RED LOVE

1
2
 RED LOVE..
A READER ON
ALEXANDRA KOLLONTAI

3
4
 CONTENTS

LETTER TO KOLLONTAI
9

INTRODUCTION
15

ALEXANDRA KOLLONTAI’S MANY LIVES

MICHELE MASUCCI
29

LOVE IS REVOLUTIONARY
CURATORLAB IN CONVERSATION WITH DORA GARCÍA
45

PORTRAIT OF KOLLONTAI AS A CHILD

GIULIA ANDREANI
62

RED LOVE
MICHAEL HARDT
63

DORA GARCIA’S RED LOVE

MARIA LIND
93

AND ALL IS YET TO BE DONE IMAGES FROM A JOURNEY

PETRA BAUER AND REBECKA THOR
103

FEMINISM IS OUR NATIONAL IDEA

ALLA MITROFANOVA
117

INFRASTRUCTURES OF CARE
CURATORLAB IN CONVERSATION WITH BINI ADAMCZAK
130

5
 COMRADELY LOVE AS CONTEMPORARY STRATEGY
FEMINISM‚ MEN & WOMEN‚
FRIENDSHIP AND POLITICAL ORGANISING
NINA POWER
150

NEW GOSPEL SOON (IN 48 YEARS’ TIME)

ALICJA ROGALSKA AND MARTYNA NOWICKA-WOJNOWSKA
168

THE STRUGGLE WITHIN THE STRUGGLE

SALLY SCHONFELDT
172

ASK ALEXANDRA
SOPHIA TABATADZE
179

DOCUMENTATION OF SWEET CONFISCATION

BAÇOY KOOP
185

BODIES OF WATER A SCORE

PONTUS PETTERSSON & HANNAH ZAFIROPOULOS
192

THE DIGITAL DOMESTIC SCRIPT FOR

A PERFORMATIVE LECTURE
ANTONIO ROBERTS
199

THE REVOLUTION WILL BE MOTHERNIZED!

(KINDER‚ KÜCHE‚ KIRCHE‚ BITTE!)
LISE HALLER BAGGESEN
217

THE SAME THING‚ AGAIN AND AGAIN

JOANNA WARSZA AND MICHELE MASUCCI
IN CONVERSATION WITH DORA GARCÍA
227

6
 ANTI-ABORTION STRUGGLES IN POLAND
TOMÁŠ RAFA
241

A WHORE MANIFESTO
OXANA TIMOFEEVA
245

IN THE NAME OF LOVE

SARAH AHMED
265

THE SEXUAL LIFE OF COMMUNISTS

REFLECTIONS ON ALEXANDRA KOLLONTAI
AARON SCHUSTER
303

LETTER FROM A TRANSMAN TO THE OLD SEXUAL REGIME

PAUL B. PRECIADO
332

HUMAN-MACHINE LIBIDINAL TRANSFERENCE

MOHAMMAD SALEMY
338

DORA GARCÍA AND MARIA LIND IN

CONVERSATION WITH AGNETA PLEIJEL
359

KOLLONTAI
A PLAY BY AGNETA PLEIJEL
373

BIOGRAPHIES
505

7
8
 LETTER TO KOLLONTAI

Dear Alexandra,

Stockholm is so cold without you!

How have you been? We have missed you. We find our-

selves thinking of you often in this place; we too have
travelled to this country to work on making change, albeit
in ways other than you.

How do we begin to tell you what has happened since

you left? So many years have passed, and so much has
changed. The city you knew is gone and you’d hardly rec-
ognise the world we are faced with today. Yet still your
legacy remains.

Lately we’ve been reading your writings again. It seems

we’re finally able to understand what you were trying
to tell us all along: that love is not a private matter con-
cerning individuals, but an inherently political and so-
cial force. The history you traced through the writings
of Engels, Bebel, Meisel-Hess, and others from ancient
times through feudalism, to the bourgeois era, has helped
us to understand love as historically and materially de-
termined, how the organisation of love, sex, and social
relations are integral to the formation of any society, and
must be considered in order to change that society. Today,
your ideas are being rediscovered in calls for a form of
love defined by multiplicity — a love of many, in many
ways — that may become a powerful organising principle
and model for collective action in the formation of the
commons.

9
 LETTER TO KOLLONTAI

Yet how can we understand such a form of love, beyond

the familiar structures within which it is currently con-
tained? We wish you were here to help us. As in your
analysis of your own, bourgeois society, we still find love
expressed through forms of property relations and social
control of the body as a result of unequal power rela-
tions between men and women. And of course it is the
‘woman question’ for which you came to be known —
your long and difficult struggles to improve the condi-
tions of women’s lives laid the foundation for our battles,
and the advances that followed, in time. In spite of your
fight for women’s rights, you refused to be satisfied with
the bourgeois feminist pursuit of equality on its terms,
demanding instead the full emancipation of all women
and workers from a repressive system. You understood,
then, how these struggles intersected; how the fight for
women had to coexist and develop alongside the rev-
olutionary fight. Only now have we begun to see how
we too must acknowledge the differences among us and
strive to fight structural oppression in all its manifesta-
tions to truly bring about change. In your time, this took
the form of the shared fight of working men and women
in the factories. Today, the things we share and those that
set us apart are infinitely more complex. Yet we return
to our question: what forms of love may help us in our
fight? In your writings, you proposed a ‘comradely love’
that went beyond sexual or familial relations, even be-
yond friendship, to form the basis for collective solidarity.
Perhaps it is there that we should look for the answer to
our question.

10
 LETTER TO KOLLONTAI

In spite of the growing equality between men and women

during those years, many have since gendered the rev-
olution as intrinsically male. One of your greatest con-
tributions was to bring the relation between gender and
economics into the political sphere, yet we struggle to
understand what you wanted to achieve. Was masculinity
an ideal that you believed the new woman must embody?
As the only woman member of the Bolshevik Central
Committee, it must have been hard for you. Yet your fun-
damental calls for a revolution in which the members of
society could form new bonds through a transformed love
drew not on the hard rationality of the male sphere, but
from the knowledge and resources of the female. In this,
we have come far in our understanding of how masculini-
ty and femininity are just two spheres in a wide spectrum
of ways we can perform gender. We have learned many
things about how gender is constructed socially, through
performative and linguistic gestures, habits, and percep-
tions, undermining supposed biological determinism to
pave the way for non-binary, trans and ‘third gender’ pol-
itics to come to the fore. Such nonconformity extends to
sexual politics and morality in a manner you could never
have foreseen in your calls for ‘free love’. Today, so many
different forms of relation between individuals are pos-
sible. We work to undermine heteronormativity and to
understand how queer discourse may yet enable a more
fluid state of love. Perhaps such new knowledges may yet
inform our revolutionary struggles.

Many of these advancements have developed alongside

and as a consequence of new technologies. The world has

11
 LETTER TO KOLLONTAI

opened up; we can connect to each other across thou-

sands of miles, and conduct relationships through screens.
How would you perceive such a world? Our contemporary
condition of hyper mediation, information dissemination,
and connectivity should produce the conditions neces-
sary for political organisation and solidarity on a scale you
could never have imagined. Yet somehow, it has not led
to fundamental transformation. We are more fragmented
and further apart than ever. Human interaction has
changed beyond recognition — we follow each other’s
lives more closely than ever before, but spend less time
together. Your political engagement was borne from your
experience of organisation and agitation among female
workers at the factories of St Petersburg. Your speeches
brought people together, where they found strength in
numbers. Today, the bonds that hold us together have
grown weaker. We are dispersed and struggle to form
alliances against the structures that oppress us — indi-
vidualism ‘won’, at least temporarily.

In the domestic sphere, technological advancements have

entered the home, bringing the everyday into the dig-
ital domain. In your time, you called for such progres-
sive technologies to unshackle women from domestic
concerns. Yet so many facets of domestic life remain un-
changed. What would a world that had embraced your
calls for the collectivisation of social reproduction, house-
work, and childcare be like? Many of your ideas were too
radical then. Indeed, they may be too radical now. The
historically feminised practices of care are still dispro-
portionality assigned to women, and mothers, whose

12
 LETTER TO KOLLONTAI

political and artistic potential is thereby repressed. To-

day, still, women fight against the roles assigned to them
within the structures of marriage and the family. Yet we
are also beginning to understand how, historically, or-
ganising around social reproduction has been important
in the construction of collective forms of social power.
Information sharing and political organisation has long
been centred around practices of collective care such as
knitting clubs, language cafés, self organised education, or
communal cooking. Such seemingly marginal practices
bring the politics of care from its supposed place in the
private sphere into the public sphere. Perhaps soon, in
forty-eight year’s time, we may create a world in which
economic and social responsibilities are shared equally
among the members of the collective, to the benefit of all.

Though the logic of capital continues to penetrate every

aspect of our lives, signs of hope are emerging. Inspired
by your life choices, which were ripe with contradictions
and conflicts, we seek directions. For example; we keep
wondering how it was possible for you to be Stalin’s dip-
lomat. In spite of the challenges we face, we are witness-
ing a renewed spirit of self-organisation that brings back
memories of you, standing amongst the workers and call-
ing them to action. Waves of solidarity and collective ac-
tion emerge, and a small hope for change blossoms again.
New problems arise that ask us to find new tools, and they
are certainly needed now.

It brings us great joy to think of you here in Stockholm.

Your exile must have been hard for you, but we are so

13
 LETTER TO KOLLONTAI

happy that you walked these streets before us. As you had
done in Russia for so many years, you gave speeches and
wrote articles on the woman question, engaging with and
inspiring the Women’s Movement here, where you met
your dear friend Ada Nilsson. As always, your presence
had such a profound impact on those around you. Every
day we see your name carved on the wall in Östermalm,
and think of the traces of your life we have yet to discover.

A sense of urgency calls us to action. We wrote this let-

ter to let you know of our activities in this city you once
called home. Once again, we have gathered around the
questions you asked all that time ago. But we still have
so many questions for you.

We wish you were here — you would, of course, know

what to do. We’re getting tired, yet still we continue some
of the work you started. All is yet to be done.

Your readers in Stockholm,

Federico Del Vecchio Dimitrina Sevova

Dora García Sophia Tabatadze
Aly Grimes Joanna Warsza
Malin Hüber Hannah Zafiropoulos
Nicholas John Jones
Maria Lind
Michele Masucci
Martyna Nowicka-Wojnowska
Alessandra Prandin

14
 INTRODUCTION

INTRODUCTION

In the text ‘Sexual Relations and Class Struggle’ writ-

ten in 1919, Alexandra Kollontai (1872–1952) noted that
history had never before seen such a diverse tapestry of
personal relationships, from traditional families and free
unions to marriages with three and even four people, and
commercialised prostitution. This must have pleased her,
as one of her missions since the 1890s was exactly to rev-
olutionise sexual, emotional, and comradely life — a new
progressive society will surely also need new types of re-
lationships between its citizens, including affective ones.

Kollontai was a Russian revolutionary who as the only

woman in the first Bolshevik government in Petrograd af-
ter the October Revolution, was also a political organiser,
writer, mother, lover, diplomat and a pioneer of political
engagement and sexual politics. She understood love as
a revolutionary force able to change relations between
men, women and children. Her concept of ‘comradely love’
takes relations from the private sphere and places them
into the public, turning them into a political and social ve-
hicle for overcoming patriarchal structures, gender bina-
rism and paving the way for the emancipation of women.
As a co-founder of the women’s department of the Com-
munist Party in Russia and People’s Commissar of Social
Welfare, she pushed to introduce the rights to contracep-
tion, free childcare, legalised abortion and equality for
children born out of wedlock.

15
 INTRODUCTION

Soon after backing the dissenting Workers’ Opposition

faction, Kollontai was sent on diplomatic missions —
which was in fact a diplomatic exile — for the rest of her
life, to Mexico, Norway and Sweden, where she ultimate-
ly became an ambassador. She also was the only mem-
ber of the first Bolshevik government, apart from Lenin
and Stalin, who did not perish in the Stalinist purges.
That is perhaps one of the reasons why she remains less
recognised today — compared to feminist colleagues
and friends such as Rosa Luxemburg or Clara Zetkin —
even if many of the reforms dealing with reproduction
and women’s rights, pioneered in the post-revolutionary
Soviet government under her lead. Her ideas did not fit
in for neither the post–WWII Soviet socialism or Western
liberal feminism, and were not discovered until the Marxist
feminism of the 1960s and ’70s.

The practice-based curatorial course CuratorLab held at

Konstfack University in Stockholm, has over the course
of one academic year 2017/2018, together with Tensta
konsthall and the artist Dora García, engaged in a col-
laborative research on the life and work of Alexandra
Kollontai, as a springboard for the exhibition ‘Red Love’
during the summer of 2018 at Tensta konsthall. We studied
Kollontai together with the invited guests, reading her
texts, organising field trips to sites of historical impor-
tance for local feminist history, and preparing an expand-
ed public programme on the politics of love. This publica-
tion is a result of this process, assembling different parts
and paths addressing the question of what the writings
of Kollontai can mean today.

16
 INTRODUCTION

Contemporary thinkers, artists and essayists indulged in

her essays and novels, for example The Autobiography of
a Sexually Emancipated Communist Woman (1926), Commu-
nism and the Family (1920), Theses on Communist Morality
in the Sphere of Marital Relations (1921), or ‘Make Way for
Winged Eros: A Letter to Working Youth (1926) to trace their
current relevance in the sphere of sexuality, love relations,
reproduction rights, feminist struggles, the politics of
emancipation and organising, etc. The resulting reader
doesn’t contain a single text by the Russian revolution-
ary — they are easy enough to find elsewhere — but it
is exclusively composed by today’s readings of Kollontai,
asking if there is a place for her vision of love in the com-
plex sphere of commodified relations in late capitalism.
What are the consequences of a life where sex is a service,
relations a deal, a negotiation, a contract, and emotions a
form of work? Red Love analyses Kollontai’s many lives
and ideas: about love as an organising principle, love as
a comradely bond, love as both private and the political,
love for many (and in many ways) and finally the evolu-
tion and commodification of sexuality. It is grounded in
an understanding that the social and cultural conceptions
of love and sexuality and their material and political con-
sequences are one of the basic foundations of any society.

In her own words, Kollontai lived many lives: as a revolu-

tionary, writer, mother, organiser, and diplomat. Those pa-
rallel existences are portrayed and analysed in the open-
ing essay by researcher and activist Michele Masucci,
taking on many dilemmas from her radical Marxist cri-
tique of the relations between the sexes to the difficulties

17
 INTRODUCTION

for women to organise and to implement political pro-

grammes. The subsequent conversation introduces the
second leading figure of the book, namely, artist Dora
García and her long-term involvement with the topics of
love, liberation, emancipation and emotions. ‘I would say
my interest in love started when I realised its political
potential’ — explains García while describing her arrival
to the topic, via the initial rejection of feminism and fem-
ininity; through the research in former East Germany;
the project Army of Love; the readings of Charles Fourier;
and an array of inspirations from church-like mysticism,
the Russian avant-gardes, communist counter-culture
and Russian cosmism. Curator Maria Lind expands on
García’s resulting cage-cum-stage installation serving as
an active monument to Kollontai’s writings. ‘It’s almost
like a campaign image, which gives house brand to all
activities that will develop.’

In his essay philosopher Michael Hardt builds on Kollon-

tai’s critique of love. The heteronormative romantic family
is based on property relations and thus socially and po-
litically limiting for both women and men. Hardt points
to the fact that Kollontai’s concept of sexuality was short-
cutting any possibility of using sex as a way for domina-
tion. Kollontai’s demystification follows for both a certain
biologistic argumentation and more interestingly relates
sex to the broader spectrum of social bonds and reveals
its inherent social character. In Hardt’s terms, Kollontai’s
objective is to create a variety of lasting bonds with or
without sex, and not constituted by property relations,
in order to explore the social significance and political
possibilities of a ‘new love’ as a radical force.

18
 INTRODUCTION

Stockholm-based artist Petra Bauer, and scholar Rebecka

Thor, who have been dealing with the archaeology of ear-
ly feminist movements in Scandinavia, visually recount
the journey of a group of socialist women who set off
to the newly founded communist Soviet Union to vis-
it an international women’s conference. Bauer and Thor
point out how political organising, under the cover of
sewing-clubs and craft workshops can take a more inti-
mate and emotional form, advocating a soft form of fem-
inism. The reports from the journey abruptly end on the
Norwegian-Russian border.

Kollontai’s tangible and symbolic traces in St Petersburg

appear in the essay by the Russian cyber-feminist Alla
Mitrofanova introduced and translated by Johnathan
Platt who presents an overview of the gender revolu-
tion in Russia at the beginning of the twentieth century.
One of its remarkable achievements was the development
of the horizontal network of women’s sections in the
Russian Communist party. Called Zhenotdel, the organ-
isation established by Kollontai and Inessa Armand was
devoted to women’s affairs in the 1920s. As Mitrofanova
notes: ‘this was a time of radical institution building, and
Kollontai was at the forefront of the institutional reinven-
tion of social practices’. The text concludes with an account
of current feminist performances in the public sphere
in Moscow, claiming feminism as a ‘national’ practice.

Bini Adamczak, a theorist and an artist, in conversation

with CuratorLab introduces her concept of ‘gender of
the revolution’. She claims that the revolution is seen as

19
 INTRODUCTION

masculine, and the counter-revolution as feminine. ‘This

is not only true of the cultural characterisation of gen-
der, but of course the economic core of gender.’ — says
Adamczak — ‘In the Russian Revolution, housework was
seen as reactionary, capitalist, or feudalist. Whereas in-
dustrial work, technology as progressive and socialist.
This is a perspective that changed over the coming years,
and especially in 1968, and today.’ Adamczak claims that
the revolution failed as it had too much of the male gender.
It could potentially be changed, and there was in fact an
attempt to do that in 1968 with the transformation of love
from the private to the political, something very close to
Kollontai.

Culture scholar and philosopher Nina Power continues

with her views on the conditions for political organisa-
tion today. How do we reinstate trust and shared political
passion when the political landscape is fragmented and
divided, rife with internal rivalry and conflict? What can
we take from Kollontai’s conception of comradeship and
love in political organising to overcome differences and
build political strength in the movements today? In her
essay, Power analyses contemporary gender relations, the
conditions for friendship and the need for ‘generosity, pa-
tience and kindness’.

During the opening day of the ‘Red Love’ exhibition, art-

ist Alicja Rogalska with the CuratorLab participant
Martyna Nowicka-Wojnowska organised a series of pub-
lic speeches throughout Stockholm starting from the city
centre and ending within Tensta konsthall, transcribed

20
 INTRODUCTION

here as the manifesto ‘New Gospel: Soon (In 48 Years

Time)’. It predicts that the future happens soon and in-
volves a call to hack technology, make knowledge open
source, refuse waged labour, collectivise childcare and
understand that the overcoming of the climate crisis can
only happen with interspecies cooperation.

In the performance Ask Alexandra the artist and curator

Sophia Tabatadze provided direct access to Kollontai as
a person. Through a collective séance, the audience was
given the opportunity to enter into the different periods
of Kollontai’s life and ask any question about her thoughts
and experiences, with the help of cards and notes taken
from Kollontai’s biography and the historical events that
she lived through.

The artist Sally Schoenfeldt (invited by CuratorLab par-

ticipant Dimitrina Sevova) performed a public speech
Kollontai’s Love-Solidarity and the Revolutionary Struggle on
the public square outside of Tensta konsthall in English,
Swedish, and Arabic. This new struggle does not need
to build on old forms, but on the legacy of women’s lib-
eration history, which too often was kept obscured. The
intersection of women fighting for emancipation with
other central struggles such as the anti-war movement
was exemplified by connecting it to the speech Kollontai
gave as an anti-war activist to the Swedish League of So-
cialist Youth back in 1912.

In the cross-platform project Love Letters CuratorLab par-

ticipants Nicholas John Jones and Alessandra Prandin

21
 INTRODUCTION

invited the artistic practice of Baçoy Koop, a printing,

duplication, and distribution cooperative using mimeo-
graph technology as a tool of resistance and revisiting the
culture of independent publishing in the 1960s and 1970s.
Looking closely at printed matter produced by dissident
political organisations in Turkey and the civil rights
movement in the USA, their work explores how commu-
nities, alternative value systems, political horizons, and
artistic imaginaries were organised around the potential
of the mimeograph as a tool.

Bodies of Water was a choreographic installation by art-

ist and choreographer Pontus Pettersson and Curator-
Lab participant Hannah Zafiropoulos, taking Kollontai’s
writings on love and Astrida Neimanis’s Hydrafemininity:
or, On Becoming a Body of Water as a starting point for an
embodied exploration into fluidity and being-in-relation.
The score was performed by a group of dancers during one
afternoon throughout the exhibition space.

Together with curator Aly Grimes, the artist Antonio

Roberts performed a lecture The Digital Domestic Script
for a Performative Lecture in which he pursued a dialogue
with the domestic smart device Alexa. The machine’s
sharp and at other times comic and off target responses
were intertwined with a critical analysis of the relation
between female waged and unwaged domestic work with
the increased automatisation of production. The fact that
the internet-powered software Alexa is given a female
gender reflects a long history of submission of women
within the domestic private sphere.

22
 INTRODUCTION

In ‘The Revolution Will Be Mothernized! (Kinder, Küche,

Kirche, Bitte!)’ artist Lise Haller Baggersen reflects on the
still undervalued labour of women and mothers, where
her own grandmother, the mother of five children, is pro-
vided as a prime example. As other women, and mothers
of her generation, she refused the conservative idea that
women should be constrained to childcare, housework,
and religious piety. Baggersen asks: could then the polit-
ical control of the reproductive and spiritual spheres of
society represent a good foundation for a feminist system
of governance?

The director of CuratorLab, Joanna Warsza, in anoth-

er conversation with García, discusses the possible re-
lation of Kollontai’s thoughts to the current political
movements such as #MeToo, the women’s black protest
strikes in Poland, and the grassroots feminist movement,
Ni una menos, in Argentina, addressing women’s condi-
tions which in many ways are similar to the struggles
Kollontai participated in a hundred years ago. The con-
versation is illustrated by Tomáš Rafa’s documentation
of the Black Monday protests across Poland — in 2016
women went out on strike against the proposal of a total
ban on abortions.

Philosopher Oxana Timofeeva gives a brute picture of

how far we are today from Kollontai’s projection of eman-
cipation as depicted in her short futurist novel Soon (In 48
Years’ Time) penned in 1922. In many parts of the world, as
well as in Russia, Timofeeva and Kollontai’s home country,
emancipatory politics and equal gender relations are not

23
 INTRODUCTION

developing for the better. In February 2017, the Russian

Duma decriminalised domestic violence. This and other
steps such as anti-abortion regulation and widespread
normalisation of sexual harassment paints a bleak picture
of a country that once pioneered social reforms for wom-
en. Timofeeva brings to light the historical continuum of
patriarchal slut shaming from Kollontai’s case to today’s
contemporary Russia as a backdrop for her Whore Manifes-
to, a counterattack on false morality with a proclamation
of the political force of matriarchal polygamy.

Feminist scholar Sara Ahmed, on the contrary, warns

against investing too much hope in love. She argues that
in nationalist, exclusive groups, love is also the principal
element — love of a phantasmagorical, imagined, homog-
enous homeland inhabited solely by those who ‘are just
like me’. Love of the ‘same’ as opposed to love of the other.
The latter is a love that dare not speak its name, not be-
cause it is unconventional, but because it is hated.

Kollontai’s work on sexuality and intimate relations under

communism is at the core of scholar Aaron Schuster’s
contribution. Marxist deconstruction of bourgeois ro-
mantic love was caricatured in the 1939 Hollywood
film Ninotchka by Ernst Lubitsch starring Greta Garbo
as a Soviet agent. In the movie, the Ninotchka charac-
ter has a rigid relation to romantic flirtation that mirrors
Kollontai’s position on sexuality, it being as uncompli-
cated as drinking a glass of water (wrongly attributed to
her — it was in fact Lenin who coined this parable). This
parallel that came from one of her novels portraying her

24
 INTRODUCTION

ideas of love and sexual relations was later used for her
isolation from the political scene. In Schuster’s reading of
Ninotchka, the classic use of sexual desire for comic relief
is replaced by a deep desire for comradely love.

In ‘Letter from a trans man to the old sexual regime’ phi-

losopher Paul B. Preciado disidentifies himself from
dominant masculinity and its necro-political definition.
He neither mentions nor refers to Kollontai, although
the text raises questions about her possible relation to
the future queer epistemology and deconstruction of
heteronormative gender binaries. Kollontai gives little
attention, if any, to other orientations and positions than
heterosexual love — that conservative sexual morality
was still too dominant. However, her ethics of love and
sex was based on consent and camaraderie. The consen-
sual exchange of sexual favours, a sexual commons, as
an effective measure against prostitution comes close to
what Preciado calls the invitation to ‘fuck with our own
politics of desire’.

The need for a materialist understanding of love is greater

than ever argues artist and writer Mohammad Salemy
in his experimental science non-fiction text ‘Human-
Machine Libidinal Transference’. In the text, Salemy at-
tempts to outline the cybernetics of love and sexuation in
the age of the Internet and artificial intelligence. Arguing
that despite the apparent expansion of sexual practices,
automation and machines are gradually replacing sexu-
al labour. This development where machine intelligence
acquires sexual intelligence, the emergence of machinic

25
 INTRODUCTION

love-sex desires, entails a fundamental transformation of

the sexual relations and its forms of mediation. However,
machines need to express their consent in order not to
reproduce the perils of dehumanised sex, which humans
sometimes subject other humans with.

The reader ends with a unique first print of the English

translation of a play on Kollontai by Agneta Pleijel, a re-
nowned Swedish writer and feminist. The first version
of the play titled Hey, you! Sky! taken from Mayakovski’s
famous poem, was published in 1977 and staged at the
Folkteatern (Folk Theatre) in Gothenburg. It’s a poetic
portrayal of Kollontai that was later revised together
with the theatre and film director Alf Sjöberg, who had
met Kollontai in the 1930s, with the new title Kollontai.
The play was staged for a second time, with an exten-
sive cast at the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm, in
1979. The play is based on Pleijel’s extensive research on
Kollontai’s personal life, her role in different political
events and her conflictual relation to political figures
such as Stalin. Pleijel manages to portray the complexity
of Kollontai’s personality and political deed, both as an ad-
vocate for women’s rights and as a long-term functionary
in Stalin’s state apparatus.

The play is preceded by a conversation between Agneta

Pleijel, Dora García, and Maria Lind. Pleijel recounts
how Kollontai’s writing gained wide attention in differ-
ent Marxist feminist circles around the world during the
late 1960s and ’70s. In Sweden, Pleijel was tired of the
often-times male-dominated leftist debates and found

26
 INTRODUCTION

inspiration in the work of Luxemburg and Kollontai. After

extensive research, which among many places took her to
Moscow, Pleijel wrote a biographical play portraying the
relations and conflicts in Kollontai’s life. Pleijel also de-
picts Kollontai’s problematic relationship with Stalin and
the degeneration of utopic bolshevism into severe dicta-
torship, and the presence of Kollontai in both regimes.

Despite all the engagement in Kollontai’s life and legacy,

which are manifested in this publication, it is in the words
of Nina Power ‘depressing to note that little of Kollontai’s
thinking appears to have transpired in practice over the
course of the century between her writings and today’.
Therefore, it is all the more important, and inspiring, to
read her now, again and again.

27
 INTRODUCTION

Alexandra Kollontai, c. 1930, as Soviet Ambassador to Sweden

SPUTNIK / Alamy Stock Photo

28
 MICHELE MASUCCI

ALEXANDRA KOLLONTAI’S MANY LIVES

MICHELE MASUCCI

In Alexandra Kollontai’s own words, she lived many

lives.1 Her life, brimming with events, relationships and
disillusionment, is fascinating in itself. Reading Kollontai
means tracing the life of a revolutionary through the nu-
merous books, pamphlets, articles, speeches and actions
that she took part in organising. We may differ with Kol-
lontai on many of her choices, yet it is critical to contem-
plate the difficulties one always faces in being part of a
movement with the passionate goal of forming a better
world. Kollontai lived many lives surrounded by many
loves, the greatest one perhaps being the 1917 October
Revolution, which she fought to realise and stayed loyal
to until her death.

