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theWomanQuestion,
and Aleksandra
Bolshevism,
Kollontai
293
294
BeatriceBrodsky
Farnsworth
and Aleksandra
theWomanQuestion,
Kollontai
Bolshevism,
295
Typical ofKollontai'sprerevolutionary
writingwas heressay,"Novaia Zhenshchina"[New Woman],
Sovremennyi
Mir [Contemporary
World], 1913, no. 9, pp.
151-85.
296
Beatrice
Farnsworth
Brodsky
Kommunistka.
It was Armand who urged in I914 that propaganda workbe
widely developed among the women workersand that a special women
workers'magazinebe publishedin Petersburg.
Leninwroteto hissisterAnna
withthis idea, and Rabotnitsa
resulted."0
Aftertherevolution,
Leninsoughtin 1920 to explainwhytherewereso few
womenin thepartyand pointedto theparty'spastpolicyofrejectingseparate
bodies for work among the masses of women. Adoptingas his own the
argumentKollontai had been advancingsince I906 and separatinghimself
fromtheparty'snarrowview,Lenininsistedthattheremustbe commissions,
partybureaus,whose particulardutyit was to arouse the masses ofwomen
workers,peasantsand pettybourgeois,to bringthemunderpartyinfluence.
What he was advocating,he explained,was not bourgeoisfeminism,
it was
insteadrevolutionary
expediency."
IfSverdlovseemedan unlikelyallyas head oftheparty'sSecretariat,
staffed
primarilyby women,he understoodwomen's subordinatestatus.Anatoly
theanimatedand generouscommissarofeducation,considered
Lunacharsky,
that Sverdlovwas "like ice. . . . somehowfaceless."'12But this same man
respondedwith warm compassion to Kollontai's plea that the Bolsheviks
committhemselvesto bringingwomenintothe party.Sverdlovhelped Kollontaiwin acceptancefora women'sbureau,and he became so vitalto her
workamongwomenthatupon hisdeathin I9I 9 Kollontaiwrotean emotional
piece tellingthe workingwomenof Russia that withthe death of Sverdlov
theyhad lost a comradewho was among theirfewconvinceddefenders,a
comradewho reallyunderstoodtheneedforpoliticalworkamongwomenand
whosedeath meantspecial grieffortheirmovement.13
Had Sverdlovlived,had Lenin notbecomeincapacitated,
wouldthewoman
questionhave been resolvedin a different
way?Amongthe Bolsheviksthere
was only one otherleader, Leon Trotsky,whomKollontaipraised equally
with Lenin and Sverdlovforhis workon behalfof women.'4Their initial
supportwas invaluable.A measureof it was the party'spledge in its new
programat the EighthCongressin I919 to replacethe individualhousehold
withcommunalfacilitiesforeating,laundry,and maternaland child care.
Kollontaibelievedshe had scoredanothertriumphforthe movementwhen,
despiteopposition,she was able to geta resolutionpassed at theEighthCongress concerningthe need for the partyto workmore specificallyamong
womento draw themin as activemembers.But withintwo years she was
harshlycriticalof the party'sfailureto implementits decision to include
womenin areas ofcommunistleadership.'5Zhenotdel.thewomen'ssection.
10 Clara Zetkin,Reminiscences
ofLenin(New York, 1934),53; N. K. Krupskaia,Reminiscences
ofLenin,tr.
BernardIsaacs (New York, 1970),269-70.
" Zetkin,Reminiscences,
53.
"A. V. Lunacharsky,
tr.MichaelGlenny(New York, 1967),107.
Revolutionary
Silhouettes,
3 Kollontai,"Kogo PoterialiRabotnitsy?"[Whom Did the WorkingWomen Lose?], in Kollontai,
Izbrannye
Stat'ii Rechi[CollectedArticlesand Speeches],ed. I. M. Dazhina etal. (Moscow, 1972), 266-67.
14 Kollontai,Autobiography,
42.
15 Kollontai,"Avtobiograficheskii
Ocherk," 301. For Kollontai's criticismof the party,see her "Profsoiuzyi Rabotnitsa" [Trade Unionsand WorkingWomen],Pravda,May 22, 1921, reprintedin Kollontai,
Izbrannye
Stat'ii Rechi,319.
