart responded in anxious, troubled willingness.

It did not occur to her to resist his pleading caresses, although unconsciously she was disturbed, aye, almost offended by them.

On a dreary, rainy day they had parted. She had decided to leave on an early train and had already risen from the bed on which he still lay calmly asleep. She glanced at him occasionally as she automatically dressed and packed her belongings, and her soul was frozen and numb with bitterness.

"Already?" he asked in astonishment, when she came, in hat and coat, to bid him good-bye.

She sat down on the bed beside him and softly stroked his forehead, as a mother fondles her child when it is ill.

"Why this hurry to get away? Must you go this morning? Come, stay till this evening, and see me off. You can take the night train."

It was the whim of a man spoiled by the self-effacing adoration and rivalry of two loving women.

At any other time, she reflected, she would have responded to this plea for another hour of her presence, for a single hour of her time, with impassioned gratitude. Somehow, in this grim hour of leave-taking, however, his request struck her as unfair.

"You know why I must take the morning train. If I wait until this evening, I shall be late for the party meeting to-morrow."

"And what if you are? Would that be such a great misfortune? They will manage without you."

He drew her down to the bed and kissed her, but she refused to respond to his blandishments. A thrust, like that of a long, fine needle, had penetrated her heart. Would he never realize how cruelly such thoughtless remarks could hurt? How was it possible for a comrade to speak so slightingly of her work for their common cause, when he must feel that it, alone, would give her the strength to endure this last, irrevocable break, this final parting?

As she sat in the train that was bearing her away from him forever, looking out of the window through a fine net-work of rain into the unfamiliar landscape of a strange country, she still writhed under the restless, depressing hurt in her heart. His unkind words and the off-hand gesture with which he had dismissed her work overshadowed the anguish of this last, decisive parting.

So this was the importance he attached to her work for the cause? "They would get along without her!" The thought persisted, and would not be shaken off. Not until evening, when the shadows fell and the compartment emptied, as the travelers, one by one, arrived at their various destinations, did she begin to feel the misery of their parting. She sobbed bitterly at the thought that she would never see his tender, thoughtful, intelligent eyes again, and mourned for his smile, his gentle smile that sat so strangely on the face of this self-confident, universally admired man.

In parting they had promised not to write, and to make no attempt to see each other again.

"Only remember that I am in the world somewhere," she had tried to console him. "If ever you should need me. .. ." She had not been able to finish the sentence, but his deeply grateful look told her that he understood.

At the time it had all seemed so clear in its inevitability. Now she could not believe that it was true, as one cannot grasp the death of a beloved person until long after he is gone.

It was not the first time that they had decided to part. But always after two or three weeks of silence, a telegram or a letter filled with wild longing, self-reproach and urgent pleading had called her back to his side.

He needed her, he missed the hours of fruitful discussion with her that helped him to clear up his own ideas and to plan his work.

More than once, after such a parting, she had received a letter that plunged, without even the formality of an introductory salutation, into some difficulty that his task presented – a continuation, as it were, of some previously considered matter. Such letters invariably closed with a persuasive plea for a new rendezvous. How much of the romance of their love lay in this assurance that she was essential for his work!

This time, day had followed day, month followed month, without a line, without a message from him.

She plunged into her activities with rebellious pertinacity, trying to overcome the indifference that refused to be shaken off. Bit by bit, as her work threw her together with others similarly engaged, who lived for the same problems and responded to the same interests, her drooping spirits revived. Days came and went in which, she discovered with amazement, she did not once think of him, nor did she know whether or not to regret that this was so. Only late in the evening when she opened the door to her room, the lonely room of an "unattached" woman, after an exhausting day of intense application, the old, well-known nostalgia would take possession of her.

Sometimes, in spite of physical exhaustion, she would write to him, long, throbbing letters that reflected the weary body and the lonesome, forsaken soul that called to him for comfort. ... "Ssenjetschka, Ssenjetschka! You must feel how terribly alone I am! Why did you leave me? It is so disheartening to be so forsaken. Surely you might have remained my friend and comrade. I would gladly have given Anjuta all your solicitude, all your tenderness and your caresses for a little warmth, for a little human, friendly warmth...."

They were never sent to him, these letters, but it eased her heart, and gave her relief to pour out her woes to him. While she wrote she felt so convincingly that only outward, tangible considerations had come between them, that she would find warmth and understanding in his nearness if he were not so far away, if he but lived here in the same city with her, where they could meet as comrades and friends.

At such times Natascha forgot the restlessness that troubled her when she was with him, forgot that trouble and lonesomeness no longer vanished in his presence, that she would always have to stand alone, face to face with life, that she would always have to be strong for both of them, to bear their common burdens. She forgot that the days she spent with him demanded redoubled energy, that she always left him weary, exhausted, and glad to be able to return, unhampered, to the work she loved.

Strange how these chill hours of loneliness drew a rosy curtain over the frustrations of the past!

"I feel as if I were a widow," she wrote in one of these profitless letters. "I wander through the spots we visited together, where we worked and thought and felt as one. We were one, one in thought and one in soul, were we not, my dearest, in those days that will never return? ... It was this spiritual nearness that set fire to our hearts and inflamed our passion.... More than once I have been ready to curse this unholy love that has chastened the glorious, glowing, light-winged happiness that this friendship gave us. Had we remained friends instead of becoming lovers, Ssenja, you would not have had to leave me." But there were other hours too, hours of dismal disillusionment, when her faith in their oneness of mind and spirit tottered before the limitations of actuality. Memory recalled slighting disregard and cruel thoughtlessness until it would seem as if their friendship, too, had been a delusion.

"Did he ever really love me, love me, as I understand love?" Natascha would ask herself dismally in these wretched hours of self-analysis. "If he really loved me, could he have torn me out of his heart, cast me, homeless, out of his soul, so lightly? ... Is it possible that he does not feel how I am suffering? Was there no nearness, no understanding between us .... a figment of my imagination, an artificial product of my own desires? ...How much energy and strength, how much precious time this dream has devoured!" she would reflect angrily, when she recalled how her work, how the cause itself had suffered because she had held herself free for him, turning over work and responsibilities to others, missing important meetings and coming late to others so that she might be at his side. Her reputation as a faithful, conscientious worker had suffered irreparable harm because of this.

Deep down in her heart she upbraided him for the price this love of theirs exacted. In these long hours of self-communion she told him the full, unvarnished truth of her feeling toward him, of the bitterness that had collected and had been suppressed through all these years in her wounded, lacerated heart.

II

His photograph, an old one that he had given her in the early stage of their acquaintance, soon after she had met him at a literary gathering, stood among books, piles of paper and manuscripts that were everywhere in her room.

She often smiled when she recalled their first meeting. Familiar though she was with his name and work – she had written a number of pamphlets popularizing his theories and was generally regarded as one of his followers – she had never made his acquaintance.

"Do you know who is here this evening," the man who was her close friend at that time had asked her. "Your much admired Ssemjon Ssemjonowitsch."

"Honestly? Show him to me, please. Where is he? Oh, I must see him!" She was radiant at the prospect of meeting him, and looked like a little girl in her eagerness.

"Hurry! Hurry! Where is he?"

"Calm yourself! You will probably be disappointed." Her friend was obviously displeased with her excitement. "I should call him a colorless sort of person, myself. As a man .. ."

"What does that matter? Am I interested in the man?"

She shrugged her shoulders impatiently. "Sometimes you are very stupid."

"If you wish it, of course I shall bring him to you." Her friend departed while Natascha waited, smiling with pleasure and curiosity at the prospect of knowing in person this man whose thoughts had been so close to hers. She saw Ssemjon Ssemjonowitsch struggle against her friend's attempts to bring him to her, and was highly amused when the latter finally took his unwilling victim by the arm and dragged him bodily toward her.

"He is bashful," she excused him in her thoughts. Ever afterward she had looked on this Ssemjon Ssemjonowitsch as a very exceptional sort of person, with awkward, but pathetically appealing manners.

She met him frequently after that, and each new meeting was suffused with the fragrance of an unconscious, spring-like happiness.

She had known no lonesomeness in that first year of their acquaintance. Courageous, strong and confident in her power to surmount every obstacle in her path. ... There had been cares, unpleasantness, even unhappiness, but it was all beautified, softened and rarified by a radiant exultation. ... Hindrances? ... Nothing could daunt her. The way of her life lay along a bold, precipitous path whose every winding enticed her hopefully onward – higher – higher. ...

"How can you live alone like this," friends often asked wonderingly, the women particularly. "Without a family, without a soul that belongs to you?"

She had broken off all relations with her friends with an abruptness that was foreign to her usual considerate nature.

"Isn't it depressing to live like this? I should become melancholy."

She laughed merrily in answer. No, quite the contrary. It was great to be alone again, free to come and go as one pleased. She was happy because her wings were not bound by distracting ,encounters, truly glad to be a single woman again. She had her work and needed nothing else. Life was so delightful, so exquisitely, captivatingly delightful!

Alone? Had she not her friends, who were close to her heart? "When she spoke of friends, however, she always thought of him, of him and of his wife and children. She loved them all because they were a part of him, and accepted Anjuta's pronounced femininity and her lack of comprehension for the standards by which she, the unmarried woman, directed her life, although she was occasionally shocked by her petit-bourgeois outlook. However, Anjuta was simple and good, and, above all, frank and honest. There was no room for prevarication in her scheme of things. Her tongue spoke what her mind thought, and she adored her husband with an almost religious devotion, a devotion Natascha understood and shared. How could one help but love him, this splendid, fearless, honest thinker!

At times, it is true, Anjuta's habit of displaying her marital felicity before Natascha, to tease her with her bachelordom, became slightly exasperating.

"I can't help but pity you, my dear. What is a woman's life without a man? It lacks the natural pivot about which a woman's life should turn. Oh, yes, I know, not everyone is fortunate enough to have a husband like Ssenja. Some marriages are anything but happy. But to a woman who lives as I do, in a sort of perpetual honeymoon after twelve years of marriage, the lot of a woman like yourself, whom no one needs for his happiness, seems empty indeed.... Imagine it.... Ssenja is still so ridiculously in love with me... just to show you. ... I know I shouldn't be telling this to another, but you are our friend..." and she would relate some intimate detail of her life with Ssemjon Ssemjonowitsch to show Natascha how deeply he was still in love with her.

Natascha, who was always unpleasantly affected by these indiscreet intimacies, would interrupt them with a peculiar feeling of resentment not only toward Anjuta, but toward Ssemjon Ssemjonowitsch as well. Somehow these pictures of the legitimate husband seemed to obscure the beloved face of the friend and thinker from her vision. For days after Anjuta told a story of this sort she would avoid him until the impression it created was gradually wiped out.

Occasionally it seemed to her as if Anjuta were telling her these cloying intimacies with a very definite purpose, perhaps even adding picturesque details of her own invention to torment Natascha. But these were pin-pricks, after all. They disappeared and were forgotten in the airy happiness of their growing intimacy which gave wings to her work and courage to fight for her place in life, while it illuminated the solitude of her little bachelor room.

Until there came this sudden, unexpected outburst of passion.... Had it, after all, been so sudden? Looking back, Natascha could see that it had germinated and grown in their hearts long before she became aware of its existence. She, with all her consummate faith in her knowledge of life, who had so often laughingly maintained that she would never be caught in the meshes of a romantic love-affair again, had lost her head. What did it matter that Natascha had sworn never to love again, that she had shunned its aches and wounds, this struggle and this failure of two people to understand each other; what mattered her protestations that she wanted only the friendship and understanding that came from common work and responsibilities?

Life had decided differently.

III

THEY were traveling together in a crowded third class railroad compartment to a party conference in another city. His wife who had been particularly loath to let him go, had found countless excuses to keep him at home.

Ssemjon Ssemjonowitsch was still undecided when Natascha had gone to their home on the evening before to ascertain his intentions.

"As a matter of fact, it is positively inexcusable on my part to so much as think of staying away. If I stay away, they [the opposing party faction] will take advantage of my absence and our motion will be defeated.... Still.... It looks as if I should not be able to go. Witjuscha is ill and Anjuta can hardly stand on her feet, she is so worn out with the strain. I can't square it with my conscience to leave her here alone. However ... suppose you drop in to-morrow morning on your way to the station.... Perhaps...."

Her way to the station lay in an entirely different direction, to be sure, but Natascha came.

She was received by his wife's disgruntled face. The self-conscious expression on his features betrayed the altercation that must have gone before.

He had decided not to go, he told her. Yet in the same breath he proved to her, once more, how essential it was that he be present at the conference.

"My absence will have far-reaching consequences, you will see. I know even now that our motion will be defeated.... Still... on the other hand ... Witja is still feverish and Anjuta feels ill.., it is really most unfortunate just now, during this really important conference...."

"I am sure we will manage quite nicely," she reassured him. "We will do everything in our power to carry out your wishes, you may rest assured." Not for an instant had she guessed the real reason for his anxiety to go with her.

She hurried to the station, not at all displeased at the prospect of a few hours for undisturbed reflection in which she could decide on the details of the motion she was to present, and lay out a plan of action to secure its adoption.

Mid-winter frost was in the air. Natascha walked briskly up and down the chilly station platform, her hands thrust deep into her muff, her mind already busily engaged with the work before her. She was tense but self-confident; her spirits thrilled with the joy of approaching battle. She would fight for their motion to the bitter finish, to bring back the glad tidings....

"Natalja Alexandrowna! Natalja Alexandrowna!"

Natascha turned quickly.

"Here I am, after all."

Ssemjon Ssemjonowitsch stood before her, panting heavily, with a whimsical gleam of triumph in his eyes.

"I tore myself away, after all ... I was actually cruel. ... I'm sorry for Anjuta, but .. ." He took her arm familiarly while Natascha looked in wonderment at the strange expression of crafty exultation that persisted on his face.

The railway compartment was already overcrowded, and they were forced to sit very close to each other. Ssemjon Ssemjonowitsch continued to gaze at Natascha with eyes that for the first time betrayed the man behind the gold-rimmed glasses.

Natascha was disconcerted, and it added to her confusion to notice that his hand trembled when he touched her. His agitation had already infected her calmness with its intensity. Eyes, seeking and precipitously avoiding each other, spoke their own language as the sweet, delirious current, tormenting and enticing alike, bound her more and more closely to the man who sat beside her.

At one of the longer stops they left the car for a breath of air. They breathed its keen, wintry freshness with a sigh of relief because they had escaped from this beautiful but disturbing dream. The smoke-darkened city was far away.

They spoke of indifferent, trivial matters, and the oppressive tension gradually vanished. Neither felt the desire to return to the crowded train.

But, back in the compartment once more, the mischievous boy with his arrow again began to exercise his magic. The sultry atmosphere and the enforced nearness of their bodies evoked an irresistible charm. Ssemjon Ssemjonowitsch sought Natascha's hand and she did not withdraw it.

Hesitatingly he began to speak of his life at home, of his wife's suffering and ill-health, and of her inordinate jealousy. But although he spoke of Anjuta, they both understood that it was of his love for her, for Natascha, that he was telling. He had always pitied Anjuta more than he loved her; in fact he had married her because he felt sorry for her. She had never understood him. He had lived beside her like a stranger, locked up within himself, alone with his thoughts and his aspirations. Then Natascha had come and everything had changed. Life has become light and joyous, and he was no longer alone. She had the key to his soul. She was essential to his happiness. His love for her had passed through every stage of happiness and pain, but he had never dared to hope that she, too, could care for him. He had trembled before her like a love-sick school-boy. Did she know the jealous tortures he had suffered because of that friend who had introduced them, and how he had rejoiced when the break between them came – how he had loved her all these years, tenderly and hopelessly?

She listened to him in speechless astonishment, and was glad – yes, glad – despite the anxiety this confession caused her. But she no longer found the face of her friend, the thinker, in the impassioned features of this man beside her. How different he was, this new, strange Ssenja, from the thoughtful man with the childish smile of whom she had grown so fond!

The new Ssemjon Ssemjonowitsch sat close beside her, and sought her eyes without evasion, now. What was to become of it all? Life without her was impossible. Yet there they were, his family and his children. Anjuta – he would never leave Anjuta.

"What shall we do? Why should we do anything? Have I asked for anything? It has been happiness enough for me to be your friend."

"My dearest!" Oblivious to the staring strangers about them, he threw his arms about her and kissed her temples. "It is so sweet to be with you ... so sweet."

Her lips smiled, but there were tears in her eyes.

"I am crying because I am so happy," she explained.

He pressed her close and whispered: "My precious, my beloved Natascha!"

At their destination they left the train in a daze, and were met by a number of comrades who escorted them first to the inn at which they were to stay, and thence to the conference. The first day passed without undue animosity. Natascha and Ssemjon Ssemjonowitsch, keyed to the highest pitch with suppressed excitement, were taken back to the inn amid much banter and laughter by a group of sympathetic comrades. She loved them all, every one of them. Even the opponents were her dear friends and comrades that day. She was drunk with joy. She wanted to laugh, to be among others as happy as she; she wished this glorious day would never end. It would be different later – to-day she was happy. She would have to suffer for her love.

Ah, sooner than she expected.

It was on the last day of the conference.

The strain of three days of endless discussion followed by three sleepless nights was beginning to tell on Natascha. She found it increasingly difficult to concentrate on her work as secretary, to follow the thoughts of these strange speakers in their florid, frequently affected, oratorical flights and to record them correctly.

When she read her notes on the day's proceedings at the end of the session, it appeared that she had misquoted one of her opponents, so that the meaning of his words had been distorted. The opposition raged.

They insisted that it had been done as a clever maneuver on the part of the opposing party.

Natascha was helplessly confused.

Suddenly Ssemjon Ssemjonowitsch plunged into the discussion with a bitter attack upon her for her carelessness. She understood, of course, that it was done to save his group from the aspersions of its opponents. He was placing the responsibility where it belonged – on Natascha's shoulders – in order to show that they, as a faction, had nothing to do with it.

After the session was over they all walked to the inn together, furiously discussing; Natascha alone was silent, trying hard to suppress her tears.

They were alone at last.

Crying bitterly she threw herself on his breast. She made no attempt to explain her tears; Ssenja would understand how she felt, since he, too, must feel unhappy over the situation into which her unfortunate error had forced them.

Had it been necessary to censure her quite so vigorously? Of course she realized that he must place the interests of their faction above her personal feelings.... She wanted to tell him that she understood. But he must express some regret, some contrition for having had to do it. Let the others believe, if they pleased, that she had tried to gain an unfair advantage by trickery. He must know that it had been a mistake, that only her extreme exhaustion was responsible.

"You understand, Ssenja, don't you? You understand... ?"

"Of course I understand, my poor little girl.... I know how hard it is for you to leave me. But what else can we do?"

Had she heard aright? Her tears ceased and she looked at him, uncomprehending.

"You know that the very thought of parting makes me suffer," he was saying. "But we will continue to love each other ... you will come to visit us as usual ... you must, or Anjuta will suspect that something has happened. Come, now, stop crying. Ah, how I longed for you all day long! Let me kiss you."

After that, could she tell him the reason for her tears? If he did not understand the cause of her misery, if he could find it in his heart to seek a last caress before they took leave from each other when she was so downcast and unhappy – could she hope to make him understand .. .?

He kissed away two great tears that ran across her cheeks.

"Don't cry, my little one. We will see each other often."

In the train they sat with a number of other comrades. At the station, back in the great, smoky city once more, they took formal leave ... as strangers.

IV

LOOKING back at it now, she understood the reason for her unhappiness more clearly than she had seen it at the time. Now she knew that the bitter tears she had shed when she had reached her room had not been the lonesome tears of a woman whose lover has left her for the first time. They were tears of sorrow over the first of many wounds that were yet to pierce her heart. Was it possible that Ssenja did not understand that a heart, wounded again and again, ceases to love, that love seeps slowly, drop after drop, out of the tiny wounds that never heal because they were made by thoughtlessness and misunderstanding?

After these seven months of lonely reflection, Natascha was beginning to understand the cause for her restlessness, to see what it was that left a residue of humiliation at the bottom of each cup of passion. Again and again she had come to him, honestly ready to bare her soul, but he saw only her, Natascha, and paid no heed to the voice that tried to reach him from within.... He took the woman into his arms while her soul, her innermost being, stretched out its arms to him in vain, and remained lonesome and forgotten. Had he ever known Natascha?

To be sure, his mind was always full of petty cares. Life had not been kind to him. He lived in an atmosphere of constant material misfortune and financial crises, of jealousy and suspicion, tormented by a nagging wife whose constant claims on his time and energy were hampering his efficiency.

"Yesterday Anjuta almost poisoned herself"...

Some such story overshadowed every one of the stolen hours they spent together. "I came in just in time to prevent her from swallowing the contents of a bottle of morphine. What can rye do, Natascha? Where is there a way out of it all?" Ssemjon Ssemjonowitsch would bury his head in her lap while she softly fondled his beloved head. At first these tales of attempted suicide had shocked her, until their frequent repetition dulled her anxiety and made them seem ridiculous. She could not find it in her heart to laugh at Anjuta for these silly extravagances, however. She was too honestly sorry for her. But that she should rob him of his precious time, that she filled his mind so full of her everlasting petty cares that he had no time for serious concentration – that was unforgivable. Had she no comprehension of his greatness, that she refused to see that the energy and strength of a man like this were too precious to be wasted on every-day cares?

Natascha herself spared him wherever she could. She never told him of her cares and tribulations; before his own they bowed down and disappeared. With her he should always find tenderness and deepest, fullest understanding. She longed to take his-burdens upon her own shoulders, to free the thinker, the worker, for greater, more important responsibilities...

"How strong, how splendid you are," he said with a sigh. "You can stand alone in the world. You are so different from poor Anjuta. She would go under without my protection."

Natascha laughed at him as at a child. Dared she be weak where he was concerned? She must be his refuge, his comforter, the bringer of light and cheerfulness. After cares and tears and petty troubles at home he must find a holiday when he came to Natascha.

There were times, exasperating days, when mishap seemed to lurk in her path, when she lost patience with this, her self-imposed role, and a spirit of revolt would raise its head. Why did he always pity Anjuta? Surely Natascha's life was anything but easy. ... There was her work – hard, grinding, responsible work. Others saw and appreciated her worth. Had Ssenja ever given it a single thought?

"Oh, Ssenja, my dearest, I am so tired." Sometimes Natascha tried to win a bit of sympathy for her own aggravations. "They [the other faction] have instituted a veritable drive against me. Have you heard of their new resolution?"

"Please, don't let's talk about that. It really isn't worth getting excited about. Let me tell you the trouble I am in now. Anjuta is sick again, and the doctor says she must have absolute rest. I should have a nurse for the children, but how can I pay? You know the straits I am in as it is. Oh, Natascha, when I look at Anjuta and see how she works herself to skin and bone, how she gives herself completely to myself and the children, I realize what a criminal, what an egoist, what an entirely worthless scoundrel I am!"

Could Natascha think of herself when life was so bitter for him, for her idol, the light of her life?

There were rare occasions, moments of quiet relaxation from his own trials, when it would occur to Ssenja that Natascha was always, always the giver, that he was the receiver in their love for each other.

"Natascha, I know that our love is bringing you nothing but suffering. I am too selfish to love you as you deserve to be loved. Some day you will realize how I have misused your affection, and you will grow tired of me. Natascha, what will become of me then? You cannot know what your love means to me."

"I think I know, Ssenja. If I didn't, I don't believe I could bear it."

"I am your best friend, Natascha, though I may not always show it. I want you to believe that, dearest.... Sometimes there is a great chasm between us. ... I feel you withdrawing from me. You don't tell me everything about yourself. That is it, Natascha. It hurts. You must know that this close understanding between us, thiS absolute confidence and honesty is the most precious part of your love for me?"

"Yes, Ssenja, that is most important of all. We must understand one another. Each must know every thought that passes through the other's mind. You don't know how often I am hurt and unhappy because I miss this oneness between us.... At such times I grow cold and inexpressibly discouraged. I want you to care for more than just the woman in me."

"My little stupid."

"You were right, Ssenja. There are some things I haven't told you. Why? I don't know myself. I want to tell you everything."

"You must tell me. What is it? There is something, then, that you have kept from me?"

"No, you don't understand. It isn't a secret simply little, unimportant happenings that trouble me, and I hesitate to tell you about them."

"What, for instance, is troubling you now?"

"Well, then, these visits of Comrade Anton's. He has been coming to see me quite frequently of late, and then he sits and sits ... looking at me in such a peculiar way – oh, you know what I mean – for hours at a time. I hate it, but I can't refuse to let him come, can I? We are working together, and the poor fellow is lonesome. ... I'm a little sorry for him."

"What have his visits to do with your work together? I must admit, that is something I cannot understand. You will pardon me, but I find this pity of yours a bit overdone. He sits in her room and looks at her for hours with love-lorn eyes and she pities him! How am I to know how far this pity of yours will take you? It seems to me it should not be difficult to get rid of a person who annoys one with that sort of thing. Of course, if you like his courtship...."

