Alexandra Kollontai

Kollontai, {{circa|1900}} Alexandra Mikhailovna Kollontai (; , ; – 9 March 1952) was a Russian revolutionary, politician, diplomat and Marxist theoretician. Serving as the People's Commissar for Welfare in Vladimir Lenin's government in 1917–1918, she was a highly prominent woman within the Bolshevik party. She was the first woman to be a cabinet minister, and the first woman ambassador.

The daughter of an Imperial Russian Army general, Kollontai embraced radical politics in the 1890s and joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) in 1899. During the RSDLP ideological split, she sided with Julius Martov's Mensheviks against Lenin's Bolsheviks. Exiled from Russia in 1908, Kollontai toured Western Europe and the United States and campaigned against participation in the First World War. In 1915, she broke with the Mensheviks and became a member of the Bolsheviks.

Following the 1917 February Revolution which ousted the tsar, Kollontai returned to Russia. She supported Lenin's radical proposals and, as a member of the party's Central Committee, voted for the policy of armed uprising which led to the October Revolution and the fall of Alexander Kerensky's Provisional Government. She was appointed People's Commissar for Social Welfare in the first Soviet government, but soon resigned due to her opposition to the peace treaty of Brest-Litovsk in the ranks of the Left Communists.

In 1919, Kollontai was a leading figure in the foundation of the Zhenotdel, the then-new women's department of the Central Committee that was aimed at improving the status of women in the Soviet Union. She was a champion of women's liberation, and later came to be recognized as a key figure in Marxist feminism.

Kollontai was outspoken against bureaucratic influences over the Communist Party and its undemocratic internal practices. To that end, she sided with the left-wing Workers' Opposition in 1920, but was eventually defeated and sidelined, narrowly avoiding her own expulsion from the party altogether. From 1922 on, she was appointed to various diplomatic posts abroad, serving in Norway, Mexico and Sweden. In 1943, she was promoted to the title of ambassador to Sweden. Kollontai retired from diplomatic service in 1945 and died in Moscow in 1952. Provided by Wikipedia
Showing 1 - 20 results of 29 for search 'Kollontai, Alexandra', query time: 0.01s Refine Results
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    by Kollontai , Alexandra
    Published 1925
    Book
  6. 6
    by Kollontai , Alexandra
    Published 1962
    Book
  7. 7
    by Kollontai , Alexandra
    Published 1974
    Book
  8. 8
    by Kollontai , Alexandra
    Published 1973
    Book
  9. 9
    by Kollontai , Alexandra
    Published 1970 ca.
    Book
  10. 10
    by Kollontai , Alexandra
    Published 1971
    Book
  11. 11
    by Kollontai , Alexandra
    Published 1968
    Book
  12. 12
    by Kollontai , Alexandra
    Published ca1974
    Book
  13. 13
    by Kollontai , Alexandra
    Published 1973
    Book
  14. 14
    by Kollontai , Alexandra
    Published 1973
    Book
  15. 15
    by Castoriadis , Cornelius
    Published ca1971
    Other Authors: “…Kollontai , Alexandra…”
    Book
  16. 16
    by Castoriadis , Cornelius
    Published 1976
    Other Authors: “…KOLLONTAI Alexandra…”
    Book
  17. 17
    by Ferro , Marc
    Published 1976
    Other Authors:
    Book
  18. 18
    by Body , Marcel
    Published 1981
    Other Authors:
    Book
  19. 19
    by Kool , Fritz
    Published 1972
    Other Authors:
    Book
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