In this book¹, Alexandra Kollontai interrogates whether feminism (i.e. the women's/feminist movement) is worth fighting for? Is the feminist movement the correct path for woman's liberation, she asks, or perhaps the worker's party is the way forward. Obviously, we all have a pretty good guess at what a future member of the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party would likely answer to that. Still, even if we know her answer, there is a lot that can be said about the way she crafts and presents her arguments.

One thing that stands out about Kollontai's analysis is that it elegantly shows how following Marxist philosophy allows one to cut through the bullshit and get to the meat, the material basis, of the issues. By being a Marxist, she necessarily rejects idealism and grounds her analysis in the real, material world. Thus, she doesn't fall into pitfall of praising 'girlbosses' who co-opt feminism for their own selfish purposes; of accusing the lesbian, the trans woman, or the enslaved black woman of "being accomplices in the crimes perpetuated against women"² (thanks bell hooks, very cool); or of debating 'biology' or what constitutes a woman: "The followers of historical materialism leave it to the esteemed bourgeois scholars to ponder the superiority of one sex over another." Kollontai proceeds with her analysis from a strictly social, economic, and political perspective, ignoring appeals to 'natural, inalienable rights', 'obvious truths', or 'human nature'; a perspective that is disappointingly rare in the modern day.

All feminist literature primarily revolves around the demand for political equality, seeking to offer a logical rationale for the 'right' of women to participate in the political life of their countries. The feminist seek to bolster the legitimacy of their demands with a series of ideological premises that were widely used in the days when the Third Estate were struggling for their emancipation. Forgotten arguments of bourgeois ideology, long since consigned to the very bottom of Grandmother's jewelry box with references to 'natural law', 'innate concepts' are once again being dragged back to the light of day by feminists.

The feminist movement, as accurately defined by Clara Zetkin, is the last echo of the Third Estate's struggle for emancipation. Is it not natural that the contemporary successors of the 'best traditions' of the bourgeoisie would seek to use the same means and deploy the same tools of struggle, albeit somewhat rustier, as were repeatedly used by their class comrades? According to feminists and bourgeois defenders of women's equality, the reason for the gradual entry of women into political life is not the fact that economic relations are changing in real life, but the 'intellectual insight' of a society that has realized that 'women are people, too' and that 'higher justice' and 'humanity' compel contemporary civilized humanity to recognize women as having the same rights as men.

Feminists indifferently pass by data accumulated by socio-economic scholarship on the role of the economic factor in the gradual emancipation of women, and continue to cling to purely idealistic evidence for the equality of the sexes.

Even her analysis of sex work and the family shows the effectiveness of Marxist analysis. While she isn't exactly 'pro' sex work, she does not invoke a moral or pathological argument to oppose it. Instead, she, as a Marxist, condemns the capitalist economic conditions which force women -- and, as she notes, girls -- into (survival) sex work. She even goes so far as to apply this critique to marriage, openly declaring that it is simply prostitution to one man instead of many. Rather than getting bogged down arguing about what is right and wrong, what is pious or sinful, or what is 'ladylike' and isn't, she is able to cut through the noise and look at the material problems that women are facing and thus allowing her to actually be able to address them.

What mockery, what sacrilege the sentimental bleating of the bourgeoisie about 'the sanctity of home and hearth' and 'motherhood' sounds like when millions, tens of millions of mothers are unable to carry out even their most elementary duties! At the commanding call of capital, mothers tear from their breasts children who have not yet even learnt to tell light from darkness, obediently massing at the factory gates.

Beyond demonstrating the connivence of strictly focusing on the material world, Kollontai sets out to debunk seemingly every claim of the feminists of her time. She does not do this by invoking flowery language or nice sentiments. Instead, she simply provides an overwhelming number of examples from across the globe refuting any claim. Want to talk about the need for feminism to secure the economic independence of women? Kollontai is happy to supply statistics about how proletarian women have been increasingly entering the work force across the Western world decades before the feminists started organizing. Want to talk about the struggle for political equality? Kollontai states how it was the working women who won equality in revolutionary France, New Jersey, and Virginia (which was later taken back by the bourgeois that the feminists are so friendly with); she points to the absence of feminists in Wyoming, New Zealand and Australia; and she criticizes the betrayal of the feminists in Finland, Denmark, Norway, and Russia, who 'conveniently' decided to abandon the struggle for women's equality once land-owning women were granted political rights. She does all this while constantly mocking the feminists for caring about being 'ladylike' and for calling working women their 'little sisters'.