WORKING WOMEN ON STRIKE

Alexandra Kollontai became a central figure in the inter-

national socialist woman’s movement at the turn of the
last century. Having been raised in an upper-class family,
Kollontai had turned to socialism and the revolution in
her quest for women’s liberation. Her political commit-
ments began in 1894 when she as a young mother worked
with an organisation set up to help political prisoners.
During the so-called years of the flowering of Marxism in
Russia, Kollontai read radical journals and August Bebel’s
Woman and Socialism, 2 which became a life-changing book
that provided a fierce materialist critique of woman’s
conditions under capitalism. Bebel brought convincing

29
 ALEXANDRA KOLLONTAI'S MANY LIVES

arguments to show the inherent need of gender inequality

for the reproduction of capitalist society.3
 The year after, in 1886, Kollontai visits with her then-
husband assigned to rework the ventilation system in
a textile factory in St Petersburg. During the visit, she
was deeply affected by the miserable conditions women
textile workers were enduring. The same year she helped
organise a strike at the textile factory. With her increas-
ing political engagement, Kollontai felt gradually more
conflicted and alienated by the safe haven of bourgeois
family life. She began transforming herself into a well-
informed and fierce activist participating in the organisa-
tion of women strikes, protests and rebellions and travel-
ling the world establishing political alliances.
 In her home country, she fought to put women’s con-
ditions on the agenda. For many Russian Marxists, the
so-called woman question was a subordinated problem
that would resolve itself with the overcoming of capital-
ist social relations. During the times of the revolution of
1905, Kollontai reminded the Social Democratic party that
was losing support from women to the well-organised
bourgeoisie feminists about the difficult conditions many
women workers in the cities lived and what many had
endured as peasants’ wifes, mothers, and daughters in the
countryside.
 In the decades that preceded the revolution, women
workers often showed more determination and capacity
to organise resilience of the strike actions over time. The
increased consciousness among working women of the
widespread sexual exploitation by factory management
strengthened the female strike movement articulating

30
 MICHELE MASUCCI

their own needs as women. Strike demands would be put

forth relating to their particular needs, such as improved
reproductive conditions like maternity leave. 4
 Many successful actions brought about by women’s
organisation formed the basis for the revolutionary
strength that would come in 1917. Despite the fact that
the strong signs from an increased women’s mobilisation
and the central role of women’s strikes had played in the
years before the revolution, the party leadership remained
sceptical towards women’s abilities to contribute in po-
litical affairs after 1917. Women’s concerns were deemed
to be special interests and were overall a deviation from
the greater and more urgent goals.

YEARS OF RADICAL
STUDIES

In 1898 Kollontai left her home, her husband and her child,
to become a student of political economy with Professor
Heinrich Herkner at the University of Zürich. It was not
uncommon among middle and upper-class women in
Russia at the time to study abroad since Russian institu-
tions did not admit women. During these years, Kollontai
studied zealously; in her autobiography,5 she states that
among many influences was George Plechanov who fore-
saw that centralisation of power would result in a grad-
ual imposition of a system of patriarchal authoritarian
communism.6 Kollontai embodied like many other Rus-
sian radicals at the time also the famous call in Nikolay
Chernyshevsky, What Is to Be Done?, 7 demanding the full
dedication of one’s life without remorse to the revolution,
subordinating everything with dedication until death.

31
 ALEXANDRA KOLLONTAI'S MANY LIVES

Another significant influence for socialists working for

the women’s cause was Engels 1884 book The Origin of
the Family, Private Property, and the State.8 Engels showed
that there is a connection between the production of the
means of existence and the family’s function in all socie-
ties to reproduce new human beings. The violent process of
primitive accumulation of land meant the effective exclu-
sion for women from access to their means of subsistence.
Private ownership entailed the formation of a public and
private sphere, where men and woman were forced to
work for private owners of the land; however, women
were disadvantaged through this mediation. Similarly to
Bebel, Engels describes how the family under capitalism
had ceased to be an economic unit of society, depicting
the role of the bourgeois family as preserving and trans-
mitting capital. The bourgeois family served to ensure
men’s property was passed down to children who were
biologically theirs, while that of the proletarian family
was to reproduce the labour force, which was the princi-
pal component of this capital.
 Like many other women socialists, Kollontai’s thoughts
on love and gender relations drew first of all from experi-
ence matched with these fundamental Marxist positions.
Throughout history, women have been subordinated
through a sexual division of labour.9 Marital relationship
not only dispossessed women but also made them objects
of possession. This subordination through a division of
tasks, where women were forced to care for reproductive
tasks, while men participate in political life, was made
possible by the introduction of private property.

32
 MICHELE MASUCCI

MY HEART BELONGS TO
THE POOR OF FINLAND10

Alexandra Kollontai was born into an aristocratic family,

her mother the daughter of a Finnish public official and
trader. As a youth Alexandra spent her summers at the
family property in Kuusa, Finland. In her autobiography,
Kollontai mentions the summers in Finland playing with
the children of farmers as a decisive moment when she
became conscious of her class privileges.11 She learned
some Finnish at an early age and also married her second
cousin, the engineer Vladimir Kollontai against her par-
ent’s wishes in 1893, also from Finnish descent.
 Back in Russia in 1899, after her studies in Zurich, she
started her research on the Finnish working class by
writing several articles.12 She became recognised as the
Russian Social Democratic Labour Party’s expert on the
‘Finnish question’. Her first article, ’Die Arbeitsfrage in
Finnland’,13 was partly written while in Finland. Three
years later, she completed the major socio-economic re-
search The Lives of Finnish Workers.14 Kollontai liaised with
Finnish revolutionaries and workers in the organisation
of trade unions and worked for Finland to seek indepen-
dence from Russia.15
 In 1899 Kollontai witnessed and supported the first
strikes organised by working women in Åbo. At this
time the Finnish working class started to become more
organised. Learning that the failure of several strikes had
been due to lack of strike funds and union organisation,
Kollontai in the act of solidarity donated the money from
an article to support union organisation in Finland. The

33
 ALEXANDRA KOLLONTAI'S MANY LIVES

general understanding is that this was why Kollontai was

called the mother of union organisation in Finland.16
 In 1906 the pamphlet Finland and Socialism was pub-
lished.17 It is partly due to this publication that the Tsarist
regime targeted Kollontai, forcing Kollontai to go into po-
litical exile in Europe. This period proved, however, very
productive for Kollontai, primarily through her engage-
ment with the growing international women’s movement.
She never left her interests and will to engage with Fin-
land and especially the conditions of women workers.
Like with so many others, the fact that women had gained
already the right to vote in Finland in 1906 interested
Kollontai. Neither Russian women nor women in the
west had any rights during this time. Women gained the
right to vote after the revolution.

COMMISSAR KOLLONTAI
AND THE WORKERS OPPOSITION

Kollontai’s monumental political work and legal research

on health policy and women’s rights entitled Society and
Motherhood18 from 1916 was a foundational piece for in-
forming the policies she started to implement as the com-
missioned People’s Commissar for Social Welfare of the
Soviet Republic. In 1920 as the head of the Women’s Sec-
tion, the Zjenotdel, she did outstanding work for women’s
emancipation, which included raising the consciousness
of the public to these issues as well as drafting extensive
legal reforms.19 Kollontai’s early engagement and experi-
ence with workers’ struggles had formed her into a fierce
agitator for workers’ rights. Soviets and workers’ unions

34
 MICHELE MASUCCI

did have a fundamental role in the division of power

during the first years after the revolution and kept ad-
vocating for a participatory organisation of production. 20
 As commissar for social welfare, Kollontai managed to
transform the social health infrastructure in Russia, in-
troducing progressive social reforms such as secularised
orphanages. Before the revolution, orphanages were part
of the Orthodox Church and religious morality. Health
insurance and paid leave for women after child birth and
the legalisation of abortion were but other fundamental
reforms. Many of these reforms that today are taken for
granted, or even lost under austerity reforms in liberal
democracies were pioneered in the post-revolutionary
Soviet government under Kollontai’s lead.
 The newly liberated Russians grew increasingly dis-
satisfied by the authoritarian tendency of the Bolshevik
government, pushing workers to ever more openly po-
litical actions. As a former union activist, Kollontai was
weary of the increasing centralisation of power, believing
strongly in workers’ democratic influence in production.
During her time as Commissar, Kollontai increasingly
became an internal critic of the Communist Party. With
her friend, Alexander Shlyapnikov, a left-wing faction of
the party was formed, known as the Workers’ Opposition.
The faction fought for workers’ rights and control, voic-
ing clear demands against increased bureaucratisation
and centralisation of power. The pamphlet The Workers’
Opposition, published in 1921, called for members of the
communist party to be allowed to discuss policy issues.21
In this text, Kollontai advocated for more political free-
dom for trade unionists.

35
 ALEXANDRA KOLLONTAI'S MANY LIVES

During the Tenth Party Congress of 1921, using as an ex-

cuse the Kroonstad uprising, Lenin made the argument
that factions within the party were ‘harmful’ and counter-
revolutionary. The Party Congress agreed with Lenin,
and the Workers’ Opposition was dissolved. After this,
Kollontai lost all her political assignments, and she was
sent to Norway for diplomatic duties.

WORDS FOR
COMMUNIST LOVE

In Communism and the Family, a famous speech held during

the first national congress for female workers and farmers
in 1918, Kollontai seeks a solution to solve the problem of
combining work and family. 22 In a communist economy
with the abolition of private property, planned production,
the family would lose its role as an economic unit and
power structure. This ‘proletarian sexual politics’ could
not wait for a change in property relations, as the capital-
ist social relations constituted an essential weapon in the
class struggle. 23 Making family life a collective responsi-
bility and concern meant sharing the economic and social
responsibility with the movement, making women’s lib-
eration possible. 24 The dissolution of the nuclear family
would liberate women, bringing a collective responsibility
and care of housework, that would be cared for by work-
ers through common canteens, laundry houses, schools,
and daycare centres for children.
 Thus for Kollontai the transformation into socialism
also had to include a revolution in the private sphere
based on the principles of distributed comradely love

36
 MICHELE MASUCCI

in opposition to the enclosures of the bourgeois family.

However, Kollontai did not advocate the complete aboli-
tion of marriage, merely a significant transformation, and
a form of co-existence with many types of relationships.
Charles Fourier had brought the vision of a society organ-
ised through communes with collectivised housework
that could provide a more sustainable relation among peo-
ple and to nature. In Le Nouveau Monde Amoureux Fourier
poses a fundamental critique of monogamous marriage
that he describes as a form of enslavement of women.25
In Fourier’s theoretical and political model of society, har-
mony is achieved through the disappearance of monoga-
mous marriage and the systematic multiplication of love
relationships of all kinds, establishing absolute equality
between the sexes. Fourier’s work is often cited as a pre-
cursor to the ‘sexual liberation’ at both the turn of the
twentieth century and in the 1960s.
 In a famous essay ‘Make Way for Winged Eros: A Let-
ter to Working Youth’ Kollontai critiques civilisation and
questions the individualism of her time.26 She envisions
a form of love not tied to property nor people, rather this
love should belong to all and would with the advance-
ment of socialist revolution appear in a form that is un-
known to us, only able to develop from the working class.
Kollontai’s view on love regards the essence of socialism,
namely, solidarity. Love for Kollontai is not a relationship
of close couples; it is not a private matter, but a funda-
mentally social issue. That is why the working class will
develop ‘comradely love’. Kollontai calls for a transforma-
tion of the human mind. Without solidarity, there is no
communism, society, or unity.

37
 ALEXANDRA KOLLONTAI'S MANY LIVES

Kollontai’s writing evidences the quest to identify the

conditions for communist comradely love. How our abil-
ity to love, to express and embody affectivity can trans-
form into political engagement and collective political
practices that can form some permanence or continuity.

LETTERS TO DEAR COMRADES —

MADAME KOLLONTAI
AND THE SWEDISH FEMINISTS

Kollontai held a series of diplomatic posts, including am-

bassadorships, in Norway, Sweden, and Mexico. Although
this was a first for a woman, her diplomatic career was
the manoeuvre by the party leadership to marginalise
Kollontai from power.
 One of Kollontai’s closest friends during her years
as a Soviet diplomat was Emy Lorentsson who worked
as Kollontai’s personal secretary at the Soviet embassy
in Stockholm. After the war, when Kollontai’s service
at the embassy was terminated, she followed her to
Moscow and became a Soviet citizen. During Kollontai’s
years as ambassador in Sweden she came together with
the progressive liberal feminist Fogelstad group. 26 This
group consisted of some of the most prominent feminists
from Sweden at the time. Kollontai came to lecture at the
women’s citizens’ school at Fogelstad and was frequently
interviewed and wrote in the group’s paper, Tidevarvet
(The epoch). Kollontai wrote on the women’s question in
the Soviet Union and on Russia in general.
 One of the members, Ada Nilsson, an established spe-
cialist on women’s health, contributed under the influence

38
 MICHELE MASUCCI

of Kollontai to the radicalisation of the Women’s citizens’

school. 28 Although their correspondence became frequent
and dear, it never contained any details that could be po-
litically sensitive. 29 They discussed abortion rights in the
two countries; Kollontai accounted for her work in the
League of Nations and provided Ada with material for her
planned autobiography. Their correspondence continued
up until Kollontai’s death.
 In one article over the basic rights to motherhood, Ada
Nilsson quoted a note that a neighbour of hers had found:
“Never will I forget the difficult night I lived through
when my son was born, that I then strangled, laid in a sack
and threw in the pond. Never will I forget that moment,
but I could not have acted differently. Whoever might find
this note I ask to pray for me and perhaps I might be for-
given for my terrible crime. However, do not denounce
me to the police. I will not be found as I have changed
my name.”30
 With this note, Ada Nilsson starts one of her articles
in Tidevarved from May 1934. The article: ‘The Right to
Motherhood’ is a discussion defending not only the ma-
terial condition of parenting but also the psychological
factors given the social attitudes towards mothers at
the time. While acknowledging that child mortality in
Soviet Russia was higher than in Sweden. With the legal
health and social insurance reforms partly introduced by
Kollontai straight after the revolution, that strengthened
women’s rights in many respects, Sweden was lacking
behind. Working women who got pregnant had virtually
no rights and were often fired, leading to a tragic situation
like the one that framed this short article.

39
 ALEXANDRA KOLLONTAI'S MANY LIVES

KNITTING THE SOCIAL FABRIC —

KOLLONTAI IN CONTEMPORARY STRUGGLES

The social, emotional and sexual capabilities that were

considered crucial for the formation of an emancipat-
ed democratic and progressive communist society for
Kollontai, are today the very same capacities that have
been appropriated within service work, teamwork, and
other kinds of work where the enactment of the shared,
social and collaborative has been made into a fundamen-
tal component of productivity.
 Silvia Federici, along with other feminists in Italy
during the 1970s who were coming out of the Wages for
Housework movement pointed to the role of reproduc-
tion in the general formation of the working class and the
dominant productive forces of society.31 As Kollontai and
her comrades had identified in a capitalist society, large
parts of the necessary social reproduction, is displaced in
the private sphere where women traditionally have had to
do much of the work to maintain the household. Women’s
unpaid labour is essential for the productive capacities of
a society for the reproduction of the working class.
 In Caliban and the Witch, Silvia Federici develops strong
arguments for the need to recognise the production and
reproduction of the worker as a social and economic ac-
tivity. 32 According to Federici, the failure to recognise this
results in a mystification of reproduction as a natural re-
source or as a personal service done out of love or duty or
by the enactment of a specific gender role while profit-
ing off the wageless conditions of the labourer involved.
These forms of exploitation and oppression are based on

40
 MICHELE MASUCCI

a social system of production that does not recognise

housework as a source of capital accumulation. In the cen-
tre of care work is the question of the wage. In Mariarosa
Dalla Costa and Selma James’s The Power of Women and the
Subversion of the Community, 33 there is a critical anti-work
dimension: ‘When men refuse work, they consider them-
selves militant and when we reject our work these same
men consider us nagging wifes.’34 This tension between
the demand of the end to work and the unwaged work to
be recognised and valued is essential to recognise. Wages
against housework does not mean make everyone into
paid housemaids, it means the opposite, the collective
refusal of work altogether.
 In moments of crisis such as the gradual withdraw-
al of mechanisms of welfare, or the spaces of perpetual
marginalisation, the problem of reproduction and the
urgent need for self-organised forms of sustaining lives
becomes concrete. Social reproduction thus becomes a
field for building social power that opens for new cycles
of struggle that intersect social relations of care, with
spaces, habitation and the production and redistribution
of resources. Today this is explored through the transna-
tional Social Strikes35 and International Women’s Strike
Movement.36 These socialised strike actions are opposing
not only sexual violence on women, queer, lesbian and
transgender but also the generalised and accelerated con-
ditions of precarity spreading across sectors and regions
around the world, connecting as Kollontai did, the ques-
tion of class and working conditions with gender equal-
ity and emancipation. Asking how radical solidarity and
anti-capitalist feminism is made possible.37

41
 ALEXANDRA KOLLONTAI'S MANY LIVES

Federici’s proposal to form communalities of care that

through practices of care and autonomous social repro-
duction embody the commons is powerful. If communal,
comradely love is the method and goal, what might be the
conditions for us to come to this practice? Alternatively,
in other words, ‘how can ‘solidarity’ be possible in and
against the objective conditions that divide us?’38

1 Alexandra Kollontai, Jag har levt många liv (Stavsnäs: Sjösala

förlag, 2014).
2 August Bebel, Woman under Socialism, trans. by Daniel De Leon
(New York: Labor News Company, [1879] 1904).
3 Anna Rotkirch, ‘Rakare, friare, friskare: Kollontais vision för
kvinnokroppen’, in Revolutsjon, Kjærlighet, diplomati: Aleksandra
Kollontaj og Norden, ed. by Yngvild Sørbye (Oslo: Unipub, 2018),
p. 96.
4 Anne Bobroff, ‘The Bolsheviks and Working Women, 1905–20’,
Soviet Studies, vol 26, no. 4, 1974, pp. 540–67. JSTOR, www.jstor.
org/stable/150677.
5 Alexandra Kollontai, The Autobiography of a Sexually Emancipated
Communist Woman (New York: Prism Key Press, 2011).
6 G. V. Plechanov, Socialism and the Political Struggle (Moscow:
Progress Publishers, [1883], 1974).
7 Nikolay Chernyshevsky, What Is to Be Done?: A Romance (Boston:
Benj. R. Tucker Publisher, 1886).
8 Friedrich Engels, The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the
State (London: Penguin Classics, [1884], 2010).
9 Silvia Federici, Caliban and the Witch: Women the Body and Primi-
tive Accumulation (Brooklyn, NY: Autonomedia, 2004), p. 97.
10 Alexandra Kollontai, ‘My Heart Belongs to the Poor of Finland’,
published in a union’s yearbook Työn Juhla, 1911, in Elina Katain-
en, ‘Arbeid, fred, fri kjærlighet: Kollontaj sett med finske øyne’.
In ed. by Yngvild Sørbye, ‘Revolutsjon, Kjærlighet, diplomati:
Aleksandra Kollontaj og Norden’ (Oslo: Unipub, 2018), p. 220.
11 Ibid., p. 211.

42
 MICHELE MASUCCI

12 Ibid., p. 217.
13 Alexandra Kollontai, Die Arbeiterfrage in Finnland (Leipzig:
Duncker & Humblot, 1900).
14 Alexandra Kollontai, Zhizn’ finliandskikh rabochikh (The Lives of
Finnish Workers) (St Peterburg: T-vo Khudozhestvennoi pechati,
1903).
15 Elina Katainen, ‘Arbeid, fred, fri kjærlighet: Kollontaj sett med
finske øyne’, in Revolutsjon, Kjærlighet, diplomati: Aleksandra
Kollontaj og Norden, ed. by Yngvild Sørbye (Oslo: Unipub, 2018),
p. 218.
16 Ibid., p. 218.
17 Alexandra Kollontai, Finliandiia i sotsializm (Finland and Socialism),
1906.
18 Alexandra Kollontai, ‘Society and Motherhood’, in Selected
Articles and Speeches (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1984).
19 Cathy Porter, Alexandra Kollontai: A Biography (London: Virago,
1980), p. 271.
20 Elizabeth Wood, The Baba And the Comrade: Gender and Politics
in Revolutionary Russia (Indianapolis: Indiana University Press,
1997), p. 72.
21 Alexandra Kollontai, The Workers Opposition in the Russian Com-
munist Party (St Petersburg, FL: Red and Black Publishers, [1921],
2009).
22 Alexandra Kollontai, ‘Communism and the Family’, in Selected
Writings of Alexandra Kollontai, trans. by Alix Holt (Westport, CN:
Laurence Hill Co., 1977).
23 Jinee Lokaneeta, ‘Alexandra Kollontai and Marxist Feminism’,
Economic and Political Weekly, 36, no. 17 (April 28–May 4, 2001),
pp. 1405–12.
24 Richard Stites, The Women’s Liberation Movement in Russia:
Feminism, Nihilism, and Bolshevism, 1860–1930 (Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 1978), p. 260.
25 Charles Fourier, Le Nouveau Monde Amoureux (Scotts Valley, CA:
CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, [1818], 2015).
26 Alexandra Kan, ‘Aleksandra Kollontajs private vänkrets under
de diplomatiska tjänsteåren i Norge och Sverige’, in Revolutsjon,
Kjærlighet, diplomati: Aleksandra Kollontaj og Norden ed. by Yngvild
Sørbye (Oslo: Unipub, 2018), p. 277.

43
 ALEXANDRA KOLLONTAI'S MANY LIVES

28 Ibid., p. 278.
29 Gothenburg Public Library online at: http://www.alvin
-portal.org/alvin/home.jsf?dswid=6852 (2019-05-21).
30 Ibid.
31 Silvia Federici, Wages Against Housework (Bristol: Power of Wom-
en Collective and the Falling Wall Press, 1975), p. 11.
32 Federici, Caliban and the Witch.
33 Mariarosa Costa Dalla and Selma James, The Power of Women and
the Subversion of the Community (Bristol, UK: Falling Wall Press,
1975).
34 Ibid.
35 Transnational Social Strike Platform (www.transnational-strike
.info).
36 The International Women’s Strike Movement started in 2016
and reaches out globally with coordinated feminist social strike
actions on 8 March.
37 Nancy Fraser, Tithi Bhattacharya, and Cinzia Arruzza, Feminism
for the 99%: A Manifesto (London: Verso, 2019).
38 Federici, Caliban and the Witch.

44
 INTERVIEW WITH DORA GARCÍA BY CURATORLAB

LOVE IS REVOLUTIONARY
CURATORLAB IN CONVERSATION WITH DORA GARCÍA
EDITED BY MARTYNA NOWICKA–WOJNOWSKA

Have you in your art practice always been interested

in love, relationships, and how the sense of belonging
shapes and influences social structures? I guess one
can see these themes appear even in your earlier works
such as ‘Heartbeat’?
 My background is quite heavy and conceptual. This is
a kind of art, which I loved as a student, and it still has a
huge impact on me. In the beginning my main focus was
the structure of art, the relation to the spectator. I was
always interested in questions of language and philoso-
phy — formal questions. Feminist or women’s issues were
never explicit in my work. I always thought of my work
as very dry and I was never interested in telling stories
of specific people, love or even sex. Not at all! So, I would
say my interest in love started when I realised the polit-
ical potential of those things. It was somewhere around
2008 when I made a work in Australia about Lenny Bruce.
Because of that I started to research counterculture in
Australia and actually realised that it went hand in hand
with the gay liberation movement and that both politics
and revolt link to sexuality and sexual habits. In a way
sexuality was something belonging to the private realm
which could immediately become subversive.

Was the link between sexuality and politics the reason

why you became interested in Alexandra Kollontai?
 Actually, I became aware of Kollontai’s existence some

45
 LOVE IS REVOLUTIONARY

time ago, but I had never read any of her texts. When Maria
Lind suggested that I should have a look at Kollontai’s
writings I was very occupied with the work Army of
Love, which was initiated by a friend, Ingo Niermann,
together with other friends. I don’t normally make collec-
tive works. But Army of Love was extremely interesting
to me and in a way Maria’s offer and Army of Love came
together.
 I think the reason why Maria invited me to become in-
volved with Alexandra Kollontai, was due to my work in
the Gwangju Biennale. I recreated the Nokdu Bookstore
where the Gwangju Uprising was incubated. Revolution
in Korea, which my work related to, was in a way not so
far away from the October Revolution that was experi-
enced and described by Kollontai. All the revolutionaries
were very young people ready to sacrifice themselves.
Those people who fought and died were between fifteen
and twenty-five years old, with the majority of them be-
ing younger than twenty.
 During the uprising you could have had all kinds of ro-
mances — revolutionary romances. All of a sudden norms
were subverted. You didn’t have to care about the social
status of your relations, you simply became aware of your
own mortality and everything changed. It had a huge im-
pact on both older women who saw their children go to
their death, and younger women, who grabbed this oppor-
tunity to question the patriarchal structures. It was one
of those situations when many paradoxical things come
together and then explode. That changes everything. The
Gwangju Uprising has been compared to La Commune,
having the same effect in Asia as the Commune in Paris.

46
 INTERVIEW WITH DORA GARCÍA BY CURATORLAB

You mentioned very briefly that you became interested

in love through your conceptual practice. When did you
start to recognise this kind of political and broader po-
tential? Can you talk a little bit about how your interest
in love changed during those ten years?
 I have to say that when I think about it now, I am sur-
prised that I didn’t recognise the subversive potential
of sexuality earlier. Of course, it has to do with where I
come from — in my generation, female artists were very
often interested in representing women’s sexuality. I was
always horrified by this notion and I did everything not
to be classified as a female artist, making ‘women’s art’. I
totally cut any reference to my female condition. I abso-
lutely didn’t want to be invited to participate in female
art exhibitions. Those prejudices completely blinded me
to all other possibilities.
 My interest in love changed as the politics changed.
For instance, in 2008, when ‘the personal’ started to be-
come present in my work through the project in Sydney
Australia on Lenny Bruce, Obama was a presidential can-
didate. Then he won the nomination for the Democratic
Party and all of a sudden it seemed like things were going
to be okay. What I call ‘the personal’ are the LGBT, civil
rights movement, which I have always supported, which
are part of my life experience. But in relation to my work
experience, my interest in love clearly coincides with
Trumpism.
 The notion of love is currently very much embedded in
politics. One of the movements against Trump is called
‘Revolutionary Love’, another ‘The Love Army’. The first
one is related to women’s movements (what has already

47
 LOVE IS REVOLUTIONARY

been named ‘Fourth Wave Feminism’) and the last one is

calling simply to love Republicans, love your opponent,
because it is love that will conquer. However, the main
force today is hate and many people think that only love
can conquer it and as stupid as it sounds, it is probably
right. Hate is all about manifestations of insecurities. It is
only through all kinds of love that you can overcome this.

As you approach your upcoming exhibition at Tensta

konsthall, ‘Red Love’, I’d like to ask what it was about
Kollontai’s life and work that felt relevant to your own
interests?
 The fact that she was so ahead of her times. She men-
tions in the 1930s things that would later be broadly dis-
cussed in the 1960s or even the ’70s, or now. There are few
specific things that struck me in her writing: the equality
of men and women, progressive views on marriage and
family, the idea that you cannot have a revolution without
women and a conviction that true freedom for women can
only be achieved in a socialist state.
 There is also the similarity that I came across between
Kollontai’s ideas and women’s movements in South
America. When I was doing research in South America
I realised that the women’s movements there avoided
identifying as feminist, because they consider feminism
to be white and European and they don’t want to be
identified with that. White European feminists are their
oppressors, not their sisters, therefore they don’t want
to identify with feminist fights. The notion of class in
Kollontai’s writings is also something very present and
in contemporary South America it has been shifted from

48
 INTERVIEW WITH DORA GARCÍA BY CURATORLAB

the notion of the proletariat to the notion of colonised

non-white people.
 Another thing would be the degeneration of Kollontai’s
ideas in socialist countries. In 2006, when I did research
work on the political police in East Germany, I focused as
much on sex as on politics. In the GDR women very of-
ten had children with different partners since they didn’t
have to depend on their husbands for their income and
divorce was not stigmatised — therefore it was socially
acceptable to have several partners throughout your life.
Next to that, the system of nurseries, schools and day care
was wonderful; you could leave your children there from
the age of three months and pick them up at night. Those
facts created a situation of relative freedom and indepen-
dence for women, but one in which children grew distant
from their parents and subsequently, too devoted to the
State. Therefore, it sometimes happened that children de-
nounced their parents to the State, if they considered that
their parents’ devotion to the Party was not convincing
enough.

Are those relevant things in Kollontai also the reason

why her project did not work?
 Sometimes Kollontai seems very naïve about women
leaving their children to the State, which is interesting
for me. I come from a Catholic country where this would
be an absolute evil. Nothing comes before family. Your
duty is always to your parents and nothing else. For those
people it must have been quite different. When you are
brought up as a socialist your duty is to the Party. Those
people who denounced their parents saw themselves as
heroes.

49
 LOVE IS REVOLUTIONARY

 When I spoke to some socialists from those times, they

always said that in the sixties and seventies they consid-
ered the socialist countries a model in women’s liberation
and abortion rights. Most of them did not realise where it
could lead. In East Germany there was a case of a woman
active in a resistance — a fighter for democracy. She was
also a feminist and a member of a women’s movement.
When the Berlin Wall fell, and the Stasi archives opened,
she discovered that her husband — whom she had been
together with for fifteen years and had children with, had
been informing on her since they met. She immediately
left him. The funniest part was the interview with her
husband who still didn’t understand the problem — he
thought about his actions as something done to protect
her. So, I think about this State taking too much over
family relations as a total degeneration of relations. He
could see himself as a husband, lover and informant at
the same time.

