Alexandra Kollontai (1872-1952) was a leading Bolshevik and the earliest champion of women’s rights under the new Soviet government. From an aristocratic background, she was attracted to left wing ideas as a student and in 1899 joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, under which name the communists were first organized. Kollontai devoted her energies, in exile and in Russia, to develop strategies for the organization and education of women and their involvement in the struggle against tsarism and capitalism, in unity with and as an equal partner of men.
She also sought to liberate women’s sexuality as part of the liberation of women in general, and promoted ideas that may appear to be quite acceptable now but which were somewhat advanced for the immediate post-feudal era in Russia (“sexuality is a human instinct as natural as hunger or thirst”). Although Kollontai encountered much resistance from her male comrades, she nevertheless persisted and earned the
