Alexandra Kollontai: Prostitution and ways of fighting it

Alexandra Kollontai: Prostitution and ways of fighting it

What is the fundamental quality of the working class? What is its strongest moral weapon in the struggle? Solidarity and comradeship is the basis of communism. Unless this sense is strongly developed amongst working people, the building of a truly communist society is inconceivable. Politically conscious communists should therefore logically be encouraging the development of solidarity in every way and fighting against all that hinders its development – Prostitution destroys the equality, solidarity and comradeship of the two halves of the working class. A man who buys the favours of a woman does not see her as a comrade or as a person with equal rights. He sees the woman as dependent upon himself and as an unequal creature of a lower order who is of less worth to the workers’ state. The contempt he has for the prostitute, whose favours he has bought, affects his attitude to all women. The further development of prostitution, instead of allowing for the growth of comradely feeling and solidarity, strengthens the inequality of the relationships between the sexes.

Mao: Women

Mao: Women

A man in China is usually subjected to the domination of three systems of authority [political authority, family authority and religious authority]…. As for women, in addition to being dominated by these three systems of authority, they are also dominated by the men (the authority of the husband). These four authorities – political, family, religious and masculine – are the embodiment of the whole feudal-patriarchal ideology and system, and are the four thick ropes binding the Chinese people, particularly the peasants. How the peasants have overthrown the political authority of the landlords in the countryside has been described above. The political authority of the landlords is the backbone of all the other systems of authority. With that overturned the family authority, the religious authority and the authority of the husband all begin to totter…. As to the authority of the husband, this has always been weaker among the poor peasants because, out of economic necessity, their womenfolk have to do more manual labour than the women of the richer classes and therefore have more say and greater power of decision in family matters. With the increasing bankruptcy of the rural economy in recent years, the basis for men’s domination over women has already been undermined. With the rise of the peasant movement, the women in many places have now begun to organize rural women’s associations; the opportunity has come for them to lift up their heads, and the authority of the husband is getting shakier every day. In a word, the whole feudal-patriarchal ideology and system is tottering with the growth of the peasants’ power. 

“Report on an Investigation of the Peasant Movement in Hunan” (March 1927), Selected Works, Vol. I, pp. 44-46.*

Recruitment and far right: “I Love the Third Brigade”

Recruitment and far right: “I Love the Third Brigade”

The United States is putting pressure on Zelensky to lower the age of conscription again, but for the moment the Ukrainian president is rejecting this possibility. This is what Ukrainian media such as Ukrainska Pravda reported this week, referring to the mobilization of men between 18 and 25 years old, a very small population group in which the country’s future cannot afford to lose. Even before the law on mobilization was approved, which is very unpopular despite not being as harsh as foreign allies demanded, prominent figures and self-proclaimed friends of Ukraine such as US Senator Lindsey Graham have publicly encouraged Ukraine to recruit those over 18 years old despite the demographic risk that this implies for the country they claim to defend. These suggestions seem to have become a demand that is confirmed even by people who belong to the state apparatus. “If this information has come to light, it may confirm that American politicians from both parties are putting pressure on President Zelensky on the question of why there is no mobilisation for those aged 18-25 in Ukraine,” said Serhiy Leshchenko, one of Andriy Yermak’s advisers and a figure who has gone from representing the third sector, civil society in Maidan Ukraine to all kinds of well-paid positions in government or in the few state-owned companies that Kiev has not yet privatised. The past ten years show a double standard between those who have been privileged and those who have been impoverished and marginalised thanks to the European and liberal reforms of the peacetime years. However, Ukraine’s refusal to recruit its most vulnerable population group strictly responds to the future needs of the state, which, if it hopes to rebuild itself, must maintain minimum levels of youth population.

Read More »

Communism and the Family

Women’s role in production: its effect upon the family

Will the family continue to exist under communism? Will the family remain in the same form? These questions are troubling many women of the working class and worrying their menfolk as well. Life is changing before our very eyes; old habits and customs are dying out, and the whole life of the proletarian family is developing in a way that is new and unfamiliar and, in the eyes of some, “bizarre”. No wonder that working women are beginning to think these questions over. Another fact that invites attention is that divorce has been made easier in Soviet Russia. The decree of the Council of People’s Commissars issued on 18 December 1917 means that divorce is, no longer a luxury that only the rich can afford; henceforth, a working woman will not have to petition for months or even for years to secure the right to live separately from a husband who beats her and makes her life a misery with his drunkenness and uncouth behaviour. Divorce by mutual agreement now takes no more than a week or two to obtain. Women who are unhappy in their married life welcome this easy divorce. But others, particularly those who are used to looking upon their husband as “breadwinners”, are frightened. They have not yet understood that a woman must accustom herself to seek and find support in the collective and in society, and not from the individual man.

Communism and the Family

Related:

Family Code On Marriage, The Family, And Guardianship

Read More »

Thomas Sankara: Women’s Liberation and the African Freedom Struggle

It is true that both the woman and the male worker are condemned to silence by their exploitation. But under the current system, the worker’s wife is also condemned to silence by her worker-husband. In other words, in addition to the class exploitation common to both of them, women must confront a particular set of relations that exist between them and men, relations of conflict and violence that use physical differences as their pretext.

Thomas Sankara, Women’s Liberation and the African Freedom Struggle (PDF)

Quotes:

Read More »

Canada’s explosive claims against India put US in a pinch

Canada’s explosive claims against India put US in a pinch

The U.S. reportedly worked closely with Canada in investigating the apparent murder on its soil. President Biden has not publicly commented on the allegations, highlighting the tricky balancing act of standing by Canada without alienating India.

The Washington Post reported earlier this week that several senior officials of Canada’s Five Eyes allies, of which the U.S. is a member, were informed of the allegations ahead of the G20 summit in New Delhi. Nevertheless, no public comment was made by any senior leaders among the group’s members, which also include the U.K., Australia and New Zealand.

“The fact is that the Canadians have allowed some pretty dodgy people to use Canadian soil and to spread violent messages,” Dhume said.

“Under Trudeau, the foreign policy choices have been subordinated to domestic diaspora politics, given the importance of the Sikh diaspora in Canada, which have been important liberal voters. Trudeau, who has a minority in [Canadian] parliament, is only in power because of the [New Democratic Party] led by Jagmeet Singh,” Dehejia told The Hill.

Singh is the first Sikh to lead a major federal party in Canada, and helped Trudeau form a minority government last year after the Liberals failed to win a majority in parliament.

Reuters reported that an unnamed senior Canadian government source said Ottawa worked “very closely” with the United States on the intelligence assessment.

Related:

Read More »