17PoflrriJP~fJf
9a'rc'.qf
fCoQ ';
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-fs
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45
mumi
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IF-
withpictureof Lenin.
Fig. i. Title page ofRaboiniLsa
theWomanQuestion,
and Aleksandra
Bolshevism,
Kollontai
299
300
Beatrice
Brodsky
Farnsworth
Sophia Smidovich,"O novomkodeksezakonovo brake i sem'e" [About the New Code of Laws
ConcerningMarriageand the Family],Kommunistka
[The CommunistWoman], 1926,no. 1, p. 47, and
Smidovich,"Nashi zadachi v oblasti pereustroistva
byta" [Our Tasks in the Area of Reconstruction
of
Daily Life],ibid.,no. 12, pp. 18-20; see, forexample,Moirova,"Obshchestvennoepitaniei bytrabochei
sem'i" [Public Feedingand the Way of Lifeofthe WorkingFamily],ibid.,no. 10-l l, p. 45.
22 In thewordingofthelegislation
theterm"spouse" was used,butKurskystressedthatthepurposeof
thelaw was to protectwomen.Childrenwerealreadysafeguardedbytheoriginalcode insofaras theyhad a
rightto parentalsupportirrespective
ofwhetherthemarriagewas registered.
Now withthenewlegislation
theyhad increasedprotection.Kurskyas quoted in "Discussion of the Draftof the Code," in Rudolf
Schlesinger,ed., TheFamilyin theU.S.S.R. (London, 1949),85,a usefulcollectionofprimarysources(now
out ofprint)containingreprintsofSovietdebatesand pressarticles.Althoughin theWest itwas said that
the new code was intendedas a Bolshevikattackon legal marriage,Kursky'saide, Ia. Brandenburgskii,
indignantly
repliedthatthelaw was promulgatedout ofconcernforthepotentially
abandonedmotherand
child and therefore
encouragedmaritalresponsibility.
[The News],Jan. 14,1926.In 1944thelaw
Izvestiya
was changed,and onlyregisteredmarriagewas made legallybinding.
23 UnderNEP theprivatepeasant farms
wereencouragedto existand to contribute
to economicrevival.
The peasant,unliketheproletarianworker,livedin an extendedhousehold,thedvor,in whichall members
21
and Aleksandra
Bolshevism,
theWomanQuestion,
Kollontai
30I
24 For report
Nov. 17, 1925. Another
ofa debatebetweenAaronSol 'tsand NikolaiKrylenko,seeIzvestiya,
reason cited by those favoringrecognitiononly of registeredmarriagewas that to do otherwisewould
whereunregistered
marriagewas
encouragechurchmarriage,unrecognizedsince 1918.In thecountryside,
seen as debauchery,opinionwas said to be againstthenewproposal.Kursky,however,in a speechcarried
ofdefacto
Nov. 1926,reportedthatyoungpeople in the villageswerefavoringthe recognition
in Izvestiya,
FamilyintheU.S.S.R., 125-26. In a speechto thewomen'ssectionofthe
marriage.Reprintedin Schlesinger,
party,Krylenkoclaimed that the regimehad not anticipatedthe oppositionthe new law met.Jessica
inSoviet
Russia(NewYork,1928),
Smith,Woman
109.
302
Beatrice
Brodsky
Farnsworth
Bolshevism,
theWomanQuestion,
and Aleksandra
Kollontai
303
304
BeatriceBrodskyFarnsworth
theparty'sofficialideology
contextofBukharinism,
withinthereconciliatory
in theWest,she had come
in the mid-twenties.
Withthefailureofrevolution
to accept Bukharin'sview of the need slowly to build socialism in one
was at thepeak of
country.33
She likedBukharin,whoat theage ofthirty-eight
his politicalinfluenceand whose conceptof a more humane socialismshe
been allies,
shared. In the earlyprerevolutionary
days theyhad frequently
even as theyhad been opponentsduringthe Workers'Oppositioncrisisin
thefirstcommissaroflaborand one ofthe
I92I. WithAlexanderShliapnikov,
fewgenuinelyproletarianleadersoftheparty,Kollontaiwarnedin I921 about
Butthisdid notmeanthat
thedangersof"peasantization"ofthegovernment.