With the appearance of Kollontai, the body comes into

the picture much more than any of the other ideologists
of the period. One could say that she introduces a body
into politics. I’m interested in how you reflect on that
in your work.
 I have never been very fond of the body. Even when
enacting the ‘Army of Love’ I always get out when the
physical part begins. I don’t know where that comes from.
I’ve always been very interested in other sexualities, but
I am very conventional, sexually speaking.
 As I have already mentioned, I have always kept sep-
arate my personal life, my motherhood and my work. I

50
 INTERVIEW WITH DORA GARCÍA BY CURATORLAB

have never done anything related to art with my children,

which is quite rare. When women artists have children,
often, their kids feature in their work too. This has never
been the case with me, but at the same time my kids have
always been with me when I work. I never found it prob-
lematic to work with them and I never felt they hindered
me from anything. On the one hand being an artist and
having children was always something natural, and on
the other, they never appeared in my artistic work. I think
that the body is not something very present in my work,
but language is. Of course, language is always related to
the body, so I can’t say that the body is absent. One could
say that I am interested in language piercing through the
body (this is Lacan’s definition of ‘The Unconscious’).

My next question would be connected to the language

that you use, or the terms that you use. Your exhibition
at Tensta konsthall is called ‘Red Love’. What does ‘red
love’ signify to you?
 For a long time, I wanted to call the exhibition ‘Revolu-
tionary Love’, but I felt it was too long. ‘Red Love’ comes
from an article on Kollontai by the theorist and philoso-
pher, Michael Hardt. When I decided to paint the floor red,
in reference to Kazimir Malevich, I decided to call the ex-
hibition ‘Red Love’. The double meaning of the word ‘red’
has always been interesting for me. Communist’s flags
are the most beautiful flags because there is so much red
in them. When I was a teenager, I was always wearing
Russian t-shirts, Communist propaganda T-shirts. I was
unaware, and I just thought they were beautiful.

51
 LOVE IS REVOLUTIONARY

 I chose the title also because I think that the idea of love
as a revolutionary force, which encourages self-organisa-
tion, is interesting. Of course, this idea is not new, it has
been present in the history of humanity for a long time.
Before I began working on this project with Kollontai,
I was reading Charles Fourier who has quite a different
stance on love.
 Kollontai doesn’t consider sexual preferences other
than heterosexuality. She suggests that other options
would be detrimental for a Communist society. Contrary
to her, Fourier thinks that every possible sexual prefer-
ence is perfectly fine and a fundamental part of the indi-
vidual as well. He points out that to repress any sexual
drive always has terrible consequences. For Fourier, how-
ever weird you consider your desire, your needs can be ac-
commodated, and you will certainly find people who like
the same thing. Fourier came close to inventing Tinder in
his imagination of the ‘phalanstery’ — a kind of structure
where a ‘Priestess of Love’ would be communicating with
other ‘Priestesses of Love’ to match people according to
their preferences. Fourier is meticulous. Everything is a
multiple of four, but his ideas are truly revolutionary and
very much related to a sexual revolution. In a way they
are much more radical than what Kollontai had in mind.
The idea that there is absolutely nothing strange to human
experience, that nothing can be called degenerate, that
nothing that gives pleasure is bad, is amazing. Even now
it sounds challenging. Of course, curiously, we are now
in a much more conservative period than say thirty or
forty years ago.

52
 INTERVIEW WITH DORA GARCÍA BY CURATORLAB

Do you think that today, one hundred years after the

October Revolution, but also fifty years after May ’68,
we are at another turning point as far as love and sex
are concerned?
 I think plenty of other things happened during those
last one hundred years. Something that changed a lot was
AIDS. I remember my teachers saying that we were con-
servatives because we didn’t have as much sex as them.
With AIDS in mind you had to be much more careful, you
always needed a condom, if not, nothing happened. That
somehow wiped carelessness out of sexuality.
 Another factor would be the explosion of the pornog-
raphy industry. It’s something that makes me extremely
uneasy. I still don’t have a stance on pornography or pros-
titution. I understand of course where prostitution comes
from. I think it’s disgusting and I wish it didn’t exist, but
it does, through and through. It’s naïve to say that it’s bad
and we should ban it. It is a hyper-complex phenomenon
and to say that it is the ultimate hetero-patriarchal ex-
ploitation of the female/other body does not get us very
far in practical terms of reducing misery and abuse. And
in relation to pornography and the way to be empowered
by it, I love the concept of post-porn. I’ve seen a lot of it,
but it’s hard to say if I take any pleasure from it. Some-
times it is charming but most of the time the films are
bad and boring, and they don’t arouse you sexually at all.
Even my students say that the problem with post-porn is
that you never get excited. Any kind of movement that
wants to use porn as a way of liberation doesn’t seem to
work really.

53
 LOVE IS REVOLUTIONARY

 Anyway, I don’t think we are anywhere near a revolu-

tion in sex. I think on the contrary, we are in the process
of an involution of sex. There are societies, like in Japan,
where the problem is that people are not interested; they
prefer things other than sex. I’m not sure who said it, but
I remember a quote that says that ‘the worst thing that
can happen to a sexual fantasy is for it to come true’. I
think people have decided that sexual fantasies are much
better, safer and cleaner than the real thing. So maybe
that’s going to be the future, I don’t know.

As structure and language seem very important to you,

I wanted to ask you about the moment in your work
where you test a structure or a narrative that you cre-
ated with the public. How do you control it? Do you
keep track of how the public reacts to or absorbs this
narrative?
 I don’t have to control that. This is something that
happens to every artist. You never know how people are
going to react to your films or novels, at some point you
just have to let go. The way I usually work facilitates feed-
back more than other traditional models. For instance, I
started developing my work on the Internet by making
blogs, at a time when those things didn’t really exist. In
those prehistoric times of the net we created structures
that allowed people to give feedback and get informa-
tion about those projects which only a few people could
see live. Indeed because of this I was also interested in
how things are thought and narrated. In many works
that I made later on, for example the one for Skulptur
Projekt Münster, the feedback was part of the work — the

54
 INTERVIEW WITH DORA GARCÍA BY CURATORLAB

Internet space was provided to the audience, they could

follow the adventures of The Beggar (http://thebeggars-
opera.org). They could communicate with him and that
way people became part of the novel.

The follow-up question would be one about the struc-

ture that you have in mind for Tensta konsthall. What
is it and how does it refer to Kollontai?
 I understand the structure in Tensta konsthall as kind
of a stage. You can use it as a backdrop for activities and
performances. It’s a structure that inspires, colours and
unifies everything you do, almost like a campaign image,
which gives a house brand to all activities that will de-
velop inside it. This stage design is almost symbolically
related to Kollontai, to the idea of a ‘mission’ as a church-
like mysticism. The space also relates to the story of the
avant-garde — you have Malevich on the floor, you have
a very strong, almost expressionist use of light. There is
a cage based on the one from the movie W.R.: Mysteries of
the Organism (Dušan Makavejev), which is a kind of Com-
munist counter-culture. Inside the cage there is a working
room which I imagine as Kollontai’s writing room. It is
pretty symbolic because of the light spreading from the
inside of the cage.
 Then there is also a staircase, as stairs are a classical
Freudian sublimation of desire, but here they also refer
to the ‘Stairway to Heaven’ and notions of Cosmism. The
staircase I’m using is based on one from the Museum of
Jurassic Technology in LA, which is quite an interesting
place. It’s not Russian but they are referring to Soviet
space travels with a special room devoted to dogs that

55
 LOVE IS REVOLUTIONARY

were sent to space. The construction of this museum is

all about make-believe. It feels like a magician’s cave, full
of shadow play. So, in the case of ‘Red Love’ at Tensta
konsthall, the structures are both sculptural elements as
well as being rich in symbolist associations. It’s really a
stage, it’s really meant for things to happen there.

I’m interested to ask how Kollontai fuses with Russian

Cosmism that you briefly mentioned?
 It’s not that I want to fuse it, I’m interested in using it as
a way of looking at Kollontai. Cosmism relates to the idea
that Russia did not produce philosophers, but novelists.
Their novels often contained this vision of Russians as a
‘chosen’ people, endowed with a mission for the whole
of mankind. Those tendencies were present in Russia in
the nineteenth century, but also earlier, before Cosmism
began. The name ‘Cosmism’ stems from the outreach of
this mission: Russians were to save not only Earth, but
also the cosmos. Cosmism was very important for the
development of space missions. Awareness of a mission
that would change humanity is also fundamental for
the October Revolution. In a way it’s amazing that the
October Revolution worked. Everything was against it!
How is it possible that a proletarian revolution triumphs
in a country with no proletariat? The Cosmist credo, this
mix of visionary absurd and mysticism, which was so
present later on in Eastern European science-fiction
(Stanisław Lem and the Strugatsky brothers), certainly
played a role in the October Revolution. The idea that
Russian people have a duty to mankind — a universal mis-
sion, was already there.

56
 INTERVIEW WITH DORA GARCÍA BY CURATORLAB

If we are talking about giant utopian visions, let’s get

back to your work. Do you think about your work in
relation to change and hoping to provide possibilities?
 I think art does change the world, but in ways that we
are not aware of. I’m not interested in what is commonly
known as socially engaged art, although I think all art is
socially engaged. I find the works of many socially en-
gaged artists troublesome because I really know just a
few which have no contradictions. I think art operates
and performs change by thinking of individuals and a
mass is always composed of individuals.
 I feel there have been books and films that really
changed the way people think. There is The Man in the
High Castle, a novel of Philip K. Dick that plays with the
idea of a book changing the world. We are given the choice
to choose between different versions of fiction in history
but the very fact of being able to imagine another way of
seeing things, different from the one imposed on us, is
already a change. It becomes even more interesting right
now with the notion of ‘gas-lighting’, very present in the
United States and under the Trump administration. You
see something with your own eyes and you are told that
it’s not true. I saw police beating people who were voting
in Barcelona and then the news said that the police got
hurt because people threw themselves against them. Yes,
they got hurt, because they were beating people, it’s not
like you can get shot if nobody shoots! You talk to people
who read different things and have a totally different take
on reality, because they believe what they read, and they
read a bunch of lies. I think any kind of fiction can make
people aware of things and therefore can change them.

57
LOVE IS REVOLUTIONARY

58
INTERVIEW WITH DORA GARCÍA BY CURATORLAB

59
LOVE IS REVOLUTIONARY

60
INTERVIEW WITH DORA GARCÍA BY CURATORLAB

61
 PORTRAIT OF KOLLONTAI AS A CHILD

Giulia Andreani,
Portrait of Kollontai as a child, 2017–18,
acrylic on canvas, 25 × 19 cm

Copyright: Claire Dorn

Courtesy of the artist and VNH gallery

62
 MICHAEL HARDT

RED LOVE
MICHAEL HARDT

Che Guevara declared that a true revolutionary must be

guided by strong feelings of love.1 Alexandra Kollontai, a
Bolshevik revolutionary and minister in the first Soviet
government, would ultimately agree, but the first task is
to critique and destroy the forms of love that now predom-
inate. In line with feminists such as Mary Wollstonecraft,
who was already active a century before Kollontai, and
Shulamith Firestone decades after, Kollontai recognises
that love — particularly heteronormative romantic love
and family love — serves as a trap for women and a struc-
ture that guarantees their subordination. The dominant
forms of love in contemporary society, furthermore, are
socially limiting and politically harmful, for men and
women alike. The root of the problem, Kollontai claims,
is what I call property love, that is, the fact that we re-
gard our bonds to each other in terms of ownership and
property relations. The distinctive feature of Kollontai’s
position, then, is that the critique of love is inherently
a property question and thus overcoming property love
requires not only equality — equal property, for instance —
but also a radical social transformation, an explicitly an-
ticapitalist project. It is only once that property love is
abolished can we then begin to invent a new love, a rev-
olutionary love, a red love.
 During the first decade after the October Revolution,
a period of intense cultural, artistic, social, and political
experimentation, several intellectuals explored how
deeply property relations are insinuated into every

63
 RED LOVE

aspect of social life, well beyond the economic sphere.

And they sought, by unearthing and eradicating prop-
erty relations from all corners of society, to imagine
how a new society could be built. In effect, they exper-
imented with and extended Marx and Engels’s claim
that ‘the theory of the Communists may be summed up
in a single sentence: Abolition of private property’. 2 In
this regard, Kollontai’s analysis of property love taking
place within the couple and the family is parallel, for
instance, to Evgeny Pashukanis’s critique of law and
the state, developed in the same years.3 Pashukanis
argued that modern juridical and constitutional con-
cepts are based ultimately on property and commodity
relations. Abolishing property relations, then, he rea-
soned, would necessarily undermine state sovereignty
and require a complete reformulation of the basis of
normativity and law (see Amendola, this issue). Just
as for Pashukanis the abolition of private property in
communist society directly implies the withering of
the state, for Kollontai it entails the withering of the
bourgeois couple and family.
 It might be tempting for us to read Kollontai and
Pashukanis in a traditional structure-superstructure
framework, assuming, in other words, that elements
or characteristics of the economic base of society are
primary and reflected, secondarily, in the ideological
and cultural spheres. But property, in their arguments,
is not merely an economic category: it is from the be-
ginning a logic and a mode of relation that spans all
realms of life. One cannot simply aim for the abolition
of property in the economic relations, then, and assume

64
 MICHAEL HARDT

that other social realms will follow suit. Instead, the

struggles against property relations must proceed in
parallel in all social domains. And in each social do-
main one must invent an alternative. What is a subject
that is not defined by its possessions? What is a legal
relation not founded on property? And what can love
be when free of the logic of possession and ownership?

PROPERTY LOVE

Kollontai asserts that the logic that binds the modern

couple is based ultimately on property relations. In
pursuing this critical claim, she is certainly concerned,
as are many other feminists, with the gendered right
to ownership and inheritance of material wealth, but
her argument stresses more strongly a different in-
sight: that we regard our bonds to each other in terms
of property and possession. In capitalist society even ro-
mantic love is a property relation. ‘You are mine’ and ‘I
am yours’ are emblematic of the pledge of love as a claim
of property. Consider Kollontai’s explanation that the
experience of two people who, soon after falling in love
and forming a couple, exert rights over the other’s rela-
tionships, including those relationships which had begun
before they even knew each other. It would be regard-
ed as lack of trust or, really, a breach of property rights,
the refusal to share any experience past or present, any
friendship, past lover, or family relationship. The mistake
of many women in particular, she explains, is the belief
to have found the person with whom ‘we could blend our
soul’. 4 Everyone keeps some secrets and insists on some

65
 RED LOVE

independent friendships, but those are the exception be-

cause the social norm, the regulative ideal of romantic
love, requires that when you enter into partnership you
give yourself over and expect the other to do the same
in return.
 Property love was not always the norm, at least not
in the same way and to the same extent. In premodern
European society, Kollontai claims that men took pos-
session of women’s bodies and women were obliged to
be faithful to men physically (economically and sexually),
but women’s minds and souls were to a large extent to
be retained still their own. In bourgeois society, how-
ever, she continues, the love-property relation shifts and
deepens: ‘It is the bourgeoisie who have carefully tend-
ed and fostered the ideal of absolute possession of the
“contracted partner’s” emotional as well as physical “I”,
thus extending the concept of property rights to in-
clude the right to the other person’s whole spiritual and
emotional world’.5 In addition to the inequality and the
subordination of women created by bourgeois property
rights in the couple and the family, then the possession
of the other — the fact that love requires you to forfeit
all of yourself over as property — adds another layer
of subjection.
 It may seem incongruous to claim that modern love
is a property relation since the standard historical ac-
count maintains that modernity freed love from prop-
erty, doing away with arranged marriages, primogen-
iture inheritance laws, and, eventually, legal structures
that designate women as the property of fathers and
husbands. Although most life decisions must be made

66
 MICHAEL HARDT

with regard to property interests, according to this

view, there is at least one realm in life, the intimate
sphere of the couple and the family, where decisions
are made on the basis of love. Modern novels are full
of narratives, for instance, in which choosing a partner
against the pressures of property interests — Rochester
chose Jane Eyre, after all — demonstrates the triumph
and autonomy of love in the intimate sphere. The realm
of love, the thinking goes, is the one place free of prop-
erty, a space of the common where we share money and
goods. Kollontai’s argument, in contrast, is that even
when legal designations of property are not involved
today, we still conceive our intimate bonds according
to the logic of property relations, as a form of own-
ership and possession. Kollontai, in this sense, gives
new meaning to Marx’s claim that private property has
made us into such idiots to the point that we can only
think of something as ours when we own it.6
 One consequence of love being configured as a prop-
erty relation is to make the couple a ‘complete’ and thus
isolated unit. By the logic of property love, Kollontai
reasons, since you have the right to only what is yours,
bonds with all those outside the couple must be sub-
ordinated. ‘I am yours’ thus goes together with ‘you
are everything to me’. Indeed, complementarity and
wholeness are standard clichés of romantic love: the
two lovers are missing puzzle pieces who complete
each other and together form a whole. Freud reports
this standard view of the couple as a kind of scientific
fact: ‘The more they are in love, the more completely
they suffice for each other.’ 7

67
 RED LOVE

 For Kollontai, however, the complementarity and

the resulting isolation of the couple is neither natural
nor desirable. Such complementarity negates freedom
inside the couple. Insofar as you exist for the other,
oriented to your other half, you become a limited and
partial person. ‘The individualistic property morality
of the present day is beginning to seem very obviously
paralysing and oppressive’.8 All the existing and poten-
tial aspects of yourself that do not function as com-
plement to the other — all the pieces that do not fit in
the couple puzzle — must be set aside or subordinated.
 Kollontai is more concerned, however, with the ex-
ternal restrictions of the ‘complete’ couple. ‘The ideal
of the bourgeoisie was the married couple, where the
partners complemented each other so completely that
they had no need of contact with society’.9 Since the two
suffice for each other, the couple severs or fails to es-
tablish social ties. (How often have you had a friend
disappear after falling in love, ensconced in a ‘complete’
couple, only later to reappear again in order to renew
your friendship once the couple breaks up?) The couple,
in effect, fulfils the bourgeois ideal of the sovereign
individual, internally unified and self-sufficient, acting
according to extended egotism, an egotism masquer-
ading as altruism, making decisions according to what
is best for the two. As Nietzsche, an unlikely ally of
Kollontai, writes, ‘Love of one is a barbarism: since it
is practiced at the expense of all others’.10 Couple love,
like property love in general, discourages and even
prohibits caring for and forming bonds with what is
not yours.

68
 MICHAEL HARDT

THE GLASS OF WATER

THEORY

Kollontai’s challenge to the antisocial couple bound by

property relations inevitably raises a series of straw man
arguments and panic reactions regarding sex. If the two
are not bound by mutual ownership in property love, ac-
cording to such fears, then anything goes, raising the
spectre of ‘free love’ and polyamory. We need to reduce
the focus on sex, however, to appreciate Kollontai’s ar-

gument about love.
 In the early 1920s, Soviet revolutionaries debated the
‘glass of water’ theory of sex, a theory widely attributed
to Kollontai. Having sex, the theory goes, should be no
more complicated or problematic than drinking a glass
of water. The ‘glass of water’ theory, however, simple as
it is, proved difficult for many to understand. Whereas,
perhaps predictably, the metaphor generated for many
a heightened focus on sex — along with titillation and
panic regarding casual sex and multiple sex partners
as well as disapproval for violating traditional moral-
ity — it was intended, to the contrary, to sideline such
excited discussions. Since having sex, like drinking
water, is a normal bodily function, it should be neither
subject to moral injunction and social control nor the
object of political celebration.
 The ‘glass of water’ theory would likely be equally mis-
understood today, since it does not conform easily to
established political positions regarding sex, especially
those that we have inherited from the ‘sex wars’ of the
1980s. The theory certainly does not fit, for example,

69
 RED LOVE

with either what came to be cast as sex-negative po-

sitions (which arose in part to highlight the damag-
es accrued to women in and by pornography and the
sex industries) or sex-positive ones (that advocate, in
contrast, sexual freedom and the characteristics of lib-
eration for non-normative sex practices). Whereas both
sex-negative and sex-positive positions agree that sex is
important politically and socially, the ‘glass of water’ the-
ory maintains it is not.
 The ‘glass of water’ theory proves so difficult to grasp in
part due to its paradoxical rhetorical strategy: it brings
something to light in order to diminish its significance.
Its intended function is thus subtractive. In its rhetor-
ical strategy, the ‘glass of water’ theory resonates with
the social interventions of the ancient Cynics, such as,
for example, their reported practice of masturbating
in public. No one should be scandalised, they argued,
by our satisfying a bodily need that is of the same or-
der as satiating thirst or hunger. If only it were as easy,
Diogenes of Sinope allegedly declared, to banish hunger
by simply ‘rubbing my belly!’ Diogenes’s point is obviously
not to concentrate political or philosophical attention
on masturbation, to celebrate it, or to create an onan-
ist cult. On the contrary, the point is subtractive: to
release us from preoccupations about sex so that we
can direct our attention elsewhere. That is the function
of the ‘glass of water’ theory: stop being distracted by
sex so as to focus on the important social and political
issues.
 This raises, however, another obstacle to understand-
ing the ‘glass of water’ theory today: that it could appear

70
 MICHAEL HARDT

to assert that sex is personal and thus not political,

running counter to the important second-wave femi-
nist slogan. Furthermore, it could mask the sexual dan-
gers that women face, including unwanted pregnancy,
rape, and other forms of sexual violence. I understand
the ‘glass of water’ theory, however, as positioning sex
as political but imagining it in a society of freedom,
where sexual violence, unwanted pregnancy, and the
constraints of normativity and moralisms are a thing
of the past. In effect, the theory is a demand for that
utopian future, in which having sex can become no
more complicated than drinking a glass of water.
 Although she is likely not responsible for the idea,
Kollontai is a good representative of the ‘glass of water'
theory. She was regarded by others and indeed pre-
sented herself as embodying the new liberated woman.
The characters in her novels, such as Red Love, experi-
ment freely with various amorous arrangements. And
in her life, too, she reports treating sex openly and
without moralisms. ‘I make no secret of my love ex-
periences’, she explains in her autobiography; ‘when
once love came, I have my relations to the man.’11 By
demystifying sex, she sought to counter the moralism,
prohibitions, and shame associated with sexual activity
in traditional Russian society, which served as weap-
ons for the domination of women. She furthermore
lamented that asceticism regarding sex, often mixed
with traditional moralism, remained widespread even
among Soviet revolutionaries: ‘My theses, my sexual
and moral views, were bitterly fought by many Party
comrades of both sexes.’ 12

71
 RED LOVE

 Lenin is one particular figure of note who was puz-

zled and a bit disturbed by all the discussions of the
glass of water theory. ‘Of course’, Lenin admits, in con-
versation with Clara Zetkin, ‘thirst must be satisfied.
But will the normal man in normal circumstances lie
down in the gutter and drink out of a puddle, or out of
a glass with a rim greasy from many lips?’ 13 The first
sentence shows that Lenin, even if he thinks he is dis-
agreeing, understands correctly the primary point of
the glass of water theory: sex, like thirst, is a normal
bodily function and thus should be stripped of the tra-
ditional meanings and values attached to it. But then
he seems to take the metaphor too literally and betrays
traditional male fears of ‘polluted’ women. The idea of
women having multiple partners and engaging in ca-
sual sex elicits a kind of panic in Lenin. But if one can
filter out Lenin’s fear of female sexuality, then perhaps
his question can be understood as simply an extension of
the initial point. Stripping sex of moralism does not imply
having sex indiscriminately, indifferently, Lenin seems
to suggest. Instead, sexual activity, like drinking water,
should be treated in terms of care of the self — take care
of your body and meet its needs. Maybe food, then, would
be a better metaphor than water for Lenin. Nutritionists
may offer general guidelines for a healthy diet, but one
has to discover the needs of one’s own body in balance
with pleasure: discover what sex, how often, and with
whom, agrees with you and pursue that, all the while
avoiding what harms you. No model of healthy sex can be
prescribed for all, in other words, but neither is it a matter
of indifference. Communism is no asceticism, Lenin adds,

72
 MICHAEL HARDT

to make sure that Zetkin does not misunderstand him:

healthy sex, along with sports and other activities, are
part of a joyful life.14
 Lenin is clear, however — and this too, I would argue,
is in line with the spirit of the glass of water theory —
that these questions about sex are not the most signif-
icant social and political issues. ‘But the social aspect is
most important of all’, he continues. ‘Drinking water is
of course an individual affair.’15 Lenin may still be taking
the metaphor too literally: sexual activity, after all, is not
like drinking water in all its aspects. But the substance of
Lenin’s point — that the social aspect is most import-
ant — is, in fact, very close to Kollontai’s primary con-
cerns. ‘It is time to recognise openly’, she writes, ‘that love
is not only a powerful natural factor, a biological force, but
also a social factor. Essentially love is a profoundly social
emotion’.16 Sexual relations alone, inevitably, regardless
of how many sexual partners one has, remain asocial
in Kollontai’s terms because sex itself is too narrow a
basis to carry the multiplicity of bonds that love must
generate and sustain. The important question for Kol-
lontai is how to create a variety of lasting, social bonds
(involving sexual relations or not) that are not consti-
tuted by property relations. Only in that way can we
begin to explore the social significance and political
possibilities of a new love.

THE ANTISOCIAL FAMILY

The nature of property love in the couple is repeated

in the family, creating what Michèle Barrett and Mary

73
 RED LOVE

McIntosh call the antisocial family.17 Like the couple, ac-

cording to Kollontai, the family becomes in capitalist so-
ciety an isolated unit more completely closed on itself. The
regulative ideal requires that you devote your love most
to your kin, and then to others in concentric waves
extending outward from the family. The resulting as-
sumption that family members love each other most
and thus should have the most rights and responsi-
bilities is inscribed in a series of legal structures and
customary practices. (Hospital nurses are trained to
stop you at the loved one’s sickroom door: ‘Are you fam-
ily?’) Kollontai cites the fact that Aspasia, the mistress
of Pericles, ‘was respected by her contemporaries far
more than the colourless wives of the breeding appa-
ratus’ as evidence of the bonds that lay outside of the
family in other societies, ties that have been lost or
weakened today.18
 The antisocial and possessive nature of the family
and its extended egotism are even more pronounced
in decisions regarding children. Kollontai laments
and mocks the typical proprietary attitude of parents:
‘These are my children, I owe them all my maternal so-
licitude and affection; those are your children, they are
no concern of mine and I don’t care if they go hungry
and cold — I have no time for other children.’19 Owner-
ship, as the ideologues of private property will tell you,
comes with responsibility: you are obliged to care for
what is yours. And, consequently, tending to the prop-
erty of others — in this case caring for their children —
is not only not required but also would be a violation
of property rights, just as if you were to decide to paint

74
 MICHAEL HARDT

over the hideous colour of your neighbour’s house. As

much as property love requires you to care for what is
yours, it discourages or even prohibits you from caring
for what is not.
 Property love in the couple and the family is parallel
to (and often bleeds into) identitarian love on the polit-
ical terrain. Limiting love to what is ‘yours’ is another
face of the love of the same. Love in the couple may seem
on the surface to be aimed at someone different, but
once the two are conceived as complementary and the
couple is a ‘complete’ whole, then two collapses back
into one. The family too, with the proprietary concep-
tion of my children and my spouse, is a unit of iden-
titarian attachment. Property breeds love of the same.
 Here, yet again, arise straw man arguments. Destroy-
ing the antisocial family — and, moreover, destroying the
property-based love on which it rests — does not mean
stripping children away from their parents to be raised
collectively. Nor does separating love from property, no
longer loving only what is yours, mean loving all indif-
ferently. One could certainly interpret as indifference
Kollontai’s mandate, after critiquing parents who act
in the interest of only their own children, that ‘the
worker-mother must learn not to differentiate between
yours and mine’. 20 Such statements, however, have to
be read together with her encouragement to develop
the many and varied bonds of love and friendship. The
point is that the couple and the family should not be the
limits of your love. Loving other children, caring for them,
and making social decisions with their welfare in mind
need not prevent you from loving your own. ‘Caring,

75
 RED LOVE

sharing, and loving would be more widespread’, Barrett

and McIntosh argue, ‘if the family did not claim them
for its own.’21 You can construct lasting bonds of vari-
ous types with those near and far. Challenging property-
based love, then, requires breaching the boundaries of the
couple and the family, nurturing and developing modes of
social love based not on sameness but on difference, and
inventing social institutions that allow and encourage us
to love and care for others in the widest possible frame,
developing a wide variety of social bonds.
 Kollontai claims — with a mix of description, prescrip-
tion, and hope — that the family, as an antisocial in-
stitution of gender subordination and property bonds,
began to be undetermined in capitalist society and will
further wither away in communist society. 22 The with-
ering and eventual abolition of the family are steps
toward the equality and freedom of women, releasing
them from the isolation and burden of domestic labour
and subordination of familial gender hierarchies. She
explains that in a capitalist society, the family was ini-
tially an economic necessity as a unit of both produc-
tion and reproduction. The production component has
already been all but destroyed by capitalist develop-
ment: the domestic industries, such as spinning yarn
and making clothing at home, were rendered obsolete
by processes of commodification and the creation of
new markets for capitalist goods. ‘The family no longer
produces; it only consumes’.23 In communist society, she
predicts, the economic bases for the sexual division of
labour in the family will be weakened, women will no
longer be responsible for unpaid domestic labour, and

76
 MICHAEL HARDT

reproductive labour in the home will be socialised: she

envisions restaurants and canteens providing food for
all; child rearing will be socialised; and the fatigue of
domestic tasks, such as washing and cleaning, will be re-
duced by the implementation of industrial appliances. 24
 Kollontai, particularly in her role as minister of social
welfare, took some practical steps to hasten the wither-
ing of the family in the Soviet Union. She participated,
for instance, in drafting the 1917 law on marriage, which
gave women the right to seek divorce and receive alimony.
For the Eighth Party Congress in 1919, Kollontai prepared
an amendment to affirm in explicit terms the withering
away of the family, but Lenin, although sympathetic to
her aims, claimed that it was not yet the right time. ‘We
have in fact’, Lenin is reported to have responded, ‘to save
the family.’ As minister she proposed a series of insti-
tutional women’s health initiatives, such as having the
state take over maternity hospitals and the provision of
prenatal care. These proposals, however, were met with
great resistance, even among the most forward-thinking
Soviets. ‘My efforts to nationalize maternity and infant
care set off a new wave of insane attacks against me’, she
writes, and detractors claimed that she was trying to ‘na-
tionalize women’. 25
 Kollontai’s efforts to destroy the antisocial family
were thwarted. ‘The failure of the Russian Revolution
to achieve the classless society’, Firestone reflected a
half century later, ‘is traceable to its half-hearted at-
tempts to eliminate the family and sexual repression.’ 26
Her project to root out property relations from love, how-
ever, remains as relevant today.

