84 - A.K. 47 - The War and Our Immediate Tasks

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 several podcasts, articles, and a new book by Kristen Ghodsee:Podcast: National Public Radio, Throughline, “Capitalism: What Is It?” June 24, 2021Podcast: Revolutionary Left Radio, Interview with Kristen Ghodsee, “The Life and Legacy of Alexandra Kollontai” June 18, 2021Article: “When the women’s movement went global,” Le Monde Diplomatique English, July 1, 2021Article: “Les « grands-mères rouges » du mouvement international des femmes,” Le Monde Diplomatique, June 30, 2021Article: “Politicized Representations of Love and Sex: Reading the GDR’s Das Magazin,” with Angelina Eimannsberger, Groniek, No. 226, 2021.New Book: Taking Stock of Shock: Social Consequences of the 1989 Revolutions (with    Mitchell Orenstein), Oxford University Press, 2021New Translation: Por que as mulheres tem melhor sexo sob o socialismo e outros argumentos a favor da independência econômica, Autonomia LiterariaVideo: Book Launch, Taking Stock of Shock: Social Consequences of the 1989 Revolutions, Foreign Policy Research InstituteVideo: Book Launch for Maria Todorova’s The Lost World of Socialists at Europe’s Margins: Imagining UtopiaKristen Ghodsee's author website: www.kristenghodsee.comPopular Books:Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism: And Other Arguments for Economic IndependenceRed Valkyries: Feminist Lessons from Five Revolutionary WomenThanks so much for listening. This podcast has no Patreon account and receives no funding. If you would like to support the work being done here, please spread the word and share with your friends and networks, and consider exploring the following links:Buy Kristen Ghodsee's new book now: Everyday UtopiaSubscribe to Kristen Ghodsee's (very occasional) free newsletter. Learn more about Kristen Ghodsee's work at: www.kristenghodsee.com

Om Podcasten

Kristen R. Ghodsee reads and discusses 47 selections from the works of Alexandra Kollontai (1872-1952), a socialist women's activist who had radical ideas about the intersections of socialism and women's emancipation. Born into aristocratic privilege, the Ukrainian-Finnish Kollontai was initially a member of the Mensheviks before she joined Lenin and the Bolsheviks and became an important revolutionary figure during the 1917 Russian Revolution. Kollontai was a socialist theorist of women’s emancipation and a strident proponent of sexual relations freed from all economic considerations. After the October Revolution, Kollontai became the Commissar of Social Welfare and helped to found the Zhenotdel (the women's section of the Party). She oversaw a wide variety of legal reforms and public policies to help liberate working women and to create the basis of a new socialist sexual morality. But Russians were not ready for her vision of emancipation, and she was sent away to Norway to serve as the first Russian female ambassador (and only the third female ambassador in the world).In this podcast, Kristen R. Ghodsee – a professor of Russian and East European Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and the author of Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism: And Other Arguments for Economic Independence (Bold Type Books 2018) – selects excerpts from the essays, speeches, and fiction of Alexandra Kollontai and puts them in context. Each episode provides an introduction to the abridged reading with some relevant background on Kollontai and the historical moment in which she was writing.