in 1926 she advocatedthe Left'spositionofaccumulatingcapitalforindustrial
it forcibly
fromthe peasant.The Right'scontention
expansionby extracting
that Kollontai'splan to tax the peasant at a rate of two rublesa year ran
counterto government
economicpolicyand resembledthe pressuresof the
Leftwas an absurdexaggeration.Kollontaiwas simplyin linewithBukharin
in advocatingsome "pumpingover"of economicresourcesfromthe peasant
sector.34
For socialismto succeed-as Bukharinnow contended-a long periodof
harmonybetweenpeasantand proletariatwould haveto be established.This
"harmonizing"had consistently
been Kollontai'spurposeas well as thegoal
ofthemuch-scorned
women'ssection,which,sinceitsinception,had worked
to raise the socialistconsciousnessof peasant women. It is true that the
womenwere only part of ruralsociety,but as Lenin explainedearlier,the
SovietUnion could not exercisethe dictatorship
ofthe proletariatunlessthe
womenwerewon over.35
Anotheraspect of Kollontai's proposal, which she saw as a gestureof
supportforpeasantwomen,was herplan formarriagecontractsthatwereto
ofhousewives,bothpeasantand proletarian.By these
safeguardthe interests
a
contracts, coupleenteringintoa maritalunionwould,insteadofregistering,
voluntarilyconclude an agreementin which they would determinetheir
economicresponsibilities
towardeach otherand theirchildren.A somewhat
weak idea, whichat firstglance seems,in its revolutionary
romanticism,
to
deservethe criticismit received,it assumeda herculeaneffort
on the partof
workersfromthe women's sectionwho were somehowto teach backward
peasant womenhow to safeguardtheireconomicinterests.36
Yet it is necessary to keep in mind that Kollontai was thinkingin long-range,socialist
terms,tryingto maintaina sense ofleft-wing
revolutionary
purposewithina
right-wing
evolutionarystructure.
The assumptionon which Kollontai's proposals were based-collective
StephenF. Cohen,Bukharin
andtheBolshevik
Revolution
(New York, 1973),233;Moscow interview.
174.
Cohen,Bukharin
andtheBolshevik
Revolutton,
i Krestianka,
35 See Kollontai,Rabotnitsa
i9; Zetkin,Reminiscences,
53-57.
36 Kollontai,"Brak i byt," 373.Kollontaisuggested
fivemillionbabiesborn
thatoutoftheapproximately
in the SovietUnion each year,perhapsa millionwould notbe providedforby themarriagecontractsand
be in need of governmentsupport.Her marriagecontractidea was called unrealisticby Smidovich,
"Otmenit' li registratsiiu
braka i sistemualimentov"[Whetherto Change Registrationof Marriageand
33
31
and Aleksandra
Kollontai
theWomanQuestion,
Bolshevism,
305
at an increasedsocialist
forthosein need-aimed specifically
responsibility
both
and
Trotsky
arguedthatthestate
proletarian.
among
peasant
awareness
withoutcooperationfromthe masses,
could not build new social institutions
This was a validposition,but how
thatthepeople themselveshad to grow.37
else could socialistawarenessbe createdotherthanbytheparty'sgradualbut
steady introductionof socialist measures? The need for such ideological
persuasionwas underscoredby the reactionto Kollontai'splan as seen in
lettersfromworkingwomen."Comrade Kollontai'stax is altogetherunsatisfactory.... How can anyonespeakofa generaltaxationofall men?Whatis it
ofa child?
to do withall men,whenonlyoneman is concernedin thebegetting
The matteris farsimpler;ifyou are the
What affairis it ofthecommunity?
father,you mustpay! "38
Even Trotsky,curiouslyinsensitiveto the Thermidorianaspects of the
new marriagecode, was indignantat itsopponents:how could
government's
one thinkthatin Sovietsocietyanyonecould be so thickheadedas to denya
mothertherightto helpfromthefathersimplybecause thewomanwas nota
registeredwife;womenneeded all the protectiontheycould get. Describing
thatsociety
Sovietmarriagelegislationas socialistin spirit,Trotskyregretted
lagged so dismallybehind it.39Societydid lag; so, too, did partyleaders.
Trotskyshareda viewof womenthatcaused himto praise as socialistthe
legislationKollontaicondemnedas pettybourgeois.Nor was his perception
moment,Karl Marx filledout a so"un-Marxist."Once, in a lighthearted
called confessionforhis daughterLaura revealinghis strongestpreferences.