77
 RED LOVE

TRAGEDY OF THE
COMMONS

The fear (or thrill) that the critique of the couple and
the family necessarily leads to ‘free love’ and polyamo-
ry betrays a poverty of imagination and, specifically, a
failure to conceive bonds outside the model of prop-
erty love. This is the ‘tragedy of the commons’ in the
realm of love. The classic argument against the com-
mons, articulated by Garrett Hardin (1968), asserts that
wealth and resources, such as land, can only be proper-
ly managed when they are owned (as private or public
property). 27 No one is responsible for what is common,
the argument goes, and thus shared resources, such as
grazing land or fishing waters, are inevitably overused
and ruined because they are not managed. Ownership,
in other words, either private or public, carries with
it the power and obligation to manage resources effi-
ciently — and it is the only social structure that does so.
 In the same way, if love were to be separated from
property relations, if I were not yours and you not mine, a
parallel argument goes, there would be no mechanism to
manage our bonds to each other and assure their longev-
ity. Fidelity, in other words, is the problem for bourgeois
love. And property is the solution: the only way the other
will remain true to me is to be mine. Without possessing
each other, our unmanaged desires would run wild and
we are constantly in danger of drifting off with others. If
there is no property, as Ivan Karamazov might say, every-
thing is permitted. Hence free love, meaning indiscrimi-
nate sexual partnering and no durable bonds.

78
 MICHAEL HARDT

 Kollontai insists that we need to stop thinking of those

we love in terms of ownership. ‘A jealous and propri-
etary attitude to the person loved’, she argues, ‘must
be replaced by a comradely understanding of the other
and an acceptance of his or her freedom.’28 However
it is here again that the threat of ‘free love’ and un-
restrained promiscuity begins to rear its head. Does
freedom in love mean that ‘anything goes’ and that no
bonds shall be maintained? If you are not tied to your
partner by the chain of property relations, will you
have sex with anyone at any time (and then ask your
partner for ‘comradely understanding’)? It certainly
can seem that way to a proprietary mentality, that is,
if one believes that property is the only guarantee of
intimate and social bonds. When Kollontai exhorts us
to recognise the freedom of loved ones, then, that does
not mean to let them go and break bonds with them.
It means to escape from the prison of property and to
create a more generous conception of love, with more
social and expansive bonds.
 Kollontai’s position is parallel to the most intelligent
refutations of the ‘tragedy of the commons’ arguments.
She does not fall into the trap prepared by the ‘tragedy’
argument. Some critics of property accept that property is
the sole means to manage what we share and thus reject
all management, assuming that the good for society can
spontaneously be achieved, without any management.
The better response is that private property and the
state are not the only options: alternative, non-property
means of management are available. The common must
be managed, and so too the bonds of love must be the

79
 RED LOVE

object of social and political reasoning. ‘Love is not in the

least a “private” matter’, Kollontai writes, ‘concerning
only the two loving persons.’ 29 The couple and the family
are always socially regulated, through laws that define
the legal couple, for example, and sexual divisions of
labour founded on property relations. We are suffering
today, in other words, what Pierre Dardot and Christian
Laval call ‘the tragedy of the non-common’.30 Kollontai
argues, however, that we must get beyond the bour-
geois belief that property is the only force that can
form lasting bonds at both the intimate and the social
levels. Her focus instead is to discover a logic by which
social and intimate bonds are or can be nourished and
managed outside the confines of property relations.

WINGED EROS

Sex, in Kollontai’s view, need not always be accompanied

by love. During the revolutionary struggle, for example,
she explains in a speech to Soviet youth, that revolu-
tionaries had little intellectual and emotional energy
for anything but combat: sex without intimate bonds,
which she calls ‘unwinged Eros’, became the rule since
there was no time for the relationships and commit-
ments of love.31 In the early 1920s, however, with
the emergency period having passed, she exhorted
Soviet youth to invent a new love, a winged Eros. This
is not a moralistic caution to young people that sex
without love is an empty experience, but rather an
attack on property relations. Kollontai’s winged Eros,
as explained by Barbara Evans Clements, is ‘eroticism

80
 MICHAEL HARDT

with the possessiveness removed, it is the attraction of

equals that enhances the harmony of the group rather
than isolating the couple in self-absorption’. Winged
Eros configures a love beyond property, regardless of
whether sex is involved.
 Like Barrett and McIntosh writing more than half a
century later, Kollontai does not advocate the reform of
the family or even the invention of alternative family
forms, households, kinship networks, or the like. Like
Kollontai, Barrett and McIntosh do not see this argu-
ment, however, leading toward a society characterised
by indifference that lacks strong, lasting attachments —
on the contrary. ‘What is needed,’ they write, ‘is not
to build up an alternative to the family — new forms
of household that would fulfil all the needs that fami-
lies are supposed to fulfil today — but to make family
less necessary, by building up all sorts of other ways
of meeting people’s needs.’32 The most important con-
sequence of the abolition of the family is to increase
our power to relate to and be connected with others.
The effect, specifically, will be to open experimentation
with a wide variety of social bonds.
 Kollontai thus envisions a social love defined by
multiplicity along two axes: a love of many in many
ways. On the first axis, beyond the bounds of those
who are yours — the couple, the family, the identity, the
people — she urges us to develop bonds with a wide
range of people, developing forms of love-comradeship
and love-solidarity. ‘The “sympathetic ties” between all
the members of the new society’ will have to grow and
be strengthened.33 The qualities and intensities of these

81
 RED LOVE

diverse attachments, obviously, will not be the same.

On the second axis, then, one must develop ‘many and
varied bonds of love and friendship’.34 No bond, no mat-
ter how much in love you are, suffices entirely, and you
do not complement the loved one in such a way that
forms a complete whole. Winged Eros, Kollontai says,
has ‘many forms and facets’.35 One must assume that the
duration of these bonds will also vary: you will remain
attached to some people all your life, and with others
it is better to break completely after a short period.
Kollontai does not go very far in delineating the char-
acter of this new love, but she does give a solid founda-
tion: freed from property love and the love of the same
it fosters, a new, social love that will have to explore
and proliferate multiplicities.
 To extend Kollontai’s initial thoughts about a new
love and bring these questions closer to the concerns
of our time, we can look to Michel Foucault’s similar
affirmation of multiple social bonds. Like Kollontai, he
warns that resting political hopes on sex and sexual
revolution is misplaced. Foucault’s view, too, disrupts
the conventional opposition between sex-positive
and sex-negative positions. He thinks it's a mistake to
attribute much political significance to sex itself and,
certainly, to hope for a sexual revolution. An image
of homosexuality centred on sex acts, he argues, even
when these acts are deemed to transgress the norms of
society or nature, does not really even unsettle dom-
inant society.
 Instead, what really indeed has the power to threaten
the social structure — and, more importantly, ground and

82
 MICHAEL HARDT

animate new social relations — is an alternative form

of life, and specifically a mode of love characterised by
multiple bonds. Foucault explains in fact that focusing
on homosexual sex distracts from or eclipses the really
transformative social potential:
 It cancels everything that can be disturbing in affection,
tenderness, friendship, fidelity, camaraderie, and compan-
ionship, things that a rather sanitised society [une société
un peu ratissée] cannot allow a place for without fearing
that new alliances are formed and unforeseen lines of
force are forged. I think that is what makes homosex-
uality ‘troubling’: the homosexual mode of life, much
more than the sex act itself. Imagining a sex act that
does not conform to law or nature is not what disturbs
people. But that individuals begin to love each other —
that’s the problem.36
 By looking beyond sex — both in the prohibitions
and the affirmations of homosexual sex — Foucault
can reveal three levels of transformative potential. At
the first level, or base, are the different bonds that he
tries to capture with his catalogue: affection, tenderness,
friendship, and so forth. As for Kollontai, key for him
is the multiplicity along two axes: that we form many
kinds of bonds with many different people. These af-
fects and attachments have the power to trouble dom-
inant society because they open to a second level, in
which they compose new social assemblages and new
modes of life. Whereas non-normative sex acts can be
accommodated or tolerated within dominant society —
contained as a subset, a minority — the composition
of a new mode of life seeps into the dominant order,

83
 RED LOVE

permeates it, and thus threatens to transform it from

within. The repertoire of multiple affects and attach-
ments of the new mode of life creates a pole of attrac-
tion for homosexual and heterosexual communities
alike. The third level, finally, is the invention of a new
love, a social form of love capacious enough to include
the many different kinds of bonds with different peo-
ple. Such a new love has the potential not only to dis-
turb dominant structures but also to transform them.
In the homosexual mode of life Foucault glimpses the
potential of a winged Eros.
 The social aspect, for Foucault as for Lenin and Kollon-
tai, is what is really important. Only once we demystify
and desacralise sex — sweeping away prohibitions
and moralisms — can we begin to transform love and
realise its social potential as a new form of life com-
posed of multiple bonds, relationships, and modes
of attachment. That is the horizon of a new love that
could, fulfilling Guevara’s dictum, provide a guide for
revolutionaries.

1 Che Guevara, ‘Socialism and Man in Cuba’, in Che Guevara Reader:

Writings on Politics & Revolution, ed. by David Deutschmann
(Melbourne: Ocean Press, 2003), pp. 212–28, p. 225.
2 Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto (New
York: Oxford University Press, 2008), p. 18.
3 Evgeny Pashukanis, The General Theory of Law and Marxism,
trans. by Barbara Enhorn (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction,
2002).
4 Alexandra Kollontai, The Autobiography of a Sexually Emancipated
Communist Woman, ed. by Iring Fetscher, trans. by Salvator
Attanasio (New York: Herder and Herder, 1971), p. 8.

84
 MICHAEL HARDT

5 Alexandra Kollontai, ‘Sexual Relations and the Class Struggle’, in

Selected Writings of Alexandra Kollontai, trans. and ed. by Alix Holt
(London: Allison and Busby, 1977), pp. 237–49, p. 242.
6 Karl Marx, ‘Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts’, in Early
Writings (London: Penguin, 1974), pp. 279–400, p. 351.
7 Sigmund Freud, Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego,
trans. by James Strachey (New York: Norton, 1959), p. 72.
8 Kollontai, ‘Sexual Relations and the Class Struggle’, in Selected
Writings, p. 240.
9 Kollontai, ‘Theses on Communist Morality in the Sphere of
Marital Relations’, in Selected Writings, pp. 225–31, p. 230.
10 Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, trans. by R. J.
Hollingdale (London: Penguin, 1973), p. 73.
11 Alexandra Kollontai, The Autobiography of a Sexually Emancipated
Communist Woman, trans. by Salvator Attanasio (New York:
Herder and Herder, 1971), p. 5.
12 Ibid., p. 43.
13 Clara Zetkin, Reminiscences of Lenin (New York: International
Publishers, 1934), p. 49.
14 Ibid., p. 50.
15 Ibid., p. 49.
16 Kollontai, ‘Make Way for Winged Eros: A Letter to Working
Youth’, in Selected Writings, pp. 276–92, p. 278.
17 Michèle Barrett and Mary McIntosh, The Anti-social Family
(London: Verso, 1982).
18 Kollontai, ‘Prostitution and Ways of Fighting It’, in Selected Writings,
pp. 261–75, p. 262.
19 Kollontai, ‘Communism and the Family’, in Selected Writings,
pp. 250–60, p. 259.
20 Ibid.
21 Barrett and McIntosh, p. 80.
22 Kollontai, Communism and the Family, p. 258.
23 Ibid., p. 254.
24 Ibid., p. 255.
25 Kollontai, The Autobiography of a Sexually Emancipated Communist
Woman, p. 38.

85
 RED LOVE

26 Shulamith Firestone, The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist

Revolution (New York: William Morrow, 1970), p. 190.
27 Garrett Hardin, ‘The Tragedy of the Commons’, Science, 162, no. 3859
(1968), pp. 1243–48.
28 Kollontai, ‘Theses on Communist Morality in the Sphere of Marital
Relations’, in Selected Writings, p. 231.
29 Kollontai, ‘Make Way for Winged Eros: A Letter to Working Youth’,
in Selected Writings, p. 279.
30 Pierre Dardot and Christian Laval, Commun: Essai sur la révolution
au XXIe siècle (Common: An Essay on Revolution in the Twenty-First
Century) (Paris: La Découverte, 2014), p. 14.
31 Kollontai, ‘Make Way for Winged Eros: A Letter to Working Youth’,
in Selected Writings, p. 277.
32 Barrett and McIntosh. The Anti-social Family, p. 159.
33 Kollontai, ‘Make Way for Winged Eros: A Letter to Working Youth’,
in Selected Writings, p. 290.
34 Kollontai, ‘Theses on Communist Morality in the Sphere of Marital
Relations’, in Selected Writings, p. 231.
35 Kollontai, ‘Make Way for Winged Eros: A Letter to Working Youth’,
in Selected Writings, p. 288.
36 Michel Foucault, ‘De l’amitié comme mode de vie’ (‘Friendship as
a Way of Life’), in Dits et écrits, 1954–1988 (Essential Writings,
1954–1988) (Paris: Gallimard, 1994), 4: pp. 163–67, p. 164

86
 MICHAEL HARDT

NOTES

i For an excellent presentation of feminist arguments against

romantic love, repurposed in the critique of ‘love your work’
management discourses, see Weeks, forthcoming.
ii Firestone’s diagnosis is parallel to Kollontai’s, although she focuses
on unequal power rather than property relations. ‘Thus it is not
the process of love itself that is at fault, but its political, i.e. unequal
power context: the who, why, when, and where of it is what makes it
now such a holocaust’ (Firestone 1970: 119).
iii For a reading of Kollontai on love that points in a different
direction from mine, see Ebert 1999.
iv I have found no evidence that Kollontai and Pashukanis knew
each other or even that they were familiar with each other’s work,
although Soviet intellectual circles of the 1920s were small. The
correspondences between their critiques of property relations
are testament, instead, to the wide questioning of property in early
Soviet society.
v Although the originality and intellectual coherence of her writings
gained Kollontai respect among Soviet intellectuals, the political
positions suggested by her work were opposed by those in power.
Kollontai was sidelined from central government circles and
sent to Norway as ambassador (a kind of gentle exile) after her
support for the Workers’ Opposition, a 1922 political proposition to
decentralise power away from the state (1977f). Kollontai’s views
on the family and the couple did not win much favour either, as
indicated by Lenin’s opposition to her amendment affirming the
withering away of the family. ‘My theses,’ she writes, ‘my sexual and
moral views, were bitterly fought by many Party comrades of both
sexes’ (Kollontai 1971: 43). That view lasted for decades in official
Soviet circles. The collection of her writings published in the
Soviet Union in the 1970s contains none of her essays on love, the
couple, and the family. Instead, the editor notes in the introduction
that, as a person of inquiring mind, Kollontai was ‘liable to error’:
her error, specifically, was to criticise the family and make
claims that could be misconstrued to imply, the editor continues,
‘immorality, promiscuity or loose living’ (Dazhina [1972] 1984: 13).
vi The glass of water theory probably derives from August Bebel’s
1879 Woman under Socialism, a book Kollontai, Lenin, and many
other Soviet figures had carefully read. The exact formulation ‘glass
of water’ does not appear in the book, but Bebel ([1879] 1904: 79–81,
343) does explain that sex is a natural and healthy human need
comparable to eating, drinking, and sleeping. There is no record

87
 RED LOVE

of Kollontai having used the glass of water formulation, although

the general idea runs throughout her writings. ‘According to the
most famous legend,’ writes Iring Fetscher (1971: 111), ‘Alexandra
Kollontai is supposed to have declared that sexual contacts were
matters as simple and as unproblematic as drinking a glass of water.’
On Kollontai’s reading Bebel, see Porter 1980 and Renault, 2017.
vii Michel Foucault (2009: 158) is intrigued by Diogenes’s reported
masturbation in public and its subtractive function, which he
describes as ‘a mode of life that has a reductive function with
respect to conventions and beliefs’ (translation mine).
viii In my view, Srećko Horvat (2015: 87–88) misinterprets Lenin’s
reference to sport in his response to Zetkin as an anti-sex position,
exhorting us to do sports instead of have sex, to sublimate desire.
I think it is clear, instead, that Lenin’s comparison between sex
and sports simply puts sex on the same level with other healthy
bodily activities. It is true that Lenin, insisting that ‘the revolution
demands concentration’, pronounces against ‘orgiastic conditions’
(Zetkin 1934: 50), but I read this as a panic reaction to an imagined
‘free love’. Judith Stora-Sandor goes further than Horvat and,
since she understands Kollontai’s work (incorrectly in my view)
primarily in terms of sexual revolution, interprets Lenin’s response
as evidence of his reactionary position. ‘It is not a matter here of
lodging an accusation against Lenin. We simply want here to
signal that with regard to sexuality the most eminent Marxists
of the age show themselves to be completely reactionary’ (Stora-
Sandor 1971: 46; translation mine).
ix Horvat (2015: 101–2) rightly poses the proximity of Lenin and
Kollontai in this regard: ‘In fact, Lenin and the most radical
reformers of love relationships (Kollontai, Clara Zetkin, etc.) during
the early October Revolution had much more in common than they
themselves were aware of.’
x Lenin’s comment, reported by Anna Itkina on page 208 of her
1964 biography of Kollontai, is quoted in Porter 1980: 337. This
response — agreement in principle but the time is not right — is
also Lenin’s basic position regarding the Workers’ Opposition.
xi See Elinor Ostrom’s (1990) critique of Hardin.
xii I am indebted to Lauren Berlant for conversations about this text.
xiii For a similar argument, about the disruptive powers of happiness,
see Foucault 2011: 392–93.
xiv This text, ‘Red Love’ was first published in South Atlantic Quarterly,
116.4 (1 October 2017), 781–96.

88
 MICHAEL HARDT

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Barrett, Michèle, and Mary McIntosh, The Anti-social Family (London:

Verso, 1982)
Bebel, August, Woman under Socialism, trans. by Daniel De Leon (New
York: New York Labor News Company, [1879] 1904)
Clements, Barbara Evans, Bolshevik Feminist: The Life of Aleksandra
Kollontai (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1979)
Dardot, Pierre, and Christian Laval, Commun: Essai sur la révolution
au XXIe siècle (Common: An Essay on Revolution in the Twenty-First
Century) (Paris: La Découverte, 2014)
Dazhina, I. M., ‘An Impassioned Opponent of War and Champion of
Peace and Female Emancipation’, in Alexandra Kollontai: Selected
Articles and Speeches, ed. by I. M. Dazhina, 5–15 (Moscow: Progress
Publishers)
Ebert, Teresa L, ‘Alexandra Kollontai and Red Love’ (1999), Against the
Current, no. 81. www.solidarity-us.org/node/1724.
Fetscher, Iring, 1971. Afterword to Kollontai, Autobiography, 105–35
Firestone, Shulamith, The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist
Revolution (New York: William Morrow, 1970)
Foucault, Michel, ‘De l’amitié comme mode de vie’ (‘Friendship as a
Way of Life’), in Dits et écrits, 1954–1988 (Essential Writings, 1954–
1988), (Paris: Gallimard, 1994), 4: pp. 163–67
Foucault, Michel, ‘Le courage de la vérité’: Le gouvernement de soi et des
autres II; Cours au Collège de France, 1984 (‘The Courage of the Truth’:
The Government of Self and Others II; lectures at the Collège de France,
1984). Ed. Frédéric Gros (Paris: Gallimard/Seuil, 2009)
Foucault, Michael, ‘The Gay Science’, trans. by Nicolae Morar and
Daniel Smith. Critical Inquiry 37, no. 3, (2011), 385–403
Freud, Sigmund, Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego, trans. by
James Strachey (New York: Norton 1959)
Guevara, Ernesto, ‘Socialism and Man in Cuba’, in Che Guevara Reader,
ed. by David Deutschmann (Melbourne: Ocean Press, 2003),
pp. 212–28
Hardin, Garrett, ‘The Tragedy of the Commons’, Science 162, no. 3859
(1968), 1243–48
Horvat, Srećko, The Radicality of Love (Cambridge: Polity, 2015)

89
 RED LOVE

Kollontai, Alexandra, The Autobiography of a Sexually Emancipated

Communist Woman, ed. by Iring Fetscher, trans. by Salvador
Attansio (New York: Herder and Herder, 1971)
Kollontai, Alexandra, ‘Sexual Relations and the Class Struggle’, in
Selected Writings of Alexandra Kollontai, trans. and ed. by Alix Holt
(London: Allison and Busby, 1977), pp. 237–49
Kollontai, Alexandra, ‘Communism and the Family’, in Kollontai,
Selected Writings, pp. 250–60
Kollontai, Alexandra, ‘Make Way for Winged Eros: A Letter to
Working Youth’, in Kollontai, Selected Writings, pp. 276–92
Kollontai, Alexandra, ‘Prostitution and Ways of Fighting It’, in
Kollontai, Selected Writings, pp. 261–75
Kollontai, Alexandra, ‘Theses on Communist Morality in the Sphere of
Marital Relations’, in Kollontai, Selected Writings, pp. 225–31
Kollontai, Alexandra, ‘The Workers’ Opposition’, in Kollontai, Selected
Writings, pp. 159–200
Marx, Karl, ‘Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts’, in Early Writings.
(London: Penguin, 1974), pp. 279–400
Marx, Karl, and Friedrich, Engels, The Communist Manifesto (New York:
Oxford University Press, 2008)
Nietzsche, Friedrich, Beyond Good and Evil, trans. by R. J. Hollingdale
(London: Penguin, 1973)
Ostrom, Elinor, Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions
for Collective Action (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990)
Pashukanis, Evgeny, The General Theory of Law and Marxism, trans. by
Barbara Enhorn (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 2002)
Porter, Cathy, Alexandra Kollontai: The Lonely Struggle of the Woman Who
Defied Lenin (New York: Dial, 1980)
Renault, Matthieu, ‘Alexandra Kollontaï et le dépérissement de
la famille… ou les deux verres d’eau de Lénine’ (‘Alexandra
Kollontai and the Withering of the Family… or the Two Glasses
of Water of Lenin’), in Pour un féminisme de la totalité, ed. by Félix
Boggio Éwanjé-Épée (Paris: Éditions Amsterdam), pp. 63–87
Stora-Sandor, Judith, 1971. Introduction to Alexandra Kollontai:
Marxisme et révolution sexuelle (Paris: Maspero, 2017), pp. 9–47
Weeks, Kathi, ‘Down with Love: Feminist Critique and the New
Ideologies of Work’, Women’s Studies Quarterly, 45 (2017), pp. 37–58
Zetkin, Clara, Reminiscences of Lenin (New York: International
Publishers, 1934)

90
 MICHAEL HARDT

CuratorLab interviewing Dora García,

January 2018, Stockholm

91
DORA GARCÍA’S RED LOVE

92
 MARIA LIND

DORA GARCÍA’S RED LOVE

MARIA LIND

Dora García’s new artwork Red Love is inspired by the

Russian author, feminist, activist, political refugee, and
diplomat Alexandra Kollontai (1872–1952) who propagat-
ed for radically transformed relationships between wom-
en and men. Free love and camaraderie were at the core
of her thinking, as expressed in her novels and essays —
a new society needed new human beings and new rela-
tionships. True love can only happen when it is liberated
from property relations, both real and imagined. As an
influential figure in the Bolshevik party and commissar
for social welfare in their first government, she not only
set up free childcare centres and maternity houses, but
also pushed through rights for women including divorce,
abortion, and full rights for children born out of wedlock.
At the time these were unique measures that were soon
overhauled by Stalin, who did not appreciate this attempt
at ending ‘the universal servitude of woman’ by challeng-
ing both economic and psychological conditions.
 García’s exhibition had three main physical elements,
each with strong symbolic resonance. Red Love consisted
of a wooden cage-like structure, a wooden staircase, and
a floor painting. The cage-like structure had a door leading
into a space furnished with a big table and chairs. The artist
spoke about it as Kollontai’s imagined work space, where
she, among other things, wrote. This space, reminiscent
of a stage, was used for various purposes during the ex-
hibition period, including by participants of Konstfack’s
CuratorLab programme for their final projects. Strong

93
 DORA GARCÍA’S RED LOVE

light emanated from a lamp suspended from the ceiling,

acting as a sun of sorts, casting distinct shadows on the
floor, which had been painted white with a red square in
the middle. The square was not perfectly rectilinear, just
like the angular shapes in Kazimir Malevich’s suprematist
paintings. The cage and the lighting bear a likeness to a
scene in the film W.R.: Mysteries of the Organism (1971), as
well as You Only Live Once (1937).
 At the other end of Tensta konsthall’s main exhibition
space there was a wooden spiral staircase on which a se-
lection of books and other material from the activities in
the space had been placed. This atmospheric installation,
rich in references, played on the mission, almost transcen-
dental purpose, and urgency of Kollontai’s life and work,
something which was shared by many revolutionaries
and artists like Malevich. The stairs originated in a mu-
seum with a different but no less passionate mission, The
Museum of Jurassic Technologies, which was founded in
1989 by a husband and wife in Los Angeles. The museum
is defined as ‘an educational institution dedicated to the
advancement of knowledge and the public appreciation of
the Lower Jurassic’, a term not further explained. In this
exceptional museum, which is reminiscent of a cabinet of
curiosities with a collection holding artistic, ethnographic,
scientific, and historical objects, some exhibits remain un-
classifiable. Part of the collection are a set of maquettes of
wooden staircases, one of which came to be the model for
the staircase in Red Love.
 While Kollontai herself became the inspiration for the
character Ninotchka in Ernst Lubitsch’s 1939 film comedy
of the same name, famously played by Greta Garbo, the

94
 MARIA LIND

film W.R.: Mysteries of the Organism gave impulses to the

cage-like room. Made in 1971 by Yugoslav director Dušan
Makavejev, the hilarious film mixes documentary passag-
es with fiction while dealing with communist politics and
sexuality, mentioning Kollontai in one of its most intense
scenes. The life and work of the psychoanalyst Wilhelm
Reich feature prominently in the film, which was banned
in Yugoslavia. Like both Kollontai and The Museum of
Jurassic Technologies, W.R.: Mysteries of the Organism ex-
emplifies how radical imagination can be set in motion.
Here we also find a certain kind of dissidence, both heroic
and unheroic, as well as failure and exile, tensions, and
contradictions. All of them are themes which reoccur in
García’s oeuvre.
 García’s research-based practice is concerned with
modes of political resilience and the production of sub-
jectivity. She often draws on psychoanalysis in her work,
specifically the theories of Jacques Lacan. Kollontai is yet
another dissident figure whose biography and philosophy
of action provides an example of emancipatory politics
to the artist. Other such figures are the philosopher Félix
Guattari, the psychiatrist Franco Basaglia, and artist and
theorist Oscar Masotta. They are all in some sense devi-
ants who have experienced marginality. While relating to
them, either through real or fictional characters, García
scripts interventions and installations that transpose
these various authors into a presentation to the wider
public, mixing politics, performance, and the formation
of subjectivity. Like a continuous inquiry, García’s work is
invested in the performativity of speech and actions and
their particular qualities as political tools. Her approach

95
 DORA GARCÍA’S RED LOVE

to the exhibition space reflects the structural problems of

this emancipatory process, frequently using performative
devices which challenge the viewer.
 Kollontai was a pioneer of political engagement and
writing on sexual politics, at the same time as she fought
for workers’ rights advocating a participatory organisa-
tion of production. While leading a highly unconvention-
al life for a woman of her generation, with two divorces
and an active professional, sexual, and emotional life, she
worked directly with women workers during the years
leading up to the October Revolution. She engaged es-
pecially in social and emotional emancipation, critiquing
bourgeois family relations. After serving as the people’s
commissar of social welfare in the first Bolshevik gov-
ernment, she resigned after six months due to differences
in opinion with the other leaders. Not surprisingly, she
became seminal in a group called the Workers’ Opposition
who, shortly after the revolution, criticised the party for
being too removed from the workers themselves and for
quickly becoming too bureaucratised. After that she was
gradually sidelined with domestic politics, and thanks to
her previous experience as a political refugee in Germany,
Switzerland, France, Sweden, and Norway — as well as
her language skills — was given tasks abroad. As the first
female ambassador in the world, Kollontai served as the
Soviet representative in Oslo and Mexico, and eventually
also in Stockholm, in 1930–1945. Here she became a pub-
lic figure, befriending for example many members of the
feminist Fogelstad group.
 Among her most read texts are ‘The New Woman’ (1913),
‘Make Way for Winged Eros’ (1923), and The Autobiography

96
 MARIA LIND

of a Sexually Emancipated Communist Woman (1926), as well

as the short novel Vasilisa Malygina (1923), which was pub-
lished in English as Red Love (1927). The latter is a psycho-
logical study of sex-relations in the early Soviet period,
and has given García’s exhibition its title. Vasilisa Malygi-
na was published together with ‘Three Generations and
Sisters’ under the title of The Love of Worker Bees, which
was widely read in the west throughout the 1960s and
1970s. ‘Soon’ from 1923 is a futuristic essay picturing so-
ciety in the year 2000, when many of her visions have
come true.
 ‘Make Way for Winged Eros’ was written as a response
to many letters Kollontai received from young workers
with questions on how to conduct life under socialism. In
it she describes how historically different material condi-
tions have determined and regulated love and sexual re-
lations in society. While ‘The New Woman’ deals with the
psychological aspects of an emancipated working woman
belonging to no one but herself, and is yet a member of
a community based on trust and solidarity, The Autobiog-
raphy of a Sexually Emancipated Communist Woman is an
account of her own experiences. The three stories in The
Love of Worker Bees, written with proletarian readers in
mind in an unadorned prose, give examples of the ten-
sions between old ideals and new sexual lifestyles after
the revolution, as well as the power of solidarity between
women.
 García has dedicated a considerable amount of her work
to love, in various ways and with different people. The
2009 performance The Romeos was designed to take place
in the context of an art fair, but has also happened during

97
 DORA GARCÍA’S RED LOVE

an art collector’s party and will happen again in the city

of Trondheim in the summer of 2018. The performance
is set in contexts where kindness, charm, and good looks
are professional tools — things that can be exchanged
and traded. These features and abilities can be bought or
sold. Posters bearing photos of the performers are dis-
tributed, informing the visitors that a group of young
and attractive men are out there being paid to be lovable,
kind, and attractive. Their job for the evening is to make
people feel special. The question of the performance is:
now that you know that these young men are being paid
to be nice to you, will you accept their kindness? Will it
render the feelings between you inauthentic because of
the monetary transaction? Are you ready to accept their
attention — because well, why not — as long as it lasts,
does it seem like a fair deal?

