A.K. 47 - Selections from the Works of Alexandra Kollontai
Kristen R. Ghodsee reads and discusses 47 selections from the works of Alexandra Kollontai (1872-1952), a socialist women's activist who had radical ideas about the intersections of socialism and women's emancipation. Born into aristocratic privilege, the Ukrainian-Finnish Kollontai was initially a member of the Mensheviks before she joined Lenin and the Bolsheviks and became an important revolutionary figure during the 1917 Russian Revolution. Kollontai was a socialist theorist of women’s emancipation and a strident proponent of sexual relations freed from all economic considerations. After the October Revolution, Kollontai became the Commissar of Social Welfare and helped to found the Zhenotdel (the women's section of the Party). She oversaw a wide variety of legal reforms and public policies to help liberate working women and to create the basis of a new socialist sexual morality. But Russians were not ready for her vision of emancipation, and she was sent away to Norway to serve as the first Russian female ambassador (and only the third female ambassador in the world). In this podcast, Kristen R. Ghodsee – a professor of Russian and East European Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and the author of Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism: And Other Arguments for Economic Independence (Bold Type Books 2018) – selects excerpts from the essays, speeches, and fiction of Alexandra Kollontai and puts them in context. Each episode provides an introduction to the abridged reading with some relevant background on Kollontai and the historical moment in which she was writing.
Episodes
Kristen Ghodsee revisits her discussion about arguments for socialism with Bowdoin College professor of philosophy, Scott R. Sehon. This conversation focuses on the role of esteem and how it is increasingly commodified in a capitalist society.
Mentioned in this podcast:
- Book by Scott R. Sehon: Socialism: A Logical Introduction
- Article in the Wall Street Journal: "$1 Trillion of Wealth Was Created for the 19 Richest U.S. Hous...
Kristen Ghodsee shares a conservation with a previous guest from March 2022, a self-described anarchist activist, about the value of feeling one’s political despair and using it to generate political creativity.
Mentioned in this episode: I Want a Better Catastrophe
Also this article: "Kollontai: Leaving behind Menshevik pacifism"
Thanks so much for listening. This podcast has no Patreon-type account and recei...
Kristen R. Ghodsee reads a 1930 interview with Alexandra Kollontai about the new morality around love and marriage in the Soviet Union. Kollontai argues that romantic love and relationships will no longer be the most important thing in women’s lives because they will have the support of the socialist state in reducing their responsibilities for domestic work and will have a wider community of citizens helping them to raise up the n...
Kristen Ghodsee reads Aleksandra Kollontai’s March 8, 1947 International Women’s Day address, taken from the book: Alexandra Kollontai: The Plight, Struggle, and Liberation of Women
Thanks so much for listening. This podcast has no Patreon-type account and receives no funding. There are no ads and there is no monetization.
If you would like to support the work being done here, please spread the word, share with your f...
In this special bonus episode, recorded on Valentine's Day 2025 in Dublin, Kristen Ghodsee and her daughter discuss the book Intermezzo, the latest by the Irish novelist, Sally Rooney. Rooney identifies herself as a Marxist and often mixes politics and social commentary into her stories. Kollontai's ideas about "comradely-love" and of troubling the confines of the nuclear family find interesting resonances in th...
Kristen Ghodsee reads the final section of Alexandra Kollontai's 1915/1916 essay about World War I–"Who Needs the War?"–and looks for lessons applicable to the present day. This is especially salient today because the United States is on the eve of a trade war with Mexico and Canada.
This translation is from a 1984 collection of Kollontai's writing published by Progress Publishers in the Soviet Union, w...
Kristen Ghodsee reads the fifth section of Alexandra Kollontai's 1915 essay about World War I–"Who Needs the War?"–and looks for lessons applicable to the present day. This is especially salient today because of the narrow confirmation of the new U.S. Secretary of Defense under the Trump Administration, and the emergence of the reinvigorated oligarchy in the United States.
This translation is from a 1984 col...
Kristen Ghodsee reads the fourth section of Alexandra Kollontai's 1915 essay about World War I–"Who Needs the War?"–and looks for lessons applicable to the present day.
This translation is from a 1984 collection of Kollontai's writing published by Progress Publishers in the Soviet Union, which claims that the essay was written while Kollontai was in exile in Norway. She sent it to Vladimir Lenin (then ...