He wrotethatthevirtuehe admiredmostin menwas "strength."The virtue
he admiredmostin women?"Weakness."40BothMarx and Engelsbelieved
thatthe weak mustbe protectedfromthe strong.Men mustprotectwomen.
This themeran throughthe debatesoverthe new familycode,jeopardizing
the socialistassumptionthatthe collectiveshouldprovidesocial securityfor
its members.The Bolsheviksbelievedin equalityforwomen,of course,but
criticism,see E. Lavrov,
Pravda,Feb. 14, 1926, p. 2. For further
the Systemof Alimony],Komsomolskaia
"Polovoi vopros i Molodezh' " [The Sexual Problemand Youth], MolodaiaGvardiia[Young Guard],
Mar. 1926,no. 3, p. 145.
" Trotsky,"ProtivProsveshchennogo
[AgainstBuBiurokratizma(A takzhei neprosveshchennogo)"
in Sochineniia,
21: 71-72.
reaucracy,Progressiveand Unprogressive],
38 Quoted in Fannina Halle, Woman
in SovietRussia(London, 1933),123.Anotherletterfroma groupof
workingwomenasked,"Why shoulda desertedmotherbecomea burdenon society?"It urgeda systemof
alimony:"For ifonce a man has succeededin foolinga woman ... thenhe shouldpay.... He willtake
care to avoid anothertime." One factorygroupwrotethatif Comrade Kollontai'stax wereintroduced,
thenmen would lose all shame and universallicensewould be theresult.Ibid., 124, 122. For the Russian
versionoftheseletters,see Braki Sem'ia,143-44.
39Trotsky,"Okhrana materinstvai bor'ba za kul'turu" and "Kul'tura i Sotsializm" [Cultureand
21: 50, 434. Emilian Iaroslavskiiexpressedidenticalviewsin his "Moral' i byt
Socialism],in Soch/ineniia,
proletariatav perekhodnyi
period" [Moralityand Daily Lifeof the Proletariatin the TransitionalEral,
MolodaiaGvardiia,
May 1926,no. 3, pp. 15-151. Supportersofthemarriagelaw likedto pictureitsopponents,
in Krylenko'swords,as Philistines.KrylenkoarguedthatSovietpolicywas movingtowardeconomicand
politicalequalityof the sexes despiteoppositionfromPhilistinesand peasants.Krylenko'sargumentsin
Jan. 15,1926,are
favorofthe new marriagelaw, "Obyvatel' nastupaet"[The PhilistineAdvances],Pravda,
quoted in Trotsky,Sochineniia,
21: 514n.
40 From"Confession,"a manuscript
ofMan
by Marx's daughterprintedin ErichFromm,Marx'sConcept
(New York, 1962), 257.
306
Beatrice
Farnsworth
Brodsky
Whilenotpoliticallya
fewunderstoodthatphrasewithKollontai'ssensitivity.
feminist,she did share theirview that womenwere inherently
strongand
needed freedomfromthe debilitatingprotectionof men. She singledout
Trotsky-a riskythingto do in 1926 when he was under attack fromthe
Stalinists-as beingofgreathelpto thewomen'ssectionin itswork.4'Yet not
evenTrotsky-and ifI seemto concentrateon himit is because ofthedegree
thatherplan was an opportuofhis concernand commitment-understood
toward
nityforthe party to raise the consciousnessof the masses further
socialism.
On this issue the women'ssectionprovedno moremonolithicthan other
Bolshevikinstitutions.
Here, too, Kollontaifoundopponents.Smidovich,the
section'sformerdirector,willinglyspokeforthe party.Chosen in 1925 as a
memberof the powerfulCentral Control Commission,livingcomfortably
enoughin a traditionalfamily,she was reasonablyfreeoftensionsconcerning
the woman question.While Kollontaiviewedthe revolutionprimarilyfrom
the perspectiveof women'sliberation,Smidovichregardedthatproblemas
one amongmany.The twoOld Bolsheviks,
each age fifty-four,
saw themselves
as representing
different
a factthatin itselfproveda cause for
constituencies,
suspicion.Smidovich,grayhairedand grandmotherly,
spokeas a memberof
an older,morestaidgenerationthatwantedto protectwomenfromthesexual
irresponsibility
of men, a problemto which Kollontai seemed indifferent.