"Ssenjetschka! How can you say that? ... how can you misunderstand me so?" Natascha laughed in spite of her indignation. Jealous,... and of Comrade Anton. The dear, delightful imbecile! Didn't he know after all these months with her that she idolized him? He dominated her every thought. Why, his figure with its slight studious stoop was dearer and more appealing to her than anything else in the world. Who was there that could compare with Ssemjon Ssemjonowitsch? Who had his crystal-clear soul? Who could think as logically, as brilliantly as he? This jealousy of his was so amazingly naive that she could not be angry at him, although at times it became exceedingly disagreeable. Hadn't he been jealous of the violinist at the concert and sulked all the way home? Hadn't he talked himself into a rage and given her her "freedom?" Perhaps he had forgotten that disgraceful scene in the street car when she had exchanged a few bantering words with the conductor?

"Can't a woman look at a man without falling in love with him?" she demanded laughingly, when he came to his senses after one such incident. He had smiled a little shamefacedly, quite conscious of the wrong he had done her.

But Natascha felt that he distrusted her because of what he knew of her past.

"You yourself told me that you loved him the one with the black hair, I mean. How much did you love him? As much as you love me?"

"Much, much more, of course. ...Would I have sent him away so light-heartedly if I had loved him more? You know all about it. You saw it all. And still you do not believe that I love you? For all your cleverness you are sometimes exasperatingly stupid!"

"Other men are so much more persuasive than I, and know how to pay court to women. I shall never learn how to be a cavalier, Natascha."

"But that is exactly why I love you so much, Ssenjetschka. You are such a darling because you are like that."

"Darling! A fine darling you have picked for yourself!" he scoffed, embarrassed. But, nevertheless, he was soothed by her protestations.

In Natascha these scenes left traces of a vague hurt. She could not understand how he, he who had condemned others so unsparingly for the unhappiness their distrust had caused her, could himself so little control his jealousy. He had often comforted her in the earlier days of their acquaintance when she uttered vain regrets for the past, had been her haven of refuge when others had hurt and affronted her. He had been forbearance itself, he had ministered to her with an understanding one rarely finds, except where one woman understands and feels for another. She had teasingly called him Ssenjetschka-an echo of the past. ...

The Ssenja of those by-gone days, the friend and confidant, and this Ssenja, her illegal husband, were two different persons altogether. Natascha saw this more and more clearly in the seven months since they had parted.

Was it only this failure to think and feel with her that was driving them apart? As she recalled scenes of their life together, other ugly reminiscences forced their way forward. There were times when he had not even spared the woman in her. He who was mercy and thoughtfulness itself toward the Anjuta who so often abused and misused his goodness, could be incredibly ruthless where Natascha was concerned. No one had ever hurt her so cruelly, and the conviction that it was done unconsciously mitigated but could not wipe out the sense of outrage that persisted. It had begun in their first night together, in the little inn to which the comrades had brought them.

The comrades had departed at last and Natascha fled to her room, tremblingly assuring herself again and again that it was true. He loved her! This fearless thinker, this greatly admired, universally beloved revolutionist loved her! Sheer, great, immeasurable happiness!

She was preparing for bed when a knock at the door caught her with a tooth-brush in her hand. Before she could answer, Ssemjon Ssemjonowitsch stepped into the room and turned the key in the lock.

Natascha, startled into immobility, stood gazing at him, a brush full of tooth-powder still in her mouth.

"How funny you look. Like a little boy!"

And disregarding Natascha's stunned perplexity he gathered her in his arms.

"You smell of peppermint," he laughed.

"Wait, let me ... at least let me wash this powder from my mouth."

She did not know what to say – she simply struggled to release herself from a position that was physically uncomfortable and distasteful to her. But he kissed her lips that were covered with powder, her neck and her bare shoulders with greedy, searching kisses. In that first night she felt no response to his caresses. They were strange, uncomfortable and unaccustomed. When she recalled his impetuous ardor in their first night together she remembered only the taste of peppermint toothpowder, and its disagreeable grittiness.

When he fell asleep at last, exhausted with burntout passion, she leaned over the head that rested on her shoulder with ineffable yearning. Not until then did the compassionate tenderness that was her love for him return to her. Worshipfully, just touching it gently with her lips, she kissed the high, thoughtful forehead of his proud, beautiful head.

At no time, neither then nor later, was there mere physical desire or flaming passion in the love she gave him. She gave her body with the deep, pure joy with which the priestess of old offered herself to the priest at the shrine of her temple. She was giving herself to her god. To him Natascha was the first woman to waken a great, passionate desire within him; he craved her passionate response. Not the god, but the man in him claimed her love.

Next section | Table of Contents

I. A Great Love: V-IX

by Alexandra Kollontai

V - IX

V

IN these long months since she had left him she had often tried to understand her love for him. Had it brought her only suffering and resentment? Surely there had been breath-taking, delirious moments of unalloyed happiness as well!

She recalled long, sultry evenings in the first summer of their love, evenings she had spent with his family in the exotic strangeness of a southern landscape. He had brought his wife and children to the seashore near the little mountain village where she was spending a hard-earned vacation with a younger brother who was still at school. They were still trying to observe outward appearances, and she visited his family and met his wife at frequent intervals. He insisted on this, for Anjuta's sake. ... The old times, when it had been a precious privilege to enter his household, seemed to have returned again.

In these long summer evenings she experienced the spring-time of their love. They were frequently together, but always in the presence of others. A peculiar enchantment pervaded these meetings, a charm that enhanced their desire for one another and filled each day with the sweet torture of restless hope and expectancy. ... There were stolen hand-clasps, meaningful glances, half smiles that they alone caught and understood, and a longing exquisitely enhanced by their constant nearness and the impossibility of fulfillment.

They spoke much and happily of their work and the problems that engaged the movement at that moment. Sometimes they argued and quarreled as relentlessly as if they were strangers.

But the evenings – evenings on the porch – mysterious lights of a distant town, water throbbing in the rays of the moon....

What of those others, his wife and their friends, who sat beside them? Natascha and Ssenja were hardly conscious of their presence. They were alone together in the witchery of a southern summer night.

Natascha had only to throw herself back into her wicker chair and close her eyes to feel his nearness. She needed only to stretch out her hand to touch his body ... and dared not do it. Desire grew – her body was aflame with it, aflame with the knowledge that he, too, was being drawn to her, that he was longing to be with her. ... She would open her eyes in the moonlight, to catch a quick glance – a smile....

She laughed – she was so happy, so full of a sweet contentment no words could express.

Thus they would sit until midnight, fitfully speaking. Long silences, brisk discussions. And her soul trembled and sang, waiting, waiting and believing in a future full of joy and gladness.

"Time to go home!"

Natascha would sigh out of the fullness of her happiness as she rose to take her leave.

"We will see you home."

All together they would go with her along the road that lay milky-white in the silver of the moonlight. He, close beside her – a fleeting touch of his shoulder set her pulses racing faster and more madly than the most fervent caress when he was alone with her.

A last pressure of his hand at the gate, another quick, significant smile as they parted!

After they had all disappeared down the road into the darkness Natascha remained in the dim garden, unable, as yet, to bear the presence of others – her heart was too full, the night too marvelous, too irresistibly enchanting.... Ah, to be able to spread one's wings and fly into the darkly beckoning, star-lit sky! To run, swiftly, swiftly, down the hill to his house, to fall about his neck,....or...

Foolish, sweetly-mad, gusty, disconnected thoughts and desires.

Sweet, oppressive, all-pervading fragrance of southern night-blooms.

VI

A short, colorful summer. Short, and far-away as a dream.

Had there been no happiness in her love but this? Never again?

She tried to remember, tried hard; her brews furrowed darkly as she recalled the days that followed, for memory brought only painful, stolen, tainted hours, hours of hurt, hours of suffering.

Then her eyes grew light again.

Ah, yes, she remembered. She remembered. To think that she had forgotten!

The following spring ... she was engaged on her last larger piece of writing, working feverishly and without rest, completely oblivious to everything about her.

And then ... his telegram.

She took a case of books to the tiny room on the outskirts of the city where she kept her tryst with him, to fill with work the long, irksome hours between his visits that she would otherwise have spent in impatient idleness. There he would find her when he came to the little room among the acacia blossoms, engrossed in her task, cheeks flushed and the mist of authorship in her eyes.

That month had been one of unalloyed delight. What had made it so? – her love? – her work? At the time she neither thought nor asked...enough to know that it was beautiful, that her spirits soared, that there was life, the life that one feels only in childhood and early youth, in every fibre of her being.

At night she would get up from their bed to tear open the windows and admit the heavy fragrance of acacia blossoms, to look out at the fitfully-fantastic patterns the moon painted through the leaves on the grass, and on the table with the tea-cups that remained there from a late repast.

It seemed a pity to sleep, a pity not to feel the intense, throbbing wonder in her heart.

She recalled one night, just before they left – a hot, oppressive night.

Surrounded by dark-green shadows and fragrant flowers it seemed to Natascha as if she had never known before what life could mean.

She leaned far out of the window, drew a branch of acacia toward her and plucked a fragrant, tenderly-white cluster of blossoms.

"How beautiful it is! How beautiful!"

She wanted to laugh, to wake Ssenjetschka to tell him how much she loved him, how happy she was...

"Nataschka, where are you?"

"Ssenja, what a wonderful night. ... Look at these flowers, Ssenja. Do you smell them?" She bent over him tenderly holding the scent-laden flowers to his nostrils.

"My love, it is like the fragrance of your own sweet soul – tender and maddening." His lips touched the fingers that held the acacia-twig.

To Natascha it seemed as if her quivering heart were rising to unimagined heights. No, her love had brought her more than suffering: precious moments, sweet, inimitable hours that would never return had been hers as well – ephemeral, fragile happiness.

Would it never return? Never?

VII

THE last few weeks had overwhelmed Natascha I and her comrades with unexpected work demanding, intense, attentive application, and as always when the need arose, living, vital human beings, devoted to the cause, sprang up on every side to carry it through.

Natascha found a new satisfaction in the atmosphere of intense endeavor that surrounded her. For the first time she knew the satisfaction of being a tiny cog in a powerful mechanism beginning to rotate in resistless accomplishment. The frank devotion of her colleagues restored to Natascha some of her old vivacity and her laughter rang often and cheerily through the long, dark corridors of the dreary apartment in which they worked. Her comrades would smile indulgently.

"How happy our Natalja Alexandrowna has become!"

"She is probably in love," commented the comrade who worked at her side, matter-of-factly, and without looking up from his work he asked, "Is it true, Natalja Alexandrowna? Have you fallen in love?"

"And with whom, pray? With you, perhaps? Who else do I ever see, Wanjetschka?"

"Oh, these women are sly! Shakespeare already said ... you see how they are. Now she wants to put it all on me. No, my dear Nataschka, you won't fool me. I am not so easily led about by the nose. I see everything."

And throwing back his thick mane of hair, he looked at her out of mock-serious eyes, while Natascha continued to tease him. She was truly fond of Wanjetschka. In his gold-rimmed glasses and slow, thoughtful manner of speech there was something that reminded her of Ssenja.

It was late when Natascha hurried home that evening. Her back ached, her eyes burned and her throat was dry and parched, but a soul content and at peace forgets physical weariness. The first steps of the work they had launched were accomplished, and the movement was driving forward with gratifying swiftness under its own impulse, along well-ordered paths.

As she wearily climbed the stairs, she thought gratefully of the cup of tea and the new periodical with the much-discussed article of a greatly-admired comrade that awaited her. "After all," she reflected, "it is good to live alone. It gives one the moral right, after a hard day's work, to spend the evening as one pleases. If Ssenja were here, now, there would be this to do and that to attend to for him. I might have to start off, now, to the other end of the town to meet him, or have to fuss over a stupid supper at home."

As it was, a cup of tea and an hour's reading would bring the hard working-day to a perfect end.

"Has anyone been here?" she asked the landlady, as usual.

"Some books came this morning, and there is a telegram... ." "A telegram?" Her heart beat tumultuously. How silly of her ... something official, of course...

It lay on her desk near the package of books, and beside it a gray envelope with his thrilling, never-to-be forgotten handwriting.

Natascha's limbs trembled so violently that she had to sit down to steady herself.

Which should she open first? The telegram? The letter?

The telegram read: Arrive in H. on twenty-eighth, Expect you at station. Wire. Ssenja.

A year ago a message like this would have sent her whirling madly about the room. She would have counted the days, the hours. ...

Now the hand that held the telegram sank helplessly into her lap.

Not a line for seven long months. Not a single sign of life – and now this! Did he know what she was doing? He knew nothing of her life or her work, nothing of the thrilling months of gruelling labor she had behind her. She might have been arrested, she might have died – he would have been none the wiser. "Come!" Just as if they had parted yesterday! As if nothing had happened between them, and he had not, with his own hand, inflicted a mortal wound to her love for him.

Should she go to him again to spend hours beside a man who was deaf to her inner voice, sit beside one who saw only her profile, never the whole Natascha? Should she lie in his arms and yet feel that she was far, far away from him because he saw only what he chose to see of her?

No, no. She would not go! She would not be caught again! Enough!

Natascha threw back her head with that characteristic gesture for which the comrades used to tease her, and took her pen to answer forthwith with a decisive refusal. But how to address it? His home was out of the question;his wife would plague him to distraction. To H.? He would not get there before the twenty-eighth. Suppose he were going there just to meet her again? The thought of his disappointment at finding her refusal there was almost more than she could bear. His letter would tell her what was taking him there.

As she read, her indignation wilted and disappeared and with it the feeling of neglect and hurt, giving place to a warm flood of tenderness for this gentle thinker with the tender soul who had written her these humbly pleading, abjectly self-reproachful lines. Far from being indifferent to her fate he had followed her activity from a distance, greedily collecting every hit of information he could get concerning her activity. He knew that she was engaged in difficult, responsible work and had rejoiced that she had found a congenial occupation to distract her thoughts from the pain he knew he had inflicted. ... He, however, had found that feelings are stronger than reason. It was useless to struggle against them. There had not been a day when he had not longed for her.

His relations with his wife were unchanged, worse, if anything. He had become more critical and more irritable, and his home life was becoming a veritable hell. Work, under those circumstances, progressed slowly. Recently, however, he had chanced on an interesting thought that seemed worth following up, and in search of material he had made the acquaintance of a professor in H. who had placed his library at Ssenja's disposal. For that reason, and because he must talk it over with Natascha, who would help him develop it more fully, he had decided to spend the next month and a half or two months in H.

Should they let this wonderful opportunity slip by without seeing each other again? Natascha must come! Secretly, of course, as always. No one must know where or for what purpose she was going (because of Anjuta). She would manage somehow. A postscript begged her to supply herself with the necessary funds, since his own finances were in a more than precarious condition. This was not new to her. She had always been financially better off than he, and they had always arranged their meetings on that basis, she palling the expenses that arose. Obviously he could not be expected to deprive his family at home for this purpose, particularly since the question of finances was always a sore one. His family life was the typical life of the Russian refugee of that period – irregular income and constant indebtedness. Natascha, on the other hand, had a regular income and steady employment.

"I am like a man who keeps a tryst with a strange woman, and naturally pays all expenditures of such an occasion," she thought with a slightly rueful smile.

This time Ssenja's demand brought her up short, however.

"Easy enough to write – supply yourself with the necessary funds! Where am I to get the money? The journey alone will cost more than I possess."

What was she to do? The party had been in urgent need of funds and she had given all she had, retaining just enough to provide for her frugal needs.

What was she to do?

Natascha was no longer in doubt as to her intentions. That question had decided itself irrevocably while she persued his letter. But she must find some way out of all the difficulties and hindrances that stood in the way of her going. Above all, this money question would have to be decided.

She began to calculate. What she had would just pay her trip to H. Where to get the rest – that was the question. Pawn her watch? She would get so little for it that it would not be worth the trouble. Telegraphing to her relatives was too distasteful to be considered – they would probably answer in a letter full of hints and recriminations.

A peculiar person, her Ssenja. Was she a millionairess? Did it never occur to him that it might be difficult for her to raise such a sum at a moment's notice? For an instant a feeling of resentment took possession of her. He paid no attention to her difficulties – ever. Like a child....

This comparison touched and softened her at once.

Exactly. A child, a great, over-grown child. Great minds were like that – like children in practical matters. That was natural.

She spent the rest of the evening, till far into the night, over her plans, but the more earnestly she reflected, the further it seemed to remove her from any way out of the difficulty.

Would she have to forego this visit to him because of a little stupid money?

Natascha sat up desperately in her bed and beat her hands together in her anguish.

Money was by no means the only consideration, of course. There were her work, and the responsibilities she had assumed. True, she had planned it so well that it was running smoothly on its own momentum. She would probably find someone to take her place for three or four weeks. But all this was more easily said than done. What would the comrades think of her? It was not pleasant to feel their disapproving eyes. A look of condemnation or an unfriendly malicious comment had more than once depressed her for a whole day. She would have to speak to Donzeff who, she knew, disapproved of her and called her "the fine lady" behind her hack. He would naturally resent this sudden departure and would see in it, not without justification, new proof of his contention that she was unreliable. "Just as I said. Natalja Alexandrowna is too much concerned with matters outside of the movement."

She could almost hear his unpleasant, grating voice as he walked from one corner of the room to the other with his slightly halting gait. She resolutely put him out of her mind, and refused to consider what would happen after she returned...That would take care of itself afterwards; now she must find some way out. Ssenjetschka must not be disappointed, and she herself... above everything else she must see him again. She felt that she would lose him irrevocably if she failed to answer his call at this time, and the thought, with its bitter finality, was more than she could bear.

Rather die than that!

When she came to the office earlier than was her wont on the following morning, her weary eyes fell with a gleam of hope on Wanjetschka, throning on a high chair, alone in the room in the midst of a cloud of cigarette smoke. He was underscoring a paragraph here and a sentence there in some newspapers that lay before him.

"I have the honor to report to her Highness Natalja Alexandrowna and to wish her the best of health," he mocked, without, however, raising his head.

"Good morning, Wanjetschka."

Wanjetschka caught a trace of self-pity in her voice and threw her a quick look over his glasses.

"What is troubling your Highness? Melancholy?"

"Oh, Wanjetschka, don't ask me."

Natascha gestured hopelessly. She felt herself so unfairly treated by life that even his laughing sympathy touched her.

"So, so," he exclaimed, more seriously now. "What is this? ... Something new? But why cry all your tears to yourself? Tell me about it, if things have come to such a pass."

He pushed his papers away, but, afraid of irritating Natascha with too great a show of curiosity, still persisted in this bantering pose of a friend ready to hear another's confession.

Natascha, hungry for a sympathetic ear, poured out a confused story of half-truths ... that she must leave town at once but that it was impossible for her to do so because of her work, that she had no money. On the other hand, if she did not go, a misfortune, a terrible misfortune might result....

"In short, it is a matter of life and death."

Tears ran from her eyes unashamed.

Wanjetschka knew Natascha as a thoroughly efficient worker, he knew her in her angry and in her despondent moods; that she could cry like an unreasonable child – that was an unexpected light on her character.

"Well, well, I wouldn't let my head hang in this fashion if I were you. Tears coin no money, you know. Now try to be sensible for a moment and tell me how much you need. Much?"

"That is just it, Wanjetschka. So much that it is practically out of the question."

And Natascha named the figure.

"Well, that is a round sum, I'll confess. We won't find it in our pockets. But why do you squander your own capital so thoughtlessly if you need money so badly. Of what use are these grand gestures when the party calls for funds if you yourself have to go begging afterwards?"

"But Wanjetschka, I don't need this for myself.... You don't seem to realize how important this is. If I don't go down there – if I don't get hold of this damned money somehow ... in a word, the life of a human being, perhaps of two, depends on it."

"So it's an escape you are talking about? You are trying to help someone get away from the police?" At last Wanjetschka believed he understood.

"Put it that way, if you will...."

"Why didn't you say so at once instead of beating about the bush with your 'personal reasons.' The lady must leave us, whether for a week or forever she doesn't say. If you had told me at once that it's a matter of conspiracy, would I have bothered you with questions? I am not curious. I know that one does not ask unnecessary questions in such affairs, and that what you do not tell me I am not supposed to know. But help ... ? If it is possible, of course I will help."

Natascha did not answer, but she was quite satisfied with Wanjetschka's interpretation of her predicament, particularly since he was evidently pondering on the possibility of procuring the desired funds for her. After all, was it a crime to deceive him concerning the purpose for which the money was to be used? She was merely trying to borrow on good security, and was fully prepared to pledge the royalties of her last literary work in return. The article was already in type.

"Never mind your financial schemes just now. First we must find someone who has money to give.... There is an old gentleman ... but I am afraid he has been too thoroughly plucked by our comrades in the past to be approachable. He will probably refuse to give again."

"Wanjetschka, I know whom you mean. Try it, please, for my sake. It will be easier if you go to him. Tell him that the money is to go through my hands, that I hold myself personally responsible for its repayment. ... I'll give you a note at once if you think it is best. .. ."

"Easy, easy, now. Not a cent within a mile of her and she is handing out receipts.... You are a financier, I must say. But here I am chattering away when I should be telephoning. ... Ah, Natalja Alexandrowna, a fine one you are to distract an honest workingman from his labor, tempting him from the straight and narrow path of duty."

Two days later Wanjetschka handed Natascha an envelope with great show of ceremony.

"Here you are. I have met the enemy and he is ours!"

"Wanjetschka, you darling!" She was ready to kiss him.

"What is all this ... darling and kisses, indeed! Such a fuss over a little, unimportant matter.

But now the receipt, my lady, if you please. The old man is a hard customer. He groaned...times are so bad and he has given so much that he has nothing for himself. Well, then I told him that you were ready to offer security and mentioned your willingness to give your personal receipt. He became soft at once. Here, here, don't put that envelope into your pocket without counting the money. How do you know I haven't cheated you? Perhaps I took half of it for myself."

"You would be welcome to every penny of it, Wanjetschka."

"This is a fine state of affairs. Why do you ask for twice as much as you need, pray, if one-half the amount is sufficient? Or do you intend to buy yourself a sable coat with the rest? Ah, your Highness, there is something mighty mysterious about this whole business. ...Who is this whose life is to be saved? ... Don't come to me to act as best man at a wedding, or to function at a christening when it is all over."

Natascha laughed happily and squeezed his hand.

"I am so grateful to you, Wanjetschka, so grateful."

At the door Wanjetschka turned back to her once more.

"In that case, you may send me a post-card from the place where you are going. It would be interesting to see it."

He laughed impishly at her evident discomfiture.

"I promise not to breathe a word to another mortal soul. I will keep it a secret to the end of my days ... but as to myself – I am interested. If you trust me, send me a card. Unless I receive one from you, you may consider our friendship at an end."

Wanjetschka pulled his fur cap over his forehead with an expression of severe grandiloquence and disappeared behind the door.

VIII

NATASCHA was in a fever of expectancy. Time in the railroad carriage was standing still. At times Natascha's heart expanded joyously at the prospect of meeting her lover, then it lay still, counting the minutes and hours that stretched between her and the moment when she would see him again. The last hours became exquisite torture. Suppose he did not come to the station! Where would she find him? Would she have to spend a wretched night in the dreary inn of a strange town – alone? When the station lights appeared outside the windows of the train at last, her heart beat so violently that she looked at her neighbors in alarm, so sure she was that they must have heard it. Tuk-tuk-tuk – it was causing her actual physical pain, and sent the blood like an unpleasant, icy douche through her veins. Her hands were tremblingly, uselessly numb as she leaned far out of the window for a glimpse of him.

Was he there? Was he there?

The station ... milling crowds ... people – so many of them! Would he be able to find her? Would he see her?

There he was. Of course, that was he.

Her heart beat louder still, but this time in exultant, joyous throbs.

In the long hours in the railroad compartment she had tried to picture their meeting. She would fall about his neck, disregarding the indifferent public about them.

How different this reality from her highly colored expectations.

Jumping hurriedly from the carriage-steps she stumbled and fell, umbrella, bag and purse flying ungracefully in different directions. She bent to pick up her scattered belongings and Ssenja helped her before he had a chance to greet her. Then he gave her his hand.

Natascha pressed it without a word, as if he were a stranger.

"Come quickly, Natascha ... all these people there may be someone who knows us. I shall go ahead. You follow."

Ssemjon Ssemjonowitsch marched to the exit of the station with studied unconcern, as if he had nothing in the world to do with Natascha who, trying hard to make herself believe that she had already seen him, hurried anxiously after him, lest she fall behind and lose sight of him.

In the fleeting glance she had been able to give him it had seemed to her that he was changed. There was something different, strange about him. Had he become stouter? Or was his beard longer than he was accustomed to wearing it? This fear of his of meeting chance acquaintances was not new to her; this was not the first of these disagreeable walks through a strange city where no one had ever seen them before. To-day Ssenja's foolish mania, and even more the fact that he had not found a word of welcome for her after these long months of absence irritated her unaccountably.

They crossed a large, empty plaza under blinking lanterns to a hotel where a uniformed porter received them and a boy with shining buttons took her bag. In the elevator that carried them up to their rooms Ssenja approached her familiarly for the first time and tried to take her hand. Instinctively she drew back with a warning look at the boy with the buttons.