Kristen Ghodsee reads the third section of Alexandra Kollontai's 1915 essay about World War I–"Who Needs the War?"–and looks for lessons applicable to the present day.
This translation is from a 1984 collection of Kollontai's writing published by Progress Publishers in the Soviet Union, which claims that the essay was written while Kollontai was in exile in Norway. She sent it to Vladimir Lenin (then i...
In this episode, Kristen Ghodsee discusses Alexandra Kollontai, nationalism, internationalism, and supranationalism with her daughter, just home from Ireland for fall break. Trigger warning: lots of Irish history!
Mentioned in this episode:
"Imagine"
by John Lennon (and Yoko Ono)
"Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us, only s...
Kristen Ghodsee reads Alexandra Kollontai's 1915 essay about World War I–"Who Needs the War?"–and looks for lessons applicable to the present day.
This translation is from a 1984 collection of Kollontai's writing published by Progress Publishers in the Soviet Union, which claims that the essay was written while Kollontai was in exile in Norway. She sent it to Vladimir Lenin (then in exile in Switzerlan...
Kristen Ghodsee reads Alexandra Kollontai's 1915 essay about World War I–"Who Needs the War?"–and looks for lessons applicable to the present day.
This translation is from a 1984 collection of Kollontai's writing published by Progress Publishers in the Soviet Union, which claims that the essay was written while Kollontai was in exile in Norway. She sent it to Vladimir Lenin (then in exile in Switzerlan...
Kristen Ghodsee speaks to Scott R. Sehon, a professor of philosophy, about his new book, Socialism: A Logical Introduction, and why we should use arguments to make a case for socialism and against capitalism.
The first ten U.S.-based listeners to email Alexandra.kollontai.podcast@gmail.com with a name and address will get a free copy of Professor Sehon's new book.
Mentioned in this episode:
For International Women's Day, Kristen Ghodsee reads the Black Trinidadian activist and journalist Claudia Jones's speech for International Women's Day in 1950. This speech, (and the published version which appeared afterwards) led to Jones's arrest and eventual deportation from the United States. Jones was a member of the CPUSA, and believed that women's emancipation and civil rights required a strong stan...
Kristen Ghodsee reads a profile of Alexandra Kollontai which appeared in the Washington Post on May 15, 1927 when Kollontai was serving as the Soviet ambassador to Mexico.
Mentioned in this episode: The hardcover of Everyday Utopia is on sale at Amazon.com for $14.99 (50% off)
Thanks so much for listening. This podcast has no Patreon-type account and receives no funding. There are no ads and there is no monet...
Kristen Ghodsee and her daughter share a conversation about Kollontai's pro-natalism and the current discourse about the BirthStrike. Are the relevant moral imperatives about having or not having children? And how does the climate crisis factor into people's decisions? We also discuss the future of the podcast and the newly discovered fact that it is listened to in 100 countries around the world.
Thanks so m...
Kristen Ghodsee reads the final part of Alexandra Kollontai's 1921 essay, "The Labor of Women in the Evolution of the Economy" to explore Kollontai's arguments for the socialization of the family and the socialist uses of the maternal instinct. Although Kollontai is openly pro-natalist, and emphasizes that motherhood is a social obligation to help produce new workers for the world's first workers state, she...
Kristen Ghodsee reads the second part of Alexandra Kollontai's 1921 essay, "The Labor of Women in the Evolution of the Economy" to explore Kollontai's arguments for the socialization of the family and the socialist uses of the maternal instinct. Although Kollontai is openly pro-natalist, and emphasizes that motherhood is a social obligation to help produce new workers for the world's first workers state, sh...
Kristen Ghodsee reads the first part of Alexandra Kollontai's 1921 essay, "The Labor of Women in the Evolution of the Economy." A portion of this essay on abortion was discussed on the 6 March 2019 episode, but here Ghodsee digs in to Kollontai's argument for the socialization of the family.
Mentioned in this episode:
- The eight Season 22 finalists for The Next Big Idea Club curated by Adam...
In this bonus episode, Kristen Ghodsee welcomes back her now almost 22-year-old daughter to discuss a theory of fun. What would a society look like if we prioritized the ability of everyone to have as much fun as they wanted (in whatever form that fun might take)? Rather than worrying about the fitness benefits of different human behaviors, maybe all we really need to do is focus on having a good time, and the rest will take care o...
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