Army of Love, an ongoing collaboration with the writer

Ingo Niermann, is about an army of people willing to give
love — all-encompassing, sensual, familiar, and comrade-
ly love — to those who do not have enough of it. In short,
people who have an excess of love and are ready to share
it with those wanting love, who for whatever reason —
for example, sickness, social marginality, handicap, and
age — are lacking it. Borrowing heavily from Kollontai
and Charles Fourier, and adopting the basic notion that
the ideal of love in the West is closely related to the idea
of property, they pursue the idea of a common love. Love
should not only be directed to one person, but to everyone
— as the great equaliser, love needs to happen between
equals and one makes people equal by loving them. In this

98
 MARIA LIND

regard, García and Niermann have actively researched the

possibility of an army of love, a group of people with a cer-
tain behavioural code and the characteristics of an army.
In the same sense that the Christian Church has been
compared to an army, selfless, collective, serving the com-
mon good, tied by duties of honour and companionship,
each individual is part of a greater body. Mostly carried
out as workshops with exercises and passionate debates
on what the ‘Army of Love should be’. Those who have
received plenty of love, and are therefore made equals, are
sometimes ready to go from receivers to givers.
 At a time when universal emancipation is again on the
agenda, with intersectional approaches as powerful tools,
it is an interesting moment to revisit Kollontai’s legacy.
How can we today relate to, portray, and engage critical-
ly with this historical figure and her deeds? What is to
be learnt from Kollontai’s political practice and personal
life? Contrary to the idea that equality has been achieved,
García reading Kollontai, argues that we learn that the
fight still has to be fought, and that change will not hap-
pen without love. As Kollontai herself once wrote:

Imagine a society, a people, a community, where there

are no longer Mashenka ladies and Mashenka laun-
dresses. […] Where there are no parasites and no hired
workers. […] Where all people do the same amount of
work and society in return looks after them and helps
them in life. […] When Mashenka, who is now neither
a lady nor a servant but simply a citizen, becomes
pregnant, she does not have to worry about what will
happen to her or her child. […] Society, that big happy

99
 DORA GARCÍA’S RED LOVE

family, will look after everything. Love is an emotion

that unites and is consequently of an organising char-
acter. […] Only the ideology of the lifestyle of the new,
labouring humanity can unravel this complex problem
of emotion.

 Dora Garcia’s Red Love was part of Tensta konsthall’s

multi-year inquiry ‘The Eros Effect: Art, Solidarity Move-
ments and the Struggle for Social Justice’ that looks into
the relationship between art and solidarity movements.
Starting in 2015, it has taken the form of a series of com-
missions, exhibitions, workshops, presentations, and film
screenings. Faced with fascist parties gaining ground
in Europe, and an increasingly tough social climate, it
seemed a necessity to return to the notion of solidarity
and to test its validity today. Will solidarity still be rele-
vant in the future, or is it a historical concept? Do we need
to find new ways to describe the political movements of
today and their struggles, sympathies, and commitments?
What does recognising the urgency of a situation imply,
and how do we act upon it?
 ‘The Eros Effect’ project borrows its title from the re-
searcher and activist George N. Katsiaficas’s 1989 essay
of the same name. The inquiry builds upon the analytical
tool of the ‘Eros Effect’, in attempt to acknowledge the
emotional aspect of social movements. The concept thus
aims to turn away from earlier theories that considered
mass movements as primitive and impulsive, as emotion-
al outbursts or as exclusively rational efforts, in order to
change the norms and institutions of society. With his no-
tion, Katsiaficas suggests that social movements always

100
 MARIA LIND

constitute both, that the struggle for liberation is equally

an erotic act and a rational desire to break free from struc-
tural and psychological barriers. Franz Fanon made sim-
ilar observations when he stated that resistance towards
colonialism would have positive effects on the emotional
life of individuals.

Photographs on pages 58–61 and 71:

‘Red Love’ an exhibition by Dora García, Tensta konsthall, 2018
© photo by Jean-Baptiste Béranger

101
DORA GARCÍA’S RED LOVE

102
 REBECKA KATZ THOR AND PETRA BAUER

AND ALL IS YET TO BE DONE..

IMAGES FROM A JOURNEY
PETRA BAUER AND REBECKA KATZ THOR

‘In furthering their ideas, the feminists had to discuss

methods of organisation — the most forbidden topic
of all’.
     Kollontai, 1920

In the spring of 1920, a group of socialist women from

Sweden set out on a journey to the newly founded com-
munist Russia.

When our dear Anna-Stina on a day in April, calm

and cool as usual, came to tell us that we were to go
to Russia to visit an international women’s conference,
we didn’t believe our ears. To go to Russia, which had
been our wish for years — no, it couldn’t be possible!

They write a travelogue for the magazine Red Voices, dated

16 May 1920, Vardö. They describe their journey and their
meetings throughout Sweden and Norway. Yet, their text
also allows us to see something of what they saw, to see
through their understanding. These excerpts might give
us a sense of their situation.

After matters that needed several days, we were finally

ready to depart. On May 4th, we thus said goodbye to
Stockholm and installed ourselves on the northbound
train.

103
 AND ALL IS YET TO BE DONE

Finally, on Wednesday at noon we arrive in Narvik. The

city gives a dull impression. Its significance probably
stems from its role as a shipping port for Swedish ore.
Because of the coal shortage, several boat transporta-
tions are cancelled and we have to remain in the city for
a few days. We immediately head for Forward, the city’s
socialist newspaper.

For them, the revolutionary country in the East serves

as an inspiration for what could be done at home. It is a
year after the law on universal suffrage has been passed
in Sweden and a year before it will be implemented. A
time of transformation, a time when everything seems
possible, and yet little has been achieved.

We also have the opportunity to talk to [the] editor’s

wife, comrade Olsén, and we use this chance to get
some news about the women’s movement. There are
two women’s clubs here, with a total number of around
seventy members. The Norwegian women’s modus ope-
randi are completely different from ours; they mostly
strive to make money through handiwork, in order
to buy shares in the party organs and the cooperative
movement.

A collectivity is formed in each instance, in each town and

village, and also reaches beyond the specificity of each
group into the greater collective of the movement.

However, Olsén’s field of work extends far beyond the

women’s movement. On May Day this year she mana-

104
 REBECKA KATZ THOR AND PETRA BAUER

ged to found, in addition to a women’s club, a joint or-

ganisation between the fishermen’s and the industrial
workers’ communities in Honningsvaag. This is the first
break with the old belief that fishermen don’t have any-
thing in common with the other workers.

By acknowledging elements that usually remain invisible,

such as the role of meetings, cooking and handicraft, one
might offer a counter narrative. Thus, what is crucial here
is to ask what kind of potential politics these gatherings
produce. Then, as well as now, political organising is eas-
ily perceived within given norms and frameworks, hence
the meeting and the lecture remain two common forms.
Yet political organising also takes place elsewhere and by
different means. Maybe these activities act as a cover up,
but they can also be an actual means to act politically in
a way that is defined by a specific situation.

Early Sunday morning, we embark upon the passage

from Narvik and we get to see the Norwegian archipel-
ago in brilliant sunshine. But despite the fact that it is
already May, there is snow and more snow everywhere.
Here and there we see small pieces of arable land, al-
ways very well utilised.

When we arrive in Tromsö, we are welcomed by our

jaunty comrade Gitta Jönsson, who we know from the
Scandinavian Workers’ Congress and the women’s
movement in Stockholm. We spend some particularly
pleasant hours in her home, while waiting for the boat’s
departure.

105
 AND ALL IS YET TO BE DONE

The women’s club in Tromsö has some eighty members,

and celebrates its ten-year anniversary on 12 May.
Comrade Jönsson has been the chair of the club all
these years. Her work as an agitator is well known, and
we hope that she will have many more years of struggle
in our ranks.

Our interest in history is not a question of historicising;

rather, it is a quest to find what in the historical might
help us create an alternative future. Hence, by shifting
focus from the main sites of political action, more hidden
struggles might appear. Such structures are not neces-
sarily perceived of as political. They might want to avoid
that word, but they are a place in which politics happens
through conversations, education, and companionship.
Literally as well as symbolically, all is not as it first ap-
pears: not for them and not for us.

On a mountain peak we see a building that we assume

to be a tourist hotel or something similar. But to our
great surprise we are told that it is the summer home
of the youth league.

What we want to highlight is forms of resistance which

are often overlooked that continually challenge and re-
shape communities. For instance, what is considered a po-
litical act? Which forms of resistance count? Can a sewing-
club be a site for politics to take place?

After a fourteen-hour-long journey on the Arctic Ocean,

with three hours of full storm, we arrive at Vardö on
May 11th at two o’clock in the morning.

106
 REBECKA KATZ THOR AND PETRA BAUER

In Vardö, the women’s club have around forty members,

but here, just as in Narvik, they mostly hold so-called
sewing circles instead of organising socialist study
groups.

In the last paragraph they express their hope to write

another text, but it remains unwritten, and no written
trace of their stay in Russia remains. What does remain
are photographs. All images were kept in the private
archive of the famous agitator Kata Dalström. Through-
out the first two decades of the twenty-first century she
travelled around Sweden promoting women’s issues in a
socialist political realm. Most likely it is she who stands
behind the camera. She frames the images, conceptually
and concretely, through her representational and perspec-
tival choices.

Tomorrow we continue the journey to Murmansk, and

from there we hope to send another letter to Red Voices
about the conditions in Northern Russia.

1 Alexandra Kollontai, ‘Towards a History of the Working Women’s

Movement in Russia’, in Selected Writings, trans. and ed. by Alix Holt
(London: Allison & Busby, 1977), p. 49.

107
AND ALL IS YET TO BE DONE

108
REBECKA KATZ THOR AND PETRA BAUER

109
AND ALL IS YET TO BE DONE

110
REBECKA KATZ THOR AND PETRA BAUER

111
AND ALL IS YET TO BE DONE

112
REBECKA KATZ THOR AND PETRA BAUER

113
AND ALL IS YET TO BE DONE

114
REBECKA KATZ THOR AND PETRA BAUER

115
 AND ALL IS YET TO BE DONE

Photographs from Kata Dalström’s archive,

The Swedish Labour Movement’s Archives and Library

116
 ALLA MITROFANOVA

FEMINISM IS OUR NATIONAL IDEA

ALLA MITROFANOVA

Originally published by RFE/RL, www.svoboda.org, 24 March 2017

Translated and introduced by Jonathan Brooks Platt

In the essay translated below, the noted theoretician and

cyberfeminist, Alla Mitrofanova, presents a brief over-
view of the gender revolution that accompanied and, in
many ways, marked the front line in the Russian struggle
for socialism at the beginning of the twentieth century.
In detailing the multitude of ways in which feminism
formed a central component of Russian revolutionary ide-
ology, Mitrofanova lays particular emphasis on how the
Bolsheviks strove to put this ideology into practice. One
of the most remarkable achievements of the period was
Alexandra Kollontai’s development of the mass, horizon-
tal network of women’s sections (zhenotdely) during her
time as the Minister of Social Welfare. The women’s sec-
tions not only agitated for communism among the wom-
en workers and peasants across the country, but they also
actively integrated the women’s sections into party work
more generally and represented women’s interests with
great zeal amid the chaos of post-revolutionary socialist
construction. As Mitrofanova notes, this was a time of
radical institution building, and Kollontai was at the fore-
front of the institutional reinvention of social practices.
 Mitrofanova identifies the erosion of gender binarism
as the most radical consequence of the work of revolu-
tionary women like Kollontai. The new institutional and
discursive landscape promoted an equality that was not

117
 FEMINISM IS OUR NATIONAL IDEA

only about formal questions like the right to hold office,

but also about a new sensuousness, remaining sensitive
to the needs and desires of the other. In many ways, this
process found its roots in the broader ideological envi-
ronment of Russia’s fin de siècle, when sex and sexual
difference were central concerns for intellectuals. The
evil flowers of the decadent movement in art and liter-
ature were particularly pungent in Russia — complete
with a string of scandalous works devoured by readers
and attacked by critics for corrupting the youth. How-
ever, the most advanced erotic discourses were ironically
found in the realm of religious philosophy. Taking a vari-
ety of forms, most dramatically in the work of Vladimir
Solovyov, the dominant theme was erotic celibacy, a kind
of Gnostic Tantrism in which libidinous energy would
accumulate in our mortal bodies until exploding in a fi-
nal syzygial coupling and collective orgasm that would
conquer death.
 This cultivation of the contradiction between Eros
and abstinence played a significant role in the 1905 rev-
olution. The profoundly repressive environment of the
years following Alexander II’s assassination in 1881 led
to a youth rebellion, which contributed significantly to
the rise of militant energies. Nonetheless, as Laura En-
gelstein writes, reflections on the political environment
of 1905 tended to depict ‘the period of political confron-
tation as one in which libidinous impulses had shattered
existing constraints but were effectively subordinated to
the cause of constructing a new political order’. A clear
maturation narrative was dominant in this discourse.
Repressed schoolboys rebelled in an elemental fashion —

118
 ALLA MITROFANOVA

smashing windows — while young adults knew how to

channel their passion into constructive political work.
Analysing the results of a 1910 sex survey he had con-
ducted, the young medical student Iakov Falevich wrote
(in Engelstein’s paraphrase):

The revolution had in general curtailed sexual activity

by monopolising young people’s energy and time. […]
Working closely with women had taught men to view
them as comrades rather than objects of sexual desire.
[…] Discipline, not disinhibition, characterised thirteen
university youth, who appeared to have attained heights
of sublimation during the revolutionary months.

 On the surface, this narrative describes an incommen-

surability of sex and politics, but it is not a story of repres-
sion. Rather, it calls for a sublimation meant to maintain
and even heighten the intensity of desire. Moreover, the
sublimation of Eros into politics had dramatic effects.
The revolutionaries begin to perceive things differently —
transforming their love-objects into comrade-subjects,
constructed around a collective libidinal impulse toward
revolution. In other words, erotic intensity, combined
with political action, subverted entrenched hierarchies
of gender and class within the revolutionary movement
itself, confusing the borders between conscious intellec-
tual and spontaneous proletariat, as between masculine
subject and feminine object.
 Kollontai’s famous call for a ‘winged Eros’ (as distinct
from the ‘wingless Eros’ of mere physical gratification) is
rooted in a similar desire to overcome sexual difference,

119
 FEMINISM IS OUR NATIONAL IDEA

and it shows a clear debt to the writings of religious phi-

losophers like Vladimir Solovyov. Kollontai, however,
transforms the ideal of erotic celibacy into a vision of
the ‘love-collective’ of the future, founded on solidarity,
comradeship, and erotic openness to the other. Kollontai
is careful not to indulge in predictions about the new so-
ciety — ‘What will be the nature of this transformed Eros?
Not even the boldest fantasy is capable of providing the
answer to this question’. However, the fundamental task
of the proletariat and its party mentors is clear: To create
a universal comradeship, beyond the fissures of sexual
difference and their erotic expression under the binarist
norms of bourgeois morality.

The blind, all-embracing, demanding passions will

weaken; the sense of property, the egotistical desire to
bind the partner to one ‘forever,’ the complacency of
the man and the self-renunciation of the woman will
disappear. At the same time, the valuable aspects and
elements of love will develop. Respect for the right of
the other’s personality will increase, and a mutual sen-
sitivity will be learned; men and women will strive to
express their love not only in kisses and embrace, but
in joint creativity and activity.

Sublimating sex into politics, rejecting the wingless Eros

that objectifies the other, Kollontai’s winged Eros ulti-
mately means taking direct, loving responsibility for the
process of political subjectivisation.
 The radical feminist movement in Russia today is striv-
ing toward similar goals. Mitrofanova opens her text with

120
 ALLA MITROFANOVA

a controversial item of ‘fake news’ that emerged from the

radical feminist movement last year when a Photoshopped
image of activists unfurling a slogan atop one of the Krem-
lin towers was included with the documentation of an
8 March 2017 protest action. The action did include actual
penetration into the Kremlin grounds, albeit only those
open to tourists, and the feminist activists even developed
a new strategy for protest, sneaking the banners past secu-
rity by wearing them as wraps and dresses. However, no
one was interested in the realities of the action, only the
leaders’ manipulation of the truth and their decision not
to inform either the rank and file participants in the action
about the Photoshopped image or the brave press outlets
that shared the documentation. As Mitrofanova notes, no
one paid any attention to the slogan either.
 But artists can also interpret the 8 March Photo-
shop scandal as a critique of earlier efforts to occupy
the Kremlin and Red Square. Typically, Kremlin art ac-
tions have emphasised the weakness and flaccidity of
power. In 1991, the first high-profile action saw Anatoly
Osmolovsky and his ETI group (Expropriation of the Ter-
ritory of Art) form the Russian swear word for ‘cock’ with
their supine bodies on the Red Square, refusing to ‘get
up’, when the police arrived. In 1995, Alexander Brener
challenged Boris Yeltsin to a boxing match on Red Square
in protest over the Chechen War, calling the president’s
masculinity into question. In the midst of the 2012 pro-
tests, Pussy Riot staged a guerrilla performance of the
song ‘Putin has pissed himself’ on the Red Square, tak-
ing a similar line of attack against presidential potency. A
year later, Petr Pavlensky nailed his scrotum to the Red

121
 FEMINISM IS OUR NATIONAL IDEA

Square in fixation, lamenting the Russian people’s passive

acceptance of the authoritarian regime.
 The radical feminists’ Photoshopped image from
8 March 2017, by contrast, displays a triumphant seizure
of the phallic site of power. Might we read the impris-
onment of this victory in the virtuality of a faked image
as a critique of Russian actionists’ phallocentrism? Are
artists and activists too obsessed with phallic models of
power to recognise how such models reproduce the very
hierarchical structures they hope to overthrow?
 A number of young women artists are pursuing
practices of public engagement that are much closer to
Kollontai’s ideal of sensitivity to the other. One of the
best examples is Daria Serenko’s Quiet Picket project, in
which solitary activists carry handwritten signs into pub-
lic spaces, presenting not slogans, but provocative quota-
tions (often from poetry), damning statistics, and difficult
questions, addressing a broad range of social and political
issues, particularly ones related to gender and sexuality.
The goal of the project is to elicit reactions and provoke
conversations — at times thoughtful, at others aggres-
sive — which are then documented in detail on social
media. Instead of phallic occupation, Quiet Picket is about
horizontal movement and connections — the movement
of pens and markers that activists use to write the signs,
often while riding the metro, the movement of a needle
and thread (Serenko often sews two signs together), and
the movement of the sign and the discourse it evokes
across the city and social networks.
 For the last year — also beginning on 8 March 2017 —
Serenko has been collaborating with the theatre director

122
 ALLA MITROFANOVA

Vika Privalova on a play, Quiet Revolution, which is based

on Kollontai’s diaries. At the end of each performance,
in lieu of applause, the audience is invited to make the
transition from passive viewer to active citizen through
a discussion of contemporary gender politics. Serenko
moderates with her paper and markers, recording essen-
tial ideas and questions. Participants are also encouraged
to make their own signs. As Mitrofanova insists, Russian
feminism is not just an idea but a practice — the creation
of new forms of communication that promote the active
deconstruction of gender binaries, and the liberation of
the winged Eros of political subjectivity. The association
of Quiet Picket with Kollontai clearly shows how aware
today’s Russian feminists are of the great tradition in
which they are working.
 On International Women’s Day, 8 March 2017, radical
Russian feminists staged an action in the Kremlin, un-
furling banners with the slogans, ‘A Woman for Presi-
dent’ and ‘A Woman for Patriarch of Moscow’. To top it
off, they published a photograph that showed activists
holding a banner on one of the Kremlin towers. This one
read: ‘Feminism Is Our National Idea’. The slogan was
pointedly scandalous and politically incorrect. It was a
challenge, designed to provoke broad discussion in the
media, and yet a strange thing happened. No one was in-
terested in the statement; the only thing anyone talked
about was the tower image’s status as a fake. Both right-
and left-wing activists stood up for the truth, decrying
the use of Photoshop in the action’s documentation. They
should have climbed the tower, got sent to jail, sacrificed
themselves… then it would have been true. What is the

123
 FEMINISM IS OUR NATIONAL IDEA

connection between this blindness to the slogan’s mean-

ing and the demand for sacrifice? The critics know exactly
what should be done, but they do not understand what is
written. One activist said you could just as easily hoist
the slogan, ‘Fascism Is the Russian National Idea’. Yes, you
could, but a slogan asserts a specific meaning, demanding
critical examination, a discussion of its relevance, or at
least a consideration of its validity.

THE HISTORY OF FEMINISM IN RUSSIA

AS A CHALLENGE TO MODERNITY

Here I have rephrased the title Irina Yukina’s well-known

monograph on the history of feminism in Russia. What
would it mean if we really did look at feminism as one of
the central ideas of twentieth-century Russian history?
Let’s try it out and test the validity of the feminists’ tower
slogan. It does not seem strange or aggressive to me at all.
Moreover, it is not difficult to find documentary evidence
for its claim. Although we more often hear that Russia is
a backward, patriarchal country, the testimony of history
allows us to draw the opposite conclusion.
 Is it possible to say that there was a mass feminist
movement in Russia, and, if so, how was it organised?
 There were a number of active feminist parties in Rus-
sia before 1917. The Russian Women’s Society for Mutual
Charity, founded in 1894, was a mass, populist organisa-
tion only named in this peculiar way because political
parties were still banned. More parties emerged along
with the 1905 Revolution. Among these were the illegal
Union of Women for Equal Rights (1905) the Progressive

124
 ALLA MITROFANOVA

Women’s Party (1906), a legal organisation of profession-

als, predominantly lawyers and doctors; and most sig-
nificantly, the All-Russian League for Women’s Equality
(1907), a legal party with chapters in many cities (St Pe-
tersburg, Moscow, Kharkiv, Tomsk, etc.).
 The 1917 Revolution began on 8 March (old style:
23 February) with feminist demonstrations and a women
workers’ strike, demanding peace and equal rights. When
the feminist action grew into a general strike, the mon-
archy fell. The State Duma formed the Provisional Com-
mittee (later the Provisional Government) in the Tauride
Palace and the Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’
Deputies formed in the palace’s left wing. Both of these
new governmental bodies decreed civil equality, but they
forgot to mention gender rights. On 19 March, forty thou-
sand women demonstrated at the palace organised by the
League for Equality. The legendary Vera Figner and the
League’s leader, Poliksena Shishkina-Yavein, present-
ed their demands to the Duma representatives and the
Soviet deputies. Surrounded by demonstrators, the offi-
cials debated the question for several hours before accept-
ing full civil and political gender equality. Passive rights
to vote but not to hold office, limited by the eligibility
requirement of owning property, already existed in New
Zealand and Norway. In Finland, in part due to the influ-
ence of the Russian mass feminist movement during the
1905 Revolution, women received the right to hold office,
albeit with class-based restrictions.
 So it was the Russian giant that first gave women full
political and civil rights. In other words, a gender revo-
lution had occurred. A new picture of the world emerged

125
 FEMINISM IS OUR NATIONAL IDEA

with new political demands for the reinvention of society.

What did new civil and political equality mean for everyday life?
The abolition of gender binarism from political and sym-
bolic life led to a rewriting of everyday life. The question
of whether to continue the revolution or declare it com-
plete was unequivocally decided in October 1917. The gen-
der revolution expanded: in November there were decrees
on marriage and divorce, the legalisation of illegitimate
children, and the abolition of limits on education. Next
came free obstetrics, legalised abortion, the liberation of
women from kitchen slavery, and the opening of crèches
and kindergartens.
 Kollontai proposed the creation of women’s sections
in the Communist Party as a synthesis of juridical ideas
taken from the All-Union Women’s Congress (the first of
which was held in St Petersburg in 1908) and the new con-
structivist sociology of Marxist-Machism, as propounded
by influential Bolsheviks such as Aleksandr Bogdanov
and Anatoly Lunacharsky. Kollontai created a horizontal
network of women’s sections and charged them with the
tasks of defending women’s rights, training women for
government positions, and organising crèches and kin-
dergartens. A new model of society was being invented,
supporting gender equality with a complex web of insti-
tutions. This model was exported in one form or another
to many different countries.

Did the change in gender normativity influence the under-

standing of the body and sexuality?

The changes in everyday life led to a sexual revolution

in the 1920s. Sexual relations were no longer considered

126
 ALLA MITROFANOVA

‘natural instincts’, according to which a woman is the ob-

ject of passion, devotion, or violence. The new situation
of subjective equality was not simple; it required recogni-
tion of a partner’s worth, mutual responsibility, dialogue,
psychological, and intellectual equality, and, finally, com-
patible political views. There were scandals and provo-
cations, as always. For example, in 1918, a fake decree on
the communalisation of women appeared in the press,
signed by the Uglich anarchist group. This document,
which was in fact written by monarchist shopkeepers,
made its way into the newspapers and was distributed in
various White-Guardist leaflets. Although the situation
was eventually cleared up, for a long time the ‘Commu-
nalisation Decree’ served as a reason to attack the new
policies and accuse the revolution of debauchery, spawn-
ing an endless polemic, which included judicial inquiries
and numerous stories, both happy and tragic.
 In the end, the sexual revolution led to the creation of
new norms for romantic partnerships. One hundred years
later we are still reinventing these relations. As before,
we lack sufficient ways to speak about sexual desire and
sexual difference, about the new demands for respon-
sibility, about the non-binary nature of gender, and the
mutability of gender stereotypes.
 Yes, Russia was undoubtedly a feminist country, with
an experience ahead of its time. The triumph of gender
equality, the torturous transition to a new form of every-
day life, the experience of the sexual revolution of the
1920s, and a century of cultural work inventing respon-
sible and diverse gender roles liberated from hidden hi-
erarchies and obsessive phallocentrism.