Kollontaigazed, strikingly
attractiveand stillyouthful,
fromthecoverofthe
popular magazine,Ekran,in whose pages she argued on behalfof socialist
womenwho were strongand wantedto be free.42
In contrastto Kollontai's
unquenchable idealism,Smidovichsounded practicalas she affirmedthe
theoreticalsuperiorityof communalraising of childrenbut defendedthe
party's abandonmentof effortsto replace the individualhousehold.Her
towardKollontaiunconcealed,SmidovicharguedthatSovietRussia
hostility
could notyetaffordKollontai'sdreams.43
The Smidovicheswereconservative,
and Petr Smidovich,a senior memberof the Moscow Committeeof the
Bolshevikparty,respondedon the eve of I917 to Lenin's radical course by
insisting:"There do not existthe forces,the objectiveconditionsforthis."44
LEADERS
STRUGGLING
FOR POWER in 1926 knewthatthewoman question
was not politicallydecisive.Kollontai'splan to replacealimonyby a general
THE
4' Kollontai,Autobiography,
42.
42 Ekran[Screen],1926,no. 5.
43 See Smidovich'sconversation
to Smith,in Smith,Woman
inSoviet
Russia,102-03; Smidovich,"O novom
kodeksezakonovo brakei sem'e," 45-46; and her "Nashi zadachi v oblasti pereustroistva
byta," 22-24.
Smidovicharguedthathomesformothersand childrenweretoo expensiveforthe stateto carry,and she
recommendedlocal initiative
on thepartofworkingwomento establishlessexpensivecommunalfacilities
such as day nurseries.She criticizedthe attitudeof those who believedthat the liberationof working
womenmustcome onlyfromthestrength
and moneyofthestate.It is difficult
to determinetheamountof
real supportforKollontaiin thewomen'ssection,sinceSmidovichmayhaveexertedconsiderableinfluence
because ofherpositionon theCentralControlCommission.Butjudgingbythearticlesthatdid appear in
Kommunistka,
supportwas notwidespread.VarvaraGolubevawas one ofthefewvoicesin oppositionto the
new marriagelaw. "K diskussiipo voprosambrachnogoi semeinogoprava" [Towarda Discussionofthe
Marriageand FamilyLaw], Kommunistka,
1926,no. 1, pp. 50-53.
44 AS quoted in Cohen,Bukharin,
50.
E~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
308
Beatrice
Farnsworth
Brodsky
Kollontai
and Aleksandra
theWomanQuestion,
Bolshevism,
309
OPPOSITION
310
Beatrice
Brodsky
Farnsworth
But insteadof the family,the women'ssectionitselfwould disappear,abolished by Stalin in 1929 on the specious ground that its tasks had been
completed.In less thantenyears,the slogan"witheringaway ofthefamily"
was to movefrommythto heresywithKollontai'sTheFamilyandtheCommunist
Statecitedas its "undoubtedlyharmful"source.53
In the moraland personaldisapprovaldirectedagainst Kollontaione saw
further
mythmaking.
Althoughshe criticizeddebaucheryin termssimilarto
thoseused earlierby Lenin (but at the same time,questionedthe supposed
dissolutenessof Komsomolyouth),54slashingattacksin the press accused
Kollontaiof tryingto reviveher "discredited"advocacyof Ultra-Left,decadent,freeloveby meansoftheGeneralInsuranceFund,whichwouldfurther
The Komsomol journal, Molodaia
encourage youthfulirresponsibility.55
theparty's
Gvardiia,
whichhad carriedKollontai'sessaysin 1923, nowreflected
puritanicallineby printing
articlesharshlycriticalofher.In one instancethe
editorswere perhaps uneasy overpublishingan attackon a comradewho
invariablydefendedSovietyouth.In a footnotethatimpliedtheirapartness
fromthe assault,theyinvitedreadersto expresstheirown viewpointsbased
on available,factualmaterials.56
Withthecontention
thatalimonywas one ofthebestmeansto regulateand
to restrainsexual life,withthe chargethat in advocatingits abolitionKollontai was seekingto removepersonalresponsibility
fromthe sexual lifeof
men, Kollontai'scriticssuggestedthe developmentof new attitudestoward
privacy. In 1883 the German Socialist leader, August Bebel, wrote that
satisfaction
ofthe sexual instinctwas a privateconcernto be interfered
with
by no one.57Presumably,assigninglegalconsequencestodefacto
marriagewas
in itselfa violationof personalprivacy,but even beforeI926 doubts were
expressedin the partyas to the feasibility
ofBebel's assumption.Bukharin's
attemptin 1922 to use his personalpopularitywiththe Komsomolsto urge
old age, or social security.This provisowas omittedin 1926. See the text of the 1926 legislationin
Schlesinger,
FamilyintheU.S.S.R., 163;comparewiththe 1918familylaw, ibid.,40. Furtherindicationthat
thestatewas movingaway fromassumingtheburdensofthefamilywas givenin 1924 whenAlekseiRykov,
chairmanoftheCouncilofCommissars,attackedtheidea ofchildren'shomesas obviouslyinadequateand
also unwise since theyseparatedthe child fromproductivelabor. Carr, Socialismin OneCountry,
1: 45.
