ALEXANDRA KOLLONTAI

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?.... 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.

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.

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.

Some third person decides your fate: this is the whole essence of bureaucracy.

The best drop of milk for the child--is the milk from its mother's breast.

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!...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. 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...

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.

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.

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.

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?.... 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.

The best drop of milk for the child--is the milk from its mother's breast.

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!...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. 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...

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.

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.

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.

Some third person decides your fate: this is the whole essence of bureaucracy.