Alexandra Kollontai, born on this day in 1872, was a Marxist feminist revolutionary who served as People's Commissar for Social Welfare in the Soviet Union and, later in life, as a diplomat for the USSR abroad.
Alexandra was born into a wealthy family of Ukrainian, Russian, and Finnish background, acquiring a fluency in both Russian and Finnish early on. This experience would later assist her in her career as a Soviet diplomat.
In 1895, Kollontai read August Bebel's "Woman and Socialism", which was a major influence on her thinking. In 1896, she helped fundraise in support of a mass textile strike in St. Petersburg, retaining connections with the women textile workers of St. Petersburg for the rest of her career.
In the years leading up to 1917, Kollontai was active as a Marxist theoretician, educator, and anti-war activist (opposing World War I, specifically). During this time, she established contact with Vladimir Lenin and gave a lengthy speaking tour in the U.S., sharing a stage with Eugene V. Debs and giving 123 speeches in 4 languages.
Following the 1917 February Revolution, Kollontai returned to Russia. Later that year, she voted in favor of the decision to launch an armed uprising against the government, also participating in the revolt. At the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets, she was elected Commissar of Social Welfare in the new Soviet government.
The Encyclopedia of Women's Autobiography describes her efforts within the Soviet government: "The changes that Kollontai tried to bring about were enormous, involving the complete destruction of the old system and the creation of a new one...Kollontai authorized decrees that committed the Soviet State to full funding of maternity care from conception through the first year of a child's life - an unheard of measure for the beginning of the 20th century. She attempted to establish full legal, political, and sexual equality for women and to redress the entire marriage code."
In 1920, Kollontai joined the left "Workers' Opposition", an opposition tendency in the Bolshevik Party opposed to what they saw as the increasing bureaucratization of the Soviet state. In March 1921, the Workers' Opposition was banned along with all other factions at the 10th party congress in March 1921, but its members continued to be active as leaders of both the Bolshevik Party and the Soviets.
In 1922, Kollontai was one of the signers of the "Letter of the 22" to the Communist International, protesting the banning of factions in Russia.
Following this incident, Kollontai began to serve as a Soviet diplomat, becoming one of the first women to work in international diplomacy. As ambassador to Norway and Sweden, as a trade delegate to Mexico, as a delegate to the League of Nations, and as negotiator of the Finno-Soviet peace treaty of 1940, she served the USSR with what was generally regarded as great finesse. From 1946 until her death in 1952, she was an advisor to the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
"Class instinct...always shows itself to be more powerful than the noble enthusiasms of 'above-class' politics. So long as the bourgeois women and their [proletarian] 'younger sisters' are equal in their inequality, the former can, with complete sincerity, make great efforts to defend the general interests of women.
But once the barrier is down and the bourgeois women have received access to political activity, the recent defenders of the 'rights of all women' become enthusiastic defenders of the privileges of their class, content to leave the younger sisters with no rights at all. Thus, when the feminists talk to working women about the need for a common struggle to realise some 'general women's' principle, women of the working class are naturally distrustful."
- Alexandra Kollontai
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This word salaf is my one experience/anecdotal. Take it with a grain of salt.
Grew up as a military brat, so experience is different from most Americans, but there's a ton of effort that goes into indoctrination. I think, from the military/DoD side of things, it can either be very effective or have the opposite affect, and that entirely depends on your family and who you have access to. I had the benefit of being able to travel parts of Europe and N. Africa growing up that exposed me to a whole lot. It was foundational to my "radicalization" or whatever. If I hadn't, I would be a very different and extremely miserable person. There were still growing pains (you are not immune to propaganda, yada yada), but the US cultivates a certain mindset among it's population and it is VERY heavy handed in and around military bases.
It's a different mindset from what you may find in, let's say, backwater racism from, rural Alabama or Texas (which, is another unfortunate part of my history). One is born from a instilled need to preserve the state, authoritarian power, etc. The other is heavily derived from ignorance and fear (which, is also usually instilled, but by the church rather than the state).
Before the easy and rapid dissemination of information we have now (last 20-25 years?), even with the internet there was a stranglehold on how people in the US could engage outside of their own bubble. The US is incredibly massive, compared to Europe, and it was extremely easy to grow up with only input from your local environment. If it's especially isolated (military base, rural town, etc), you don't get ANY exposure to different cultures or conflicting opinions. It was easy to grow up not having to knowledge to even acknowledge your own queerness or neurodivergence. This isn't to say that information didn't travel at all before, but it is very different experience to have a black mirror of forbidden knowledge live in your pocket everyday vs getting it from radio, TV, newspapers, etc.
So, with the turn of the millennia and the changing digital landscape, anything "being" a pipeline makes sense. It's so readily available and accessible now. Hell, I live in a relatively large city (I say city sparingly, it ain't NYC), and there are protests plenty near the city hall or Tesla dealerships, and my ability to engage with them or even see them is so miniscule, because of how sprawling and wide our infrastructure is. I only know they exist because of local social media channels, or posts from people I know who live closer to the scene. I cannot overstate the expansiveness of American infrastructure compared to Europe. The portions of our population that encounter politics growing up (AND recognize it) is small. I will note that this an incredibly white take. Marginalized communities are going to be more in touch with the political landscape, because they are forced to engage with it. I will dare to say that the majority of US leftism is driven by them, especially prior to the information age.
when I visited the US I definitely noticed the sprawl of everything! definitely makes it harder to have concentrated actions. in european towns we basically have one or two main streets, so if thats blocked everything comes to a standstill.