"That is all right," he reassured her. "I told them that I was expecting my wife and took a room for two. ...We will move to another hotel later on. To-night.... You see, I have learned from experience."

Ssemjon Ssemjonowitsch chuckled as he looked at her archly through his gold-rimmed glasses. Natascha smiled a bleak little smile that drowned the light that had been glowing in her eyes all day so happily that her fellow-passengers had looked at her again and again. There had been so much dreamy bliss in those eyes. Now there was only anxious questioning.

Had she really met the man she so longed to see? Or was this man who stood beside her another – a stranger...?

The boy with the shiny buttons opened the door of a very ordinary hotel room with a flourish and bade them good-night after he had carried in her bag.

"Let me look at you. Thinner? Or are you worn out after the trip?"

He took her passionately into his arms.

"Ssenjetschka, wait a moment. Let me take off my hat."

Natascha struggled out of his embrace with hands upraised, trying vainly to remove the hat that resisted her efforts because the hatpin had become entangled with her veil.

"Senjetschka, please."

But Ssenjetschka paid no attention to her outcries. He pressed her to him and kissed her wildly.

"My sweet girl, my beloved. ... I wanted you so, I wanted you so!"

The hat was still on her head, but Natascha lay across the wide bed, his hot breath scorching her face. She felt only extreme discomfort. Her hat was pulling at her hair, hair-pins were boring into her head. ... Ssenja himself seemed far, far away.

Bruised and broken, the beautiful shining happiness that had brought her to him as if on wings. Bruised and broken by Ssenja with his impetuous, brutally-inconsiderate caresses.

"Let me kiss you, Natascha. Give me your lips. Why do you turn away? Do you love me?"

Natascha silently pressed his head to her breast, the dear head she loved so much.

She smiled, but there were tears in her eyes. Tears of happiness he thought.

Let him think as he wished. Natascha knew that her soul was weeping over the shattered fragments of another dream, that her heart was bleeding from another wound that would never, never heal.

He was asleep, and Natascha sat at the head of the bed staring steadily into the darkness before her, trying in vain to comprehend what had happened.

"He loves me. Is it me he loves, or the woman that is I? That in me which belongs to my sex, not me. Is it for this I left my work, and went into debt? Was it for this that I rushed, heaven alone knows where, excited, happy, believing in something fine and beautiful ... ? Oh, what a fool, what a fool I was!"

Something had happened that could never be undone. She wanted to wring her hands and burst into tears!

Had she ever possessed the Ssenjetschka of her fond memories, had this man with his passionate love ever been her friend, her comrade? Had it not always been Ssenja, the man, who loved Natascha, the woman?

Why had she come? A thousand miles away she had not been as lonesome as she was, here, at his side. A thousand miles away there had been memories,, dreams, hope ... here the dream was gone. Gone forever!

*****

When Natascha arose the next morning there was a strange coolness in her soul. She was indifferent, indolent....

"Tell me about everything that has happened to you since I saw you last."

They were sitting at their morning coffee in the disorderly – and to Natascha for that reason – most uncomfortable hotel room. Natascha had no desire to talk. Yesterday – ah, yesterday, in her way to him she had pictured it all in glowing colors. She felt that she would never finish her recital of the events of the months that had passed. They would sit together until late into the night, talking, planning. She had tried to recall every characteristic incident that might be of interest to him, had called back to mind the internal party life of the last half-year for discussions and problems that might have escaped his notice. She had even resolved to do penance for doubting his love for her, to abase herself before him and to drive away the hurt her confession would cause with tender words of deepest understanding. But first they must find each other again, must feel that their souls were swinging in the glorious harmony of love. Then, only then, as the great, final chord, their senses would break down all barriers and passion would burn up all that was strange and foreign between them in its hot, consuming flames.

That was their meeting as she had dreamed it. But after this bridal night Natascha had lost her desire to speak. Her answers were languid and disspirited.

"You seem to be out of sorts," he remarked, scanning her face intently.

"Not at all. I am simply tired. Not enough sleep."

"Poor little girl! What is to become of you if one night with me wears you out like this?"

There was a quizzically self-conscious smile on his face as he said this, that brought an unwilling frown to Natascha's brow. She struggled for self-control lest some unaccustomed, sharp word slip past her lips.

A knock at the door.

Ssenja hastened to open.

A telegram.

From Anjuta. It had been sent general delivery, but the hotel address had been reported to the postoffice. Kokotchka had the measles and was keeping Anjuta in constant attendance. She was just about worn out.

"As usual," Ssenja sighed.

As he stood before her with his legs spread and his head bowed down, there was something so childishly touching in his glum figure that Natascha's old tenderness for this man, who was so strong and determined in the big things of life and so weak and helpless in its trivialities, filled her entire being once more.

This, this was the Ssenja she loved, this poor, pathetic, touchingly helpless creature. ...

In an instant she was beside him, holding his head in her arms and gently kissing his eyes. ... Somehow she felt that she had just found him again, as if she had neither seen him nor been with him before.

"Wait a moment, Natascha. Not now, please."

Again he had misunderstood her innocent demonstrativeness. "We must think this over. What am I to do about this, do you suppose?"

He spoke with a discouraged movement of his hands and Natascha caught them, the dear, helpless, impractical hands, in her own and stammered:

"Just now I felt ... as if I had just this moment come back to you, Only just now! You are such a great man, Ssenja. All the world looks to you for advice and direction, and then some little thing like this occurs and you are so forlorn! I am so happy, so happy because I have found you again. I thought I had lost you forever ... that I had been deceived in you. That was so dreadful, Ssenja. But you are here, after all .. ."

*****

On the following day they went to another hotel. Natascha went first to register in the large, conventional hotel they had chosen, Ssenja taking a room on the same floor a few hours later. Since he had come to work, she had insisted on a comfortable, spacious room for him, while she contented herself with a small, unprepossessing cubby-hole, trying to make it as presentable as possible for his coming by changing the position of the tiny sofa, distributing the books she had brought, and buying a few flowers.

He came unexpectedly, as always, and found Natascha at the desk where she was writing the promised card to Wanjetschka.

"So this is where you are hiding. I've been wandering up and down corridors looking for your room for the last half hour. The room numbers are arranged in the most erratic fashion – 57, for instance, is directly beside 85...

"Your room is quite charming. I've been killing time by strolling about the city, and now, I suppose, it is too late to take a nap. Goodness, almost six o'clock. I will have to go to the professor's house at once."

"But why? Surely the morning will be time enough for that."

"No. No. Suppose Anjuta should write to him that I left home on the twenty-eighth?"

"In that case you will simply tell her that you did not go to him at once when you arrived. Surely that is simple enough. What under the sun should make her think that I am here, when she knows that we had definitely decided to see nothing more of one another?"

"As if that made any difference! Don't you know Anjuta? No, if I fail to report at the professor's house to-day, I will not have a peaceful hour while I am here. One can never tell how a thing like that will come out and cause no end of trouble. Whether you like it or not, Natascha, I must go to-day."

Natascha realized the uselessness of further protestations. His fear that Anjuta might suspect her presence in H. amounted to a positive mania. She said no more.

"What were you doing while I was away? Writing?"

"Yes. Writing."

His eyes had caught sight of the post-card on the table and returned with a frown to her embarrassed countenance. Correspondence from their meeting places was always strictly prohibited. They had made it a practice to send mail by way of an absolutely reliable third person. Yet there lay Wanjetschka's post-card, with the name of the town in Natascha's handwriting plainly visible over a picture of the locality.

"To whom are you sending that card?" Ssenja demanded, unpleasantly affected by the disturbance in Natascha's face. He bent over the table to read the address.

Trying vainly to conceal her discomfiture by a jocular pretence Natascha covered the card with her hand.

"I shall not tell you. I won't let you see it. This is my secret."

"Secret? Now I insist on seeing it. Give me that card at once. I demand it. If you do not give it to me willingly, I shall use force."

They struggled laughingly for a moment, but their faces betrayed the seriousness behind their play.

"Well, this is a fine state of affairs, I must say. When have you had secrets from me before?... You never used to hide your letters from me."

"I don't want you to read my letters. You have no right to ask it.... How dare you! This is tyranny!"

He had managed to pry apart the fingers that clutched the card, and held it in his hand.

"Don't you dare read that card! Don't dare, I tell you ... ! This is an outrage!" Natascha's voice was tense with fury as she snatched the card from his unsuspecting hand and tore it into bits before she threw it into the waste basket.

"Natascha!"

They looked at each other with angry, measuring eyes.

"This is an imposition, a vulgar, coarse imposition. Don't you dare read my letters! Don't you dare !"

Natascha was panting, her cheeks glowed and her lips unconsciously repeated the bitter words again and again.

"Natascha! Natascha! What does this mean? It is true, then?" He sank to the sofa and covered his face with his hands, a picture of tragedy.

"Is what true?" Natascha looked at him curiously.

"That you have already found another lover. That you left another man behind you, a man of whom you are fond... ?"

"Are you mad? ... What gives you the right to think that?"

"I received two anonymous letters with all sorts of details. .. ."

"And you believed them?"

"I burned them up at once ... but after this....what am I to think? Your embarrassment when I came in, your incredible stubbornness, this anger ... you never spoke to me in this tone before. Oh, Natascha, Natascha! Can it be true? How can I bear it? Why did you come if you care for another? Tell me openly. Anything is better than this uncertainty."

"Ssenja, please come to your senses. Think what you are saying. Why should I lie to you? What could bring me here to you if I loved an- Other?"

"Pity."

"Pity for you?"

"You have such a good heart."

His face was so drawn with pain, his eyes so full of genuine sorrow that Natascha could not help smiling.

"Dear, silly Ssenjetschka! How could you believe that for a moment? Don't you know what you are to me?"

Kneeling down before him she embraced and kissed him. He resisted at first and refused to be caught by her caresses and tricks.

"And the letter?" he demanded, distrustfully.

"The letter? ... Oh, Ssenja. Read it then, if you insist on being so stupid."

She hurried to the table, pulled out and overturned the basket so that the pieces lay on the floor before her. And while they crouched on the floor to fit the pieces together, she told him of her financial transactions and of the help that Wanjetschka had given her.

Ssenja knew Wanjetschka. This, to be sure, was no rival. The innocently pleasant tone of the postcard reassured him completely.

"You don't know how you frightened me, Nataschinka. Now, tell me if you please, what was the meaning of this senseless comedy? What made you act in this incomprehensible manner?"

His tone was gruff.

"I felt that you would be angry at me for writing from here. Still, could I have refused to do him this favor after all he did for us? He won't betray us, of that you may be sure. He would die rather than tell, after the promise he gave me."

"Yes, I understand. Nevertheless, Natascha, it is very careless of you to write from here. One never knows what may happen. The card may fall into indiscreet hands.... Furthermore, what will Wanjetschka think ... ?"

"Let him think what he pleases.'A romance' he will think. With whom? That does not concern him."

"No, don't say that. He may happen to find out that I was here – how can one tell? After that there would be guesses and talk. As you please, of course, but I beg you again, to write to no one from here, not even to Wanjetschka."

His tone as he said this was firm, almost commanding.

"If it displeases you, very well. I shall not send the card."

Ssenja sent another searching glance in her direction.

"But you are offended. Because you have found a master, I suppose, who permits himself to issue orders." He embraced her. "What is one to do with you women? One need only look the other way for a moment and you do things like this. What now? Offended again?"

He knew this gesture of hers – she had thrown back her head with an angry movement.

"Come, sweetheart, come. Don't be angry at me. I was just teasing. You know I'm not angry. On the contrary, I am happy and grateful to you for taking a load off my heart. You can't imagine how uneasy I have been, and how your fury just now frightened me. I ... I thought I had lost you. I can't live without you."

He embraced her and pressed his face caressingly to her breast.

"I am so contented when I am with you, Natascha, I want to stay near you always, ... Good heavens!

"The professor! Why, it's almost seven o'clock. I must run. Good-bye, Natascha. Till this evening." He hastened away while Natascha collected the fragments of the card to Wanjetschka from the floor and dropped them thoughtfully into the basket once more.

She was so tired. She wished she were back at home again, feeling somewhere in the background of consciousness: We have become strangers to one another.

IX

SENJA returned in a highly elated frame of mind, full of new thoughts his conversation with the professor had started. The professor's research work had recently taken him along the lines of Ssenja's own investigations.

"You can't imagine the thrill of finding someone to whom one can speak without expounding fundamentals, who shows by the way he approaches a subject that he understands it and forces one by the soundness of his observations to re-evaluate one's own theses. ... As I talked with him I saw again and again where I had given the subject insufficient study. Other questions, I find, will require complete reorientation on my part. It is of vital importance to discuss these matters with someone who has real knowledge, and I am only just beginning to realize how starved I have been for intelligent intercourse as an inspiration and a help to my work."

Could Ssenja but have guessed that each word he uttered was piercing her heart like a long, fine needle, leaving a painful wound! In his eyes then, Natascha had never been an intelligent person with whom one might discuss one's problems? Poor deluded fool that she had been all these years, to have imagined that she inspired and helped his work, that she had become indispensable to him!

"What did the professor tell you that was so extraordinarily clever," she asked," that even you begin to doubt the validity of your own theses?" There was a sharp challenge in her voice, but Ssenja paid no attention to it. He was quite evidently in no mood to discuss his conversation with the professor with her. To-morrow – some other time, perhaps. But Natascha insisted. She asked questions and demanded answers with unusual pertinacity and defended Ssenja's erstwhile theses as passionately as if she herself and her mental integrity were being questioned.... Had Natascha allowed Ssenja to look into her heart he would have been astounded to discover the real cause for her strange agitation. Natascha was jealous, jealous, for the first time in her life – she who had never felt a trace of resentment over his exaggerated consideration for his wife, who had honestly shared his fear for Anjuta's health and life during her recent pregnancy and delivery – at a time when they already loved each other. This professor whom she had never seen, whom she might never know, was arousing a blind tormenting jealousy in her heart. It would be so easy for him to occupy the place she held in Ssenja's life, making her superfluous where she had believed herself irreplaceable.

With exasperating, superficial sketchiness Ssenja repeated the professor's contentions, as if they could be of no possible interest to her. His manner intimated that he was simply submitting to her unreasonable, childish curiosity. Natascha vindictively attacked what she considered a fallacy in the professor's logic and propounded her point of view extravagantly, but he bluntly declined to enter into the matter.

"You have simply failed to follow his line of thought, which is a great deal more complicated than you seem to realize," and with this he turned the conversation from the.subject with infuriating boredom in his voice. "I am really tired," he added with a yawn. "Time to go to sleep.... Goodnight, Natascha."

"Going already? I had been counting on a few hours with you this evening to talk matters over. I have hardly seen you all day."

"What is there to talk about? It is after midnight, and we can talk to-morrow. I've had practically no sleep for days, and need a good night's rest to be fresh for work to-morrow. The professor and I are going to the library together."

He kissed her dutifully but at the door he turned back to her once more.

"You know, Nataschka, this was a splendid idea of mine – to come here, I mean. This has been a gratifying, profitable day. Sleep well, Natascha." Nodding amiably once more, he went out.

Noisily Natascha pushed the bolt.

Gone – without a thought of her and the intolerable, lonesome day she had spent. "Splendid, profitable day," indeed. This condescending attitude when he spoke to her, as if she were a frivolous light-o-love instead of a comrade deeply interested in his work! This had never happened to her before, nor would she ever forget or forgive this humiliation. The assurance that he understood and approved of her opinions, that he was objectively interested in her work and valued her opinions had helped her to bear criticism, failure and attacks with equanimity. Was it possible that he had pretended interest in her work only because she was a woman who appealed to the man in him? Would he have shown her the same interested attention if she had been an unprepossessing frump, or would he have turned the conversation from her objections as he had done this evening?

"I shall go to him at once to tell him how I feel. To-morrow I will return to my comrades and my work. This is no life for a self-respecting woman, this endless chain of humiliations. I no longer love him. I believe I hate him."

Resolutely she went to the door, but as her hand touched the knob a picture of the probable outcome of her visit flashed across her mind as the futility of any attempt to make him understand dawned on her. She returned to bed in helpless anger.

It was becoming more and more impossible to break through the wall of misunderstanding that was arising between them. Words that escaped their angry lips clung to it making it more and more impenetrable.

Very well, then. Since he refused to listen to her, let matters remain as they were between them. She would try to explain no more. To-morrow she would tell him calmly and undramatically: "I am going home. They need me there." Let him stay here with his professor!

She tugged furiously at the laces of her shoes. She would go to sleep, to stop thinking. ... With the perversity of inanimate objects the laces had become twisted and tangled into an inextricable knot.

"Is that so?" she murmured grimly. "This is how I settle such affairs." In a wide are the torn laces flew to the floor; her dress was tumbled on the chair in a disorderly heap – let it rumple! She pulled at her hair with vindictive jerks, and clenched her teeth as she prepared for the night. Yet, unconsciously, she had been making herself as attractive as possible, and the sight of her figure in the glass, swathed in the brightly colored dressing gown that Ssenja had christened the "gown of Circe" when he first saw her in it, threw her once more into a fit of deepest depression. She couldn't leave without having shown herself in it again – she remembered how he loved to wrap her in its voluminous folds. She couldn't leave him – where would she find the strength to battle with life, if she were never to see him again?

What was more natural than that she should go to him, to appeal to him and make him the arbiter of his own shortcomings, that she might forgive him all the hurt that the blind Ssenja had inflicted on her this day? Not angrily, as she had wanted to go at first. ... He would listen to her and she would make him understand. What was it worth, this understanding they were so proud of, if she must conceal the thing that lay nearest her heart? She would not be able to sleep at any rate, until she had spoken to him.

Cautiously, lest she meet someone in the long corridor that led to Ssenjetschka'-s room, she crept along over the soft carpet into which her feet sank unpleasantly. Sixty-four, sixty-six, sixty-eight...here it was. ... Those were his shoes.

Should she go in ... better not, perhaps. More than an hour had passed since he had left the room; he would be fast asleep. But the desire to see him and to stroke his beloved head, the urgent need of banishing these unendurable doubts, to melt this ice that held her soul in its clammy embrace, impelled her to turn the knob of the door. It opened with a shrill squeak ... the light of the corridor fell across the sleeper's face.

"What is it? ... Who is it?" ... He blinked at her with his near-sighted eyes without recognition.

"It is I, Ssenjetschka."

She closed the door and knelt down beside his bed.

"You, Nataschka. Well, well, so you came after all..."

An undertone in his voice betrayed a smug masculine self-satisfaction that cut her to the quick.

"Ssenjetschka, I came because I felt so badly! I was so bitter and alone. .. ."

"Come, come, now, need you apologize for coming to me? You simply can't go to sleep, knowing that I am so close by. Ah, what is this you are wearing, temptress?" He gathered her into his arms and tried to draw her into his bed.

She resisted half-heartedly, but responded to his kisses.

"Let me go, Ssenjetschka. You mustn't. I didn't come for this.... There is something I must speak to you about. I came only to warm my heart – to be near you.

"Come, you with your 'I only came for this' and 'I only came for that!' You women are a peculiar lot – always looking for some excuse or pretense to hide the fact that you, too, have sinful desires. We men are always wicked seducers. Here this lady comes to me of her own free will, wakes me out of my sleep, and now, if you please, what a touch-me-not she pretends to be. ... Have I offended you? I was just teasing, little silly. You know how glad I am that you came to me, you sweet, wonderful creature.... Here my little girl comes to warm her heart and must sit on the cold floor. Come in here to me."

Natascha's negligee formed a brilliant splash of color on the hotel room carpet.

*****

"Not another word now. I want to sleep." Ssemjon Ssemjonowitsch interrupted another attempt at what he called "her psychological dissertations." "The day is the time for talk. Now I want to rest. You forget that I must work to-morrow, and won't be able to, unless my head is clear."

He turned his face to the wall and wrapped the blankets about him; Natascha lay on her back, her hands under her head, disgust and resentment in her heart.

Always this offensive change in his attitude toward her – before and after. Coldness and strangeness while Natascha felt closer, nearer to him, the happier their union, the more ardent his caresses, the more fervent the assurance that they loved each other had been.

She looked sadly at his familiar neck ... the same, beloved head, the same, clever Ssenjetschka. Gently she kissed the nape of his neck and softly arose from his bed. But her soul was as cold and lonesome as before.

"Sleep well, Ssenjetschka. You will sleep more soundly if I go to my room. Won't you kiss me before I go?"

She bent over him.

"Haven't we kissed enough for to-night? That is something I can't understand in you ... sometimes you seem positively insatiable, it seems almost like an affliction!" Natascha drew back as if she had been struck. Was this the interpretation he put on her longing for a little warmth?

Ssemjon Ssemjonowitsch pressed his head into the pillow while she slowly dressed in the dark room before going through that endless corridor with its red, disagreeably soft carpet once more. At the corner where the corridor turned, the nightporter sat at his usual place by a small table.

When Natascha passed him he looked at her with a shamelessly derisive look and murmured a word whose insulting import she could only surmise.... Natascha shuddered.

Next section | Table of Contents

I. A Great Love: X-XV

by Alexandra Kollontai

X - XV

X

THE days in H. had become a life of voluntary I solitary confinement. These periods of "retirement" during their carefully planned meetings had amused her hugely when they first entered upon their clandestine relations. She called Ssenja her "pascha" and herself his "harem odalisk." This sudden transition from a life of nervous, effervescent activity in constant human companionship to this complete isolation from life and people had appealed to her sense of the ludicrous.

The comrades had never expressed surprise at her sudden disappearances. Some of them believed that she was bound by family ties that forced these periodic absences upon her, while others attributed them to mysterious "conspiratic" activity.

These brief interruptions of her hurried, nerve-racking life had always been welcome periods of relaxation and repose. This time the role of odalisk oppressed and irritated her. She dared not leave the hotel, lest some chance acquaintance meet her on the street. She must not remain too long in the reading-room lest Ssenja, returning to her room, leave again without having met her. Ssenja's complete absorption in his work and even more – it seemed to Natascha – in the professor and his hospitable family, left her alone for long hours that dragged along in tedious, irksome and fruitless expectation of his coming. He drank his morning coffee with his eyes on the clock lest he be late for his appointment, he stayed at the professor's house for dinner and spent most of his evenings there.

Natascha had to content herself with fragmentary remnants of his busy days, stolen hours when he escaped the professor's house under the pretense of important letters to be written and notes to be filed. He always came to her in the best of spirits, but consistently steered conversation away from any but the most superficial topics. Most of all he liked to lie on the sofa while Natascha prepared tea, pretending to appreciate his enjoyment of it. He told her less and less about his work and was almost niggardly in his reports of conversations with the professor.

Her antipathy to the professor grew to even greater proportions in consequence. The old "archive rat" with his scholarship was deluding Ssenja into distrusting his own opinions.

"I'm amazed at your naivete," she once remarked to him. "What makes you so idiotically frank with the professor? You spread out your theses for him before you have satisfied yourself concerning them. By the time you are ready to write he will have used them for his own purposes, with the added advantage of his own professional intellectuality."

The off-hand manner in which she spoke was calculated to irritate Ssemjon Ssemjonowitsch out of his placidity.

"How childish that is, Natascha. You are becoming almost as bad as Anjuta. Since when do colleagues make it a practice to steal each other's ideas?"

"Of course, you will not believe that such things happen. You have never heard of an incident of that kind! Just the same, if I were in your place, I should be just a little more discreet ... not quite so naive..."

Though Ssemjon Ssemjonowitsch objected, she felt that the seed of distrust so cleverly planted had taken root, and the thought gave her a momentary glow of satisfaction.

But after he had gone she relapsed into deep depression. She was aghast at the depths of vileness she had uncovered in her own nature. Was this despicable desire to hurt the professor's standing in her lover's eyes the fruit of her jealousy? She was beginning to understand some of Anjuta's inexplicable meannesses of the past.

Thenceforth she schooled herself to listen to her lover's praise of the professor and his family without comment. More, she tried to stifle the seeds of distrust she herself had planted in his soul by openly enthusing over the professor's intelligence and character. But she knew that the germ was still alive.

Morning after morning she left her bed with the unspoken hope – "to-day he will stay here with me...well, not a whole day, of course, but a few hours, at any rate, to give us a chance for an honest heart-to-heart talk." But day after day passed in discouraging sameness. There were kisses, light badinage at tea-time, there were caresses at night but never a moment's close communion. Natascha tried to work. She had promised to write a pamphlet whose date of delivery was drawing uncomfortably near, but her work refused to progress. It dragged heavily from an unwilling pen, and each day found her increasingly dissatisfied with the results of the previous day's sterile efforts. Ssenja did not once ask her how her work was progressing. Time ran through her fingers like sand, squandered for useless, senseless futilities.

By way of the forwarding address she had left behind, Natascha had received a large bundle of letters, some personal, others connected with party affairs, the latter with the disturbing news that two prominent comrades were "ill" (arrested) and expressing the fear that their illness would be prolonged, possibly with serious, threatening consequences. Natascha's subsequent days were overshadowed with the portent of disaster. What right had she to remain here in H.? Yet she could not tear herself from Ssenja's side while this feeling of strangeness between them persisted. "If I leave now," she assured herself over and over again, "I shall consume myself in self-reproach. ... I must come to some understanding with him before I leave."

