First published in 1923, when Larker Mes wisso winter if SEENIT dying. the period when the soviets had already passed a law to simplify che formalities of matriage and divorce. Did it mean the end af women's oppression?
Kollontai, who had fought to marry the man of her choice and then left him in revoll against 'The tyranny of love' to become Low shevik Party, knew better political an scive member of the Hol Vasilisa Her novel in absorbed with this COCTACCI relations active a perma activity and HOUSE. includes three interrelated narra tives with the theme of women's Isolated TENDOnSTEP fight for cancipation. All three are set a te comical of poa revolutionary Russia, obliged by the economic situation to intro other womeo: BUCCAC NEW ECONOMIC CRIC The NEP gave the market forces a greater freedom. Kollon because she saw it as a source of unemployment for women, who tells us of the life of Vasilisa Malygina, a 28year-old woman worker. She is a member of the Bolshevik Party and a real debter for the and women's rights. Kollontai pictures Vasilisa as a woman of worden will only be liberated if commuon household tasks and childup such a house but is confronted by many problems, all deriving from the AS I SEE CHUNISEL way of life imposed by centuries difficulties, Kollontai gives us a real account of the problems confrouting the ICTOLLION, DECLINE NE RECEIL decide to create a new ideology and a new life. The be CONSO COB AB ISEC who turns back to a constraints. an her sexmal and personal fulfil"personal"
Tadimir has become an NEF mah and part of the bureaucracy.
He has all the trappings of the & been trying Socialist Challenge Benefit servants and a mistress. Whe the communal house to live with Viadimir she is expected to give up ber political and the bureaucrat's rowing demoralisation wit Iniminating insigh Vasilisa becomes more and more and Jealous of VINEE SISTESS STEI LOCAL imprisoned in her role as house wite and by her submissive sexual Kellontai does not conclude ou a pessimistic note, for as soon as Vasilisa makes new friends sbe realises what a shadow of herself she has become and begins to WIL workers in her husband's plas to fight against his policie She well as sharp criticism of the abuses of the NEP Kolloutal between marringe and fulfilment Vasilisa has regained her inde The second story is a portrait Not the family but of different genera The grandmother is an old CHES MO SHUSSICATE CHIL time Jor women's equality. The mother, of the same generation being a party activist and married younger comrade He generation, shocking her mothe by sleeping with her stepfacbe liberation through the revolu tion, but cbeir consciousness "Sisters', the title of the third story, is similar to the first. The narrator, wasilisa tell woman married to a NEPman She breaks away after years of Her demoral BALiO ends when she gathers courage to talk to the prostitute her husband All Kollontai's women workers Their common problem is the difficulty to make become committed revolutionaries because through this strupple they find a way ol setting themselves free of the old By making her readers aware women's most intimate thoughts and acts, by bringin out into the open the 80-calle problems, Kollantai has burlined the basis of sol WHITIL SEICTLE PODIUL Her beroines may be set in different contexts but their probSocialist Challenge Saturday, 26 November at 6.15pm. At the Other Cinema, Tottenham Street, London. oppression becomes apparent to them from the confines that the Family imposes. Jealousy appean SO TO DEIRD WITH relationships, hut turns into love and sisterhood as soon as the relationship breaks from the Tamily circle.
Utopian? Perhaps, but Kal the totality prete problem the totality When understood that ber fulfilment is elsewhere than in his house hese problems of sexual attac ment die immedincely. What sh does is to point to a direction in which women can tum recognition that to live as slaves that through struggling for better living conditions TOILE This underlies a change in th consciousness of how women se measure Kolloutal's enthusiasm Never in the novel does she the reader he depressco aDour U way things are moving Vasilis returns to the communni house hald. She is ready to star work in a new textile factory organising a créche for her child way of life is developing and wil finally destroy the old conscious story, a new woman created by the revolution, represents a woman whose life is satisfactory because she knows what she lives • Bees vividly shows that by making a turn bo an active role in society, by coming to grips with tbe reasons for their oppression, by breaking thinking and create the conditons for tbeir own Liberation.
Love of Worker Bees, by Alex under Koflontai and translates Pirage of EZ. 50.