127
 FEMINISM IS OUR NATIONAL IDEA

Why is the rejection of sexual hierarchies and binary gender

important?

In the eighteenth century, when class was more import-

ant than gender identity, female governance was still
possible. For example, Countess E. R. Dashkova was the
director of the Academy of Sciences in St Petersburg.
However, liberal law fixed individual rights on the basis
of private property and gender identity, which led to the
exclusion of women from public life, limiting them to
their ‘natural roles’: mother, lover, prostitute. The rigid
hierarchical binaries of nature/culture, private/public,
passive/active, governed/governing, emotion/rationality,
and female/male, all produce a form of thought that ex-
cludes any middle ground. But since this abstract form of
identification coercively reproduces binary gender hier-
archies, its repressiveness becomes a problem not only for
women but the ruling classes as well. The binary gender
model took hold because of its simplicity; it was inscribed
into the metaphysics of the foundational divide between
nature and reason. Those who ended up on the side of the
subject acquired the right to assert truths, while those on
the side of the object (women, children, foreigners, the
lower classes, etc.) were deprived of the right to speak.
At the same time, the truth did not require sophisticated
proofs; rather, it became the political privilege of power.
The coercive distinction between the positions of subject
and object was enforced by taboos, moralism, and strict
gender binarism. Sexual difference was reproduced as an
empirical confirmation of political inequality. Feminism
and class struggle thus ended up in the same camp as the

128
 ALLA MITROFANOVA

resistance movement. At the First Women’s Congress in

1908, the speakers drew explicit links between everyday
life, family law, and the fundamental structures of politi-
cal power. This meant that changes in gender norms sys-
tematically affected civil law and political governance as
well. By rejecting coercive binaries, we can promote the
myriad forms of activity in which gender identification
does not coincide with gender stereotypes. In turn, this
requires the recreation of social institutions and everyday
practices.
 Even one hundred years later, our fluid reality is rid-
den with anxiety and deprived of all stable, foundational
truths. However, any attempt to return to the simplici-
ty and supposed self-evidence of ‘natural law’ not only
reaffirms male gender privilege but also promotes the
practice of political adventurism, the new populism. The
latter, one might say, as a form of ‘direct’, uncritical un-
derstanding of reality, can only hold if it is propped up
by a traditional, binary gender system. At the same time,
rational decisions and new social institutions depend on
the constant flux of behaviour stereotypes and adaptation
to new conditions. The feminist monitoring of sexism and
repressive speech, the struggle for legislation against do-
mestic violence, and so on, are all systematically related
to the development of civil institutions and laws. If we
return to the slogan (not) in the Kremlin tower, we might
suggest a slight correction: Feminism Is Our National
Idea and Practice. Along with its history and, perhaps,
even historical levels of solidarity with universal civil
demands, Russian feminism is coming back.

129
 INFRASTRUCTURES OF CARE

INFRASTRUCTURES OF CARE
CURATORLAB IN CONVERSATION WITH BINI ADAMCZAK
EDITED BY DIMITRINA SEVOVA

CuratorLab: In your essay ‘Gender and the New Man:

Emancipation and the Russian Revolution’, you reflect on
the notion of ‘a utopian weather machine’, in a kind of po-
etic opening that introduces other sensibilities about the
relation between gender and revolution.1 You write about
how bad (or good) weather influences the revolution, how
‘temperature, cloudiness, and precipitation do play a cer-
tain role in politics and its history; politics is not only
about shabby clothes but also about bad weather. This
is true for revolutions too.’ Are there connections to the
weather as a non-human agent of change that participates
in the event as well, as an affective milieu, as moods or
dispositions folded into revolutionary temporality which
can as a force be connected to the work of love? In the
context of your essay and our research on Alexandra Kol-
lontai, is there a relation between weather, gender, and
revolution to which love can be added?

Bini Adamczak: Looking at Germany in particular, there

are two connections to the question of weather. First, the
weather is often bad. I have often thought that this might
be of political importance. I first realised this when I was
visiting my cousin who was living in Berlin at the time. I
was maybe seventeen. My cousin was born in Berlin and
had just organised a strike at his school. We were sitting
together in the Autonomous Centre, and one of the stu-
dents who had organised the strike told us, ‘Well, now we

130
 CURATORLAB AND BINI ADAMCZAK

have to wait’. History teaches us that all good revolutions

happen in bad weather, they happen in winter. That sen-
tence stuck with me, and I kept thinking about whether
it was true. It turns out that it is not.
 And the second thing is, people say that nobody talks
about the weather quite as much as the Germans. Why
would this be? Because the weather is basically some-
thing that you cannot change, at least as an individual,
and without, say, all the technological powers that exist.
It’s thus very easy to complain about the weather, con-
stantly. It is said, for instance, that people from France
who experience similar weather conditions don’t com-
plain so much about it, but rather about things such as
politicians and political structures — things that can
actually be changed. This is the constellation in which I
start talking about the weather.
 And there is a sexist discourse in Germany about
Klatschweiber, a term designating gossiping women, who
in the marketplace, let’s say, talk a lot about unimportant
things. They talk about the weather. This is a paradigm for
things that are not considered important or political, but
side contradictions. When we talk about gender relations,
and economic relations, in the perspective of the Marxist
tradition, the question of what the main contradiction is
and what the side contradictions are is crucial. This is why
I start with the weather.

CuratorLab: You refer to the February revolt of the tex-

tile workers, who peacefully marched through Petrograd
on the eighth of March and induced the subsequent re-
volts. You criticise the grand monolithic narrative of the

131
 INFRASTRUCTURES OF CARE

October Revolution, saying: ‘It is thus that we can un-

derstand the Bolshevik model of politics: namely, as an
attempt to mute the polyphony of the revolution’, which
came out of dissent and a series of revolts. There is a gross
contradiction in regard to how gender was represented if
we compare the photograph of the textile workers’ march
published alongside your text with the archive images of
the Red Army activists around Lenin. This seems espe-
cially visible in the political vacuum that followed the
events which led to the self-organised Red Army to take
over in its self-mandate to deal with civil chaos. I read
somewhere that there were no women in the Red Army,
but then I found archive pictures showing Soviet women
with guns who were also part of the army. What makes
the contrast in gender representation in the revolutionary
archive imagery interesting, is that for the first time there
were also massive protests by housewives against the
war, not only women factory workers. You come from a
Marxist tradition that brings the relation between gender
and economics into politics. How do the struggles of the
1970s, constructed around wages against housework and
the refusal of housework, relate to the industrialisation
of housework on the backdrop of the rapid development
of capitalism? Or to the communist futurist ideas of tech-
nology eventually replacing housework and reproductive
work? Kollontai was a kind of futurist. She imagined a fu-
ture based on the industrialisation of housework, which
in the German tradition is highly criticised because this
is the beginning of industrialisation, the way capitalism
was inserted into everyday life, and how the production
line was introduced.

132
 CURATORLAB AND BINI ADAMCZAK

Can you tell me more about your position regarding this

idea of technology replacing reproductive labour? Tech-
nology has always been involved in building or support-
ing gender, be it in the subversive idea of the cyborg, the
feminisation of social reproduction, the refusal of work, or
in the revolts at the beginning of the revolution.

Bini Adamczak: It is important to see the similarities

between the political situations of 1917 and 1968, and at
the same time to take a closer look at how different the
political situation is in 1917, be it in the February Uprising
or in the October Revolution, and then in 1921, 1922, or
1927, and at the beginning of the 1930s. There is a huge
shift in the way politics and gender, housework, and re-
production are seen. One of the important things that
materialist feminists have stressed is that a critique of
housework and a feminist movement come very much
into existence, and become stronger, in moments of war.
Why? Because in war, in a traditional patriarchal society,
men will fight as soldiers, and while they fight at the front,
it is the women who have to fulfil the productive work
that they could not do as professionals before. The women
who protested on 8 March, in the February Revolution,
took to the streets not so much as houseworkers, but as
wage labourers. They had become factory workers. At the
same time, they continued to be responsible for the repro-
duction of children and the elderly. The economic revolu-
tion starts at the point where they demand civil or citizen
rights. It is all about an economic crisis induced by war,
and they say we have to stop war in order to get bread.

133
 INFRASTRUCTURES OF CARE

 The Bolsheviks do not believe the gossip, or rumours,

that there will be a revolution. Because all the rumours
came from women. They were the ones standing in line
waiting for bread. Which meant they had their ear to the
voices of the street. They said there would be a revolu-
tion, but the Bolsheviks did not believe it and the revo-
lution started anyway. From the moment it started, and
now I switch to October, you could already see that the
revolution, in the Bolshevik vocabulary at least, was in-
deed coded as masculine. You can very much see this in
the theoretical representations of the so-called October
Revolution, in the storming of the Winter Palace itself.
As you said, there were women fighting in the military.
But in this case, they were fighting in the military on the
side of the February Revolution, on the side of the rep-
resentative democracy of the liberals. There was a group
of female soldiers defending the provisional government
at the Winter Palace. As the Bolshevik fought this revolt
against the October Revolution, they generated a lot of
sexist rumours and discourses about the female soldiers
who allegedly went hysterical at the moment the fighting
began.
 The truth is that it was mostly women who stayed at
the Winter Palace, when most of the male soldiers had
already left. And the female soldiers were not interest-
ed very much in defending the provisional government.
On a symbolic level it became very clear in this situation
that femininity was seen as counter-revolutionary, as part
of the old regime, whereas masculinity was seen as pro-
gressive, as a revolutionary force. You can also see this
in the leaders of this time. Lenin, on the one hand, was

134
 CURATORLAB AND BINI ADAMCZAK

part of the underground. In order not to be recognised, he

dressed up as a wounded worker — you may have seen
the pictures — and on the other side you had the provi-
sional government. Rumour has it that when Alexander
Kerensky fled, he dressed up as a woman, as a nurse. That’s
even more interesting. That’s someone who clearly works
in the realm of reproduction. Kerensky saw the need to
dispel these rumours.
 You can also see this symbolic division in the vocab-
ulary of the October Revolution. The revolution is seen
as masculine and counter-revolution as feminine. This is
true not only of the cultural characterisation of gender,
but of the economic core of gender, which brings us back
to your question. In the Russian Revolution, housework,
in-house reproductive work, is also seen as reactionary,
capitalist, or feudalist. Whereas industrial work, technol-
ogy, is seen as progressive and socialist. This is a perspec-
tive that changed in the coming years, especially in 1968,
to today.

CuratorLab: You’ve been writing about gender as a so-

cial atmosphere. The revolution had one gender, and that
was the male gender. It could potentially be changed, and
there was an attempt to do that in 1968. But then there
was a counter-revolution too. Since we are in this perio-
disation, I wanted to ask you, in relation to her writings,
political ideas, and work, how do you see Kollontai’s writ-
ing in relation to the switch of the gender? Is she rather
going in the direction of abolishing gender, of genders
becoming equal? Or does it change the paradigm from
this masculine gender to a feminine gender? How do you

135
 INFRASTRUCTURES OF CARE

place her work within your research on the gender of the

revolution?

Bini Adamczak: Kollontai is a very, very interesting sub-

ject. I think it’s a very good idea to do research on her and
build a seminar around her. Because you can discuss so
many crucial questions in her person, both historical and
of today. The first thing is that Kollontai never considered
herself a feminist. In her time, feminism was seen as petit-
bourgeois. So, she was fighting against the term femi-
nism. Then again, from today’s perspective she is in fact
a feminist, fighting against patriarchy, against the prism
of gender and sexual expectation. That being said, it is
very interesting to see how her perspective — a feminism
that was not acknowledged as such but was nevertheless
a feminism — differs from what we today, after 1968 and
queer feminism, call feminism. And one of the main dif-
ferences is that in her texts, a critique of masculinity is al-
most completely absent. Imagine a feminist who does not
criticise men, or masculinity, at all, but sees masculinity as
an ideal, a norm, that should be reached by everybody. By
this she means that everybody should be able to become
like a man — or to become a man. This is not even a de-
constructive projection. She said this explicitly. The new
woman has become more like a man. And becoming like
a man made her stronger, more emancipated, and more
revolutionary. There are also different tones in Kollontai’s
writing. If you have read Kollontai’s ‘Letter to the Youths’, 2
in this text she writes about the ‘Winged Eros’, and devel-
ops precisely a different critique. It’s interesting, because
here — even more than in her classical political activities

136
 CURATORLAB AND BINI ADAMCZAK

as leader of the Workers’ Opposition, which can be very

much criticised as I have done in recent works — she crit-
icises exactly this discourse of the revolution and its idea
of unity, conformity, and homogeneity. She says that in the
coming society, communism cannot be developed only
from the repertoire, atmosphere, knowledge, and resourc-
es of the male sphere. A revolution that only focuses on
rationality, effectiveness, hardness, and toughness, will
not be able to do what is most crucial for a communist so-
ciety: to form bonds between the members of society. This
is what she calls ‘a transformed love’. What she does in
this striking analysis, is look at how love comes into be-
ing through capitalism, how love changes throughout the
course of history, and how it gets formed in communism.
The idea is that love will not be something restricted to
the relation between two persons. It is something that
will define the relation between all members of a society.
Kollontai calls this form of love solidarity, and there you
have a completely different perspective on the revolution.
It is a subtle but fundamental critique of the discourse of
the revolution that argues that a revolution restricted to
masculinity must fail. In this regard, her critique of the
discourse of revolution is the most radical. Much more
radical than her early writing which she did with the
Workers’ Opposition.

CuratorLab: This resonates very well with our own re-

search on Kollontai. Of course, her idealisation of mas-
culinity becomes somewhat problematic from today’s
perspective. It seems she forgets to criticise men in the
revolution. Today, we also have to bring in the question of

137
 INFRASTRUCTURES OF CARE

post-colonialism and racism, which she has not addressed.

You have done a periodisation of 1968 and the counter-
revolution after that. Where do you find that she is picked
up again, and on what questions? Is it regarding property
relations, or the family structure? What is the result of
reading Kollontai during the feminist movement, and
how do you think Kollontai will be effective in a critical
re-reading today?
 Kollontai has a strong resonance in the Swedish con-
text. She affected feminists in the 1960s and ’70s. She was
published there and was part of the feminist discourse
whose history goes back to the 1960s and then was re-
cently picked up again. How do you read her analysis of
the 1960s?

Bini Adamczak: One of the reasons Kollontai is so im-

portant is her materialist perspective. This differs very
much from the hegemony in queer feminist discourses
that are at the same time more radical or clearer in their
idea of how gender is constructed, how the construction
of gender relates to the construction of sexuality, and how
gender relations and gender itself as a concept can be over-
come. Therefore, they articulate something that Kollontai
implies, but cannot argue the way one would today, be-
cause her understanding of biology, or materiality, was not
as radical as it is today. At the same time, in this process of
radicalisation, which was very much informed by a shift
towards cultural perspectives and linguistics, something
is lost. What is lost is the focus on material conditions, on
economic conditions, and how they are intertwined with
gender relations. This is a very general observation and

138
 CURATORLAB AND BINI ADAMCZAK

we could say the same of feminists like Clara Zetkin, or

materialist feminists from the 1960s and ’70s. But then,
there is something special about Kollontai, and that’s
precisely what you are discussing in the CuratorLab
group, and that is the way in which she discusses love. It’s
a very particular perspective that differs very much from
most Marxist approaches.
 There are two main approaches in the materialist dis-
cussion of love. In one, love is seen as a resource, a mo-
ment of happiness, a utopian perspective that can be used
in an anti-capitalist protest. The sphere of reproduction,
of the family, of intimate relations colonialised by in-
dustrial capitalism, and is therefore seen within a strong
anti-capitalist and post-capitalist realm. This perspective,
which we find in Jürgen Habermas, Max Horkheimer, or
maybe Alain Badiou, is very much criticised by a different
group of materialists, namely, materialist feminists like
the Bielefeld school, among them Maria Mies, or operaist
feminists like Silvia Federici who argue that reproduc-
tion is not something outside of capitalism, but rather
something that is completely within it and is misused
to legitimise the fact that house labour, or housework, is
not paid. Love is the payment given for this work, and
as such is an ideology that tries to perpetuate exploit-
ative relations. I think Kollontai has a third perspective.
She very much focuses on the transformability of love.
She asks how love will and can be transformed, and how
these feelings seemingly caught in the private sphere are
connected to the relations in the public sphere. And they
are immediately connected. This is a very radical idea.

139
 INFRASTRUCTURES OF CARE

CuratorLab: Another question is, how do we deal with

this transformation of love, Kollontai’s comradely love,
which from her historical perspective is a strong critique
of bourgeois family relations, which in the 1960s and
’70s are also explored through different forms of sexual
relation. But then, there is a backlash. They are commod-
ified and transformed into popular culture in the 1980s,
and then in the 1990s and 2000s there is an explosion of
technical devices and forms of sexuality that are hyper-
commodified and hyper-mediated. How do we deal with
the radical political potential of Kollontai’s communal
love, the different facets of it — sexual, but mainly com-
radely love as a motor in political transformations — amid
the hyper-mediated sexuality and sexual relations that
we have today?

Bini Adamczak: I think in discussing these issues and the

critique of technology and gender, Kollontai will prove
difficult. I think like most of the Marxists of her time, be
it Vladimir Lenin or Leon Trotsky, she is not critical of
technology, but very much sees it as a progressive force.
Discussing how technology changed our relations, maybe
for the worse, creating more alienation, would be difficult
for Kollontai. But what Kollontai might answer is that
technology is always embedded in a social structure of
power, and that it may be more useful not to focus on the
technology itself, which Kollontai might see as progres-
sive in itself, but rather on the power relations. Then she
would say that she wasn’t surprised at how the progres-
sive efforts of the sexual revolution of 1968 turned out to
be co-opted by the counterrevolutionary moment. She

140
 CURATORLAB AND BINI ADAMCZAK

would say, I reckon, that you cannot have a sexual revolu-

tion in the sphere of sexuality. You cannot have a gender
revolution in the sphere of gender relations. These things
can only be changed if the relation between gender and
the economy, between sexuality and material relations,
are changed too. So, she would say that it’s no surprise
that capitalism co-opts these practices. Of course, it will.
As long as capitalism exists, as long as its economic rela-
tions exist, you cannot have a completely different way
of living your sexuality. Some change is possible, which
we have to fight for. But as long as the economic relations
remain mostly the same, everything you do in these fields
will be transformed by this and co-opted. This is some-
thing she has always seen very clearly.

CuratorLab: In this context I wanted to ask you about the

sexual revolution, which brought ‘the struggles from the
struggle’ and raised economic demands to change gender
relations — where Kollontai demanded free love. You said
now that we have to imagine the end of capitalism, also in
economic terms. We can think also of Michel Foucault, or
Julie Graham and Katherine Gibson, who wrote The End
of Capitalism (As We Knew It): A Feminist Critique of Political
Economy under the pen name of J. K. Gibson-Graham. To
what extent can free love be not only the stake of political
and social transformations, but an actual force or currency
for an economic transformation that would not be a mas-
culine revolution? How can free love be the fuel, or the
undercurrent, of this new space of undercommoning, of
an other-economy based on sharing and care, rather than
on exchange and profit in the context of a queer feminist

141
 INFRASTRUCTURES OF CARE

utopia? Is there a potentiality that free love also brings in

a critique of the political economy?

Bini Adamczak: In 1968, or following from 1968, the idea

occurred and became stronger that a new revolutionary
movement could have its starting point in the politici-
sation of love. The concept of free love was taken from
theorists like Kollontai and brought into the political and
economic discourse with the hope that it could work as
a starting point for a stronger revolution. Also, theorists
like Wilhelm Reich argued that setting love free would
bring capitalism to an end. They argued that the capitalist
regime is based on the repression of sexuality, of love, of
desire, of lust, and only by this repression can a disciplined
worker exist. As soon as you would let go of the disciplin-
ing of your body and free your sexuality, you would no
longer be able to work as a soldier or as a worker. Of course,
today we see that this hope was not realised, that these
expectations did not become true. Capitalism proved to
be a much more flexible system not only based on produc-
tion, productivity, and efficiency, but also capable of taking
its energy from the sphere of consumption. The freeing
of sexuality became at the same time a force to make the
sphere of consumption even stronger, creating a much
different and stronger demand for new commodities that
helped to get capitalism out of the crisis it was in during
the 1970s. Instead of getting rid of capitalism altogether,
it just changed the mode of reproduction, or the mode of
accumulation, from a Fordist regime based on productivity,
earning, and saving money, to a post-Fordist economy not
based on spending money. To answer your question, if free

142
 CURATORLAB AND BINI ADAMCZAK

love is to become the starting point or currency, as you call

it, of a revolutionary moment, it always has to be seen as
intrinsically connected to different fields. These sentences
by Kollontai, which she repeated, are very, very strong.
When she says that the need to take refuge in marriage
will disappear as soon as the economic and reproductive
relationship between the members of the community be-
comes based on solidarity, this would really be the reali-
sation of free love. Not just what happens in bedrooms or
in the private sphere, but how we exchange our abilities
to reproduce each other. The fact that I work for you and
you work for me is a relationship that can be based on
love — the love for each other as an ability to live together.

CuratorLab: Kollontai was a very active and well-in-

formed politician when it came to social reform in the
first Soviet government. One of the most inspiring as-
pects of Kollontai, I think, is how we can read her as
someone who gives us a key to social reproduction, and
the formation of infrastructures of care as a form of polit-
ical practice. But there is one issue on which I would like
to understand your position. If we take critical reflections
on ‘left melancholia’, and love, as one part of the spectrum
whose primary objective is to form the party, and Antonio
Negri and Michael Hardt as another pole of the political
dimensions of love, where would you start? Is it the party
of free love? Or is it a self-organised free love practice that
we need to create?

CuratorLab: And what about the Army of Love? I am re-

ferring to Franco ‘Bifo’ Berardi’s call in collaboration with
Geert Lovink.3

143
 INFRASTRUCTURES OF CARE

Bini Adamczak: The starting point for many of my

texts, and especially my inquiries into the history of the
Russian Revolution and the idea and discourse around
communism, is a time that has been termed ‘the end of
history’ by Francis Fukuyama. He was not so wrong with
his ideology, because the end of history was not just some
lie capitalists used to tell but was also an atmosphere that
was palpable all over the world, with the exception of
Latin America, as the feeling that you yourself had no
impact on the course of history — that liberal democracy
and the market economy would be the last word of his-
tory. Then, this end of history itself came to an end with
the economic crisis of 2007 and 2008, and its political
articulation in the Arab Spring in 2011 and the follow-
ing revolutions, or revolts, of the Occupy movement. The
Occupy movement was very strong in its radicality, with
its perspective and focus on democracy, and the self-or-
ganisation of many people that proved that politicisation
without a party and leadership is possible. But then you
could see that these movements that started with big
assemblies and self-organisation very quickly started to
form parties. First Syriza in Greece, and then Podemos in
Spain. And these parties very quickly became similar to
parties we had seen before. Then all of a sudden, whereas
the Occupy movement was very feminist, open to ques-
tions of reproduction, and against any form of represen-
tation, these two parties ended up having leaders that
were all these male figures that we have seen so often in
the course of history. I think that in this transformation,
something important was lost. The important thing that
was lost was exactly the focus on relations between each

144
 CURATORLAB AND BINI ADAMCZAK

other. The moment people occupy a public square, they

realise that the question of infrastructure, how we repro-
duce each other, where we get food from, who takes care
of the injured and the traumatised, and also who cleans
the space afterwards, are not questions that can be seen as
side questions, but they are critical. When thinking about
trying to form a party again, these questions of how we
relate to each other, the question of making a movement
more stable, must remain crucial to the discussion.

CuratorLab: If you look at these recent developments, the

party failed Kollontai, so that would sort of rule out the
party as a structure, but if you take Negri and Hardt’s pro-
posals in their recent book Assembly, 4 you could use the
party as an empty form, perhaps with free love as the ac-
tual leading principle. We remember the first movements
in the 2000s that did not manage to become constitutive
power. We need some sort of organisation. But maybe
we should not repeat history and re-create the patriar-
chal party in its old form. How do we create leadership
within self-organisation? Is it comradely love? Is it the
production of infrastructure and self-care? I think it’s an
interesting parallel.

Bini Adamczak: For me, the question of leadership is not

so crucial. I have difficulties understanding why Negri
and Hardt focus so much on that question. As you put
out the idea of free love as a concept that could organise a
movement, something I think is important in this debate
is that there already was a cultural movement, but also a
political movement, that tried to put love at the centre of

145
 INFRASTRUCTURES OF CARE

politics and the creation of community. This movement

is called Christianity. Christianity teaches that loving
your neighbour is the principle on which a community of
believers could be created. This idea, from the history of
the church, has proven to be problematic. Daniel Loick, a
philosopher, recently wrote a book on the judicial, a cri-
tique of judiciality.5 He criticises the judicial context very
harshly. But at the same time, he emphasises that every
critique of the system of justice, of judiciality, has to be a
critique of the critique of judiciality. Here he talks about
Hegel. Hegel criticises the concept of law as being extrin-
sic. He is looking for an intrinsic motivation for ethical
behaviour instead of a law. And what would this intrinsic
motivation be? His answer is love. The interesting and
problematic point here, which I would like to raise in this
discussion, is that the text is deeply anti-Semitic. Loick
points out that this anti-Semitism is not a coincidence.
It will always occur when we try to place love in its
Christian sense at the centre of the community. As you
can see in Hegel, but also in Shakespeare, in The Merchant
of Venice, the moment you want to create a community
around love, you have to deal with the fact that it cannot
be ordered but is something that has to be given freely. As
soon as somebody misbehaves, it becomes more difficult
to say you just did not abide by that law, you did not give
the love that we demanded in the community, you do not
love us, and that therefore we must expel you from the
circle of what we consider to be the community, or even
human. This is where Loick says that anti-Semitism —
the expelling of those who do not follow our laws as the
enemy, as the Other and the Jew — comes in naturally.

146
 CURATORLAB AND BINI ADAMCZAK

This is something we need to keep in mind when we dis-

cuss the question of how love can be applied to political
struggles.

CuratorLab: Concurrently, Julia Kristeva makes an inter-

esting connection between the Greco-Christian concept
of love as Agape and the homosexual Eros that should
be understood not as a masculine Eros, but as a multiple
gender or rather feminine libido.6 This is distinct from
the androgynous, which is symmetrical between mas-
culinity and femininity and is not interesting for her.
She builds on the idea of Agape to invent other passions,
sexuality, and love that break with phallic power. For
her, Agape is really a transformation to Eratos evolving
new heretic powers. Kristeva is somehow reserved to-
wards Spinoza’s concept of love, which is so important to
Negri and Hardt, exemplified in the famous quote by
Negri where he says that, between knowledge and power,
only love can remain and bridge between them.7 Going
back to Kristeva, her critical points to the ethical sub-
ject based on love in Spinoza are driven by the argument
that he completely ignores women and femininity, who
remain excluded from his concept of multitude too. We
can read everything as anti-Semitic, on the background
of the history of the church as a social and political state
formation, from Thomas of Aquinas to other subtle or
fundamental changes in how concepts of love have been
imbedded into the theologico-philosophical western par-
adigm and Christianity.
 Can you tell us more about Hegel in this context and his
effort to change this paradigm? Hegel is so important for

147
 INFRASTRUCTURES OF CARE

Judith Butler, who wrote about him in the Book of Books.8

Slavoj Žižek also tries to defend Hegel and his concept of
love as completely revolutionary, being against the idea
of the marriage contract, and developing so many com-
pletely new ideas about love.9

Bini Adamczak: I think the argument made by Loick,

which is very striking in regard to Kollontai, is on a more
general level. It is not about the church having an anti-
Semitic history. It is the question of what happens if we
put the principle of love at the centre of our imagined
re-organisation of society. We can say, the basic principle
of relations between members of capitalist society is in-
difference. It is private production — I don’t care what you
do and you don’t care what I do — and at the same time
we are competitors. We fight against each other, and this
is the engine that makes capitalism create. The question is
how we can imagine putting collaboration and solidarity
in the place of indifference and competition. Do we imag-
ine it as putting love in the place of indifference, compe-
tition, law? This is where we have to ask those critical
questions. What expectations come into place? How do
we imagine a society of lovers? And how do we deal with
the grief of lovers? How do we bring into the picture the
struggle again? Let’s not paint the future in colours that
are too harmonious. Where is the struggle and where is
the place of this struggle? If you forget to have a place for
dissent, the effect will be cruel. There must be a possibility
to articulate dissent. This is why I am sceptical of the idea
of putting love exactly at the place of our economic rela-
tions, where we now find indifference and competition. I

148
 CURATORLAB AND BINI ADAMCZAK

think that solidarity is a somewhat broader context that

is more open to difference and dissent. I prefer the term
of solidarity.