She had made up her mind to force the issue that evening, but he returned even later than usual from a formal supper that had been given in his honor, slightly intoxicated and in a highly gratified state of good humor. He did not notice the clouds on Natascha's face.

"I ate and drank so much I can hardly move. I believe I am a bit under the weather, too, but that will pass off in a little while. Have you been longing for me? Come, a little kiss behind your pretty ear...."

"Please don't, Ssenja." – She withdrew impatiently. "I have more important things to think of. I have letters.... Katerina Petrowna and Nikanor have been arrested."

"You don't say. ... This is bad business."

"It affects me particularly. ... I can't begin to tell you how badly I feel." Suddenly, to her own wonderment, she burst into tears, not so much because her comrades were in prison as for herself.... Would life never bring her anything but failure and this endless chain of sorrow and aggravation? ... What was to become of the work they had so hopefully launched, now these two were gone? If only she herself had remained at her post they would be needing her there.

"Well, look here, Natascha, this won't do at all. You mustn't let go like that! Head up, little girl, this is no time for tears." There was a suggestion of reproof in his tone – he was thoroughly tired of women's tears. "In all probability it is only half as bad as it seems. You'll see, everything will come out nicely in the end."

"It isn't only of them I'm thinking. Everything – what is the sense of living? Nothing but unhappiness!"

"Do you know, that time I worked by the Volga. .. ." Ssenja tried to distract her thoughts by telling her of an episode out of his revolutionary experiences that seemed just the thing for the purpose. Natascha knew every one of them by heart and listened absently. What had all this to do with it? She wanted to speak of her doubts and suffering!

"So you see the difficulties one encounters...and I am still here to tell about it. ... I haven't even lost my enthusiasm for charming women, as you see. Natascha, I don't believe you've heard a word I've spoken!"

"I've been listening, Ssenja. But there is something I must speak to you about.... I'm going to leave to-morrow. I haven't the peace of mind to stay here any longer."

"Nonsense. To go now would be to court danger. I won't allow it. You, with your temperamental nature, are bound to get into trouble.Wait until things have calmed down again. After all they don't need you nearly as much as you think. You may be sure they will manage very nicely without you."

Natascha objected strenuously, trying eagerly to make him appreciate the importance of her person to the movement at this particular moment.

"Please, Natascha, don't be childish. Do you want me to believe they won't he able to find anyone to attend to that? They will take care of it – better than you..."

She read a number of letters to him, every one of them urging her to return, but they failed to impress him.

"And who is it that writes these letters? The hysterical Marja Michailowna ... all woman's talk. If Donzeff had written, I would believe the matter to be serious enough ... but Marja Michailowna don't pay any attention to it. There isn't the slightest excuse for excitement."

Unwittingly Ssenja had touched her sorest spot. Why had not Donzeff written to her? If he had called her to her post even Ssenja would have seen how indispensible she was. In that case she would have left at once, without another thought.

Ssenja should have realized how Donzeff's failure to recall her had pained her. Must he underscore it? He never tried to understand what was going on in her mind, never took the trouble to consider what wounds his careless words inflicted.

When Ssenja left her for his room she was distant and cool, but he paid no attention to it. Alone, dejection and fear laid hold of her once more, fear of her own unwept, unspoken suffering.

She would speak and if Ssenja still failed to understand the break between them would inevitably follow. Anything was better than this hunger for understanding. She would beat her wings against his indifference no longer.

Over the unpleasantly soft carpet of the corridor once more, quickly ~at first but going more slowly as she approached his door. She stopped and listened. All was silent. He was probably fast asleep – he usually slept as soon as his head touched the pillow. She reached for the knob, only to withdraw her hand with a dark flush – so vividly had the picture of his sleep-drenched eyes and his questions at her last visit recalled themselves to her mind.

No, no, anything but that! She could not bear to be misunderstood to-night, and the thought of what was sure to follow.... She hurried along the corridor, past the astonished night porter and back to her room once more. "Now what in the world made her change her mind," the man in the corner wondered curiously. "Quarreled, I suppose," he decided.

XI

AGAIN and again Natascha opened the door of her room to peer anxiously down the corridor, dimly illuminated by a shadowy night light. Everything was empty and still.

A distant cough or the glimpse of a manly figure at the turn of the long hall made her heart leap – no, it was not he. What could it mean? He had never returned as late as this before. Had he met with an accident?

She went to his room once more in the faint hope that he had gone directly to bed without having first stopped in to see her. The porter watched her maneuvers inquisitively, and grinned wickedly whenever she passed him. There was something unspeakably impertinent in his demeanor, but to-day Natascha paid no attention.

Ssenja had left the hotel early that morning, and the fact that he had not, as was his invariable custom, come back for at least a brief visit in the course of the day, served only to increase her uneasiness.

If something had happened to him, he would have telephoned. It was unthinkable that he had stayed at the professor's house so late that he had remained for the night! If that were the case, his lack of consideration for her was unforgivable. It must have occurred to him that she would worry. Would he have left Anjuta in this position?

Natascha threw herself on her bed, only to jump up again and again whenever she thought she heard a sound in the corridor. But there was always the same unfriendly hotel, the same dreary, dimly lighted expanse of carpeted emptiness. But for this beastly carpet she would have heard his foot-steps...someone was snoring ... a cough!

Everything was quiet and empty once more. A church-tower clock in the distance....Dinn. Dinn. Dinn. Dinn.

Half past four. Would this awful night never end?

She clung desperately to a single, forlorn hope...the morning would bring a contrite Ssenja, who would explain in his usual ridiculously childish manner that he had thoughtlessly permitted the professor to detain him until it had been too late to return to the hotel.

"How could I telephone," he would argue. "The professor would have guessed at once. ..."

He would look at her uncertainly, expecting the curtain lecture that usually accompanied such occurrences at home, and would breathe a sigh of relief when Natascha smiled instead, smoothing his recalcitrant hair and kissing his troubled brow. "Don't apologize, Ssenja," she would say, "of course I understand."

"You are so good, so understanding."

Both would breathe easily once more and she would be able to laugh over her foolish fears of the night.

"It's all because of my silly nerves. I shall go to sleep at once, and will probably be fast asleep when he comes. I must leave the door unlocked."

She forced herself to lie down and actually succeeded in falling to sleep, but in her troubled dreams she continued to listen for him. A movement in the corridor found her sitting up in bed, listening with a madly beating heart. No, that was in the next room. Someone was scrubbing the floor and two chamber-maids were conversing in undertones. The gray, misty shimmer of early morning came in through the lowered shades. What time was it? Shortly after eight o'clock.

Natascha got up and dressed with deliberate slowness, listening to every sound and once more opening the door to look out on the corridor, gray and more hopeless still now that the light was out. Better not to have looked out at all, she chided herself, to look out again a moment later because something told her that his familiar figure in its dear, shabby, old hat with its wide brim was at this moment turning the corner of the corridor.

To think that she had doubted her love for him! This night had proved to her how much she loved, how much she needed him. She was prepared to reprove herself severely for the reproaches she had heaped on him for his absence that night, for her ill-tempered resentment and every trace of ill-feeling she had entertained against him. If only he would come! If only nothing had happened to him! Perhaps he had been to her room after she had fallen asleep – the sudden hope robbed her of all caution; with streaming hair, oblivious to the comb in her hand, she ran along the corridor. Hotel guests who met her stepped aside in surprise, and the scrub-woman who was wiping up the floor pushed her pail aside grumbingly. Natascha had stumbled over it in her haste, slopping some of the water over the carpet.

"I'm sorry."

Ssenja's room was empty, the bed untouched.

She sat down on his bed and decided to wait for him there. She felt closer to him in his room; his possessions were there – an old pair of trousers hung over the hack of a chair. Suppose Anjuta had arrived in H. and poor Ssenja had lost his head at the dread thought that they might meet? How could she reassure him? Let him know that he might bring Anjuta to the hotel without fear?

Should she telephone to the professor's house? Perhaps Anjuta was there.

The thought that Anjuta might have arrived drove her precipitously from the bed to examine the room with keen, searching eyes for tell-tale evidence of her own presence. Books? Personal belongings? Finding nothing she returned to her room.

Ten o'clock...half past ten...eleven half past eleven ... one o'clock. Natascha no longer listened for his foot-steps. She assured herself that she had long-ago ceased to expect him at all, that every hope of ever seeing Ssenja again had died. Perhaps he was dead ... that alone would explain his failure to find some way of allaying the fear he must know was driving her mad. Perhaps he had been arrested. But why? Here? Still, this complete silence... something terrible, something incomprehensibly awful must have happened.

Natascha closed her eyes. The light of day blinded and tormented her. Throughout the endlessly long night she had longed for daylight ... because she had hoped. ... And then, just as she had decided to look for him no longer, someone knocked loudly at the door.

"Come in."

A messenger offered her a letter. Her trembling hands could hardly open the envelope.

"I have been through an unexpected and disagreeable experience. At dinner, yesterday, I was seized with such violent abdominal pains that my host put me to bed at once and sent for a physician. My temperature was so high that he at first feared an attack of appendicitis. He gave me two morphine injections to allay the pain which was indescribably severe. To-day, however, I am feeling much more comfortable, and the doctor who was just here assures me that everything is satisfactory and hopes there will be no need of an operation. My temperature is lower, but still above normal; I still suffer pain, but it is bearable. Above all I must have rest, absolute rest ... don't worry about me.

"You can't conceive of kindlier care than that which I am receiving here. The professor and his family took turns at my bed-side all through the night. As a pretext for writing to you I am sending for some books. I told them of a Russian family I had met at the hotel who would get them from my room for me. Please remember, under no circumstances are you to write or to telephone. I kiss your hands.

"Your Ssenja."

"Poor Ssenja." "Any answer?" The messenger was still waiting for her to finish reading the letter.

"Yes ... that is ... wait a moment. I'll get the books at once." She hurried to Ssenja's room as if to get something there, still trying to adjust herself to this new state of affairs. Could she write him a single line telling him of her anxiety and of her love, of her boundless, endless love for him? Could she not reassure him, tell him not to worry about her, that she was satisfied to know that he was alive, that he was there, that he was free.

She would have liked to slip a little note into the package, but dared not. Someone might see, and Ssenja would have to explain. He was so awkward at finding explanations, poor fellow.

She gave the books to the messenger and was alone in her room once more. Her luncheon coffee stood on the table before her, as cold and tasteless as the dejected mood that had overtaken her.

Three long, empty days and restless nights with fantastic, enervating dreams. More than once she woke with a shocked feeling of disaster. "Ssenja! What is happening to him?"

Once she distinctly heard his voice calling to her, and shuddered with a horrified sense of evil premonition.

Several times each day she inquired whether a message – a telegram, perhaps, or a telephone-call, had been left for her. "No, nothing! Was the gentleman keeping the room?"

Of course – the gentleman was ill, and therefore staying with friends where he would receive better care than was possible in a hotel room. ... Why had she given this explanation, as if her position required justification? What did it matter? Did anything matter? Ssenja's illness had undoubtedly taken a turn for the worse after all, for if he were conscious he would have found some means of communicating with her.

Time dragged ... minutes seemed hours....

On the evening of the third day Natascha decided to telephone to the professor's house to inquire concerning Ssenja's condition. She could not spend another night in this awful uncertainty. She quailed at the thought of the tortures its sleepless hours would bring. No matter what came of it, she must know. She rang for the servant.

"Madame wishes?"

She stared undecidedly at the man who answered her summons. A momentary urge had prompted her to call him and she was at a loss to decide on her further course of action. She must be careful to make no mistake.

She ordered tea. "Cream or lemon?"

She watched him disappear with his white, shimmering napkin under his arm and then continued her endless journey up and down the room with a heavy, aching heart, trying to escape the tormenting visions that made her groan and wring her hands in despair.

The clock on the near-by tower struck nine. Natascha rang once more.

The servant stood before her. Could he guess how difficult it was for her to explain to him how and where he was to telephone, what to ask, and what not to ask? Under no condition was he to say "Madame." Only "the Russian friends .. ."

Would he remember? If only he did not say "Madame."

To Natascha that seemed of vital importance.

Again she wandered up and down the room, then sat, tense as the string of a violin, on the edge of a chair. She could feel her heartbeats in her throat so painfully that she could not swallow. In another moment she 'would know – what? The seconds crawled.... What was keeping him?....Five seven ... ten minutes. Why didn't he return? Perhaps the answer was so appalling that he could not bring himself to tell her! Natascha was shaken by icy tremors. A thought flashed through her mind – who knows, in a few moments she might be looking back with longing at this tortuous respite ... with the faint ray of hope it still held.

A knock at the door.

"Come in."

Her eyes pleaded. Hurry! Hurry! But the waiter continued to move with exasperating indolence. His napkin had become entangled in the door-knob, and he stopped fussily to disengage it.

"The gentleman thanks his 'Russian friends' for their kind inquiry (a faintly derisive smile curled the lips under the moustache) and begs me to report that he is feeling a great deal better. He has been out of bed and about his room, and is just preparing to retire."

Natascha neither moved nor spoke.

"Is that all, Madame? Nothing else?"

She was alone.

She had believed that she would sob with rapture if the waiter's answer brought her a single tiny ray of hope for Ssenja's life. Only a short half hour ago she would willingly have given half her life for the message she had just received. Yet here she stood in the middle of her room, without joy...perplexed, rather, and overwhelmed with the growing certainty that she had been deeply offended and abused.

Ssenja, kind, tender, sensitive Ssenja, who feared to inflict the slightest pain on Anjuta, had not moved a finger to put an end to her torment! All these days he had left her without a sign, had not thought it worth while to let her know that he was almost well. Would he have the courage, after this, to tell her that he still loved her? This was more than she could ever forgive.

XII

NATASCHA awoke greatly refreshed after a sound night's sleep. Deep down in the bottom of her soul the conviction that she had been grossly wronged persisted, but she paid no attention. Ssenja was alive and out of danger. In a few days she would see him again. Then, yes, then she would speak to him. She would explain to him that love, thus casually treated, must die, that not even a love as great as theirs could persist and live in such an atmosphere of constant tension. The string that is drawn too tightly is bound to break.

She enjoyed her coffee that morning – the first time since Ssenja's absence – and even smiled at the chambermaid who told her how lovely the weather was outside.

Then she turned her attention to her party letters – incredible that she should have neglected her comrades so long.

She wrote a number of replies and prepared them for mailing, and as she sealed the last envelope some impulse prompted her to make another attempt at the ill-fated pamphlet at which she had worked when first she came here, with so little success. She was in the mood for work. Easily and without constraint the words that had eluded her so provokingly came to her now; thought followed thought in gratifying, logical sequence. Natascha paid no attention to the passage of time until twilight darkened the room.

Then she leaned back in her chair and stretched her arms with a feeling of intense satisfaction. Peace and clearness of mind had come back to her and she was overjoyed to think that she was to finish the pamphlet after all. It was good to have one's mind free for work, not to be sitting forlornly waiting for a message that did not come, a prisoner of absurd worries over Ssenja's condition. He was out of danger and so well taken care of at the professor's house that he forgot even to think of Natascha – a realization that was not without its sting of bitterness. But she drove such ruminations resolutely from her mind.

Life and action were what she wanted now. She wanted to see people again. This hermit's life that she had been leading was senseless and absurd. She decided to go to the post-office to mail her letters and then to have a cup of coffee in one of the brightly lighted cafes nearby.

She was putting on her hat before the mirror when the door opened and Ssemjon Ssemjonowitsch stepped into the room.

"Ssenja, you?" she exclaimed. There was more astonishment than joy in her voice.

"Yes, here I am, Natascha, absolutely worn out, as you see, after my illness. The doctor advised me to wait until to-morrow, but I decided to come tonight. I could not wait any longer."

"Come, lie down here at once, Ssenjetschka.

Oh, you poor thing, how thin you are! Your eyes are still sick, Ssenja. Why did you come back before you were quite well, dear?"

"I longed for you so, I was so restless..."

"A cushion for your head? Do you want me to take off your shoes? ... Here, let me put this cover over you.... Will you have some tea? Lemon, or would you prefer it with cream? I'll ring and order it at once while I get everything ready." By dint of solicitous fussing Natascha unconsciously tried to hide from herself the astounding fact that she was neither happy nor excited over his return.

Where was the ardent impatience with which she had waited for him? Where the frenzied happiness she had expected to feel when he arrived? Ssenja had come at the wrong moment, scattering the mood of care-free abandon that had come as a release from a period of intolerable nervous tension.

"I'm perfectly comfortable, Natascha. Come, sit here, beside me. It's so good to be With you again!... You had your hat on when I came. Were you going out? Do you go walking when I'm away? Is that how you preserve your incognito?"

"I assure you this would have been the first time. I haven't once put my nose outside the door, all the time you were away. But these letters – see for yourself how many there are – had to be mailed."

"Nevertheless it was foolhardy, just now suppose Anjuta should take it into her head to come? ... That reminds me ... I asked you not to telephone to the professor's house.... I must say you pay surprisingly little attention to my requests. I was afraid of something like this all the while I was ill. After you called up yesterday I hadn't another moment's peace until I had decided to come here – at any cost. Who knows – you might have presented yourself there in person if I had not returned. .. ."

"Ah, then it was this that brought you back to me?"

The brittle edge in her voice made Ssemjon Ssemjonowitsch throw a quick, searching glance in her direction.

"No, Natascha, not that alone. I told you how I longed to be with you. .. ."

"Indeed. Ha-ha-ha."

Ssenja had never heard Natascha like this before.

"So you longed to be with me? You, you say this, after letting me wait day after day for a word from you, after you tortured and martyred me with a cruelty so refined, so unspeakable. .. ."

"Natascha! What are you saying? Was it my fault that I became ill? How have I martyred you? In what way? You may be sure nothing was further from my intentions. Why, Natascha, you speak just like Anjuta ... perhaps she is right, after all, when she says that I torture those I love Anjuta ... you ... oh, this is frightful."

He buried his head in his hands. His crumpled figure expressed hopeless resignation to an undeserved fate. Natascha relented at once.

"Ssenja, Ssenjetschka, my dear friend. You were right. I don't know what I am saying, I don't know what is the matter with me. Try to understand what I suffered while you were away, how I feared for your life, not knowing ... Ssenja, the thoughts I thought, the fears I lived through – because I love you, do you hear, Simeon!"

For both of them this name had an especial significance, and he smiled at her as she kneeled by his side and caressed his head.

"Let me kiss your forehead ... how often I dreamed of this! How often I thought of the time when I would kiss the brow of my beloved again!"

"Mad creature, you frightened me with your awful laughter. I know, poor thing, your nerves have had more than enough to bear. Life is beautiful, Natascha. Don't come so close to me, dear."

"It is so good to have you with me again – just to know that you still are ... do you understand?"

"I understand, my love. But I am still weak after my illness and your nearness excites me. The doctor says that the attack was brought about chiefly through my generally nervous condition and ordered absolute rest. You won't be angry, will you, if I ask you not to come so near to me?"

Natascha arose and turned from him at once, lest he read the reproach in her eyes. She wanted human warmth, human tenderness – what he referred to had not entered her head.

While she prepared tea Ssemjon Ssemjonowitsch lay on the couch smoking a cigarette and told her of the course his illness had taken, of the professor's family and their friendly solicitude and of his anxious fear that she might take it into her head to come to the professor's home. It had been almost impossible to get in touch with her.

"If you had sent the tiniest note. You might have sent for some books again ... surely you might have thought of something!"

"You know how stupid I am at that sort of thing. So I simply came here as soon as I could drag myself away."

He drank his tea while she read aloud the letters she had received – some disquieting, others encouraging. In general the party seemed to be in a promising condition, with the possibility of important developments in the near future. They discussed these possibilities eagerly, taking into account the position of the opposing wing, and both agreed that the situation would precipitate new conflicts between them, a probability that made Natascha burn to get away at once, back to living, thrilling work.

"Talking here with you makes one forget everything else in the world," Ssenja suddenly interrupted her. "It is getting late and I promised the doctor to be back by half-past seven. Why, it is eight o'clock already. How time flies. I hope the professor does not take it into his head to come and call for me. He is so conscientiously worried about me."

"You are going back? You won't stay here tonight?"

"They wouldn't hear of it. ... Oh, yes, I wanted to tell you. .. ." He tried not to look at her as he spoke and she knew that the disclosure he was about to make would be unpleasant: – "I want.to suggest that you go to W."

"To W? But why?"

"They say it is a very interesting old town with beautiful buildings and quaint streets – and I know you love beautiful surroundings." He spoke to her as if he were urging a child to take some disagreeable medicine. "I don't understand."

"Wouldn't you care to see it?" He looked at her pleadingly. "You see, – oh, I suppose I may as well confess – I won't have a peaceful hour while you are here. I had to write Anjuta about my illness and well, you know Anjuta. She may take it into her head to come here at any moment. Everything considered, I believe you had better go to W. You will be quieter and safer there."

Natascha bowed her head low over her half-finished cup of tea to hide two great tears that welled up into her eyes, but Ssenja saw them.

"I know, sweetheart. It is hard to ask you to leave me again." He stroked her head with tender, if somewhat condescending sympathy.

"Why to W.? The sensible thing to do would be to go directly back to work again."

Her tears had ceased and she looked at him in serious, if somewhat resentful earnestness.

"You misunderstand me. As the library here closes for the holidays at the end of the week I have already told the professor of my intention to spend these days in W. to make the old town's acquaintance. You go to W. and I will follow in a few days."

"This is so strange and so peculiar ... tell me if I am in your way and I will leave at once. That will be easier for everyone."

"Little goose, how can you speak of being in my way? You know that I ask this of you only because of Anjuta. Think if she should suddenly make her appearance here!" To him this was an unanswerable argument. "Can't you imagine her uneasiness, even now? I am moving to the professor's house – that is the understanding. You will go to W. and I shall follow on Friday. Then we will spend the whole day together, nothing to part or to disturb us, no professor. ... Doesn't that sound attractive?"

"But you forget that I must leave on Tuesday. My leave.. ."

"Oh, we'll see about that. If everything seems peaceful on the horizon we will make ourselves a present of a day or two. The important consideration is that we can be together there in absolute safety, with no danger of untoward disturbance. I will be in quite a different state of mind ... here there is always something between us. ... I am nervous right now because I'm afraid the professor may decide to come after me. .. ."

"I shall think it over. We'll speak of it again to-morrow." Natascha hated to submit without a struggle.

"Why to-morrow? I want you to leave to-day. The train leaves ... let me see – I've made a note of it somewhere." He held his note-book close to his near-sighted eyes and turned its pages. "Here it is. There is a train at 10:30 that will get you there at 1:30 to-night. That is quite convenient – an express train. You will have lots of time to get ready. Now, Nataschenka, don't look so unhappy or I will think that I have offended you. ... I feel just as badly to have you go, you may believe me, but it is only for a few days, after all. I shall be with you on Friday. Let me know where you are staying – send a telegram to the usual name, general delivery. Take a room for both of us, and tell them that your husband will join you later." This evidently was an afterthought to compensate Natascha for her disappointment.

"And now, will you help me pack my belongings so that I may have them taken to the professor's house? You'll attend to the hotel bill I suppose. By the way, if you need money – the professor offered to let me have some if I should need it. Don't look so down-hearted, Natascha. It hurts me."

"Never mind me, Ssenja. That will pass. Just lie here on the sofa. I'll do your packing."

Natascha was in his room, tugging at the straps of his suit-case when he entered with a rueful face.

"Why didn't you stay where you were," she scolded. "You see, I've finished packing already."

"I thought you might be sitting here crying that bothered me as I lay there. I had to come over to look after you. I love you, Natascha."

He said this so soberly that Natascha smiled in spite of herself. But the chill did not vanish from her soul. He loved her, but what did if mean to her, this love of his? Stabs, suffering, hurt...

"Come, dress, Ssenjetschka. You will be late and the professor's wife will scold you. .. ."

"I believe you are jealous of her. She is a very old lady... ."

Natascha smiled. "You are a child, Ssenjetschka, you are so ridiculously unable to understand. Now go, take care of yourself and get well. Your manuscript is in the portfolio, here. These are your books. Good-bye, Ssenjetschka." They embraced.

"What a cool duty-kiss."

"JuSt the sort of kiss a well-behaved wife should give her husband. Far be it from me to try to seduce you," she replied teasingly and hurried to call the porter who was to carry his baggage.

At the door Ssemjon Ssemjonowitsch embraced her once more and whispered anxiously:

"You aren't angry, are you? My sweet girl, you don't know how much I need you. It is all because of Anjuta. .. ."

At the turn of the corridor he looked back to wave a last farewell. She had the impression that there was something he wanted to say, to explain to her. Natascha waved her handkerchief flippantly.

"Don't fall in love with the professor's wife. Come soon."

At that his face lit up, and, seemingly reassured, he walked around the corner with his old determined stride. Natascha returned to her room along the familiar, detestable carpet, her head bowed in deep thought.

