A Great Love (Part 1) - Alexandra Kollontai

“All she wanted was to stand between him and the world, relieve
him of his worries, help him bear his cross.”





This week we're collaborating with our comrades from The
Tolerant Left podcast to bring the first of two episodes
covering 'A Great Love' by Alexandra
Kollontai.





 In our first time discussing a work of fiction we found no
lack of important subject matter to be gleaned from the text.
Considered by many to be a representation of a relationship
between Inessa Armand and Vladimir Lenin, this essential and
heart-breaking text gives us a deep insight into the physical and
emotional reality of women revolutionaries before the October
revolution and the harmful and misogynistic behaviour of men
which remains unchanged to the present day.





This book, set in the world of revolutionaries exiled following
the 1905 revolution, tells us the story of Natasha, an
intelligent and dedicated party organiser, and her relationship
with Semyon Semyonovich, a highly respected but deeply abusive
official within the same party. Drawing from biographical
experiences and those of her fellow comrades Kollontai paints a
vivid picture of the profound pain and frustration which women
suffered and suffer through in left-wing organising circles. From
emotional abuse, dismissiveness and the downplaying of
achievements to the ideas of transactional relationships, control
in the institution of marriage and more.





Kollontai's moving text gives us space to investigate our own
participants' experiences of abuse and left-wing misogyny as well
offering a chance to create ways to overcome problems such as
abuse on the left, how to deal with the work of historically
problematic men and how we can acknowledge our faults in order to
learn and grow.





This episode features our amazing comrades from The
Tolerant Left podcast, an essential voice for non-men on
the left https://twitter.com/tolerantleftpod





This episode is part of our series on Marxist-feminists. As Mao
and Thomas Sankara have said, “Women hold up the other half of
the sky.” Red Book Club recognizes that including the voices of
nonmen in our studies is not a niche activity, but is in fact an
essential step in gaining the most comprehensive view of the
material conditions of the past and present that we possibly
can; therefore we’ve planned this series to amplify the ideas
that nonmen have been bringing to the conversation
for centuries. From Federici’s analysis of women as a
means of primitive accumulation to Luxemburg’s essay of the
benefits of revolution vs the impossibility of reform, each of
these works confronts history and the movement for social change
through the lens of the experiences of nonmen in society. Follow
us on Twitter at @RBCpod and feel free to
message us if you need links to companion resources or have any
questions. You can also find us on our new site at
www.rbcpod.wordpress.com  where you can
find ebook copies of the works that we're covering and more.


If you'd like to join or support the book club, you can find us
on Patreon as Red Book Club:
https://www.patreon.com/redbookclub including
access to our Red Book Club discord server, early access to our
episodes and more.


Thanks to @NunezKeenan for the intro theme; you can find more of
their  work here:  http://tiny.cc/keenan


Thanks to the Craig bot for helping us to record via
Discord!


And a special thanks to our patrons for their support in helping
us to create the podcast.


Our logo was designed by Rob, you can find his work on Instagram
@roobmmm





Outro music: It's Not Me, It's You - Solution Hours


https://solutionhours.bandcamp.com/