While Kollontai's arguments may at face value seem to be grounded in the inter-revolutionary context of 1909, they still have proleptic relevance today. When reading it is hard to not make parallels between what Kollontai's discussion of the various feminist organizations in the inter-revolutionary period of Russia and the political situation in the 2020s. One cannot help but think of the DSA when she describes a Russian feminist organization which brands itself as socialist and has a pro-workers platform yet just so happens to side with the liberals against the socialist in the first and second Duma, or when she warns that organizations who attempt to bring people to the left without strong ideological foundations are likely to be pulled to the right instead. Likewise, Kollontai's critique of the feminists -- their distancing from the worker's cause and their emphasis on strictly legal equality -- can be seen in the trans movement (among others) of today which, after abandoning STAR³, has become comprised of charities and organizations more concerned with handing out bandaids and calling for vague political equality than challenging the more pressing problems (homelessness, child abuse, the prison sex-slave 'violence reduction' programs, etc.) and their causes.

Mrs Mirovich speaks in lofty tones in her correspondence 'in the speech' on radicalism at this [the third International Women's Suffrage Alliance] congress, stating that

the Amsterdam congress was another step forward in the history of civilization; all governments that recognize the principle of universal suffrage without distinction as to sex bear witness to the results of the this reform for the entire world; and all experience speaks in favor of extending political rights to women.

The well-attended [sarcasm] Amsterdam congress [...] began on a remarkably poignant and instructive note: At one of the Protestant churches, a woman minister said mass. Then, during the grand opening of the congress, a cantata, specially composed for the occasion, in praise of the sovereign of the Netherlands, Queen Wilhelmina (after all, she is a woman!) was sung, and the chorus was also conducted by a woman. Not one of the democratically minded feminists raised her voice in protest at this manner of opening the congress, the state objective of which was 'persistent and firm' struggle for women's democratic rights. Also typical was the following incident that took place at the congress: In her speech, the representative of Finland, Mrs Furuhjelm, again emphasized the intimate connection between the liberatory current in Finland and the struggle for women's political equality. Her presentation aroused the interest of some individual congress participants and threatened to move the debate in a dangerous direction. The congress hastily ended the debates on the grounds that Finland is a 'revolutionary country'. Note that it was not police repression that forced the congress participants to issue this verdict, but the feminists' own rampant aversion to anything smacking of struggle.

In a way, Kollontai's book can be read both as an account of the Marxist perspective of feminism during the late 19th and early 20th century but also as an in-depth case study in how the bourgeoisie -- and, more broadly, idealist thinking -- can shape and distort other liberatory movements as to ensure they do not challenge bourgeois rule. Kollontai sets out to refute the motto "women of all social classes -- unite!" and in doing so lays bare how bourgeois organizations are content to undermine and disavow the labor movement while simultaneously rewriting history to attribute past labor successes to themselves, and in doing show she shows how a rigorous understanding of dialectical materialism reveals bourgeois narratives and slogans for what they are, lies and distortions.

The most conscious proletarian women know that neither political nor legal equality can solve the female question as a whole. As long as women are forced to sell their labor power and live in capitalist bondage, as long as the present exploitative manner of producing new value remains alive, they will not be free, independent human beings [...] The ultimate goal of the proletarian women is the abolition of the old world of class antagonism and the construction of a new, better world in which the means of exploitation of human beings by human beings will no longer exist.

Of course, this ultimate goal does not mean that proletarian women cannot struggle for emancipation even within the current bourgeois way of life, but the realization of such demands always runs into obstacles erected by the capitalist structure itself. Women can only become truly free and equal in a world of socialized labor, harmony, and justice.

The feminists neither desire this, nor can they understand it: In their view, the achievement of formal equality, guaranteed by the letter of the law, would suit them perfectly even within the 'old world of oppression, enslavement, groaning, and tears'. And, to a certain degree, this is true: Although equal rights to men for most proletarian women would merely mean 'equal disenfranchisement', for the 'select few' bourgeois women, it would indeed open the door to new, never-before-seen rights and privileges, heretofore available only to men of the bourgeois class. However, every such victory, every new prerogative acquired by bourgeois women would merely give them a new tool by which to exploit their little sisters, and further deepen the abyss that separates the women of the two opposing social camps. Their interests would conflict more drastically, more acutely; their respective efforts would counteract each other.

Where, then, is this shared 'female question', this unity of tasks and efforts about which the feminists have so much to say? A sober look at reality shows that such unity does not exist and cannot exist.