XIII

W. WAS a charming old town. Its beautiful churches, and the hushed, ancient streets tempted tourists away from the beaten paths to stop for a few days in its gentle atmosphere. It was not hard to find a clean, reasonably priced inn where she was given a delightful room, simple and unpretentious in its lines, and without the dusty accessories, carpets and hangings that so often disfigure such places. It was bathed in sunlight from windows that looked out – not as in H. over roofs and chimneys or down into a narrow court-yard – but across a hushed, wide-flung square of venerable houses, every one of which had looked down on the passing of many generations.

When Natascha got up in the morning, and raised the shades to smile out into the hot rays of the springtime sun, she felt the urgent joy of existence racing through her veins again. It was long since she had known that simple joy of living that was wafted in to her on the fragrant spring breezes that played about her face with the spring-song of the birds from the neighboring garden.

"Life! This is life. Why must I live through such torment, when life itself is so lovely? Why?"

She turned to her work at once and lost herself in its pages, writing steadily and smoothly, without difficulty or hesitation. It seemed to her that she could continue to write like this forever. She promised herself, however, a little later in the day, to stroll about the delightful old town with its somnolent houses and its towers and domes whose architectural ornamentation looked to her like lace-work turned to stone. She reveled in this liberty to come and go as she pleased once more, as a pupil enjoys her vacation from the rigors of school life. She smiled as she wandered about the streets, smiled as she ordered her dinner in a modest restaurant, smiled at the hot sun that burned her cheeks, and was still smiling when she tumbled into bed with that delicious feeling of physical and mental weariness that comes at the end of a day's pleasurable occupation.

On Friday Natascha went to the post-office to ask for mail. A number of letters had been forwarded, among them one from Ssemjon Ssemjonowitsch. What did it mean – new disappointment? Perhaps he had decided not to come after all....

She put it with the rest, unopened, into her leather bag.

In the tiny park, where birds were vieing with one another in their cheerful twittering, hiding in the rich, dark green of the evergreen that lent a colorful background to the rose-red of almond and apricot blossoms, Natascha opened her letters.

Her comrades were urging her to return, for the political situation was approaching a crisis that should find everyone at his post. They were all at a loss for an explanation of her persistent silence, and were becoming somewhat anxious and perplexed.

She must go back, no matter what Ssenja's letter had to say. She almost wished that he were not coming.... she would leave on the following day.

With this secret hope in the background of her mind she opened his letter last of all.

But it appeared that Ssenja had written immediately after her departure, dimly conscious of the shadow that rested on their love. The letter was unexpectedly tender.

"The hurt in your eyes when I saw you last still haunts me. ... I feel like a criminal. ... You will never know what your love has been to me. The assurance of your love means more than I can tell, more than mere words can express. The sun would go out of my life if I should have to live without you."

Not so long ago, Natascha would have choked over a letter like this. With her hands pressed over her eyes she would have feasted hungrily on the protestations of love it contained. Now she smiled, a little ruefully, a little bitterly. Too late. Too late.

A post-script added that he was counting the hours till they would meet again.

She dropped the letter into her bag beside the others, her mind wandering back to Wanjetschka – one of the letters had mentioned him in passing – as she did so. She thought of him shame-facedly, conscious of the post-card she had neglected to send. The dear, good fellow. What a comrade he had been in her hour of need!

She went to a stationery shop at once, chose an attractive post-card and sent a light, facetious greeting, promising a speedy return and assuring him that she was homesick, terribly homesick for all of them. Even for Donzeff.

It was true. She was longing to see them all again, her co-workers and comrades.

As she walked back to the inn the long corridor with its irritating red carpet and the man-servant who dozed at the table came back to her mind. She saw herself at Ssenjetschka's door with hair flying....a mendicant....

"Better not think of it.... How degrading it was!"

A telegram had come during her absence. "Coming to-morrow, 1:30 A. M. Meet me at train."

"My husband will arrive to-night," she told the clerk in passing as she went to her room, determined to use the last hours of uninterrupted freedom to finish her pamphlet.

XIV

HALF an hour before the specified time Natascha was at the station, only to find that the bulletin-board announced a delay in the train's arrival. The porter could give no explanation but a gentleman nearby, overhearing her questions, lifted his hat and volunteered the required information. The train would be forty-five minutes late. A cloud-burst had washed out the road-bed further up the line. No, no one had been hurt. He was waiting for his mother who was to arrive on the same train.

Natascha regarded him a little more closely. He was tall with a gray moustache and black, lively eyes. Altogether he appealed to her at once.

He continued to speak. His mother was coming to visit him, after an absence of almost two months. That was a very long time. He wished his mother could live with him permanently.

"A mother's love is the only love that is unselfish, the only love I can respect."

He spoke with the frank lack of reticence that characterized the people of his southerly region.

"Would it be bold to ask for whom you are waiting?" he continued.

"A friend? Your husband?"

"My husband." It had slipped past her lips, in spite of herself and she felt herself reddening with embarrassment.

"How long have you been married?"

"Well, now, that depends...." Natascha laughed.

"Aha, I understand, I understand. I have my own views on this subject. Usually women disagree with me, but in my eyes a wife and a sweetheart are one and the same thing. On the contrary: a free union fetters a man much more than a legitimate marriage. I am not referring to legal, formal bonds, of course, but to inner, moral obligations...this lack of freedom, this dependence on another's inner experiences, the eternal dissatisfaction of the woman one loves, the spiritual bills she presents....

"She is always being hurt by trifles. I have gone through the entire gamut of such an experience. could tell you ... by the way, are you a German?"

"No," Natascha laughed. "A Russian and a writer. You may speak freely. I am not afraid of life and truth."

"A writer?" He raised his hat respectfully. "I have the greatest respect for a woman who pursues a profession. My mother was a teacher. But that has nothing to do with the relations of men and women to each other. Lies, nothing but lies on either side, lies for the peace of mind of the loved one, lies from fear, from habit. ... Are men and women ever themselves after they are married? Mind you, I make no difference between legal marriage and that voluntary bond that holds two persons together. Are they ever themselves when they are together, as they are with their friends and colleagues, or with other sexually indifferent persons? Do you ever fully express your real thoughts and feelings when you are with your husband? Can you give full play to your moods or to those impulses that are, possibly, the best that is in you? No. It is all play-acting, pose and prevarication.. ."

He piled up indictment after indictment against marriage with reckless, somewhat disjointed abandon, but Natascha believed she understood. She amended and supplemented his speculations with an illustration here and a pertinent remark there, so that he nodded appreciatively at the fullness of her comprehension. "That is it. That is it!" he agreed.

Natascha spoke hastily and sketchily, as if she were hurrying to tell this stranger everything she had thought and suffered. ... He listened to her gravely, looking steadily into her face as she talked, now and then adding an apt word to her story. It was Natascha who first noticed that the hands of the clock were approaching the time scheduled for the train's arrival. How extraordinarily quickly the time had passed on the dismal, gray station.

"I am truly grateful to the good fortune that presented me with this opportunity. I will not be so indiscreet as to ask for your name, but may I assure you, without flattery, that this is the first time I have had the privilege of meeting a young woman with so mature an outlook on life? You note that I say young: I have often met older women who think as I do, though they rarely care to speak of it. But they know much... my mother is a case in point.

"My mother is an extraordinary woman, and I am proud and happy to be able to give her every pleasure that money can buy, now that she is old. I worked for it with my own hands. I am a grape farmer. I was the youngest of eight brothers – began life as an errand boy in a wine cellar. My mother was a teacher. We never knew our father."

As the time for the train's arrival drew nearer, the station platform had gradually filled with waiting people. The train was approaching. Natascha once more shook hands with her new acquaintance, who respectfully lifted his hat and raised her hand as if to kiss it, but then desisted.

Their eyes met for a brief glance, then Natascha was lost in the crowd that stood by the tracks.

The train rolled into the station, filling it with a dense cloud of smoke.

"At last? Have you been impatient, poor girl? How is my Natascha? You are looking splendidly ... rosy-cheeked and well ... like a little girl. Have you been homesick? This last hour in the train dragged so endlessly, I almost got out and walked."

He was not afraid to embrace her here, he even kissed her fondly and took her arm, launching into a recital of the shrewd maneuvers it had taken to escape the professor's all-too-insistent hospitality.

"Here we will be alone together, just we two, with plenty of time to talk over everything that troubles us. Another honeymoon – how many will that be, Natascha .. .?" He pressed her hand ecstatically.

"My dearest, I am so madly happy to see you!"

Natascha smiled, and looked at him as unemotionally as one regards a stranger. She was amazed at her complete aloofness. Why had this never been possible before?

At the station entrance they approached Natascha's casual acquaintance of the station platform, tenderly guiding a tiny gray-haired woman who clung devotedly to his arm. Natascha, afraid of the questions and the suspicious cross-examination, the tiresome explanations and denials that recognition would mean, pretended not to see him, though she secretly rebelled against this slavery to the moods and whims of another. She was becoming thoroughly tired of it.

In the cab that took them to their destination Ssenja caught her in his arms and sought her lips.

"Say you love me, dear. I have been so lonesome, so afraid. ... You were hurt, weren't you? It was a mistake to send you here. This idiotic nervousness of mine! You know one loses all sense of proportion when one has been ill. You understood that, didn't you, Natascha?"

"Yes, I realized that."

"Then you are not angry? You are not as happy as usual over my coming." His eyes sought hers questioningly. "Perhaps you no longer care?.."

He said it softly, with a choked gasp, as if he dared not utter the thought that had suddenly come to him.

"I care for you? I don't care for you at all!" She tried to drive away his depression with her bantering tone, but she felt that it lacked conviction. Ssenja sighed unhappily and fell back into his seat, and Natascha felt a sharp stab of pity. She was honestly sorry to hurt him. To distract him she told him of the letters she had received, and he was soon listening with undivided interest. By the time they reached the inn they were arguing with the complete absorption with which two colleagues discuss a matter of mutual interest.

*****

The sun stood high in the heavens when Natascha raised the shade and opened the window the morning after.

"Look, Ssenja, how beautiful! Aren't these houses charming? Those birds...spring is here!"

"To be sure. ... And I am here with you in paradise."

He came to her and threw his arm about her shoulder. Silently, each busy with his own thoughts, they stood by the window. Natascha's soul was calm and unruffled. She had the queer sensation that it was not she, at all, but some one else who was experiencing this, while she was standing by and looking on. For Ssenja she felt the sympathetic affection one feels for an agreeable, more or less casual acquaintance. She had accepted his caresses that night with a spirit of somewhat bored submission; she had not once responded to his passion. Under one pretext or another she tried to distract his attention.

"You must be more careful, Ssenjetschka, or you will be ill again. Let me tell you what I saw yesterday." She treated him as an older person treats an unreasonable child. It was she, not he, who struck the note that dominated their intercourse. Hitherto she had been his obedient echo. Now, unconsciously, it seemed to her, he followed while she led the way.

Ssenja, for his part, was entirely happy. He had been in mortal terror of Natascha's "psychological dissertations" ever since he had left her, and was highly gratified to find her actually cheerful and not at all inclined to dwell on his shortcomings. Though he had never been able to comprehend her inexplicable moods, they often made him acutely unhappy. They burdened him with a sense of wrong-doing. He was at no time conscious of anything but the desire to make her completely happy, only to find that every effort he made to understand and please her seemed somehow to complicate the situation. It had been just so with Anjuta. Now this same feeling of inadequacy to cope with the vagaries of the female mind was disturbing his relations with Natascha with increasing frequency.

Here, in W., they seemed to have found firm ground again. They had found each other again-to use one of Natascha's favorite expressions – and Ssemjon Ssemjonowitsch was happy and light-hearted in consequence.

Breakfast was jolly. Ssenja ate enormously, and insisted that Natascha would make a splendid housewife. He was hugely delighted with his new quarters. Natascha played the hostess charmingly; she was entertaining an agreeable, welcome guest.

"I thought I should be able to manage a longer stay here, but the library opens on Tuesday and the professor invited a number of guests to go with us to examine some material out of the archives. For Tuesday, unfortunately. That means I should leave here on Monday."

"Monday? That would suit me excellently."

"What do you mean?"

"That in that case I shall also leave on Monday. You know how conscience-stricken I feel, sitting here in idleness when they are waiting for me so anxiously at home."

"What difference will a day or two make? I don't see why we should be in such a hurry to leave here?"

"A day or two may make a great deal of difference in a tense political situation .. ."

"You know how the comrades exaggerate."

Natascha relapsed into silence. As usual, he thought only of himself. She had never been able to persuade him to give her a single hour of his time. He must go. ... Anjuta expected him his will was law and there was no relenting, no appeal from his decision. That she, too, had responsibilities and important claims on her time, that every added hour she spent with him was a sacrifice, a loss to herself and to the movement – that he had never been willing to admit.

"DO you remember," she reflected, "the time we met in N.-two years ago?"

"To be sure. Why?"

"Do you remember how sick I became while we were there? I lay alone in a hotel room with a high fever, and there was not a soul that knew me in the entire city. ... Do you remember how I begged you to stay with me one day more ... just one day more? What did it mean to Anjuta – a single day out of a life-time with you? You know how rarely I ask for anything, but I begged and pleaded with you then. But you left me and I remained behind, ill, delirious... ."

Ssemjon Ssemjonowitsch looked crestfallen.

"Why speak of that now?"

"To show you how much a day means where you are concerned. Only my needs and my wishes count for nothing. Is that your conception of equality?" Natascha spoke with unusual calm.

"You can't truly say that I disregard your wishes. Aren't you just a little unjust, my dear? When have I acted against your will? Tell me? Is it fair to prefer charges without giving facts? If I act unjustly, I do it unconsciously, against my will. You can't truthfully say that I am against equality for man and woman."

"Well, let's not discuss it. It isn't important. I just happened to think of it and mentioned it."

She tried to change the subject, but Ssenja answered absently and paced the room thoughtfully for a while. Suddenly his face cleared and the gentle smile that Natascha had loved so dearly played about his lips, the quizzical look was in his eyes as he looked at her over his glasses.

"Well, my dear, I am off to the barber's. When I get back, we will look at the town together."

He went over to her, kissed her eyes and then her hands with sober tenderness, and hurriedly left the room.

"Hurry back," she called after him, "or it will be dark before we start."

He reappeared much sooner than she had expected.

"Here already? Don't tell me that you have been to the barber's."

He looked at her with that mysterious, quizzical look still in his eyes.

"What have you been up to?" Natascha laughed in spite of herself, and was curious, too. Thus mothers smile at the mysterious secrets of their children.

"Guess."

"How can I guess. Tell me, Ssenjetschenka."

She shook him with mock impatience.

He stuck out his tongue at her like a child.

"I sent the professor a telegram."

"A telegram? What for?"

"To tell him that I shall not return before Friday."

"Ssenja!"

He had expected Natascha to fall about his neck in radiant appreciation of his thoughtfulness. Instead she dropped her hands hopelessly at her side and looked at him with a strange expression on her face.

"You sent a telegram, changed the day of departure without consulting me? How could you? How dared you?...

"But, Natascha..."

"When you knew that I must leave here on Tuesday, at the latest."

"Well, I must say, I simply can't make you out. Weren't you offended when I said I wanted to leave on Monday? For your sake, to show you how much I want to please you, to prove to you that you mean more to me than my work or anything else. ... I thought this would please you ... and now..."

He bristled with righteous resentment.

Natascha tried to explain, but suddenly desisted. What was the use? They would always think and speak past one another. They seemed neither to hear nor to understand each other any longer. Ssenjetschka wanted only to please her. In his eyes the telegram to the professor was an extraordinary concession, a proof of the greatness of his love for her. Formerly... ah, how happy this would have made her. Too late. Too late.

Somehow she would have to get out of this impossible situation.

She rapidly figured up what it would cost them to stay and showed him, as regretfully as she could, that it would be reckless for them to remain beyond Wednesday. Their finances simply did not permit it. Then, too, what would the professor think? Suppose Anjuta should come to H....

She spoke like an experienced mother who knows the soul of her child. Not a word of herself. She even thanked him for wanting to spend a few more days with her.

His ruffled feathers gradually smoothed out, so that he was in a cheerful, yes, delighted mood once more when they walked through the village streets, arm in arm, a few hours later.

Natascha showed him the sights of the town, with the warm appreciation with which one regards a delightful relative who is an agreeable, but by no means essential, part of one's life.

XV

"Do you know, Natascha, I believe these have been the happiest days we have spent together for a very long time," Ssenja said as he locked his trunk. He was leaving an hour before Natascha.

"Do you think so?"

"Don't you? There were moments, it is true, when I could not quite understand you. Sometimes I felt, for an instant, that you were getting away from me. But as soon as I listened into your soul (he was using Natascha's words) I came closer to you again, and this strangeness disappeared. Isn't that so? You have been cheerful, you laughed more than usual. I don't remember having seen you so happy... oh, for ever so long...I am going away happy...almost happy. .. ."

The last words came like an afterthought. He suddenly knelt down before her and buried his face in her lap....

"Ssenja, what is it?..."

"I can't help it. A dreadful feeling sometimes takes hold of me, a fear that I am to lose you....

I know it is stupid, but when it takes hold of me I am as helpless as a little child left alone by its mother in a great dark woods. Is it possible, Natascha, that we should ever become indifferent to one another? Tell me, truly, dear, do you still love me?"

His eyes searched hers with an intensity she had never seen in them before.

"Ssenja, this isn't at all like you. Are you beginning to entertain my psychological misgivings, silly Ssenjetschka ?"

She laughed at him. Had he noticed that she had not answered his question?

"Yes, it seems, does it not, that we have exchanged roles?"

He spoke thoughtfully and softly stroked her hand.

"There is something I can't explain. What is there that is not as it used to be? Nothing ... and yet...there is a difference. I am so afraid..."

Natascha was struck. Was it possible that now, when everything was over, he was beginning to understand her? Did he see what she herself was afraid to recognize?

"We, who have lived through so much together in these years of our friendship could not become strange to each other. ... I am too fond of you for that. ... You have become my little brother, my trusted friend. .. ." She stroked his head, the clever, thoughtful head she had once loved so agonizingly.

"Farewell, my dear, beloved..." her heart contracted and she could not stem the tears that rushed to her eyes. She was parting from the great love that had been hers, from the suffering it had brought her, from the happiness that had been theirs together. Gone ... gone ... never to return again.

Natascha's tears were the usual, inevitable end of every parting. They comforted Ssenja.

Everything, then, was as it had always been.

*****

Natascha stood on the station platform. Ssenja was already in the car. The train would start in a moment.

"Now you are going East and I am going West.... When and where shall we meet again? Not soon, I'm afraid. But we have seen each other again and have gathered fresh courage for the future. It was wonderful, was it not, Natascha? It was wonderful!" He wanted a word of confirmation from her lips.

"Yes. The town is charming – a poem. I am leaving here with new thoughts – I stole them from you."

"Don't try to flatter me, as if you hadn't a clever little head of your own. You will write to me, won't you, as long as I am in H.?"

"Certainly."

"I am already dreaming of meeting you again."

"By the way," she interrupted him in a businesslike tone, "will you formulate more exactly the proposition you asked me to take up with the comrades at home?"

The door slammed.

"Good-bye, Natascha. Till we meet again.... I am so grateful to you. .. ."

"What for?"

"For everything. ... Give me your hand. Don't be unhappy! We will meet again, soon. You must go back, dear. The train is moving."

Ssenja leaned far out of the window for a last glimpse of the girl as she stood on the station platform. He waved the familiar old gray hat that had always seemed so touching to her. Queer that she had not noticed how shabby it was before. That flabby brim hanging down over his face.

The train was vanishing into darkness. Natascha did not peer after it with hungry eyes as she used to do, feeling that the soul had left her body to hurry after it. She went to the outer station door with others who had seen their friends to the train, wondering anew at her composure. A leave-taking like a thousand others, with the depressing feeling of finality that one always had on such occasions. Nothing more. But Natascha knew that this was the end. They had taken their last farewell from one another.

Some time in the future life might throw them together for common work again. Only that. The great love that had throbbed in her heart all these years was gone forever. Nothing, neither tenderness nor pleading, not even understanding, could bring it back to life again.

Too late! In the train her thoughts were already far away from Ssenja and the love she had borne him. Her head was heavy with cares. There were her papers – she would look them over at once, destroy some, transcribe others into code, file some for future reference....

She was back at her work again. Long, long ago there had been a great, wonderful, beautiful love, – but it was gone. It had seeped out of her heart, through the countless tiny wounds that Ssenja, in his man-like failure to understand, had inflicted.

Next section | Table of Contents

II. Sisters

Sisters

by Alexandra Kollontai

SHE was one of the many who came to me in those difficult days for advice and spiritual guidance.

I had seen her at a number of delegate conferences, and remembered having been struck by her pretty, rather intense face with its pensive but intelligent eyes.

To-day her face was pale, the eyes even larger and sadder than usual.

"I came to you because there is no one else to whom I can go. I have been homeless for the past three weeks – I have no money. I must have work! If I don't get: some means of earning a living soon, there is only one thing left for me – the street."

"But, let me see. If I remember rightly you were working. You had a good position. Were you discharged?"

"Yes. I worked in the shipping department of our publishing house until two months ago, when I lost my place ... because of my baby. It was so sick, and I had to stay at home again and again to take care of it. It died two weeks after I lost my position, but I was not taken back."

I felt that the bowed head and the long lashes were concealing unshed tears of helpless misery.

"But why were you discharged? Was your work unsatisfactory?"

"No, on the contrary, I am considered an efficient worker. But my husband has a good income – he is an important official in the Combinat. .. ."

"But if that is the case, you are not without means. Have you separated?"

"No, we have not separated ... that is, I simply left him, and I cannot go back. No matter what happens to me ... I will never go back. Anything but that."

The long lashes no longer hid the tears in her eyes.

"Forgive me! I never cry. I went through this purgatory without tears. But your kindness, your sympathy... make it hard to bear.... Let me tell you about it, so that you may understand."

She had met her husband at the height of the revolutionary uprising. At that time he was a compositor in the publishing house in whose shipping department she was employed. Both sympathized strongly with the Bolshevist cause, and their burning enthusiasm for the Revolution that was to shake off the yoke of exploitation to build up a new and a more just world, drew them together. They both loved books with the devotion that characterizes those who, self-taught, fight a constant, never-ending battle against their educational limitations. The Revolution, in its dizzy whirl of intense activity, had found work for them both during those mad October days. And in the fire of battle, to the sound of rattling machine guns, their hearts had found each other. There was no time to legalize their union.

Each continued to live his own life; they met during hours of work, happy in the glow reflected from stolen hours of passionate companionship. They were legally married a year later, when she became pregnant, and looked forward hopefully to the coming of their little one to the modest home in which they now lived together. But with the birth of the little girl, complications set in. She could not resign herself to the thought of concentrating her entire activity upon her home. Surely work was as important for the woman as for the man, and must not be set aside for family considerations. She urged the creation of a day-nursery for the babies of working women, and was successful in seeing it established. But new difficulties arose almost at once.

Her work and the care of the baby, the thousand little ministrations that its comfort at home demanded, left little time for the demands of the household. Her husband grumbled, and while admitting the truth of his remonstrances, she could not quite admit their justification. Was he ever at home? And was he not proud of her when she was elected delegate to the Rayon Congress?

"But won't you be sulky if dinner is cold?" she had teased him when he congratulated her on her success.

"Bah, cold dinner, fiddlesticks! See to it that you do not become cold after meeting so many new and interesting men there. One never can tell, you know. Better be careful."

They had laughed gayly at the thought. Could anything cloud such love as theirs? They were so much more than man and wife – comrades who went through life hand in hand, who aspired to the same ideals, with never a thought of themselves. Only their work, that, and each other. And the baby, of course, the dear, joyous, healthy girl baby!

How was it possible that all this had changed so? Perhaps the Combinat? Sometimes she thought. ... They had rejoiced at his appointment, of course. It meant a little ease and comfort after the hard life they had been leading; no more starvation, no more worn-out, ugly clothes, no anxiety lest lack of funds close the nursery and leave her with the problem of conflicting work and family responsibilities. When the new appointment came, her husband had urged her to give up her job. It irked his pride that she should continue to work for wages, now that he was able to support his family. But she resented the very suggestion. She was accustomed to the daily intercourse with her fellow workers, and enjoyed the responsibilities of her daily task. Besides, she hated the thought of dependence, she who had taken care of herself since the days of her earliest youth. Still, things were easier. They moved into more comfortable quarters – two rooms and a kitchen – -and engaged a girl to take care of the baby, while she devoted herself more intensely than ever to her work in the Rayon. Her husband was busy, too. He spent only his sleeping hours at home.

Thus they lived busy but happy days until her husband was sent away to accompany several Nepmen on a business trip. A stranger returned to her, one who wore fine clothes and used perfume, who barely listened when she spoke of the things that had formerly interested both of them. He began to drink, he who had never, with the possible exception of an occasional holiday, used liquor before. During the Revolution there had been no time for alcohol.