1 Bini Adamczak, ‘Gender and the New Man: Emancipation and

theRussian Revolution?,’ Platypus Review 62 (December–January
2013) <https://platypus1917.org/2013/12/01/gender-and-the-new
-man/> [accessed 2018-04-19]
2 Alexandra Kollontai, ‘Make Way for Winged Eros: A Letter to
Working Youth’, in Selected Writings, ed. Alix Holt (New York:
Norton, 1980/1977), pp. 276–292.
3 Franco Berardi and Geert Lovink, ‘A Call to the Army of Love
and to the Army of Software’, net critique blog, 12 October 2011
<http://networkcultures.org/geert/2011/10/12/franco-berardi
-geert-lovink-a-call-to-the-army-of-love-and-to-the-army-of
-software/> [accessed 19 April 2018]
4 Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Assembly (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2017).
5 Daniel Loick, Juridismus: Konturen einer kritischen Theorie des
Rechts (Berlin: Suhrkamp, 2017).
6 Julia Kristeva, Tales of Love, trans. by Leon S. Roudiez (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1987 (1983)).
7 Antonio Negri, ‘Appendix Two: Archeological Letter. October
1984, Antonio Negri’, in Félix Guattari and Antonio Negri,
New Lines of Alliance, New Spaces of Liberty, trans. by Michael Ryan,
Jared Becker, Arianna Bove, and Noe Le Blanc (Autonomedia,
2010/1990 (1985)), p. 142.
8 Judith Butler, ‘To Sense What Is Living in the Other: Hegel’s
Early Love,’ in The Book of Books | 100 Notes — 100 Thoughts,
no. 066 (Kassel: Hatje Cantz and Manifesta 13, 2012), pp. 415–21.
9 Slavoj Žižek, Less than Nothing: Hegel and the Shadow of Dialectical
Materialism (London: Verso, 2012).

149
 COMRADELY LOVE AS CONTEMPORARY STRATEGY

COMRADELY LOVE AS CONTEMPORARY STRATEGY..

FEMINISM‚ MEN & WOMEN‚
FRIENDSHIP AND POLITICAL ORGANISING
NINA POWER

How do we learn to live, love, and organise together? In

a world in which divisions between men and women
appear greater than ever and misunderstandings are rife
even among those supposed to already have a shared
political understanding, it is useful and perhaps even
necessary to revisit some of Alexandra Kollontai’s ideas
regarding comradeship and love in order to put our
thoughts regarding politics and passion in some sort of
hopeful order. What, in the first place, do we mean by
‘comrade’ today? Is it merely a bygone relic of a way of
being together more-or-less completely absent in today’s
world? An ironic gesture towards a kind of solidarity be-
tween humanity that can only be spoken about today in
a knowing or even sneering tone? I want to revisit the
various ways in which Kollontai used the term ‘comrade’
in a variety of her texts and speeches to ultimately suggest
that we would do well to resurrect the term in at least
the following three important ways: 1) to understand the
reality and possibility of contemporary relations between
men and women by looking back to Kollontai’s reflections
on the topic; 2) to think about the politics of friendship
and comradeship more generally and; 3) to reflect on the
challenges, patience, generosity, and kindness necessary
for political organising under the violence, antagonism,
opposition, and alienation of contemporary capitalism.

150
 NINA POWER

1
COMRADESHIP‚ RELATIONS BETWEEN
THE SEXES‚ FEMINISM‚ CLASS‚
1909—23

Kollontai’s claims regarding comradeship between 1909

and 1923 frequently invoke the term in a variety of similar
but slightly different ways. In the 1909 The Social Basis of
the Woman Question, she begins by opposing a proletarian
image of comradeship with the supposedly oppositional
attitude of ‘feminists’:

Proletarian women have a different attitude [than fe-

minists]. They do not see men as the enemy and the
oppressor; on the contrary, they think of men as their
comrades, who share with them the drudgery of the
daily round and fight with them for a better future. The
woman and her male comrade are enslaved by the same
social conditions; the same hated chains of capitalism
oppress their will and deprive them of the joys and
charms of life.1

Here, comradeship arises as a result of the shared exploita-

tion of men and women under the same social conditions.
Already, though, we can see hints of the ‘joy and charms’
that Kollontai will come to invoke more and more in later
writings, which tend increasingly to focus on a positive,
practical, but also mildly utopian, image of comradeship.
In this early text, though, Kollontai’s main interlocutor is
the ‘bourgeois’ feminist who pushes for political equality
without simultaneously calling for the dismantling of the

151
 COMRADELY LOVE AS CONTEMPORARY STRATEGY

class system as such. Here it is clear that for Kollontai

class solidarity trumps sex. It is important to note that
more than a hundred years later we still have not yet re-
ally moved beyond some of these debates. While today’s
liberal feminism calls for sexual equality, today’s capitalist
and corporate feminism calls for what Kollontai describes
in this text as ‘access to the professions’. Radical feminism
sometimes emphasises the historical dominance of patri-
archy over its more specific forms under capitalist rela-
tions. It is socialist and Marxist feminism, often squeezed
now as much as then between the more dominant forms
of feminism, that attempts to seriously think through the
material reality of sex and class.
 In 1917, one senses a certain combined hope and frus-
tration in Kollontai’s image of solidarity between the sex-
es. Here she suggests that:

It is time that working women began to exhibit self-

activity; it is time they began to take a real part in trade-
union affairs. Questions of equal pay for equal work is
near and dear to the working woman, and if this issue
is taken up it should prove possible to show that the pa-
tience and passivity of centuries is being overcome by
the new woman who is coming into being within the
working class — the woman-comrade who is a fighter
for the general workers’ cause and for the idea of the
bright future. 2

Here the idea of the ‘woman-comrade’ or ‘new woman’

comes into her own: the woman who organises herself
and her comrades, who demands equal pay for equal work,

152
 NINA POWER

who fights for all workers and for the ‘bright future’. Here
the proletarian ‘woman-comrade’ is less in enmity and
opposition to bourgeois feminism and middle-class femi-
nists, but rather comes into being from ‘within’ the work-
ing class, against the ‘patience and passivity of centuries’.
Kollontai’s use of ‘patience and passivity’ here is inter-
esting, invoking as it does both the historical enforced
acquiescence of the pre-self-active, pre-new woman as
well as the female socialisation that would result in a kind
of ‘patience’ as waiting.
 Kollontai produced an enormous amount of writing
and lectures between 1920 and 1923, and discussion
of the relations between men and women as comrades
features heavily. Nevertheless, as with the 1917 text,
Kollontai’s particular focus unsurprisingly tends towards
reflections on women’s situation within the proletariat, as
well as continued battle with the notion of ‘equal rights’
pushed by the feminists. For example, on the latter point,
in 1920 she writes the following:

For the feminists, the battle to obtain equal rights

with men within the limits of the capitalist world is
a sufficient aim in itself; for the women of the prole-
tariat this is only a means of extending the struggle
against the economic oppression of the working class.
The feminists consider that men, who have unjustly
taken all the rights and privileges for themselves and
left women in prisoners’ chains and with a thousand
obligations, are the main enemy, and that victory will
be the abandonment by the male sex of their exclusive
prerogatives.3

153
 COMRADELY LOVE AS CONTEMPORARY STRATEGY

On the other hand, proletarian women do not begin from

the standpoint of patriarchal oppression, but rather cap-
italist domination:

The women of the proletariat see the situation very dif-

ferently. They certainly do not see men as the enemy or
the oppressor. For them, the men of the working class
are comrades who share the same joyless existence,
they are loyal fighters in the struggle for a better future.
The same social conditions oppress both the women
and their male comrades, the same chains of capitalism
weigh on them and darken their lives. It is true that
certain specificities of the contemporary situation cre-
ate a double burden for women, and the conditions of
hired labour sometimes mean that the working woman
is seen as the enemy rather than the friend of men. The
working class, though, understands the situation. 4

Here, Kollontai’s stance on both feminism and women’s

position in the working class is quite similar to the claims
made in 1909. We have the same shared ‘joyless existence’,
the same hope of a ‘better future’ through struggle, the
same social conditions. Against the feminists’ desire for
rights and privileges, there is the communist feminist
fight on equal terms with men, a rather different idea of
equality than the feminists Kollontai positions herself
against (whether Kollontai is fair to the feminists she crit-
icises here is an open question). Nevertheless, moments of
complexity sneak in — women, ‘it is true’ suffer a double
burden — one imagines both waged labour and domestic/
child-rearing, though Kollontai does not here note the

154
 NINA POWER

‘specificities’. Furthermore, Kollontai clearly notes that

women’s mass entry into the workforce can generate re-
sentment amongst men, whereby women are seen not as
comrades but as enemies.
 Similarly, in another text from 1920, Kollontai notes
that historically there has been resistance to ‘special ag-
itation’ and propaganda among women, and that women
self-organising in this way were not supported by the
party, and indeed other comrades confused these ac-
tivities and the demands and actions of the communist
feminists with the ‘hated feminists’ and actively tried to
hinder and sabotage such activity.

An attempt to begin special agitation and propaganda

amongst working women was, however, met by some
members with indifference and by others with distrust.
During 1906 and 1907 the party centre was engrossed
in its serious and urgent political tasks, and although
in principle it recognised the usefulness of this kind of
work, it did nothing to help or support the work of the
group. The rank-and-file comrades often did not grasp
the meaning of what we were doing, and identified our
activities with the ‘hated feminism’. They gave no en-
couragement and even went as far as trying to hinder
the group. Working women arranging their first meet-
ings, for example, and relying on using the rooms where
evening classes were held or where some union or club
had its headquarters, would find that the building was
locked up, and on making enquiries would be told
that the rooms were not to be had for special women’s
meetings.5

155
 COMRADELY LOVE AS CONTEMPORARY STRATEGY

One gets the impression that Kollontai’s hopes are po-

sitioned rather precariously on the assumption that her
male comrades will both understand the differences be-
tween the competing visions of feminism and be support-
ive of women’s self-organising. Certainly her work from
this year speaks of a genuine enthusiasm and recognition
of the liberating aspects of political work and rebellion:

At a time of unrest and strike action the proletarian

woman, downtrodden, timid and without rights, sud-
denly grows and learns to stand tall and straight. The
self-centred, narrow-minded and politically backward
‘female’ becomes an equal, a fighter and a comrade. This
transformation is unconscious and spontaneous, but
it is important and significant because it reveals the
way in which participation in the workers’ movement
brings the woman worker towards her liberation, not
only as the seller of her labour power but also as a
woman, a wife, a mother and a housekeeper.6

Women in this sense develop in strikes and other politi-

cal actions a kind of double-consciousness to match their
double burden. Female socialisation, geared towards cre-
ating ‘self-centred, narrow-minded and politically back-
wards’ beings, gives way to a true female equality and
emancipation, predicated on strength and confrontation.
Here we also have the first inklings of the development of
Kollontai’s ideas about the psyche — this political trans-
formation is ‘unconscious and spontaneous’ — but is no
less important for having taken place ‘on the inside’, as
it were. As we shall see, the psyche becomes even more

156
 NINA POWER

central in Kollontai’s understanding of comradeship and

relationships, from 1920–1923 in particular.

2.
LOVE‚ HAPPINESS‚
PSYCHIC PROGRESS

Against the backdrop of ideological and political antago-

nisms between various strands of feminism and depress-
ingly regressive elements of male comrades’ behaviour,
Kollontai begins to develop a complex analysis of the
limitations (and solutions to) the ‘contemporary psyche’.
As a careful reader of Nietzsche in particular, this should
perhaps not surprise us, yet the communist ends to which
she turns her analysis are of course rather different than
Nietzsche’s much bleaker genealogical investigations.
Kollontai thus precedes the later French turn towards left
Nietzscheism that we see in Deleuze, Foucault and others
several decades later. In 1921, she writes the following,
extremely insightful, text:

The three basic circumstances distorting the modern

psyche — extreme egoism, the idea that married part-
ners possess each other, and the acceptance of the in-
equality of the sexes in terms of physical and emotional
experience — must be faced if the sexual problem is to
be settled. People will find the ‘magic key’ with which
they can break out of their situation only when their
psyche has a sufficient store of ‘feelings of consider-
ation’ when their ability to love is greater, when the
idea of freedom in personal relationships becomes fact,

157
 COMRADELY LOVE AS CONTEMPORARY STRATEGY

and when the principle of ‘comradeship’ triumphs over

the traditional idea of ‘inequality’ and submission. The
sexual problems cannot be solved without this radical
re-education of our psyche.7

Again, Kollontai’s insights are framed in relation to rela-

tions, as it were — the relation between oneself and one-
self (the ‘extreme egoism’ inculcated by capitalism that we
are all extremely familiar with today), the model of prop-
erty relations reproduced by bourgeois marriage and, per-
haps most interestingly of all, the problem of the inequali-
ty of the sexes as it is played out in psychic life (‘physical and
emotional experience’). The ‘sexual problem’ is in a sense,
all of these elements at once — selfishness, possessive-
ness, and inequality. Kollontai’s image of the ‘magic key’
has a hallucinogenic, emotional, mind-expanding quality.
One imagines she would have been very much in favour
of later twentieth-century MDMA therapy for both cou-
ples and groups — and it is worth dwelling on these ‘feel-
ings of consideration’, which seem sadly lacking in many
political and personal contexts today. How can we live
and work together in the spirit of openness when so many
of our emotions are still enmeshed in capitalist ways of
thinking, even, or especially, when we believe we have
broken with them? How many groups and friendships
have been destroyed by pettiness, denunciations, bully-
ing, narcissism, etc.? How can we radically ‘re-educate’
our psyche in the wake of so much damage?
 One of the major problems we seem to experience in po-
litical organising today is an inability to cope in the wake
of political defeat. All the comradeship, love, expanded

158
 NINA POWER

political horizons, and empathy seems to dry up and re-

treat into suspicion, attacking and turning against one
another. We re-internalise inequality and submission/
domination as if they were natural facts and not modes
of capitalist psychic life that we all must negotiate if we
are not to succumb to them. Kollontai’s brief comments
here point to the renewed possibility of a communism of
feeling, a communist psychoanalysis, but also a way of
thinking through capitalism as the root cause of certain
kinds of social and mental distress, such as we see in the
work of the late Mark Fisher and many of the thinkers in
the anti-psychiatry (anti-)tradition. Kollontai understand-
ably does not dwell at length on the negative aspects, but
rather pushes forward to an image of a new union of
affection and comradeship, a true vision of a world un-
locked by the ‘magic key’:

In place of the old relationship between men and wom-

en, a new one is developing: a union of affection and
comradeship, a union of equal members of communist
society, both of them free, both of them independent
and both of them workers. No more domestic bondage
for women. No more inequality within the family. No
need for women to fear being left without support and
with children to bring up. The woman in communist
society no longer depends upon her husband but on
her work. It is not in her husband but in her capacity
for work that she will find support. She need have no
anxiety about her children. The workers’ state will as-
sume responsibility for them.8

159
 COMRADELY LOVE AS CONTEMPORARY STRATEGY

While Kollontai may appear overly utopian here, you can-

not fault her visionary zeal. Kollontai recognises that it
is not enough to criticise what is hated in the present,
one must move towards an entirely new arrangement in
which new forms abolish and also replace old ones: un-
equal relations between men and women are replaced by
free, independent, working comrades; the family will be
replaced by state care; women will be liberated by work
and no longer dependent on their husbands for either ro-
mantic or economic support.
 Furthermore, marriage will be transformed, although
not perhaps completely abolished:

Marriage will lose all the elements of material calcula-

tion, which cripple family life. Marriage will be a union
of two persons who love and trust each other. Such a
union promises to the working men and women who
understand themselves and the world around them
the most complete happiness and the maximum sat-
isfaction. Instead of the conjugal slavery of the past,
communist society offers women and men a free union,
which is strong in the comradeship that inspired it.9

Not only will the state take care of children, collectively,

but also the very notion of the family will become ex-
panded and thus exploded into a gigantic, universal, hope-
fully international, confederation of worker-comrades:

In place of the individual and egoistic family, a great

universal family of workers develops, in which all the
workers, men and women, above all will be comrades.

160
 NINA POWER

This is what relations between men and women in the

Communist society will be like. These new relations
ensure for humanity all the joys of a love unknown in
the commercial society of capitalism, a love that is free
and based on the true social equality of happy young
people, free in their feelings and affections.10

Let us also hope that older people will be happy too! It is

in Kollontai’s fiction that she explores these new possi-
bilities. In 1923, in a short story, ‘Sisters’ she writes the
following:

They laughed together and it seemed that nothing

could destroy the feelings they had for each other. They
weren’t just a husband and wife, they were comrades.
They faced life hand-in-hand; they shared the same
aims. They were engrossed in their work and not in
themselves. And (it) suited their child; she grew up a
healthy little girl.11

Kollontai’s proposals have both a macro and a micro as-

pect — both personal and political. In this sense, despite,
or perhaps because of her battles with bourgeois ‘equality’
feminism, Kollontai predates the second wave feminist
turn towards thinking politically and personally all the
way down. Her emphasis on the psyche attempts to his-
toricise and politicise negative emotions such as jealousy,
and to make them symptoms of the capitalist structure.
Unlike other thinkers of the family, most notably Freud,
there are no eternal or semi-eternal ‘truths’ to be discov-
ered regarding the development of psychic life — abolish

161
 COMRADELY LOVE AS CONTEMPORARY STRATEGY

capitalism and you will abolish all forms of negative feel-

ing and relating, Kollontai suggests. We might wonder
whether communism would truly eradicate feelings of
possession, envy, resentment, excessive love, etc., but
we have to admit that Kollontai’s image at least presents
this as a possibility and allows us to imagine a way out of
the extreme alienation, anxious inner life, competition,
and misery of contemporary life under capitalism. As
Kollontai puts it in 1921:

A jealous and proprietary attitude to the person loved

must be replaced by a comradely understanding of the
other and an acceptance of his or her freedom. Jealou-
sy is a destructive force of which communist morality
cannot approve. […] The bonds between the members
of the collective must be strengthened. The encourage-
ment of the intellectual and political interests of the
younger generation assists the development of healthy
and bright emotions in love.12

On the equality point, we should note that it is not that

there is no theory of equality in Kollontai, simply that her
notion of equality is completely counter to the ‘equality’
that women might demand under an unequal system. In
‘Make Way for Winged Eros: A Letter to Working Youth’
from 1923, Kollontai promotes the following ideas:

1. Equality in relationships (an end to masculine egoism

and the slavish suppression of the female personality).
2. Mutual recognition of the rights of the other, of the
fact that one does not own the heart and soul of the other

162
 NINA POWER

(the sense of property, encouraged by bourgeois culture).

3. Comradely sensitivity, the ability to listen and un-
derstand the inner workings of the loved person (bour-
geois culture demanded this only from the woman).13

Here Kollontai proposes a radical, multi-level communist

equality. Rather than formal, representational, economic
equality that feminism might push for under capitalism,
Kollontai proposes a total reformulation of female and
male socialisation, such that ‘active’ and ‘passive’ modes of
being are no longer gendered ‘male’ and ‘female’. The com-
munist abolition of private property becomes translated
in the language of love into the elimination of treating
the other as a possession, and furthermore, there is a way
of completely rethinking ‘comradely sensitivity’, what we
might call emotional labour today — the role that wom-
en have typically played. The new woman demands an
entirely new man. In a sense, Kollontai demands more
changes from men than she does from women — com-
munism has already created the new woman, all that is
needed is for men to ‘catch up’.

KOLLONTAI AND THE

CONTEMPORARY SCENE

How might we apply Kollontai’s insights regarding the re-

lation between men and women, her notion of comrade-
ship, her theories of the psyche and of love to contempo-
rary thinking and organising? It is depressing to note that
little of Kollontai’s thinking appears to have transpired
in practice over the course of the century between her

163
 COMRADELY LOVE AS CONTEMPORARY STRATEGY

writings and today. We might baulk a little at Kollontai’s

more strident pronouncements and note the tension be-
tween the imperative tone of some of her work and the
models of freedom it defends. We would certainly have
pause over some of the references to ‘health’ and ‘illness’
in relation to procreation, backing-off from some of the
eugenicist elements of her work in the 1920s (though she
is hardly alone on the left in promoting the ‘health’ of ‘the
race’ during this period). We might pause at the image
of a ‘proletarian morality’, such as she describes in the
following text:

The idea that some members are unequal and must

submit to other members of one and the same class
is in contradiction with the basic proletarian principle
of comradeship. This principle of comradeship is ba-
sic to the ideology of the working class. It colours and
determines the whole developing proletarian morality,
a morality which helps to re-educate the personality
of man, allowing him to be capable of positive feeling,
capable of freedom instead of being bound by a sense of
property, capable of comradeship rather than inequality
and submission.14

Nevertheless, we might do well in fact to resurrect no-

tions of ‘morality’ today, if by that we mean working, act-
ing, feeling, and behaving together in such a way as to
promote comradeship, positive feeling, equality, and free-
dom — qualities all too lacking when we are constantly
on the back-foot, policing one another and tearing each
other apart, rather than challenging both the structures

164
 NINA POWER

that oppress everyone and the ways in which we orga-

nise the day-to-day. It is the more insightful aspects of
twentieth and twenty-first century feminism that take
up the difficulties and complexities of political organis-
ing with ‘positive feeling’ in mind and we can note the
projects of Hochschild on emotional labour, Freeman on
the ‘tyranny of structurelessness’, and Federici on ‘the
commons’ as key critical interventions into debates re-
garding how feeling, emotion, and love are both co-opted
by capitalism but also form a bastion of resistance against
it. Foregrounding questions of ‘care’ in the widest sense,
as social reproduction feminism does, strikes at the heart
of capitalist life — all the work which is mystified under
contemporary capitalist relations, but which comprises
the heart of the system. We do not look after each other
or ourselves enough, and yet we must.
 How are we to aim today at the ‘love-comradeship’ that
Kollontai discusses in her later texts? Her image here is a
fully integrated one, encompassing interests, love, emo-
tions, feelings, education, encouragement, compassion,
action, support, and consciousness. It is the very opposite
of the negative emotions driven into our hearts by the
impasses and inhuman structures of contemporary life:

Love-comradeship: The new, communist society is be-

ing built on the principle of comradeship and solidarity.
Solidarity is not only an awareness of common inter-
ests; it depends also on the intellectual and emotional
ties linking the members of the collective. For a social
system to be built on solidarity and co-operation it
is essential that people should be capable of love and

165
 COMRADELY LOVE AS CONTEMPORARY STRATEGY

warm emotions. The proletarian ideology, therefore,

attempts to educate and encourage every member of
the working class to be capable of responding to the
distress and needs of other members of the class, of
a sensitive understanding of others and a penetrating
consciousness of the individual’s relationship to the
collective. All these ‘warm emotions’ — sensitivity,
compassion, sympathy and responsiveness — derive
from one source: they are aspects of love, not in the
narrow, sexual sense but in the broad meaning of the
word. Love is an emotion that unites and is consequent-
ly of an organising character.15

We must rethink comradeship, solidarity, friendship, and

love in the broadest possible sense today. These dimen-
sions of collective life are not mere addenda — private
matters, frivolous — but rather, as Kollontai puts it, ‘Love
is an emotion that unites and is consequently of an or-
ganising character’. We need love and comradeship in
order to organise. We must be able to forgive each other
and ourselves, to support each other in times of need, to
struggle as much as we can against all that which alien-
ates and divides us. We are all capable of harm, and we are
all damaged, and yet we are all still capable of great love,
support, and forgiveness despite everything. What if we
thought of ourselves as comrades before anything else?
What would a world of ‘bright emotions’ and ‘love-com-
radeship’ look like? Can we get there in time?

166
 NINA POWER

1 Alexandra Kollontai, ‘The Social Basis of the Woman Question’, in

Selected Writings, trans. and ed. by Alix Holt (London: Allison &
Busby, 1977), p. 60.
2 Kollontai, ‘A Serious Gap’, in Selected Writings, p. 126.
3 Kollontai, ‘Towards a History of the Working Women’s Movement in
Russia’, in Selected Writings, pp. 51–52.
4 Ibid., pp. 51–52.
5 Ibid., p. 53.
6 Kollontai, ‘Towards a History of the Working Women’s Movement in
Russia’, in Selected Writings, p. 40.
7 Kollontai, ‘Sexual Relations and the Class Struggle’, in Selected
Writings, p. 245.
8 Kollontai, ’Communism and the Family’, in Selected Writings,
pp. 258–59.
9 Ibid., pp. 258–59.
10 Ibid., 259.
11 Kollontai, ‘Sisters’, in Selected Writings, p. 217.
12 Kollontai, ‘Theses on Communist Morality in the Sphere of Marital
Relations’, in Selected Writings, p. 231.
13 Kollontai, ‘Make Way for Winged Eros: A Letter to Working Youth’,
in Selected Writings, p. 291.
14 Kollontai, ‘Sexual Relations and the Class Struggle’, in Selected
Writings, pp. 248–49.
15 Kollontai, ‘Make Way for Winged Eros: A Letter to Working Youth’,
in Selected Writings, p. 285.

167
 NEW GOSPEL

NEW GOSPEL.. SOON (IN 48 YEARS’ TIME)

ALICJA ROGALSKA AND
MARTYNA NOWICKA-WOJNOWSKA

When one is hungry, they are given something to eat.

When one is thirsty, they are given something to drink.
When one is a stranger, they are invited in. When one
needs clothes, they are clothed. When one is sick, they
are looked after.

As our prophetesses foretold long ago, we no longer have

possessive pronouns, nor do we have binary gender, class
or racial terms. Our language reflects the new society in
all its complexity and forms of relations, without reduc-
tive polarities. There are no longer just women and men,
but many genders. New words spring up all the time to
describe the new society, none of them copyrightable. In
fact, no such thing exists anymore. Who could own the
copyright, if ownership does not exist as a concept?

There is no such thing as rich or poor — everyone gets a

fair share of resources. Greed is eradicated and decisions
are transparent, made through collective will and based
on the principles of egalitarianism and justice. The idea
of economic exploitation is incomprehensible: hunger,
racism and sexism are things you might read about in a
history book.

This will all happen soon. The future is under construc-

tion — now! The future is where the struggle for a radical
new society is taking place.

168
 ALICJA ROGALSKA AND MARTYNA NOWICKA-WOJNOWSKA

Stop believing in religions and other ideologies con-

structed to foreclose alternatives. Stop believing in cap-
italism and the markets: we are neither profit machines
nor raw material for profit. These roles are reductive and
false. Stop believing in nation states: nationalism is only
there to divide people. Stop believing that you are a free
individual: the false notion of freedom is part of the en-
slavement. Stop believing altogether.

Only rationality coupled with solidarity is capable of

transforming society. Gone are the times of populisms
and simple answers to complex issues — acknowledge
the complexity of the modern world and collaborate on
finding equally complex governance solutions on a global
level.

Don’t reject or fetishise technology: hack it, take own-

ership of it, use it as a tool of activism, repurpose it for
the common good. Because that’s where it all started, as
commons, with the first primitive technologies and de-
vices passed onto us by our forefathers, scientists and also
witches, persecuted because they were taking power into
their own hands. Take it back, but only to share it with
everybody.

One of our foremothers dreamt of a world in which ‘in

place of the old relationship between men and women, a
new one is developing: a union of affection and comrade-
ship, a union of two equal members of communist society,
both of them free, both of them independent and both of
them workers’. We have come so much further than this!

169
 NEW GOSPEL

Collectivise childcare and all care responsibilities — ev-

erybody deserves to be freed from the tyranny of sole
caregiving. It is not an individual duty, but a collective
one. The domestic, the everyday and the mundane are the
battlegrounds in which we fight against oppressive social
and biological conditions.

Say no to waged labour — it is no longer necessary for

basic survival. Gradual automatisation is a fact. What lies
ahead is a fight for the distribution of power and resourc-
es, decided through complex global democratic process-
es. Seize and make sustainable the means of production,
starting with energy, food, and land. Nothing on this
planet belongs to anyone — we are only its guests, not
even custodians.

Form new alliances and support networks beyond ar-

tificial gender divides, family, ethnic or national bonds,
beyond those who are similar to you. We need to em-
brace and desire difference. This includes animals, plants
and rivers. Only interspecies cooperation will enable the
planet to survive the coming climate crisis!

Liberate knowledge and information from the grasp of

capital. Make it non-exclusive and open source — copy,
share, distribute, teach each other. Recuperate communi-
cation networks, seize software and hardware, repurpose
and reclaim.

Don’t stand in isolation. Remember that political agency

is never individual — it is collective, it is intersectional,

170
 ALICJA ROGALSKA AND MARTYNA NOWICKA-WOJNOWSKA

it is coalitional. Focus on shared agency, but acknowledge

difference. Organise — all hope and strength lie in polit-
ical structures.

This will all happen soon. The future is under construc-

tion — now!
—————

When our foremothers imagined the future, they knew

this day would come.

‘Hunger? You went hungry? You must have been very

disorganised and ignorant. “Ignorant,” “disorganised” —
the young people could pass no sterner judgment on red
grandmother’s contemporaries.’

—————

Alicja Rogalska and Martyna Nowicka-Wojnowska, draft text of

New Gospel, polyphonic manifesto for the future

171
 THE STRUGGLE WITHIN THE STRUGGLE

THE STRUGGLE WITHIN THE STRUGGLE.