6 See V. Svetlov,"Socialist Societyand the Family,"Pod Znamenem
Marksizma[Underthe Bannerof
Marxism], 1936,no. 6, translatedand reprintedin Schlesinger,Familyin theU.S.S.R., 333. S. Volfson,
renouncingas erroneoushis thesispublishedin 1929 thatsocialismentailedthe extinctionof the family,
nowwrotethat"assertionsthatsocialismleads to theextinction
ofthefamilyare profoundly
mistakenand
harmful."This renunciationis foundin his "Socialism and the Family,"in ibid.,315.
" Kollontai,"Brak i byt,"375-76.
65 For the mostcompleteattackon Kollontai,see Lavrov,"Polovoi voprosi Molodezh'," 145.Calling
Kollontai'sstatements
an exampleofpreciselythewrongkindofthinking,
Lavrovaccused heroftryingin
1926,withheridea forabolishingalimony,to takerevengefortheattackson hersexualtheoriesin 1923.The
reference
is to Kollontai'sarticle,"Dorogu Krylatomy
Erosu!" [To theWingedEros!], MolodaiaGvardiia,
1923,no. 3, pp. 111-24, and hernovella,"Loves ofThree Generations,"whichappeared in the collection,
Liubovpcheltrydovykh
[Love of the WorkerBees], tr. Lilly Lore (Moscow, 1923),180-243. The notionthat
alimonyacted as a restraint
on theconductofmenwas echoedin a letterto Komsomolskaia
Pravda,Mar. 2 1,
1926,p. 4.
56 Lavrov,"Polovoivoprosi Molodezh'," 136.
57 AugustBebel,Die Frauinder
undZukunft
Vergangenheit,
Gegenwart
(Zurich,1883),tr.by Daniel De Leon
as Womanunder
Socialism(New York, 1971), 343.
and Aleksandra
theWomanQuestion,
Kollontai
Bolshevism,
311
312
Beatrice
Farnsworth
Brodsky
and Aleksandra
Kollontai
Bolshevism,
theWomanQuestion,
3I3
314
Brodsky
Farnsworth
Beatrice
INI.
. ....
lA
M
Wg
.f...i
.M4
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Fig. 4. Kollontai in 1952, the year of her death. She was eightyyearsold.
From Kollontai,Iz Moei Zhiznii Raboty.
316
Beatrice
Brodsky
Farnsworth
Kollontai wrote in I946 that the Soviet state "had providedwomen with
access to all areas of creativeactivityand at the same timeprovidedall the
necessaryconditionsto enable her to fulfillher natural duty as mother,
educatingher own children,as mistressofher own home."74
By the ironyof history,the veryfailureof the socialistpromiseof full
equality,its conversionto myth,seems a factorsavingKollontai fromthe
deadlyfateofotherOld Bolsheviks.The mythneededitssymbols:Kollontai,
deprivedofany influencein the party,servedin Sweden as the world'sfirst
woman ambassador.And Stalin,who had spokencontemptuously
of Lenin
duringhis last illness as being "surroundedby womenfolk,"75
may have
enjoyed keeping alive, and subjectingto terror,the abject Kollontai-an
indicationthathe did notbelieveBolshevikwomenwereimportant
enoughto
shoot.76