The first time he came home under the influence of liquor she was frightened rather than grieved. "It will hurt him," she thought, anxiously. "His reputation will suffer." But when she reproached him the following morning he drank his tea morosely and refused to answer. Three days later he was drunk again, this time so helplessly that she could scarcely get him into bed. It was disgusting. Even when one loved a man with all one's heart, it was disgusting. V~hen she approached the subject again the following day he looked at her with eyes so full of hatred and resentment that the words she would have spoken stuck in her throat.

After that he came home drunken more and more frequently. It was intolerable. She used to linger at home in the morning until he became sober, to urge him to mend his ways, to show him that this could not go on. She showed him what he had made of their marriage – comrades no longer, now, but a man and a woman, whom only the common marriage bed held together. She warned him, she called him to shame, she wept. ... At first he listened, tried to defend himself. She did not understand. He must go about with these Nepmen. If one did not take part in their amusements, one could not do business with them. Occasionally he would become thoughtful, would admit that he himself was becoming tired of the life his position was forcing him to lead. Those were the times when he would plead with her to be patient, taking her head between his hands and looking deeply into her eyes, sending her lightheartedly to her work once more.

A week later he was hopelessly drunken again. He pounded the table with his fists when she spoke to him. "Mind your business. They all live like this. Go away, if you don't like it. No one is holding you here!"

She went through the day after that scene with an intolerable hurt in her breast. Was it possible that he no longer cared for her? Did he want her to leave him? But he was deeply contrite that evening, and apologized abjectly for the things he had said. They talked it all over again and again, and her heart felt light, confident once more.

She understood, of course. It was this company he was forced to keep. He earned his money easily, and had to spend as the others did. Men were like that. They could not refuse to join the rest. He told her stories of the lives these Nepmen led, they and their wives, of how they did business, and how hard it was for a worker to beat these sharks at their own game.

It all made her very unhappy. She was more dejected than she had been since the days before the Revolution had put an end to the misery of the war. The glory of the Revolution was giving way to bitter realities – these Nepmen, and the threatening reduction of workers due to the new policy of expense retrenchment.

For it was at this time that she first heard that she would probably be affected by the coming layoff. Her husband took the news of her coming discharge with maddening calmness. "On the whole," he thought, "not a bad thing for both of us. You would be at home to attend to the household as it should be looked after. Look at it now – impossible to invite respectable people to visit in a place like this."

When she remonstrated indignantly with him he grew impatient.

"All right, all right. After all, it's your business, I suppose. I'm not hindering you. Keep on working, if you choose."

It hurt her deeply to think that her husband was offended; hurt still more to think that he did not understand her. She persisted nevertheless. She went to influential comrades, argued with them, almost quarreled with them at their refusal to understand that her husband's income had nothing to do with her right to work, and in the end actually persuaded them to reconsider her dismissal. But she had scarcely adjusted matters when her little one became seriously ill.

"You cannot imagine the wretchedness of those nights, sitting alone with my unhappy thoughts beside the baby's bed. I was so desperately lonely, so anxious for the future! One night the door-bell rang. I ran as usual to open the door for my husband, glad to have him with me. Someone to whom I could speak of my fears, someone who loved the little one. If only he was not drunken. ... When I opened the door I could hardly believe my eyes. A young woman stood beside him, rouged and drunken, an unmistakable type. 'Let us in, wife,' he said, grandly, with a drunkard's swagger.' 'S a little friend I brought with me to-night. 'Want to enjoy life like the rest of them, enjoy life, I say....Leave us alone.'

"My knees shook. They went together, laughing inanely, into the living-room where my husband usually slept. I hurried back to the baby, who began to whimper at the noise, and locked the door behind me. I calmed the little one, and then sat there beside her bed, staring before me as my world crumbled into ashes. I was not angry at him. What can one expect of a drunken man? But it was horrible. One could hear every sound in the next room. I longed to hold my hands over my ears, but the little one needed constant attention. Fortunately they soon quieted down – they were too drunken to stay awake. Toward morning I heard my husband open the door for the woman. He himself went back to sleep.

"He slipped out of the house that morning without seeing me. When he returned in the evening I did not look up. He buried himself in his papers, but I caught occasional stealthy glances in my direction. 'Lot him,' I thought. 'He will probably beg to be forgiven, only to go back to his old ways again.' But I was through. I was determined to leave him. Yet my heart ached at the thought. I still loved him ... why deny it. I love him even now, when it is all over. But it is as if he were dead. Now I could not go back to him again. But at that time my feelings for him were still alive.

"Dully I remembered a Rayon meeting I had promised to attend and slipped into my coat. But before I reached the door he had jumped up from his chair, and bore down on me with an incredible rage. There were blue spots on my arm afterward, where he had held me as he'd pulled off my coat and flung it to the floor.

"'I'm thoroughly tired of your hysterics,' he shouted. 'Where are you going? What do you want of me? You will have to go far to find another husband like me, able to take care of you and give you a decent home and respectable clothes. I fulfill your every wish. What right have you to sit in judgment over me?'

"He talked and talked – endlessly. He raged, he explained, he tried to justify himself. And because I saw that his face was distorted, because I saw that he was suffering, I was so sorry for him that I forgot everything else. I still loved him so very much, you see. Perhaps if I encouraged him, showed him that things were not as bad as they looked, that he was not to blame, that these Nepmen....

"So we were reconciled to each other once more. But I had to promise never to be angry with him again. Of course he would never have brought home this woman if he had not been drunk. I pleaded with him to stop drinking. Everything would be different – I hadn't minded the prostitute nearly as much, I assured him, as the bestiality of it all. He promised to control himself. He would in the future avoid these men who were leading him to destruction.

"But, of course, the thorn remained. Could he have done a thing like that, I asked myself over and over again, if he still loved me? Would he have visited a woman like that during those days in the Revolution when we were so happy together? One of my friends, far prettier and younger than I, had set her cap for him when we first met each other. But he had not even noticed her. I tried to speak of this to him. He must tell me, if he no longer cared for me. I would not stand in his way. But he became angry at once, and thundered at me that I was driving him out of the house with this silly woman's talk. Devil take me and all women! Just when he was so busy, too, that he didn't know his head from his heels for business worries!

"So matters drifted along. Meanwhile my discharge became more and more imminent. My little daughter was still sick, and it was too much to expect them to hold a position for me that I was, for the time being, so obviously incapable of filling. I remained at home, and tried to make the home more comfortable for my husband. I still hoped that things might change for the better, meanwhile trying everything possible to hold my position. The thought of absolute financial dependence on my husband at this time threw me into blank despair. We occupied the same rooms, but lived as strangers. We saw very little of each other. He had even lost interest in the little one. He hardly looked at her. He drank less, it is true, and came home sober most of the time. But it was as if I had ceased to exist. He slept on the divan in the living-room, while I stayed in the bedroom beside my little girl. Occasionally he came in to me at night. But there was no joy in his embraces. The days that followed them were, if possible, more dreary – as if new suffering had been added to the old. He took me as a matter of course, and apparently never thought of the things that must be going on in my mind....Thus we lived ... Lonely. Silent.

"Just before the baby died, I was definitely discharged. There was a dim ray of hope in my anguish when she left us. 'We will suffer together, now, we two,' I thought. 'It will bring him back to me.' But I was mistaken. He did not even attend the funeral – an important meeting. I was left alone with my sorrow – without work, dependent for support on a man who no longer cared for me.

"There was work enough to be done in the Rayon. But it was voluntary work, party propaganda, educational work, organization tasks. This sort of work was not paid, of course. Nor could I ask for a position when so many were out of work. Was not my husband a well-paid official? I tried and tried, but there was nothing to be had. I tried to be patient. I still hoped – something might happen – we women are so foolish. It was so obvious that my husband no longer cared for me. And within me, too, bitterness and resentment were slowly killing the love that remained. Still I waited. Each morning I woke up, hoping against hope for a miracle. At night I hurried home from the Rayon like a child – perhaps he is at home, waiting for you! Perhaps. ... But even when he was at home, it made no difference in my loneliness. He paid no attention to me, he was busy with his work. Comrades came, Nepmen. Still I hoped and waited. Until that happened which made me leave him. Definitely, this time. Never to return to him again.

"I had returned late from a meeting that night and was just lighting the samovar for a cup of tea when I heard the outer door open softly. Since that episode my husband carried his own key. He went directly to his room, as usual. After a few moments I recalled a package that had come to him by special messenger that afternoon. I went to my room to get it, and took it in to him. What I saw there – it was even harder to grasp than the first time. For he was not drunk. There beside my husband stood a tall, slender woman. They both turned to look at me, and our eyes met.

"I can just dimly recollect what happened after that. I believe I managed to tell him calmly as I laid it on the table, that the package had come for him by special messenger. Then I went to my room. But when I was alone once more my limbs shook so that I could hardly control them. Fearful of betraying myself to those two in the next room I crept into bed and drew the covers over my head. I wouldn't hear, wouldn't feel! But who can escape the torture of his thoughts?

"I heard their voices, hers louder than his, as if she were upbraiding him. 'Perhaps he is her lover, and she has just discovered that he is married. At this moment he may be denying that I am his wife!' I thought of every possibility, and each thought brought untold misery. I had suffered less, bitterly as I was hurt, when he brought the prostitute into our home. He had done that after a drunken spree. But this – . Now I knew that he no longer cared for me. Not even as one cares for a comrade or a sister. He would not have brought a woman into the home in which his sister lived. He would have shown her more respect than to bring such women – women of the streets into the rooms she occupied. This, too, must be one of them. No decent woman would have come with him at this hour of the night! A flood of rage at this woman took possession of me. I could have rushed into the room in which she lay with my husband and driven her out of the house.

"Thus I lay, sleepless, until the dawn broke. Then it seemed to me that I heard stealthy footsteps on the corridor. It must be she! The kitchen-door opened softly. What did she want there, I asked myself indignantly? I waited tensely. She did not return. With sudden resolution I jumped out of my bed and went into the kitchen. She was sitting on the little bench by the window, her head bowed down, crying bitterly. Her fair hair was so long it almost covered her slim body. When she looked up at me as I opened the kitchen door, I was dismayed at the suffering in her eyes. I approached and she rose to meet me.

"'Forgive me,' she whispered,'for having come into your home. I did not know, of course. I thought he lived alone. That makes it so hard, so very much harder to bear.' "At first I did not understand.'This is no prostitute,' I thought. 'She is his friend.' And the words 'Do you love him?' came impulsively to my lips.

"She looked at me with large, astonished eyes. 'I never saw him before. We met last night for the first time. He promised to pay me well. It does not matter to me who the man is, so long as he pays.'

"How it all happened I can't remember. She told me her story – how she had been discharged three months before when the reduction of labor was put into effect, how unhappy she had been not to be able to help her old mother who wrote that she was starving, how she had finally gone on the street, and had been fortunate in making the acquaintance of an agreeable circle of men almost at once. Now she was well dressed and well fed, and able to take care of her mother. ... She wrung her hands as she told me her story.

"'I might be a useful worker,' she assured me. 'It is not that I am ignorant. I have my gymnasium diploma, and I am young – only nineteen. To think that I must go to the dogs like this.'

"It is hard to believe, is it not, that I trembled with sympathy for this unfortunate creature. For it struck me, as she was telling her story, that only my husband's income had saved me, up to this time, from a similar situation. The hatred that I had felt for her that night as I lay on my pillow was turned against my husband now. How dared he exploit the misfortune of a poor woman, a working man proud of his understanding of the problems of his class, a man who boasted of his responsibility to the proletariat! He who should have helped an unemployed comrade in her hour of need buys her body. ... It was so utterly revolting that my mind was made up as she spoke. I could not live with a creature of that sort a moment longer.

"We discussed the whole question while we lit the fire and cooked our coffee together. My husband was still fast asleep. When she prepared to take her leave I asked her,'Did he pay you?'

"She blushed furiously and assured me that to take money after she had spoken to me was out of the question. I understood her anxiety to be out of the house before my husband should find her with me, and I did not detain her. Will you understand me when I tell you that I hated to have her go? It was as if she were some dear relative....she seemed so unhappy, so young and so alone in the world. I finally dressed and went with her. We walked through the streets for a long time and finally sat down together on a bench in a small park. I told her of my unhappiness. I still had most of my last salary left and persuaded her to accept it from me. At first she refused, but she took it finally on condition that I come to her in case of need. We parted like sisters.

"That night my love for my husband died, died suddenly as if it had never been. There was no pain, no feeling of offense. It was as if I had buried him. When I returned home he was still there, vociferous in self-justification. But I did not answer. There were no tears, no recriminations. On the following day I moved my few belongings to the home of a friend and began to look for work. That was three weeks ago. The outlook has been hopeless. Then, several days ago, something occurred that made it clear to me that I could stay with my friend no longer. I went to look for the girl my husband had brought with him that night, and was told that she had been taken to the hospital on the day before. ... So I am drifting about without a home, without work, without money. Will her fate be mine?" The tragic, despairing eyes of my visitor asked this question of life. It was in her eyes – the sorrow, the horror, the misery of this struggle against the workingman's most implacable enemy – -unemployment. The eyes of a defenseless woman who, alone and single-handed, is fighting the old, wornout order.

III. The Loves of Three Generations

The Loves of Three Generations

by Alexandra Kollontai

COMING to my office one morning I found, among the pile of private and business letters on my desk, a thick envelope that immediately arrested my attention. Thinking it might contain a newspaper article, I opened it. It was a letter, an extraordinarily long letter. The signature....Olga Wasselowskaya. I looked at it thoughtfully.

I knew Comrade Olga Sergejewna Wasselowskaya as an organizer holding a responsible position in the Soviet Republic. I also knew that she was not even remotely interested in the work among women in which I happened to be engaged at the time. What had prompted her to write this endless letter? Glancing at the envelope once more I noticed the words "Strictly Personal" written in large letters across the corner.

"Personal?" Personal letters from women usually mean family tragedies, with a plea for advice and understanding. Was it possible that Olga Sergejewna, this quiet, self-contained woman...? It was unthinkable!

I could not read the latter at the moment; urgent matters clamored for immediate attention, and the letter was obviously too long and too serious for hasty perusal. But as I worked, my thoughts returned involuntarily to the letter and its writer.

I recalled the few occasions on which I had met her – always in some official capacity. I remembered her dry, impersonal, rather reticent attitude toward others, and her remarkable efficiency – for a Russian woman – in business matters. On one of these occasions I had also made the acquaintance of her husband, a former workingman, whose frank, pleasing appearance made him beloved and popular wherever he went, although she was probably more widely known and respected than he. She was his superior in the organization in which they were both employed. He was somewhat younger than she. Perhaps this marriage ... but they had always seemed to be in such perfect accord with one another that one was impressed with a sense of harmony and perfect comradeship whenever one saw the two together. He admired her unreservedly.

I recalled one occasion when he had said, in my hearing: "But you heard what Olga Sergejewna thinks about it. Why do you continue to argue the matter?" To him she was the supreme authority.

She, too, was extremely fond of him, though in a more maternal way. I recalled another time – it was during a Congress at which we were both delegates – how her face had softened and lost its haughty reserve and severity when they brought her the news that he was ill. He was often ill. Perhaps this physical weakness that kept her in constant fear for his life had worn down her reserve. But why should she write to me? For sympathy? She was not the woman to write a letter like this without a more serious reason.

I had no opportunity to take up this letter that had taken such hold on my thoughts until I returned to my room that evening.

"I am writing to you privately, as one comrade to another. I am writing to you because you are a woman, and because I know that you are often confronted with problems of this kind. Perhaps you will be able to help me find a way out of the terrible depression that has taken hold of me.
"In the forty-three years of my life I have never been so ridiculously at a loss.

"You know me as an efficient worker. I know that I am generally regarded as severe and pedantic. Can you imagine me as the heroine of a love tragedy – a common, trivia', vaudeville sort of tragedy, that, because of its very triviality, is so much the harder to bear? Only the thought that its triviality is superficial, that there is a greater and deeper significance behind the situation under which I am suffering, makes it possible for me to come to you. Were it merely a personal affair, I should bear it as best I can, but I am sure that, in the last analysis, my experience is the immediate result of that overturning of every accepted conception of life and social relationship that is taking place in Russia at the present time. Side by side with greatness and creative genius, vice and darkness still work their evil ways.

"I believe that my experience is not uncommon, and I shudder at the thought. It fills me with physical nausea. Am I wrong? Is my outlook on life still controlled by old, outlived conceptions? Do the prejudices of an overthrown bourgeoisie still control my feelings, so that I take a distorted view of a perfectly natural situation? So my daughter insists, and Comrade Rjabkov, my husband, agrees with her. Who is right? They? Or I? Help me to find the way, tell me if I am wrong, if it is true that only bourgeois prejudice is at the root of my horror."

Here the letter stopped. On a new page, in a steadier, obviously more controlled hand, Olga Sergejewna continued:

"I should like to tell you at once of this tragedy that is tearing my soul, but you would get only a distorted picture of what is going on within me if I were to tell you of these recent occurrences without giving you an insight into the past. You would be inclined to over-emphasize superficial incidents, while failing to recognize that they play no part in my unhappiness. This is not the commonplace tragedy of a woman who is losing the man she loves. It is all so much more complicated and poignant. Nor is it that I fail to understand what has happened. Only the motives...the motives....I plead with you to be patient. Read my letter to the end. Remember, it is a comrade in deepest distress who writes to you, asking for comradely advice and assistance."

There were frequent erasures. Here an entire paragraph had been crossed out. The letter continued on the next page:

"You remember my mother, do you not? She is still alive, and has charge of the traveling library in the Province N., where she is an important member of the committee for public education."

I remembered her mother well, Marja Stepanowna, a typical propagandist of the '90's, publisher of popular scientific books, translator of socialist pamphlets, and indefatigable worker in the field of public education. She was universally respected and honored among the liberal political workers of her time, while underground revolutionists held her in high esteem for more than one great service she had rendered their cause. The circle of her friends and admirers was large and varied.

In her political views she approached the Narodniki, without, however, becoming politically active. Books, schools and libraries for the poor and for the peasantry were her passion. She died shortly after I received her daughter's letter, and local labor organizations as well as representatives of the Soviets and of the Party stood at her coffin although she had never joined either a political party or a labor organization.

She had been a tall, slender woman with a handsome, imperious head, intelligent eyes and expressive features. Her personality commanded reverence – indeed, she inspired timidity in those who knew her less well than we. She spoke in brief, concise sentences, with a firm, clear voice. Usually there was a cigarette between her lips. She was always simply dressed in a style of her own that cared nothing about current fashions. Her hands, particularly, had always impressed me, they were so beautiful, so carefully groomed – the hands of a "lady." On her ring finger she always wore a heavy gold ring with a dark ruby.

"You may not know" – I turned from my thoughts to Olga Sergejewna's letter – "that my mother, too, in her younger days, lived through a tragic love affair, and that she came out of it – or rather – went into it – with a very definite moral code of her own in the question of sexual relationships. She condemned without mercy those who failed to live up to this code of hers; in her heart of hearts she despised them, though she was always a good-hearted, superior personality in the broadest sense of that word. In this question, however, she was intolerant to the point of pedantry.

"It has been the general assumption that we became strangers to one another because of political differences. This is not true. Our opinions of what is right and permissible in relations between men and women clashed when my drama first unfolded itself.

"My mother married an officer much against the will of her parents. As the happy wife of the commander of a regiment she gave birth to two sons, and was generally considered a model housewife.

"But presently the stagnant life that is found everywhere in military circles, a life of which the only outstanding characteristic is it extravagant style of living, became oppressive to one of her active temperament. You know what an inexhaustible fountain of energy my mother has always been. She had been educated far beyond the level usually achieved by girls of her class and time, had read most widely, had been abroad several times, and had carried on a lively correspondence with Tolstoi. You will understand that soon the commander of a small regiment in the provinces failed to fill her life. Fate threw the district physician, Sergei Iwanowitsch, into her path.

"Sergei Iwanowitsch, my father, might have been the materialization of a character out of one of Tchekhoff's books, with the confused idealism and restless striving into vague distances that characterized the Russian intellectual of that period. He had the Russian love for rich food and good living, and the Russian incompetence in the face of the trials and vicissitudes of practical life. He was a handsome, strongly built man; he liked the books that mother admired. He spoke with a great deal of sentimentality of the sufferings of the poor peasantry, yearned to go to the masses who were condemned to live in darkness, and dreamed platonic dreams of establishing libraries and schools and of conducting educational work on a large scale.

"The inevitable happened. One hot summer evening – the commander was absent on maneuvers – my mother found herself in my father's arms, the book on circulating libraries in New Zealand unread in the grass at their feet.

"It seems that my father was hardly prepared to see in this casual 'poetic dream' of a hot summer's evening an episode that was to change the even tenor of his highly satisfactory existence. He desired absolute freedom in his personal relations. Besides, he had a good-looking, robust young peasant widow for a housekeeper.

"Mother, as I have already told you, had very definite opinions in such matters, however. It did not occur to her to fight against this love of hers, nor to keep it a secret from the world and her husband, since she had always believed and maintained that the rights of love were superior to those of marriage. To her, love was holy. She would have considered it beneath her honor to trifle with it.

"In Sergei mother believed that she had found the personification of the ideal that her heart, mind and soul were seeking – the man she passionately loved, the human being she respected, the friend with whom she would work hand in hand for the education of her people.

"She knew only one way out of the situation – an immediate break with the commander. She would build up her own life according to her own wishes, disdainful of the talk and vicious gossip of her neighbors. On the following morning, therefore, mother sent for Sergei Iwanowitsch and took him out to the path under the linden trees to read to him the brief, determined letter she had written to her husband, informing him of what had happened with characteristic frankness, and asking for a divorce.

"Sergei Iwanowitsch was dumfounded. He had not expected such precipitation. He stammered something about protecting mother's good name and reminded her of her sons. Mother was astonished but obdurate. And since she was enchantingly beautiful, and my father in the honeymoon of his infatuation, the conversation ended in new embraces that strengthened my mother in her resolution to straighten out this – to her – impossible situation at once.

"This was not as simple as it appeared. The poor commander, who loved her to distraction, came home in desperate indignation, and bruskly refused to consider a divorce. He overwhelmed his wife with useless recriminations, threatened to kill, now himself, now the doctor, only to plead with her, a moment

later, to return to his home, if only as housekeeper and mother. "Mother was deeply sorry for him, but her love for the man whose soul she believed attuned to hers was stronger than pity. Convinced at last that no amount of explanation would bring her husband to reason, she packed her belongings, her money and her books, kissed her boys, and departed without taking leave of the commander.

"The affair scandalized the government for a long time. The Liberals supported my mother and looked on her desertion of the commander for a district physician as a protest against the existing regime. The local paper printed a poem in her honor. At a local dinner someone proposed a toast to 'the heroic women who dare loosen the traditional fetters of marriage to throw their lot with that of the wage-slaves, to work for the people.'...

"As soon as she was established in the home of Sergei Iwanowitsch mother at once set about the realization of her old dream of establishing public libraries, enthusiastically supported by my father, the Tchechowian hero. At that time Russia was suffering a period of blackest reaction, but mother battled for her idea with her usual persistence, taking it from district magistrate to governor, traveling to Petersburg, using her personal influence wherever she could, stubbornly refusing to accept defeat.

"And then, just as their plan approached realization, my mother and her muddle-headed, terror-stricken husband were arrested and exiled to a far-distant region. There I was born.

"Even in exile mother continued her energetic activity. She called into being an organization for self-culture, laid the foundation for a system of libraries, taught, instructed...

"My father was unhappy, became stout, and deteriorated mentally as well as physically.

"Nevertheless, when he returned from his exile at last, the reputation as a staunch revolutionist had preceded him, and he took up his activity in the provinces. Mother applied herself to her work for popular education with renewed enthusiasm. It seemed that the life of my parents had assumed a fixed and permanent form at last ... until one day mother discovered her almost bald but still handsome husband in an unmistakably compromising situation with the milk-maid, Arischa.

"My father tried to defend himself. But the situation was more complicated than he assumed. Arischa became pregnant.

"Without further ado mother packed her belongings and left with me for the capital city of the province, leaving my father a letter in which she insisted on adequate provision for Arische's child and warned him against alcohol, which was taking an increasingly strong hold on his tastes. She carefully avoided complaints or recriminations. All this I learned, years later, from mother herself, when she told me the story of her own life in the hope of influencing my decision, to bring me back to what she considered the only honorable path.

"I remember that mother bore her fate with admirable strength. I never saw her shed a tear, although she never ceased loving Sergei Iwanowitsch, and remained faithful to him the rest of her life.

"In the capital my mother set to work to organize the publication of a series of books on popular science, a work that has given her lasting fame throughout the country.

"I lived with her. From my earliest youth I was familiar with the thought and activity of revolutionary circles; 'forbidden literature' was the reading matter of my early 'teens. I was at home with illegality and with those who lived illegally.

"We lived frugally, almost ascetically, in a home always permeated with an atmosphere of industry and hard work, among ideals and 'new beginnings.' At the age of sixteen I was arrested for the first time and my mother was inordinately proud of me.

