111 - A.K. 47 - Women Workers Struggle for Their Rights - Part 7

In response to a listener request from the Chicago Teachers' Union, Kristen Ghodsee reads Louise Bryant's chapter on Alexandra Kollontai from Bryant's 1923 book: Mirrors of Moscow. Bryant was a feminist and a journalist who traveled to Russia in 1917 to report on the revolution with her husband, John Reed. This chapter is based on Bryant's personal conversations with Kollontai, and although her biography of Kollontai contains some errors, it is an interesting first hand account from another A...

21 Heinä 202123min

Kristen Ghodsee and her daughter discuss the relationship of Alexandra Kollontai with her lifelong Bulgarian friend, Zoya Shadurskaya. The two women met when they were six years old and remained friends for their entire lives, often living together and raising Kollontai's son, Misha. Shadurskaya never married, and Kollontai claimed that after her son, Zoya was the most "dear person to her in the world." In this episode, Ghodsee and her daughter discuss the politics of historiography and...

13 Heinä 202122min

Kristen Ghodsee reads and discusses Alexandra Kollontai’s 1914 essay, “War and Our Immediate Tasks,” which reflects her early commitment to pacifism during World War I. Mentioned in this episode is Leo Tolstoy’s important book, The Kingdom of God Is Within You, the foundational document of Christian anarchism and a key theoretical elucidation of pacifism which had a profound impact on Mohandas Gandhi (and through Gandhi on Martin Luther King, Jr.) Also mentioned in this episode are seve...

6 Heinä 202126min

In answer to a listener's question, Kristen Ghodsee discusses the meetings and interactions of the Russian-American anarchist with Alexandra Kollontai in 1920, quoting directly from Goldman's own works. Cited here are Goldman's Living My Life and My Further Disillusionment with Russia. Quotes from Emma Goldman: “I had known for some time of the presence in New York of Mme Alexandra Kolontay and Leon Trotsky. From the former I had received several letters and a copy of her book on woman’s s...

30 Touko 202123min

Kristen Ghodsee discusses a recent edited collection of essays about the life and work of Alexandra Kollontai, published by Sternberg Press, which includes an English translation of a Swedish play by Agneta Pleijel. The play was first performed in 1977 and this version is based on a revised version that was performed in Stockholm in 1979. The Red Love Reader emerged from a CuratorLab project from 2017-2018 Listen to an e-flux podcast about the launch of the Red Love collection. Buy the book ...

24 Touko 202117min

Kristen Ghodsee reads and discusses the second part of Isabel de Palencia's 1947 translation of Alexandra Kollontai's essay, "A Letter to a Young Comrade." This essay was reprinted in a report written by the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1959: "The Communist Conspiracy: Strategy and Tactics of World Communism." This essay is essentially a shorter version of "Make Way for Winged Eros" and was taken to be representative of Kollontai's work by the Americans who included it in ...

3 Touko 202121min

Kristen Ghodsee reads and discusses the first part of Isabel de Palencia's 1947 translation of Alexandra Kollontai's essay, "A Letter to a Young Comrade." This essay was reprinted in a report written by the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1959: "The Communist Conspiracy: Strategy and Tactics of World Communism." This essay is essentially a shorter version of "Make Way for Winged Eros" and was taken to be representative of Kollontai's work by the Americans who included it in t...

6 Huhti 202120min

Kristen Ghodsee reads and discusses the introduction to Alexandra Kollontai included in a report written by the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1959. This report, "The Communist Conspiracy: Strategy and Tactics of World Communism," includes two English selections of Kollontai's work: the foreword to Red Love and Isabel de Palencia's 1947 translation of Kollontai's essay, "A Letter to a Young Comrade." Mentioned in this episode is Elaine Tyler May's excellent book, Homeward Bound: A...

25 Maalis 202119min