"Such were my early surroundings. But even at this early age, my opinions began to diverge from those of my mother. I inclined strongly toward Marxism, she remained with the Narodniki. In my work among the revolutionists I had made the acquaintance of a prominent member of the fighting organization. He was considerably my senior and had a 'past.' Mother shook her head disapprovingly, considered me entirely too young to know my own mind, thought I might have waited, feared that I had inherited my father's lightness in love affairs, and finally acquiesced. We lived with mother and each of us continued his work. We did not marry, however, because we were fundamentally opposed to marriage as an institution.

"My husband was 'illegal,' and it was not long before we were placed under arrest. Influential friends managed to obtain mother's liberation. I went into exile with my husband.

"I fear this long introduction will bore you, but you will not understand what I am suffering without it. I want you to understand and not to forget this one fact – that I am the daughter and pupil of Marja Stepanowna! The ideas one absorbs in childhood cannot be driven out by mere logic.

"Be patient, therefore, I beg you, and continue to read this long letter. I am coming, now, 20 the tragedy of the second generation.

"I managed to escape from exile. My husband remained. I came to Petersburg where, in order to cover up my tracks, I was installed by friends as private instructress in the home of the wealthy engineer M., who had been in more or less close touch with the Marxist movement since his student days.

"In this luxurious home every member of the family lived according to his own desires and inclinations. On the whole, they were no more interested in political issues than in the current production at the Art Theater, or in the latest exhibition of Wrubel's pictures. Politics, to them, was an interesting subject for drawing-room discussion – nothing more.

"I had never come in contact with this atmosphere before. It was strange and inwardly repulsive to me. On the first evening of my stay there I was plunged into a heated argument with my employer. The tone I used, I discovered later, was far from conforming with the accepted standards of polite salon conversation. I believe we spoke of Bernstein. Anger and shame at my lack of self-control kept me awake the better part of the night. For some reason I particularly resented the flatteringly mocking look the Engineer M. turned upon me when I raged at him. There was something about this man that was strangely exciting. Superficial and uncongenial as his nature undoubtedly was, there was a fascination about him that drove me to seek his nearness again and again; I tried desperately to force him to admit the correctness of my point of view, to persuade him to adopt our principles.

"His wife, a fragile doll in laces and furs, the mother of five strong, healthy children, looked up to her husband in frank idolatry. Against all the rules of the game of marriage, she would often laughingly assure us, she was falling more and more deeply in love with her husband the longer she lived with him.

"This smugness, this – it seemed to me – pompously displayed family felicity, infuriated me. The husband's unwavering devotion to his attractive wife, his eternal solicitude for her health, irritated me to the verge of malice. I would purposely say humiliating, insulting things about the superficiality of liberalism. I scoffed at the sated happiness of the bourgeoisie and the triviality of its existence. More than once I reduced the charming, impressionable little Lydia Andrejevna to hysterical tears by a recital of episodes I had seen and experienced.

"'Why do you do that?' the engineer would ask me, reproachfully, but the look in his eyes was admiring.

"My hatred for them both tempted me strongly to commit indiscretions, if only to jolt them out of their placid acceptance of life by bringing down the police upon their unsuspecting heads.

"I wanted to leave them, but that was out of the question. Their home was not only a refuge for me, it offered a convenient meeting place in which I could keep in close touch with the work of my comrades. These protested indignantly at the suggestion that I seek some other hiding-place and demanded reasons.

"Why do you associate with them?' my friends wanted to know when I tried to explain. 'Stay away from them.' But that was out of the question. I seemed to be under the spell of a consuming hatred for the smug, handsome figure of my employer, with his rasping voice and his careless walk. I fell into agonies of nervousness when for several days I did not see him. The slightest inattention on his part caused me indescribable anguish.

"Yet we quarreled whenever we met, argued until we were hoarse, and descended to harsh, unkind remarks. To the outsider our ineradicable hatred for one another must have been apparent.

"But in the midst of these quarrels our eyes would meet in a language of their own, a language that neither of us dared to interpret or understand.

"On one occasion Party matters detained me in the suburbs longer than I had expected; when I returned late that night it was M. himself who opened the door for me.

"'Ah, so you have come back. I had already given up all hope.'

"And before I knew what had happened I lay in his arms under a torrent of wild kisses. "Strangely, I was not surprised at the turn our relations had taken. It was as if I had been expecting this to happen long ago....

"When the morning dawned I crept into my room while he remained in the study that often served him as a bedroom when work detained him downstairs later than usual.

"On the following evening, in the presence of others, we argued as vehemently as only implacable antagonists can argue for their deep-rooted convictions. After the guests had left M. invited me to drive with him to the 'Islands,' a popular Petersburg amusement resort. It was in the spring – the season of the white nights. His wife insisted in my going – the idea seemed to amuse her. It never occurred to her to look on me as a possible rival in his affections.

"So the knot of my life was tied.

"It was a time of greatest difficulty for the Party, and I was deeply engrossed in work and responsibilities. I lived blindly from day to day, putting off the final decision as to my future course again and again, exonerating myself in my own eyes by pleading lack of time. Mrs. M. was preparing to leave for the South with her children.

"Perhaps you will find it hard to believe that I thought of my husband with the deepest tenderness and longing during these feverish weeks, and that I was moving heaven and earth to effect his release?

"Had I been asked at that time whom I loved, I would have answered without a moment's hesitation: my husband, my friend. But had I been asked to leave M., I should have preferred to die. He was a stranger to me, and yet so inexpressibly close. I detested his glances, his habits, his mode of life, and yet I loved him with all his weaknesses and follies, in spite of the fact that he lacked every quality that I loved and venerated in man.

"Neither he nor I were happy in our love, yet neither of us could entertain the idea of separation without pain. I could not understand, I still do not understand, what it was that attracted him to me. At that time I had little charm, I did not know how to dress, I was not even interested in clothes. My behavior was harsh and unwomanly. Still, M. loved me, loved me as he had never loved his idolized wife.

"During that entire summer we remained in that deserted house together – a distressing summer, full of contradictions in our feelings for one another. Neither of us found happiness, nor did we attempt to hide our dissatisfaction. Can you understand when I tell you that this very unhappiness brought us nearer to each other than anything else in our peculiar relationship?

"In the early fall I became pregnant. ... An abortion? Neither he nor I could bear the thought.

"I went to my mother.."

Here Olga Sergejewn's letter came to an abrupt stop. It had evidently been written under extreme nervous tension, with frequent interruptions. On official paper she continued with hastily pencilled lines:

"I told my mother everything. I tried to make her see the discord within me, the conflicts between us, tried to make her understand something of what I was suffering – that I loved my husband and that M., too, loved us both – his wife and me.

"My mother listened to me in silence and sat in her bedroom long afterward, thoughtfully studying her cigarette.

"The next morning she came to my room, sat down on the edge of my bed and declared categorically:

"'It is quite plain that you love this M. You must write to Constantin at once.'

" 'But what shall I write?'

"'That you love another, of course. You must leave him no illusions on that score. Believe me, my daughter, pity is misplaced in a situation of this kind. It only means added anguish.'

" 'But I do not pity Constantin. I love him. I have never ceased loving him.'

" 'If that is so, how could you have fallen in love with another,' my mother demanded. 'You are talking utter nonsense.'

" ' It is not nonsense, mother.... That is the tragedy of it...'

"The more I tried to make my mother understand that it was possible for two such passions to exist side by side – deep tenderness, affection and a consciousness of absolute spiritual accord with Constantin on the one hand, and, on the other, the stormy desire for M., whom, as a human being, I neither loved nor respected – the less I succeeded.

"She could not grasp it.

"'If it is only physical desire that you feel for M., you should control yourself. Surely you love Constantin enough to leave this man if that is the case.'

"'Mother, you don't understand! It is more than desire. It is love, a different sort of love from that which I feel for Constantin.... If I knew that M. were in danger I would give my life to save him. If I were asked to give my life for Constantin, I could not do it. Still, I love Constantin. I need him. My soul needs him. Life is cold and empty without him. In that sense I neither love nor respect M.'

"'This is sheer madness,' my mother protested, irritably. But she was at a loss to proceed. She, too, had become confused and uncertain, demanding that I write to Constantin at once, that I leave him and go to the father of my child, only to insist, a few hours later, that I break off this unholy relationship with M.

"For the first time in my life mother and I did not understand each other. It had been a mistake to seek help from her. She insisted on a decision – I must go to one or the other of the men I loved. But I wanted them both – M. as well as Constantin. To me this seemed more human, more correct and more in harmony with the spiritual value of the situation as I saw it.

"In the end I wrote to Constantin and told him of what had happened. Not only the facts, of course, but of the conflicts that were raging in my heart and the doubts that were wracking my soul. At first I received only a brief reply – he would think it over and would try to adjust himself to the new situation. He would write soon. But the few lines were so full of warm affection that I told myself at once: Constantin is not like mother. He will understand.

"He did understand. Far out there in his banishment he shared my feelings and my tortuous doubts. He submitted to the inevitable and in his submission bound my soul that longed for him, that could not live without him, more firmly than before.

"My way was clear. Mother still insisted on a decision and was abjectly unhappy because I continued to receive letters from both M. and Constantin in her name. It was then that she told me of her own tragic experience, hoping, no doubt, that her own example would help me. She suffered keenly from what she called my lack of will-power.

"'It is not like you to show such weakness of character,' she remarked on one of these occasions. 'You are usually so firm that I am at a loss to understand you now. Is it your father's heritage of weakness, I wonder.. .?'

"She steadfastly refused to see that I had already made up my mind, that the fact that I had brought clearness into my relationship with the two men I loved and was determined to take human nature as I found it, was in itself a decision.

"'What of Mrs. M.?' she would ask.' Will you tell her? Do you expect her to understand your point of view?'

" 'No,' I admitted.'I regret to say that she would probably fail to understand. She must not be told. But there has never been that spiritual bond between her and her husband that unites me with Constantin. He loves her as one loves a fragile, enchanting toy. She will lose nothing through his love for me.'

"This made my mother thoroughly angry. She compared my ideas of marital relationship to the frivolous lightness of a Parisian boheme.

"That spring I gave birth to a daughter. M. was with us during the weeks of my confinement and these weeks with him in the home of my mother were the happiest weeks of my life.

"Between mother and M. there sprang up a friendly understanding at once. She became fonder of him than she had ever been of Constantin, and was consequently more than ever determined that I should leave the latter to go to the father of my child.

"Somehow, however, mother's insistence defeated its own purpose. It was as if mother and M. were standing in one camp while Constantin and I were arrayed against them in the other. Possibly it was the cultured woman in mother, the Narodniki, that was so irresistibly attracted to this representative of the liberal bourgeoisie. Spiritually she certainly was closer to him than I could ever hope to be, and this very alliance drove me precipitously to defend my side, the side of the revolutionary proletariat. Life without Constantin – I felt it with increased clearness at this time – would be unbearably lonely.

"Arrest and banishment decided my course for the time. I was torn from my mother's home; my daughter remained in her grandmother's care. I continued to correspond with both M. and Constantin, until at last I succeeded in meeting Constantin once more.

"To my mother's horror we lived together – lived together without dramatic scenes of reconciliation, without forgiveness – naturally, joyously as only two human beings perfectly attuned spiritually can live. My mother rushed to M.'s defense. I was ruining his life and my own, she insisted, because of some quixotic conception of marital duty, out of a mistaken sense of pity for a man whom I had ceased to love. M. wrote letter after letter, insisting that I return to him. The last of these epistles was in the nature of an ultimatum. After that he stopped writing altogether. I remained with Constantin.

"Spring came, and with it the spring-time of Liberalism and banquets under the patronizing eye of Swiatopolk-Mirski. We were permitted to return to Russia, and fate led me once more to Petersburg. A meeting with M. was inevitable. Shall I deny it? I wanted to meet him, and sought an opportunity to cross his path.

"We met and it seemed as if the three years of separation had never been. The same delirious joy, the same agony, the same strangeness, the same doubts, the same consuming flame of passionate love. I was aghast at the power with which this infatuation held us in its grip, particularly when M., in the reckless madness of a newly inflamed passion, determined to break with his wife to clear the way for a legal union between us. I still resisted, for he had never ceased to be, spiritually, an alien to me. The political struggle that had become the breath of life to me was entering upon a new phase, that each day deepened the abyss that separated the two Parties. Three years ago our heated discussions had not gone beyond theoretical dispute. Now they had become the very essence of Party activity – to me the very root of existence.

"M., on the other hand, had drifted so far away from the daily struggle of the masses that he was loath to cast his lot with the 'Liberators.' When I spoke of the things that were nearest to my heart I spoke in a language he no longer understood. After each meeting I despised myself for my weakness and ate out my heart for him when I had not seen him for a few days ... M. frankly hated my activity. He despised the Bolsheviki and tried everything in his power to win me over to his point of view. I, on the other hand, despised the bourgeoisie and hated the bourgeois liberal in him, but I could not tear myself away from him. There was something maternal in my feeling for him. It always seemed to me that he was making himself appear worse than he actually was, that I must help him find himself, that I must not desert him at this critical period of political reorientation.

"So I suffered for months until Constantin's arrival put an end to my irresolution. This time my confession hurt him cruelly, and bitter jealousy threatened to batter down his carefully reared defenses. But we continued to live together – as friends. M., however, was implacable. He raged. He implored me to leave Constantin and refused to believe me when I assured him that our relations were purely friendly. It took all my influence to prevent an open rupture with his wife. ... There was not a day that did not bring new recriminations and new suffering. Then came that awful day when M., insane with jealousy, forced his entrance into our home and demanded that I leave the city with him at once, threatening to leave me forever if I did not consent. I refused, and we parted in bitter enmity. I suffered unspeakably, and Constantin saw how I suffered ~but was unable to help me. How could he, who was so frankly jubilant over the turn matters had taken, be expected to share my sorrow?

"For the first time in my life I was incapable of work. In my distraught state of mind serious application was out of the question.

"A tragic letter from M. brought my mother to the scene, accompanied by my little daughter. She insisted that I put an end to this wretched affair once and for all by coming to some definite decision.

"'I have decided, long ago,' I told her.

"'In that case,' she answered angrily, 'you have no right to live with Constantin. I believe you when you tell me that you are not living as man and wife. But if that is the case, why keep up appearances? Why should M. be made to suffer so?'

"'You won't understand that, mother. I must stay with Constantin.'

"In vain she protested. M.'s letters had informed her of what had transpired during the last ten months and I had also told her something of my sufferings.

"'Your love for M. has its rights,' she insisted. 'You rob it of its sanctity by your quibbling and analyzing. Why do you persist in torturing yourself? One must have the courage to overcome hindrances when love calls – even this hindrance of political convictions. You will make a Marxist of M. His love for you is so strong that he will do anything for you. You are by far stronger than he.'

"Mother's attempts at conversion usually produced the opposite effect. They made it clear to me that I could not possibly tie my life to that of M. For me such a union would have meant spiritual bankruptcy; M.'s convictions and mine were irreconcilable.

"To please mother I consented to meet him once more. She even tried to use the child to influence my decision. But the meeting resulted only in renewed bitterness and misunderstanding.

"Then came the year 1905, the historic year of the first Russian revolution. Events crowded each other with elemental force, tearing us along with them in their rushing torrent, forcing all personal problems and feelings into the background. Our own little insignificant misfortunes sank in the ocean of a nation's upheaval. The Revolution tossed us hither and thither. I traveled to the South, Constantin left the country, mother hastened back to her own province.

"We worked, we hoped, we trembled, we battled, we fought.

"Then came the period of reaction, and we had even less time than before to think of personal matters.

"The fall of 1908 had come before fate once more led my path across that of M., on this occasion in a little factory town. Reaction was flaunting its victory; the Revolution was choked in its own blood. I was again 'illegal.' After a brief flare of radicalism under the engulfing experience of the tremendous uplift of 1905, M. had abandoned his connection with the revolutionary movement completely and was embarked on a meteoric career in the world of finance and industry. He had become an important personage – so important that the government papers announced his coming and going. I knew that he was in the city and the mere awareness of his presence sufficed to throw me into a state of excitement that made work almost impossible. I avoided him nevertheless, dreading the suffering that would be the inevitable outcome of a new encounter. Then the police discovered my whereabouts, and only the timely warning of my comrades saved me from arrest.

"I fled for safety at once, not so much for myself as to protect the papers that had been entrusted to my care. At my wit's end, a possible refuge occurred to me: the home of M. I went to him. He came at once when the servant took in my name, and greeted me with every evidence of glad welcome. But when we were alone, and I told him of the purpose of my coming, he lost his head in terror. There was neither love nor friendship in the eyes that looked at me then. We stood face to face – two strangers. Perhaps he, too, was asking himself at that moment: is it possible that I once loved this woman? To me this seemed not M., but some distant relative who bore his features. There was merely a trace of the face I had loved – that was all.

"I regretted having come, but decided to persist in my original intention, to safeguard the papers I carried. Let this bourgeois rage at me! It would do him good to lose a bit of his fat.

"He tried politely to indicate that my presence would inconvenience him, but I pretended not to understand the cause of his embarrassment and appealed to him in the name of old friendship.

"There was no way out of it; he had to put me up for the night. I can only imagine how badly he must have slept that night. I myself rested famously.

"It hardly occurred to me that the man who was sleeping (or, what was more likely, trying to sleep) two doors away was the one whose footsteps, whose laughter, whose mere glance had sufficed to send my blood in riotous surges through my heart, whose presence I had once felt in the remotest corners of the house. In this night I knew: our love was dead. Only a vague feeling of emptiness – and my little daughter – remained. He had not even asked about her.

"We parted coolly. Neither spoke of meeting again. The past was buried and forgotten.

"But the sequel was stranger and more incomprehensible still. Soon afterward I met Constantin, after a long absence during which he had been working in another part of the country. And toward him, too, I experienced the same feeling of awkward strangeness. I looked at him as if through different eyes. Had these years of stormy upheaval left an impress on each and every one of us that erased the old, familiar countenances? We looked at the events that had transpired from different points of view; we approached the problems of the present from new angles; we looked into the future from varying backgrounds of experience.

"Constantin had gone through a series of bitter disappointments. Grave differences with the party, fought out in some cases in a spirit of acrimonious personal animosity, had dampened his old enthusiasm. His faith in the future of the Revolution had broken down under the weight of the mistakes that had been made and the injustice that had been meted out to him. He saw only stagnation for years to come, and counseled prudence and circumspection. In his speech and in his moods I recognized a man weary of struggle. He was drifting, unconsciously as yet, but none the less surely, out of the movement into some quiet haven of refuge.

"I, on the other hand, was at the zenith of my powers. The Revolution, far from discouraging, had uplifted and inspired me. I was growing in strength and felt capable of doing the impossible in those difficult years. I met Constantin with the warmth of friendly affection that I had always felt for him. We would work together as we had always done. But it was impossible. We had drifted too far apart.

"Taking advantage of an opportunity to leave the country – illegally of course – I went abroad to take up the study of chemistry where I had left it to obey the call of the Revolution. By that time Constantin and I had drifted so far apart that I made no attempt to see him before I left. After that he lost all touch with the movement. During the war he taught in a boys' school as a reserve officer. He actively sabotaged the Soviets. Later, I heard, he met his death during a White Guard uprising.

"M., too, joined the counter-revolutionists, and managed to get out of the country only just in ti~ne to flee from the avenging hand of the proletariat. For me both of them had long ceased to exist, and their fate left me unmoved.

"'Is this her tragedy?' you ask, as you read this endlessly long biography? Old stories, these...old and forgotten.

"But you must know the woman I am and have been to judge me now. I preceded my story with this confession of my past that you may know that I am a woman like others, if I may state it thus baldly, and that I am well able to comprehend the complications that may arise in the human soul.

"But this that I am living through now, with my daughter ... with all the patience and the faith that I can muster, I cannot understand.

"I repeat, I sometimes console myself with the thought that I do not understand Genia, just as my mother, Marja Stepanowna, could not understand me. But more often it seems to me simply a disgusting lack of self-respect and discipline, and I shudder in horror. Help me to find my way....scold me, if I deserve a scolding, tell me if I am a reactionary, if it is true that this new life has created a new philosophy of love and existence.

"I can write no more to-day. Allow me to come to you. Now that you know the past it will be easier and less embarrassing to speak to you of this new difficulty that fate has thrust upon me, for which, I can find no solution. Please call No. 20751, Party 3, and tell me when I can see you alone. The evening is most convenient for me, as late as you care to arrange it. I am confidently expecting to hear from you.

"With fraternal greetings,

"Olga Wasselowskaya."

A few days later, at the hour we had decided upon when I telephoned to her, Olga Sergejewna came to see me. She seemed paler and thinner than when I had seen her last and her eyes were unsteady.

There was something infinitely attractive, in spite of her reserve and her quiet taciturnity, about this simply dressed, plainly coiffed woman – the charm of a finished personality. We briefly discussed current political problems as she visibly struggled for poise; I tried in vain to fit this woman, who occupied so important a position in the industrial organization of the country, into the picture her letter had presented.

"But, let us, please, come at once to the personal matter that brings me here to-day," Olga Sergejewna interrupted me with that clear impersonal note in her voice that reminded one so strongly of Marja Stepanowna. "I want to speak to you concerning my daughter. I want you to tell me what you think of her. Perhaps I really do not understand. Perhaps this is another of the inevitable tragedies between parent and child, perhaps something else – perversity, the product of abnormal conditions under which Genia was born and raised. The child was pushed from pillar to post during all of her early childhood years. First her grandmother, then I, and later friends took care of her. During the first years of the Revolution she lived in the factory, went to the front, nursed the wounded, and, of course, heard and saw many things that girls of her age in my time knew nothing about. Perhaps it is better so ... one should know life as it is. On the other hand...

"These last weeks have robbed me of my self-assurance, so that I no longer know what is right and what is wrong. I used to rejoice in the fact that Genia was growing up unhampered by prejudices, that she looked at life with open eyes, that she was able to cope with any situation she might be called upon to meet, that she was not stricken with that spinelessness that so often infests the intellectuals of our country. There is no deceit in her, she is of a'naive truthfulness. But now....

"Let me tell you....

"You know that I met Comrade Rjabkow in Davos and nursed him back to health. Since then we have been living as man and wife although I am considerably older than he. In a way, he is my pupil. But during the seven years of our life together there has been only harmony and friendliness between us. We returned together in 1917, and together we threw ourselves, with everything we had to give, into the fight for the Soviets.

"You know Comrade Rjabkow. An uncompromising proletarian – he could not be otherwise. I need not speak of the services he has rendered. There can be only one opinion.

"He suffers from tuberculosis and I have lavished upon him all the care I could give. It has always seemed to me that there was not the tiniest cloud to dim our friendship. Everything was so bright, so peaceful, so clear...

"When we settled in Moscow last year I took Genia to live with me. She was only twenty years old, but had been actively engaged in party work for some time, firm and untiring, as passionately devoted to her work as her grandmother was. In her district she is regarded, in spite of her youth, as a valuable asset to the movement.

"You know what living conditions are in Moscow – one room for three of us. It is inconvenient, of course, but just now one must put up with these discomforts as best one can. After all, we are seldom at home. I am often away for weeks at a time on extended inspection tours through our factories.

"At first I was somewhat uncertain as to the effect our long separation might have had on our relations to each other. We became close friends almost at once. Yes, friends, for there is nothing maternal in my feelings toward her. In her I found my youth again, in her fervor and in her laughter. Her very self-confidence was wholesome and infectious.

"To my great delight Comrade Rjabkow and she were on good terms immediately. I had feared that they might not like one another. He went with her to the theater, to meetings and to Congress openings. Our life together was easy, friendly. Andrei's health, too, was improving; his disease was making itself less noticeably felt.

"That is how we lived, until this happened....

Olga Sergejewna hesitated, as if it were difficult for her to continue. She looked past my shoulder out of the window and was silent.

"I can guess what happened, Olga Sergejewna. It was inevitable. Genia and Comrade Rjabkow lost their heads. But what is there in that which is so unbearable and so degrading? I should think that you would understand."

"But it is not that. Of course I should understand that," Olga Sergejewna interrupted me. "It is what I saw afterward in their souls, in his and in Genia's.. ."

"What was this you saw?"

"This heartlessness, this self-assurance, this conviction of their right to act as they did ... this this cynicism...do you understand? There was no love, no passion. When I remembered how I suffered, how I struggled to rid myself of the entanglement in which my unfortunate love had enmeshed me! To them it was all a matter of course. If I cannot understand, it is because I am a reactionary. To me it seems that the whole world has fallen into ways of debauch and unrestraint, and incomprehensible licentiousness. Then, again, there are limes when I hesitate. Perhaps, after all perhaps I am reactionary. I recall that my mother could not understand me when I lived through my tragic love. I need your guidance. Help me to find my way."

Olga Sergejewna told me that her daughter had come to her office to beg her mother for ten minutes of her time.

"'Mother, I must speak to you at once. This is the only place I can get hold of you alone.' "

And then, very calmly, without mincing words, she told her mother that she was pregnant. Olga Sergejewna was horrified.

"'But who?' she demanded.

(" 'I don't know,' " the daughter had answered. Believing that her daughter hesitated to tell her the name of the man involved, the mother questioned no further, but there was something in the answer, the nonchalance with which it was given, that struck her to the heart.

Genia had come to her mother for advice. She intended to undergo an abortion...the law legalizing the interruption of pregnancies had just been passed. "With whom would she have to make the necessary arrangements? Would her mother give her letters of introduction? She did not want a child."

"'I have no time for a child now.' "

Olga Sergejewna did not mention Genia's predicament to her husband. She considered that her daughter's personal affair. If she herself chose to tell him ... but a vague discomfort oppressed her. There was a subconscious unrest that robbed her of her peace of mind. Doubts began to take form, little episodes out of their life together presented themselves from a point of view she had never visualized before.

She heartily despised herself for her suspicions and tried to put them out of her mind. But they persisted and disturbed her work. She must know – she must know, if only to assure herself of their groundlessness. Pretending illness, she left a meeting one evening when she knew that her daughter and her husband were alone at home together, and hastened home to find her daughter in his arms.

"You understand, I am sure. It was not the fact that they were together, but what followed that outraged me so. Andrei took his cap and left the house without a word. Genia waited for me to speak.

"'Why did you not tell me that Andrei was the cause of your pregnancy?'

"Genia answered quietly: 'I can only repeat what I told you then – that I did not know. It may have been Andrei, it may have been another comrade. You do not know him.'

"Can you understand that I was dumbfounded? Genia told me then that she had had sexual relations years ago, while she was at the front. That was a blow for me. I had regarded her as a child. But I could understand. But when Genia told me that she had loved none of these men! That she had never loved!

"'But then, why, Genia?' I asked her.'Is the physical desire so strong in you that you cannot resist. You are so young. Surely that is not normal.'

"'How can I make you understand, mother? I have never had what you call physical desire, or, at least, not until I met the other man with whom I have been these last months. But that is over. I did like him, though, and I felt that he was very fond of me. So it was all simple enough. It put neither of us under any obligations. I can't understand, mother, why you should let all this excite you so. If I had sold myself, or if someone had taken me against my will.... But I was ready to give myself. We were together as long as we cared for one another. When our friendship ceased to gratify us, we parted. Neither of us lost anything. Of course, this pregnancy is unfortunate – I shall have to stop work for two or three weeks. But that was my own fault. I shall have to be more prudent in the future.' "

She had taken two men at the same time, although she loved neither of them. The affair with Andrei had come about quite accidentally. As a matter of fact, the other man had attracted her much more strongly than Andrei, but he was often irritating. He insisted on treating her as if she were a child, and refused to take her seriously, so that she often came home angry and unhappy. Andrei, on these occasions, had been so kind and sympathetic. He belonged to her, he was her comrade. With Andrei one was always cheerful and happy.

"'And each of the two knew about the other?'

"'Of course. Why should I make a secret of it? Andrei doesn't mind in the least. The other, I'11 admit, was furious, and presented me with an ultimatum. But he soon got over that attitude. I left him, finally, because he was becoming such a bore. He is brutal, and I despise brutality.'

" Olga Sergejewna tried to make her understand the dangers of so superficial an attitude toward life and love and marriage. But Genia refused to see her point of view.

"'Mother, you say that my actions have been vulgar, that one should not give one's self without love. You tell me that my cynicism makes you desperately unhappy. But tell me frankly, mother. If I were your twenty-year-old son who had been at the front, who was living independently, would you be equally indignant if you should hear that he had had relations with women whom he liked? I am not speaking, mind you, of prostitutes and paid love, and of course, not of girls one deceives and betrays. That is dastardly. But women who liked him, and of whom he, too, was fond? Would you be so indignant? Why are you so unhappy, then, over my "immorality?" I assure you I am as human as he would be. I am fully conscious of my duties. I know my responsibility toward the Party. But what have these things, the Party, the Revolution, the White Guard and the collapse of things that you have been speaking of, to do with the fact -that I gave myself to Andrei? You see, mother, to have a child at this time when every one of us is so sorely needed, that would be wrong. I understand that, and I would not become a mother now under any circumstances. But the other. .. ."

"But did you never think of me?" Olga Sergejewna had asked her. "You never thought of what I might think of your relations with Andrei?"

"'But why should that make any difference? You wanted us to be friends. You were happy when you saw that I liked him and he liked me. Where is the border-line of friendship? Why should we be allowed to live together, to have good times together, and not to kiss one another? We have taken nothing that belongs to you. Andrei worships you as he always worshiped you. I have not taken a single spark of the feeling he has for you. That I kissed him .. .? Have you time for him,? Mother, surely you do not want to chain Andrei so firmly to yourself that he may not enjoy life while you are away! That is not love. That is a selfish desire for possession. Grandmother's bourgeois training speaks in you there. That is unjust. You lived as you pleased when you were younger. Why not Andrei?' "

Olga Sergejewna was pained and indignant because neither her daughter nor Andrei showed a spark of regret over what had happened. They regarded it all as perfectly commonplace and matter of course – she had the feeling that Genia and Andrei considered themselves extremely forbearing and tolerant as they tried to enlighten her with a few superficial phrases. They evidently regretted what had happened, if regret it they did, only because it displeased Olga Sergejewna, of whom they were both exceedingly fond; in their heart of hearts there was not the slightest consciousness of wrongdoing. They assured her again and again, separately and together, that nothing had changed their love for her, that neither of them would dream of intentionally hurting her. If this was the way she felt about it, they assured her, they would, of course, abstain from all further relations. In this crisis Olga Sergejewna decided to come to me, to ask for advice and assistance.

We discussed the matter long and earnestly. How was one to take this new generation? Was this unrestrained licentiousness that knew no law but its own desires, or honest conviction born out of a new life, the product of the problems that a new, growing state represented? New morals....

"What grieves me most of all," said Olga Sergejewna, supporting her head on the graceful hand that reminded me so much of Marja Stepanowna, "is that it is all so passionless and unfeeling. This cold, calculating weighing of right and wrong, as if they were old men and women ... this complete lack of sentiment. If Genia loved Andrei, or if he loved her, I would have understood. I would have suffered cruelly, for I love Andrei with all my heart, but without this nausea and agony. How can I tell you what I feel, the resentment I bear against both of them for betraying me when I trusted them so absolutely? How could they who profess to love me with all their hearts, have had so little consideration for what they must have known I would suffer? Don't misunderstand me. I feel that persons capable of disregarding every human consideration as they have done are, in the very nature of things, incapable of love. Both assure me that they love me, but is that love which wounds the deepest and holiest feelings of the object of its tenderness so lightly, so without pity and without regret? I can see nothing but unfeeling dullness and hardness of heart. ... I cannot understand them....

"When I reproached Genia, she answered, 'But mother, you kept your relations with my father from his wife. Was not that, too, a living lie?'

"But there is a great difference that Genia either cannot or will not understand. I never loved M.'s wife. She was a stranger to me. I had nothing in common with her, and I spared her feelings because it was the humane thing to do. And then I loved M. How I loved him! Not less than his wife – ah, no, much, much more. These feelings gave me the right to take him, the strength of my love and the greatness of my suffering were my justification. But here there is nothing – neither love, nor suffering, neither joy nor regret ... nothing but the cold conviction of their right to pluck pleasure, pow here, now there, like flowers in the garden of life, wherever and whenever one finds them. That is what terrifies me. Without warmth, without even the most elementary feeling for one another, without the goodness of heart that places the feelings of those one loves above everything else ... is that Communism?"

Involuntarily I laughed at her illogical conclusion, and Olga Sergejewna admitted, a little shamefacedly, that her conclusions were, here at least, hardly justified by the situation under discussion.

We parted after having decided that I should speak to Genia herself on the following day.

Genia came to me the next morning, the only part of the day, she explained, that belonged to her. The afternoon and evening were taken up by her work in the district.

She was tall and slender with an intense little face and a way of carrying her head that recalled her grandmother's self-assured posture. A little pale, with dark rings under her eyes. Her hands cold and moist. Evidently she had not yet entirely recovered from the effects of her operation.

Her manner was pleasing, simple and comradely.

"I suppose you disapprove, like mother, because I give myself without falling in love. But one must have time to fall in love. I have read novels and I know how love takes possession of one's faculties to the exclusion of everything else. But I have no time. Our activity in the district has taken hold of us all so completely that none of us has had time to think of anything else, of personal matters. We run from one task to another. There are times when there is a little less to do ... time enough to notice that this one or that is a little more attractive t~an the rest. But before it can become more than a passing fancy, we are off again, to new work. We never get beyond the first stages of comradely affection. This one is called to the front, that one is sent away. New excitement, new impressions, and we forget.

So we simply take advantage of the few short hours of release that are granted us there is nothing binding, no responsibility....Of course, there is always the danger of contracting disease. But no man will lie to you about that – no comrade, that is – if you look straight into his eyes and ask for the truth. I have had two such experiences. One was very fond of me – sometimes I think he really loved me. I could see that it was hard for him to confess. But we never came together. He knew that I would never have forgiven that."

Genia's attractive, wide-open eyes fairly radiated honesty and frankness.

"But, tell me, Comrade Genia," I interrupted her, "why didn't you tell your mother at once. Why did you enter into clandestine relations with Andrei behind her back, and continue them for months until she accidentally discovered the truth?" "Simply because I felt that they did not concern her.... If Andrei and I had loved one another I would have told mother about it at once, of course, or, what is more likely, I would simply have disappeared out of her life. I did not want her to be unhappy. But there was nothing in our relations with one another that changed Andrei's feelings for her in the least. What she refuses to see is this that if it had not been I, it would have been another. Does she believe that she can chain Andrei so firmly to herself that he will see no other human being, that he will enter upon no other human relationship?

I, for one, cannot understand that sort of love. That I am on friendly terms with Andrei, that he confides in me more than he does in her, that he is inwardly closer, nearer to me than he is to her – all that does not disturb mother in the least. But that he has kissed me means that I have taken him from her. Yet mother herself has no time for him. Believe me, she has no time. In age, too, Andrei is much closer to my generation than he is to hers. Our tastes are alike. It is so natural that we two should come together."

"Perhaps you are not clear as to your feelings for him," I suggested. "Are you sure that you do not love Andrei?"

Genia shook her head vigorously.

"I have never felt what you call love, but I am sure that what I feel for Andrei is not love. Those who love want to he together, they burn to fulfill each other's slightest wish, they think of each other, they worry about each other's well-being. ... If Andrei were to propose that I should live with him forever, I would decline with thanks. I enjoy his company, and I feel happy and cheerful when I am with him. He is a splendid comrade, and I feel sorry for him – he is so delicate, so fine and ethereal, as mother always says. But he becomes uninteresting ... on the whole I prefer Abrascha. But love? No, I don't love him, either, although for a time he had a certain power over me. There was a time when I simply had to do as he asked, because I couldn't bear to see him unhappy. He was irresistible."

Genia drew up her eyebrows and became thoughtful.

"Mother is angry when I say that I feel no love for either of them. She says it is immoral for one of my age to give herself without love. But I believe she is wrong. I mean, it is simpler and better so. I remember my childhood very well, those years when mother vascillated between Constantin and my father, how desperate she was, how she tortured herself and the others as well. How they all suffered! Constantin! Grandmother! I can still hear grandmother's voice demanding that mother come to some decision.'Don't be cowardly,' she used to say.'Choose and make up your mind!' But mother could not decide because she loved them both, and they both loved her. And so they loved and tortured one another until they parted as enemies. I will not part from my friends in enmity. It is all over and I no longer care, and that is all there is to it. When a friend begins to show signs of jealousy I always remember the misery that mother went through, Constantin's jealousy and father's... and then I tell myself...'You won't go through anything like that. They will have to understand at the outset that I belong to no one but myself.' "

"And you have really never loved anyone? I can't believe that. You describe love so well. One doesn't get understanding like this from books alone."

"What makes you think that I have never loved anyone?" Genia asked in honest astonishment. "I merely said that I never loved any of the men with whom I have been intimate."

"Whom do you love, then? Is it impertinent to ask?"

"Whom? Well, above all, and more than anyone else in the world – my mother. There is no one like her. In a sense, she is more to me than Lenin. There is something about her ... I don't believe I could live without her. Her happiness means more to me than anything else in the world."

"Yet you sacrificed her happiness and hurt her unspeakably. How do you reconcile that with what you have just said?"

"You see," Genia answered thoughtfully, "if I had thought, if I had known that mother would take it like this, that it would pain her so, I believe, in fact I am sure, that I would not have done it. But I always regarded mother as far above such things. Now I see that I was mistaken, and I am more sorry than I can tell you, more unhappy than she will ever understand."

There were tears in Genia's eyes, the first since our interview began. She wiped them from her eyes with her finger-tips, stealthily, so I might not see.

"I would give my life for my mother. That is no mere phrase. Mother could tell you about the time when we thought she was stricken with typhus.... Do you know what hurt me more than anything else? I am so sorry to have hurt her, and so angry at myself for not having realized how she would feel about it. I would give – I don't know what – if I could undo what I have done, but in my heart of hearts I can't help but feel that there was nothing wrong in what happened between Andrei and myself. One must look at it from a different point of view, and if mother would only try to see it as I do, without prejudice, she would understand, I am sure. I love mother as much as ever, but I can't help feeling that she is wrong, and that is what hurts most of all. I always looked upon her as infallible, and now that faith in her wisdom has been shaken. How can I believe, after this, that mother stands above us all, that she knows everything and understands everything? Do you know how that hurts? I must not stop loving my mother. I mustn't lose my faith in her, or how shall I keep my faith in others? You can't conceive how this thought upsets me.., not the regret that mother insists I must feel, but the doubts and questions that all this has brought to my mind. .. ."

Great tears were flowing down Genia's cheeks now, unashamed, and were leaving wet traces on her worn black waist. Then she grew calmer and we discussed the situation in all its phases. What, above all, was to be done?

Genia was determined to leave her mother's quarters for a "home" in which most of her colleagues had taken quarters. She would move there in a few days. But how were her mother and Andrei to get along without her? They were so used to having her attend to their wants.

"Mother will never get enough to eat," she lamented. "Unless there is someone to look after her, to place her meals before her, she will go about all day without eating. And Andrei is no better. Honestly, I don't know how they are to get along without me. They are like children, both of them. Of course, I will go there every day and do what I can for them. But at best that will be a makeshift arrangement, for I am busy. It is all so much more simple when we live together."

She sighed. Her voice had a maternal sound. Her mother and Andrei were children, younger sisters and brothers who needed her protection.

"I am so glad," I assured her when she rose to leave," that I can comfort your mother, that I shall be able to tell her how much you love her. She felt so deeply that you were incapable of real affection, of the deeper, stronger and healthier feelings that move men and women to true greatness, that you were all principles and convictions."

Genia smiled.

"You may reassure mother on that score.... I am sure the time will come when I, too, will do foolish things because I love someone too deeply to be reasonable. I am her daughter, after all, and grandmother's grandchild. And there are those I love – oh, how I love them. ... Not only mother... Lenin, for instance. Please, don't smile. I love him more deeply than any one of those whom I have liked for a passing moment. When I know that I am to see him, that I am to hear his voice, I am absolutely beside myself for days. I could die for him. Then there is Comrade Gerassim, the secretary of our district. Do you know him? What a man! I love him ... honestly. I would submit to his will even if I knew he was wrong, because I know that his intentions are so fine and so good.... A year ago ... perhaps you remember that infamous intrigue they launched against him?... I couldn't sleep at night. Oh, but we fought for him. We set the entire district in motion. Yes, I love him," Genia finished with conviction, as if she had, tested her own capacity for feeling to her own satisfaction.

"But I must run. There is so much to do. I have been made secretary of our nucleus," she said with visible pride. "That means more work than ever. Oh, life could be so beautiful, if only mother would try to understand."

Another deep, childish sigh.

"You will convince mother, won't you, that Andrei belongs to her as much as ever. He belongs entirely to her. I don't need him. ... Not in the least. Do you think she will understand? Will she go on loving me? I am so afraid. ... I can't live without mother and her love. When I think of how her wonderful energy and her glorious work have suffered from the excitement she has undergone, because of her love ... no, I will never love as mother loved.... How can one work, if one loses one's self like that?"

With this question Genia disappeared behind the door. I remained standing where I had taken leave of her, trying to find an answer to the question she and her mother had put before me. Who is right? Will the future show that the new class, the new youth with its new experiences and its new conceptions and feelings, is on the road to true happiness?

The Soviet Woman – a Full and Equal Citizen of Her Country (1946)

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It is a well-known fact that the Soviet Union has achieved exceptional successes in drawing women into the active construction of the state. This generally accepted truth is not disputed even by our enemies. The Soviet woman is a full and equal citizen of her country. In opening up to women access to every sphere of creative activity, our state has simultaneously ensured all the conditions necessary for her to fulfil her natural obligation – that of being a mother bringing up her children and mistress of her home.

From the very beginning, Soviet law recognised that motherhood is not a private matter, but the social duty of the active and equal woman citizen. This proposition is enshrined in the Constitution. The Soviet Union has solved one of the most important and complex of problems how to make active use of female labour in any area without this being to the detriment of motherhood.

A great deal of attention has been given to the organisation of public canteens, kindergartens, Young Pioneer camps, playgrounds and creches – those institutions which, as Lenin wrote, facilitate in practice the emancipation of women and are able, in practice, to reduce the female inequality vis-a-vis men. More than seven thousand women's and children's consultation centres have been established in the USSR, of which half are in rural areas. Over 20 thousand creches have been organised. It should be pointed out here that in tsarist Russia in 1913 there existed only 19 creches and 25 kindergartens, and even these were not maintained by the state, but by philanthropic organisations.

The Soviet state provides increasing material assistance to mothers. Women receive allowances and paid leave before and after the birth of the child and their post is kept open for them until they return from leave.

Large and one-parent families receive state allowances to help them provide for and bring up their children. In 1945 the state paid out more than two thousand million roubles in such allowances. The title 'Mother-Heroine' has been awarded to more than 10 thousand women in the RSFSR alone, while the order of 'Maternal Glory' and the 'Medal of Motherhood' have been awarded to 1,100 thousand women.

Soviet women have justified the trust and concern shown to them by their state. They have shown a high degree of heroism both in peaceful, creative labour before the war, during the years of armed battle against the nazi invaders, and now, in the efforts to fulfil the monumental tasks set by the new five-year plan. Many branches of industry in which female labour is predominant are among the first to fulfil their plans. Equally worthy of mention are the enormous achievements of the Soviet peasant women, who bore on their shoulders the greater part of the burden of agricultural labour during the war years.

Our women have mastered professions that have long been considered the exclusive domain of men. There are women engine-drivers, women mechanics, women lathe operators, women fitters, well-qualified women workers in charge of the most complex mechanisms.

The women of the Soviet Union work on an equal footing with men to advance science, culture and the arts; they occupy an outstanding place in the national education and health services.

In a country where, 30 years ago, out of 2,300 thousand working women 1,300 thousand worked as servants in the towns and 750 thousand as farm labourers in the countryside, in a country where there were almost no women engineers, almost no scientists, and appointment to a teaching post was accompanied by conditions insulting to female dignity, in that country there are now 750 thousand women teachers, 100 thousand women doctors, and 250 thousand women engineers. Women make up one half of the student body in institutions of higher education. Over 33 thousand women are working in laboratories and in research institutes, 25 thousand women have academic titles and degrees, and 166 women have been awarded the State Prize for their achievements in science and work.

The women of the Soviet Union are implementing their political rights in practice. The Supreme Soviet of the USSR has 277 women deputies, while 256 thousand women have been elected to rural, urban, regional and republican organs of state power...

The women of the Soviet Union do not have to demand from their government the right to work, the right to education, the right to the protection of motherhood. The state itself, the government itself, draws women into work, giving them wide access to every sphere of social life, assisting and rewarding mothers.

During the years of invasion by nazi aggressors, Soviet women, and the women of other democratic countries, saw with their own eyes the need to wage a tireless battle against nazism until every trace of it had been removed. Only this will spare the world the threat of new wars.

The struggle for democracy and lasting peace, the struggle against reaction and fascism, is the main task we face today. To cut women off from this basic and important task, to attempt to confine them within 'purely female', feminist organisations, can only weaken the women's democratic movement. Only the victory of democracy can ensure women equality.

We, the women of the Land of Soviets, are devoting all our energy to creative labour, to the fulfilment of the monumental tasks set by the five-year plan, knowing that in so doing we are strengthening the bulwark of peace throughout the world – the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

At the same time we must be on the alert for intrigues by the reactionaries and expose their plans and intentions, their attempts to divide the ranks of democracy.

The unity of all the forces of democracy is our most reliable weapon in the struggle against reaction, in the struggle for freedom and peace throughout the world.

Lenin Thought of Both Great and Small (1946)

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Lenin's ability to think about the great and important, while not forgetting the small details of everyday life, always amazed me. I was amazed that, while engaged in creating a totally new kind of state, he never missed the opportunity to remind us, even in relation to small details, of the fact that the state, and particularly a socialist state, requires accountkeeping and order. I will cite one example.

It was December, 1917. Christmas was approaching, but at Smolny no-one was thinking of holidays. We were working non-stop. Winter had still not set in properly, sleet was falling and a cold northerly wind was blowing along the Neva.

Nadezhda Konstantinovna was trying to persuade Vladimir Ilyich to leave town for a few days over Christmas. She argued that he needed a respite from work, he was sleeping badly and was clearly suffering from fatigue.

The doctor who ran the Halila sanatorium in Finland, on the Karelian Isthmus, came to see me at the People's Commissariat for Welfare and told me that his sanatorium had a new private residence, warm and well-lit, which he would be more than willing to put at Lenin's disposal. Vladimir Ilyich, however, brushed aside all our arguments. Although we told him that there was a magnificent forest nearby where one could go hunting as much as one wished, Vladimir Ilyich would only answer: 'Hunting is a fine thing, but we have no end of work to do. True, we have already made a start, but even the Bolsheviks cannot organise a new state in two months. That will take ten years at least.'

Nadezhda Konstantinovna interrupted him: 'What? Does that mean you are going to spend all those years sitting at your desk without a break?' 'Well, we'll see how things are later on,' was Lenin's reply.

However, a few days later it occurred to Vladimir Ilyich that if he went away for a few days, he would manage to write a complete new work that he could not find time for at Smolny. This idea so took hold of him that the following morning he said to Nadezhda Konstantinovna: 'If Kollontai at the People's Commissariat really does have a private residence in a forest where no one will disturb me, then I am willing to go.

On the morning of 24 December I went to the Finlyandsky Station to see Vladimir Ilyich off. He, Nadezhda Konstantinovna and Maria Ilyinichna had only just got into their compartment. Vladimir Ilyich sat beside the window, right in the corner of the carriage, in order to be less noticeable. Maria Ilyinichna sat beside him, and Nadezhda Konstantinovna sat opposite. Vladimir Ilyich thought it would be safer if he went in an ordinary passenger compartment with two Red Army soldiers and a trusted Finnish comrade.

Vladimir Ilyich was wearing his old autumn coat that he had been wearing when he came back from abroad, and also, despite the keen frost, a felt hat. A comrade carrying three fur-coats and a fur hat with earflaps followed me into the compartment.'You can put these on,' I said to Vladimir Ilyich,'when you have to cross open fields in a horse-drawn sleigh, for then, naturally, it will be very cold, and it is a long way from the station to the sanatorium. The fur-coats, I added, are from the stores of the People's Commissariat.' 'That is evident,' said Vladimir Ilyich, opening one of the furcoats, on the inside of which was sewn the number of the storehouse and the item. 'I suppose you did this so that we should not leave the coats behind? State goods like book-keeping, and that is as it should be.

Vladimir Ilyich wanted me to go with them, but I was detained by urgent business at the People's Commissariat, mainly the organisation of aid for mothers and young children. I promised to join them later.

Vladimir Ilyich suddenly remembered that he had no Finnish money. 'It would be a help if you could get hold of at least 100 Finnish marks to pay the porter at the station, and to cover any other minor expenses.'

I ran to the currency exchange desk, but I had only a small amount of money with me, not enough to get even 100 Finnish marks.

Vladimir Ilyich said: 'So, the house stands alone and is well-heated, you say, and one can go hunting in the forest. And what if there are hares?' I answered, that I could not promise hares, but that there were certain to be squirrels. 'Hmm, shooting squirrels is a children's pastime.' Nadezhda Konstantinovna added: 'If Vladimir Ilyich will only go for walks in the forest, and not spend the whole three days sitting at his desk.' 'But there even the air inside will be cleaner,' Vladimir Ilyich interrupted her.

The train started to pull out of the station. No-one else on the platform realised that the Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars was travelling as an ordinary 2nd-class passenger.

A few days later, Vladimir Ilyich was back at work at Smolny.

I got a handwritten note from Vladimir Ilyich:

'I thank you for the fur-coats from the stocks of your People's Commissariat, which I return to you safe and sound. They came in very useful, for we were caught in a snowstorm. Halila itself was very pleasant indeed. I am not sending you any Finnish marks as yet, but I have worked out roughly how much it comes to in Russian money – 83 roubles – and I enclose them with this note. I know that you have not got much money to spare. Yours, Lenin.

It was typical of Vladimir Ilyich that, amidst all his enormous problems of state, he could remember such details and always find time to be an attentive comrade.