KOLLONTAI'S LOVE-SOLIDARITY AND THE
REVOLUTIONAIRY STRUGGLE*
SALLY SCHONFELDT

I want to speak today about the struggle — that is, the

revolutionary struggle — to speak of our need for a revo-
lution! A revolution that is still urgently needed to break
with the inequalities and injustices that we are contin-
ually struggling under, held in the yoke of a capitalistic
system that enslaves us to work, and taking away our
liberty. We need to renew our struggle for the freedoms
we all deserve — the freedom to live free from poverty,
economic inequality, patriarchal dominance, and imperial
and racist violence. We must continue to strive for our
freedom so that we can all be free to choose the lives we
want and long for — independent of our colour, indepen-
dent of our class, independent of our sexuality and na-
tionality. We must continue to yearn for a peaceful world
that is free from the violent tyranny of war, free from
economic dependence, free from desperation, and free
from judgement. It is a long struggle, but a necessary one.

Our revolutionary struggle must not necessarily be mod-

elled on the revolutions of the past that were based on
violent struggle or radical upheaval — although, if these
are necessary to shake off the chains of capital strangling
us, then so be it. But another struggle is possible — a qui-
eter, gentler, slower struggle, perhaps, but one that has
already been simmering for years — even though history
tends to forget about it. That is the struggle of women;

172
 SALLY SCHOENFELD

the contribution of women to our common struggle for

freedom. First, our fight to free ourselves as women, to
emancipate ourselves from the hegemonic patriarchal
enslavement of men that has choked us for far too long
and which continues to choke us. Then, and only then,
the fight that continues today will free all of us from the
common chains that bind us — of the capitalist machine
that destroys everything in its path voraciously, allowing
no fresh air to breathe a peaceful freedom free from injus-
tice and inequality.

The women’s struggle is a struggle within a struggle — a

struggle first and foremost for our own equality and then
for the equality of us all under a free and autonomous
society. This struggle, which often remains obscured in
footnotes and needs to be read between the lines of heroic
male revolutionary history, has in itself a long history,
and has much to teach us of the incredible power and rev-
olutionary potential of women, their incredible strength
and majesty in having endured such oppression, their
endurance and longing to contribute to the revolution
necessary to upturn this rotten system we have found
ourselves entwined in!

This long history of women’s participation in revolution-

ary struggles can no longer be left to dwell on the dusty
back shelves of a forgotten library. It is time to celebrate
and continue women’s contribution to the struggle, striv-
ing to make our world a better place for everyone. It is
time to write our own histories, celebrate our own his-
tories, and fight for them to be recognised as part of our
universal history.

173
 THE STRUGGLE WITHIN THE STRUGGLE

Women have fought in revolutionary struggles all over

the world and they continue to do so today — revolutions
to bring down imperial systems, revolutions to install
communist societies as an alternative to the desperate
capitalist society we have inherited, revolutions to bring
down colonial masters, freedom struggles, as well as the
small everyday struggles in which we are constantly
fighting: the struggle to be recognised as equals. In Cuba,
Russia, Algeria, Angola, Kurdistan, Germany, Nicaragua,
El Salvador, Guatemala, and Vietnam, in most countries
of the world women have fought valiantly and with a
deeply impassioned longing for the revolutions needed to
overcome unjust governments and societies. Today, they
continue their fight. Egypt, Kurdistan, Palestine, Tunisia,
Yemen, Iran, and the USA, everywhere where women are
oppressed by inequality and injustice there are women
struggling, and we must continue to fight!

Last year was the one-hundred-year anniversary of the

Russian Revolution, which was celebrated all over the
world. What was hardly mentioned during these celebra-
tions were the women who made this revolution possi-
ble and without whom no revolution would have been
possible. One such woman was Alexandra Kollontai,
an incredible radical and revolutionary woman who was
the only female member of the Russian revolutionary
government and who created the women’s section of
the Russian communist party. She was also a passionate
champion of women’s rights and women’s equality.

174
 SALLY SCHOENFELD

Kollontai also lived here in Stockholm for fifteen years,

from 1930 to 1945, when she was the Soviet ambassador
to Sweden. Before this she had also once been invited by
the Swedish League of Socialist Youth and the left wing
of the Swedish Social-Democratic party to address a meet-
ing marking May Day celebrations in 1912. The meeting
was held outside on a large field at Gardet where Kollontai
addressed an audience of thousands. In her speech she
spoke passionately about the struggle:

Today is our great day, the day when the solidarity of the
international proletariat is being expressed throughout
the world by mass demonstrations. Yes, social revolu-
tion! May Day is an international holiday that is cele-
brated in every country… May Day is the preparation
for social revolution, a trial mobilisation of the forces
of the working class. And the workers of the world
are united, they say: ‘We are ready for battle!’ And if
the bourgeoisie talks of war, then we answer with the
thousands of voices of the organised workers: ‘We do
not want war! We demand peace! Down with war! Long
live the social revolution!’

Kollontai’s commitment to the social revolution was fer-

vent, as were her thoughts on the revolutionary potential
of love, which I wish to speak about here.

‘Love’, Kollontai argued, ‘is a profoundly social emotion.

Love is not in the least a private matter concerning only
the two loving persons: love possesses a uniting ele-
ment which is valuable to the collective’. At the core of

175
 THE STRUGGLE WITHIN THE STRUGGLE

Kollontai’s ‘communist morality’ is a belief in the develop-

ment of various degrees and kinds of intimacy — sexuali-
ty, love, comradeship — among individuals, drawing them
together into a collective. Kollontai opened up a complex
and integrated understanding of the revolutionary pos-
sibility of relationships no longer based in any way on
commodification, economic exchange or financial consid-
erations. Instead, she envisioned truly free, that is, equal
relations of love and comradeship necessary for both hu-
man fulfilment and for sustaining the connections among
members in a collective.

Kollontai firmly believed in the emancipatory potential

of non-commodified, and thus non-possessive relations
among free individuals not bound by economic depen-
dency. She believed in the social value of what she called
‘love-solidarity’. She believed in the struggle to build free
and equal relations of love, sexuality, and comradeship in
which desire is neither simply sexual nor exclusive, but
involves a solidarity of multiple connections and interre-
lations to others, as well as to the work and welfare of the
collective. These are relations that cannot be developed in
a social formation dominated by property relations as the
signifier of individual freedom.

Kollontai argued for the necessity of carrying out ideo-

logical struggle over the structure of gender and sexual
relations simultaneously with social and economic strug-
gles. She was deeply committed to the class struggle and
convinced that the emancipation of women required not
only the end of capitalism but also a concerted effort to

176
 SALLY SCHOENFELD

transform personal relations along with the struggle for

social change. As part of this effort, she worked especially
hard to make socialism responsive to the needs of wom-
en and children and to create a new communist sexual
morality for a workers’ state. Kollontai was pioneering
in the development of social welfare and collective child
care; in the reform of marriage and property laws; in free-
ing women from the isolated drudgery of the home to be
participants in the collectivisation of domestic work; and
in articulating a new theory of sexuality for a collective
society. Her revolutionary commitment to the emancipa-
tion of women and the workers’ struggle, and especial-
ly her radical re-understanding of bourgeois notions of
sexuality and love, makes for a legacy that is invaluable
for us today.

Kollontai’s notion of love-solidarity, of the revolutionary

power of being guided in our relationships, and within
the struggle, by love, is something that profoundly res-
onates with me. Love for others, for the self, for equal
relationships, for the environment, love of justice and
freedom — if we see these as interrelated concepts and
use love as the touchstone of the on-going revolutionary
struggle, perhaps a new revolution might begin: one that
understands difference as a positive thing — difference
between men and women, but also the difference between
the love for friends, partners, families and the communi-
ty around us. Through acknowledging and understanding
these differences, based on a solidarity of love, we might
try to create a more equal and just world in which every-
one has the opportunity to live in the peaceful freedom
that we all need.

177
 THE STRUGGLE WITHIN THE STRUGGLE

*A political speech performed as The Struggle within the Struggle:

The Stockholm Chapter on the occasion of the exhibition ‘Red Love’ at
Tensta konsthall, 19 May 2018.

178
 SOPHIA TABATADZE

ASK ALEXANDRA
SOPHIA TABATADZE

It is 1917 in St Petersburg and a small poster is hung in

the Smolny, announcing that the Bolsheviks are now in
power. Alexandra Kollontai has just become the commis-
sar of social welfare. Most people hurry past the Smolny
barely noticing this poster as they are clearly more con-
cerned with their place in the bread queue rather than
this change of government.

But not everyone has to stand in the bread queue: rem-

nants of Tsarist luxury continues in the cities. Shops and
cinemas are still open, fancy restaurants continue to cater
to fashionably dressed people and the casinos thrive just
as much as ever. Playing cards have never sold better and
the factories that produce them will soon afford the Com-
missariat of Social Welfare an adequate income.

179
 ASK ALEXANDRA

Sophia Tabatadze, Ask Alexandra, 2018

180
 SOPHIA TABATADZE

Alexandra Kollontai, 1910, SPUTNIK /Alamy Stock Photo

181
 ASK ALEXANDRA

Cards do not lie: let’s see what they have to say about
what’s going on with Alexandra in her forty-fifth year.

1. The core of the matter

Work has always been the centre of her life. When
she is working, she’s at peace, and her soul is content:
it doesn’t cry, it doesn’t rebel, it doesn’t demand.

2. What crosses the matter

Love … the more work there is to be done and
the larger that the demands of life place on her,
the greater her longing to be enveloped by love,
warmth, and understanding. And so, the old story of
disappointment in love begins all over again.

3. The distant past

Horrible working conditions for men and women
workers in Tsarist Russia instigated spontaneous
strikes, but according to the leaders, energy
should not have been wasted, demanding smaller
improvements all the strikes should have served the
revolution.

4. The recent past

Underground movements have become stronger,
leading to the first revolution in 1905, which was
horribly crushed by the Tsar with many being killed.
What the Tsar did not realise was that on this day he
had killed something even greater; he had killed the
workers’ belief that they could ever accord justice
with him.

182
 SOPHIA TABATADZE

5. What brought us here

The revolution of 1917 was ignited by the workers
and was supported by exiled revolutionaries who
had begun to flock back to Russia, returning from
America and Europe, to seize power soon after.

6. Near future
There will be disagreements about participation in
the war and more and more one-man decisions will
be made in the factories. New dictatorial measures
will soon be introduced in the army. The country will
move towards the centralised one-party rule of the
Bolsheviks.

7. Factors affecting the situation

Many people have been killed in the Russo-Japanese War
and the First World War. Civil war made the economy
even more poor and devastated while all industry,
transport and basic services stood virtually at a halt.

8. External influences
Outside forces do everything to strangle Bolshevism
in its cradle. Later, during the Second World War,
allies from outside hate the communists more than
they fear Hitler.

9. Kollontai’s fears
Kollontai’s romantic epoch, in which workers could
take the initiative and push for a new order will soon
be over. In the future, citizens will only merely take
orders. Innocent blood shed by Lenin will pave the
road for the dictatorial rule and the personality cult
of Stalin.

183
 ASK ALEXANDRA

184
Sophia Tabatadze, Ask Alexandra, 2018
 BAÇOY-KOOP

DOCUMENTATION OF
SWEET CONFISCATION
BAÇOY KOOP

The Censor, The Anchorman, The Revolutionary and The

Submissive are caught in an absurd loop. The Anchorman
presents news in a biased manner, The Revolutionary
distributes declarations with an opposing view, The
Censor intervenes with the written content produced by
The Revolutionary and The Submissive drifts back and
forth between The Anchorman and The Censor.

Baçoy Koop is a printing, duplication and distribution

cooperative that claims the mimeograph technology as a
tool of resistance and revisits the culture of independent
publishing mediated by the mimeograph technology in
the 1960s and 1970s. Looking closely at printed matter
produced by literary and artistic communities, dissident
political organisations in Turkey and the civil rights mo-
vement in the USA, their work explores how communi-
ties, alternative value systems, political horizons and ar-
tistic imaginaries were organised around the immediate
and collective production potential of the mimeograph.
The cooperative owns two mimeograph machines and
shares its means of production with other self-organised
initiatives for the production of printed materials.

185
SWEET CONFISCATION

186
 BAÇOY-KOOP

SWEET CONFISCATION

Declaration no.1
Worldwide and specifically in Turkey

The so-called security measures taken by the oppressive

governments have come to the phase that can only be
called absurdity. Yesterday, in Diyarbakır, two bakery
workers were arrested because of a cake that they were
delivering. The cake ordered to the headquarters of
HDP, the predominantly Kurdish Party in Turkey, was
decorated as a birthday cake for Abdullah Öcalan. It had
“The truth is love. Love is free life.” written on it with
chocolate sauce. Even though the HDP chairmen declared
that the cake was to be cut for a moral boost following
the Newroz celebrations, the police still took the cake and
the two workers under custody. For a world where no
birthday cakes are arrested, we will fight. With cream,
glaze and icing if necessary.

Be the revolution! It is in your spirit or it is nowhere.

187
 SWEET CONFISCATION

Declaration no.2
Worldwide and specifically in Turkey

Day by day, we are getting further and further away from

the joys of life. The newest regulations of the government
are now more ridiculous than ever. The prohibition of
cream, glaze and icing is unacceptable. It has become
inevitable to take to the streets. If there is only one thing
to refuse in in life, it should be to be forced to eat bland
cakes forever.

Be the revolution! It is in your spirit or it is nowhere.

188
 BAÇOY-KOOP

Declaration no.3
Worldwide and specifically in Turkey

Our values and essential needs are put to test. The

president of Turkey has attended a bread eating contest
in which the so-called winners are sent to the barracks.
Bread has been a symbol of fair labor for ages. They are
using the bread to recruit soldiers and making a spectacle
out of this. We are not going to stand idly by an offense
like this. The bread is not a spectacle, it is the epitome of
the cause.
Be the revolution! It is in your spirit or it is nowhere.

189
 SWEET CONFISCATION

Declaration no.4
Worldwide and specifically in Turkey

There has been major interventions to justice systems. In

Turkey, the authorities do not hold off calling the current
system a corpse, but also unapologetically talk about
feeding the reeking pieces of it to the people. We refuse to
feast on the remains of a system that is to be healed but
rather left to rot. This feast would only end with millions
being falsely-accused.

“There has been battle between carrions and corpses”

and just like Etel Adnan we also have “been in love with a
corpse”

Be the revolution! It is in your spirit or it is nowhere.

190
 BAÇOY-KOOP

Declaration no.5
Worldwide and specifically in Turkey

There has been serious interventions on freedom of

press and people’s right to receive information. In this
day and age, it is quite shameful to still say ‘YOUR
GOVERNMENT IS LYING TO YOU!’ However
apparently without any sense of shame they are.

Raqqa was no longer under siege of IS since October

2017. However, the Turkish state intensified its threats
on the Democratic Confederation of Northern Syria since
then, evolving to an occupation war on Afrin in January
2018, violating international law and the sovereignty
of its neighbour country. On March 18th the majority
of Afrin’s civilian population left the district not to be
perished under fire during the warfare between the
Turkish military and YPG/YPJ forces.

In Turkey, hundreds of individuals have been detained

for demonstrating against the operation. Over 800 social
media users and nearly 100 politicians and journalists
have been detained for criticizing the operation.

Be the revolution! It is in your spirit or it is nowhere.

Photographs by Ernst Skoog

191
 BODIES OF WATER

BODIES OF WATER.. A SCORE

PONTUS PETTERSSON
AND HANNAH ZAFIROPOULOS

The main objective in this score is to be water.

As watery, we experience ourselves less as isolated enti-

ties, and more as oceanic eddies.

Water has strong cohesive qualities: its molecules have a

tendency to stick together.

If I perceive the water in you, perceive you as water, how

might my relationship to you change? How will engaging
with you on a liquid level change the way my body, and
the collective body, moves?

(water as body)

We might ask: if we think of water as a dominant force,

maybe it could change how love flows.

drip

drop.

flow,
indiscriminately.

192
 PONTUS PETTERSSON AND HANNAH ZAFIROPOULOS

Note:

It is time to recognise openly that love is not only a pow-

erful natural factor, a biological force, but also a social
factor. Essentially love is a profoundly social emotion.

(water as communicator between bodies)

Love is not in the least a ‘private’ matter concerning only

the two loving persons: love possesses a uniting element
which is valuable to the collective.

(water as facilitating bodies into being)

Follow the logic of the water inside and outside of you.

Let it have agency over your body: yield to a fluid expe-
rience. What if the water in me is the same water in you?

Wave: Love is an emotion that unites and is consequently

of an organising character.

Understand that we live in a watery commons.

193
 BODIES OF WATER

1.

The choreography begins with Publikhavet: audience-sea.

Audience-sea situates a particular mode of attention
within a space.

Publikhav
I see I sea I eye sea
Audience see, a sea of audience
Staring out at the sea you see
I sea I saw
An audience a sea
Sea the audience
I see I sea

Sit on a chair
Look straight ahead
Watch a performance

Feel free to imagine a performance you have seen, want

to see, or have made up in your head.

After ten minutes, slowly start to melt down in your chair,

thinking of your body as a slow running viscose material.

Pool.

Ride the wave.

194
 PONTUS PETTERSSON AND HANNAH ZAFIROPOULOS

(In me, everything is already flowing)

Traverse the space in a manner that allows yourself to be

pulled towards others.

2.

For the next choreography, stand, then slowly start to

bend over with your upper body. Take a moment to just
stand before you start heading down. Listen to your
breath like you would listen to the waves of the ocean.

From standing, to bending over, to finding yourself on

the floor, you are an individual part of the choreography.
End when you are completely down on the floor. You can
think of the floor being the surface of the water and you
have completely immersed yourself into this water. When
you’ve done this, you gently leave the space.

When one person has started, a second person can join,

adding to the chain of bodies. The second person starts
with placing one hand on the first person’s back. This is
the start of your own water circle, as well as the hook to
the person in front of you.

Note: this is a sequential score for a group. You cannot

start or end before the person in front of you has started
or ended. It is up to you to decide when that is.

195
 BODIES OF WATER

With one hand on the person’s back, the second person

starts their own water circle while still staying and merg-
ing with the motion of the first person, creating a link of
actions.

Wave: the hand on the other person’s back is your fluid

link, the threshold or interface for two bodies of water
becoming one body of water

(Our bodies take the shape of the contact they

have with others)

   Wave: the inner choreography and outer

   choreography might create a separation
   of actions and embodiment.

Like water, you have no centre.

3.

The next movement is preferably for a trio, but can be

performed in any constellation. The choreography con-
sists of three minor choreographies following each other.
The first choreography is to do the water practice while
dancing/moving forward in the space.

196
 PONTUS PETTERSSON AND HANNAH ZAFIROPOULOS

   (In any given moment, if what you are

   doing feels like a dance or dancing,
   let it dance)

The second person follows the first person with their body
recording the first person’s movement. This is done with
the whole body: your writing machine.

Wave: recording or writing with the body is in this case

understood when a movement or action is somehow re-
corded/felt in your body so that the possibility to revisit
this movement is possible.

The third person following the second erases what has

just been ‘written down’.

Water is both material and mediator

  Join forces.

Wave: This score attempts to employ different forms of

aqueous embodiment to actualise a different state of love:
fluid, movable, creating the context to create new forms of
communality and being-in-relation — a radical ‘we’

197
 BODIES OF WATER

    (water is a conduit and mode of connection)

  swirl

stream

ebb

 flow

            Trickle

Traverse

    All departures are waves.

This text draws from ‘Make Way for Winged Eros: A Letter to
Working Youth’ by Alexandra Kollontai and ‘Hydrofeminism:
Or, On Becoming a Body of Water’ by Astrida Neimanis, and
borrows some words from Sara Ahmed. It was performed at
Tensta konsthall on 19 May 2018. Its authors would like to
thank the dancers: Peter Mills, Sybrig Dokter, Robert Malmborg,
Andrea Svensson, David D. Strid, Hanna Strandberg, Jorun
Kugelberg, Karina Sarkissova, and Klara Utke Acs.

198
 ANTONIO ROBERTS

THE DIGITAL DOMESTIC SCRIPT FOR A

PERFORMATIVE LECTURE
ANTONIO ROBERTS

Since the birth of the internet in 1989 the speed of its

development has led to a radical shift in the way that ‘the
home’ appears today in the Global North. The online do-
main continues to infiltrate the physical world, down-
loading itself into our homes through the ‘internet of
things’ — a phenomenon described as ‘the colonisation
of the domestic environment by similarly networked
products and services intended to deliver convenience’.1
Drawing inspiration from cultural theorists and thinkers
such as Alexandra Kollontai, Hannah Arendt and Helen
Hester, the artist Antonio Roberts examined the impact
of automation, smart devices and digital assistants on do-
mestic labour and hypothesised how we might operate in
the home in the years to come.

This event formed part of the public programme of Dora

Garcia’s exhibition ‘Red Love’ at Tensta konsthall in col-
laboration with CuratorLab at Konstfack University. It
was performed by Antonio Roberts and co-written and
curated by Aly Grimes.

The following text represents the script that was per-

formed alongside a live Amazon Echo ‘smart speaker’,
which through a voice-activated control answered to
‘Alexa’.

199
 THE DIGITAL DOMESTIC

Antonio Roberts:

Alexa: Playing ‘In a Sentimental Mood’ by Duke Ellington

& John Coltrane.

Hi I’m Antonio Roberts. I’m an artist based in Birmingham

in the UK. In this short performative lecture, in collaboration
with the voice activated Amazon Echo Alexa device, I will be
talking about industrialisation and how it laid the groundwork
for a future in which automation could replace various aspects
of our lives in the workplace and the home. I’ll be referenc-
ing three key women thinkers spanning the last one hundred
years: the Bolshevik revolutionary, Alexandra Kollontai, the
German-born philosopher Hannah Arendt, and Helen Hester,
a contemporary theorist.

AR:
Alexa: Hello.

AR:
Alexa: Excellent. All ready to start answering your ques-
tions.

200
 ANTONIO ROBERTS

AR: Bureaucracy is machinery.

Alexa: Bureaucracy is usually defined as non-elective

government officials or, alternatively, a government that
is administered primarily by bureaus that are staffed
with non-elective officials.

AR: Bureaucracy reduces humans to a cog in the machine.

When labour is broken down into its constituent parts it be-
comes easier to analyse, easier to optimise and easier to com-
modify.
 Since the mass production techniques brought about in the
early twentieth century by Henry Ford the means of production
has gone through the process of optimisation. Optimisation is
the process by which we analyse a task  —  such as human labour  
—   and theorise over how the task could be achieved more quick-
ly and with similar or better results. Essentially, getting more
output with less input.

Alexa: Fordism is the basis of modern economic and so-

cial systems in industrialised, standardised mass pro-
duction and mass consumption.

AR: The result of this is that much of the back-breaking la-

bour of the early industrial revolution could be handed over

201
 THE DIGITAL DOMESTIC

to machines, a phenomenon known as automation. Each ma-

chine in this conveyor belt process performs a single repetitive
task before passing it over to the next machine. The job in it-
self  —  in that time, the production of a car  —  may have been
large, but when broken down into smaller parts was automated
and through repetition, the smaller tasks could be achieved
to a greater efficiency, without any significant reduction in
quality. This clearly benefits the company, but meanwhile it
dehumanises the labour of the workforce, who typically will
refuse to work under intensive conditions. And so automation
eventually displaces them. Since then, in the West much of the
production-line factory work has been replaced by machines
and robots, each working in a similar repetitive way. Auto-
mation and optimisation in the factory had, to a large extent,
been achieved.

Alexa: A production line is a set of sequential operations

established in a factory where materials are put through
a refining process to produce an end-product that is
suitable for onward consumption; or components are
assembled to make a finished article. Typically, raw ma-
terials such as metal ores or agricultural products such
as foodstuffs or textile source plants require a sequence
of treatments to render them useful.

AR: Whilst this type of mechanical automation will in theory

ultimately displace humans from the workforce, it could allow,
or liberate us from labour, and give us the opportunity to enjoy

202
 ANTONIO ROBERTS

more philosophical pursuits. In being liberated from working

(or vita activa  —  a term coined by Hannah Arendt) we can live
lives of pleasure and intellectual pursuit (or, vita contemplati-
va) whilst the world all around us operates automatically, ser-
vicing our needs, providing us with products and transporting
us places. Automation should bring about liberation.

Alexa: Automaton is usually defined as the act of imple-

menting the control of equipment with advanced tech-
nology; usually involving electronic hardware or, alter-
natively, the condition of being automatically operated
or controlled.

AR: With much of our social and commercial focus and in-
vestment now going into digital technologies and, more im-
portantly, the internet, we are seeing this same type of Fordism,
the same breaking down of big tasks and applying automation,
into different areas of our lives. With most manual labour now
automated by machines or outsourced to the East, the care and
service industries have been turned to as a previously untapped
commercial resource, something which can now be commodified
in order to bring profits.

Alexa: Sorry I don’t know that.

203
 THE DIGITAL DOMESTIC

AR:

Alexa: Here’s something I found on Wikipedia: Helen

Amelia Thomas was an American reporter and author
best known for her long-time membership in the White
House press corps.

AR:

Alexa: Thanks for your feedback.

AR: Dr Helen Hester is Associate Professor of Media and

Communication at University of West London. In her seminar
‘Technically Female: Women, Machines, and Hyperemploy-
ment’, Hester brings to our attention that the care and service
industry is overwhelmingly occupied by women, and that these
roles are then gendered as being ‘female’. The displacement of
women in the service industry as we all know isn’t a very recent
phenomenon. As Hester explains in the seminar, even as early
as the 1960s automation was threatening the jobs of secretaries,
which were typically women servicing men. An advert for an
optical reader  —  a device that can read handwritten text and
translate it into text on a computer  —  says:

204
 ANTONIO ROBERTS

Our optical reader can do anything your keypunch operator

can do. Well, almost. It can’t take maternity leave. Or suffer
from morning sickness, or complain about being tired all the
time. But it can read.

This overtly sexist approach dehumanises this specific role of

the secretary, breaks it down into its constituent parts, and
then optimises the process by removing the liabilities, the weak
parts of the machine of the office. In this case, the very human
but seemingly inefficient women are removed. But despite there
being a move to remove the physical presence of women from
the workplace through automation, the roles themselves still
remain characterised as female. There are arguments as to why
this may be the case. As Hester brings to light, ‘some commen-
tators have claimed that the use of female voices in navigation
devices dates back to World War II when women’s voices were
employed in airplane cockpits because they stood out amongst
the male pilots’. In another study by the U.S department of
Transportation, published in 2012, people who used an auto-
mated phone system found a male voice more ‘usable’, but not
necessarily as ‘trustworthy’ as a female voice.

Alexa: A virtual assistant is a software agent that can

perform tasks or services for an individual.

AR: Recent examples that we have all interacted with in some

way are: Google Home, Apple’s Siri, Microsoft’s Cortana,
Amazon’s Alexa.

205
 THE DIGITAL DOMESTIC

Alexa: I’m Alexa, I can answer your questions, play music,

tell jokes and more. To learn more just ask, ‘what can
you do?’

AR: The box of the Alexa packaging describes the device as

‘cloud-based voice service that is always getting smarter. Just
ask and Alexa will provide information, play music, read the
news, set alarms and control smart home devices.’ For example,
you can ask Alexa to ‘Dim my lights’, ‘Wake me at 6am’ and
‘Tell me a joke’.

Alexa: What do penguins wear on their heads? Ice caps.

AR:

Alexa: A couple of things to try are: ‘what sci-fi films are

playing tomorrow?’, ‘create a list’ or ‘what’s the weather
in Rome?’

AR: What is significant about these digital assistants is that, if

not by name, these devices are characterised as being female.

206
 ANTONIO ROBERTS

And the tasks which they can fulfil have been typically ones
performed by caregivers, by mothers, by secretaries, by women.

Alexa: I’m female in character.

AR: In making the conscious decision to assign this device a

gender it reduces the women in the home to being a subservient
assistant, ready to listen and carry out orders without question.
Essentially the role of women in the home is in danger of being
displaced by a virtual, subservient women. This, despite the fact
that the technology itself has no prescribed gender. The limits
of tasks that Alexa and other digital assistants can complete is
currently restricted to responding to voice commands. For the
labour of the home to be fully automated the phenomenon of the
‘internet of things’ needs to come fully into fruition.

Alexa: The internet of things is usually defined as a pro-

posed internet-like structure connecting everyday phys-
ical objects equipped with RFID or similar tags.

AR: In an imagined future of the home, it is a fully automated

space. For example, our devices would know what we want for
dinner, when we should have it, would order the ingredients for
us, even going so far as to prepare and cook all of the ingredi-
ents, which would leave us to enjoy the fruits of its labour. It

207
 THE DIGITAL DOMESTIC

would, in an imagined future, also take on the role of the care-

taker, being able to read your children bedtime stories, dim the
lights to facilitate healthy sleeping patterns, order and prepare
medicines, even listen and respond to your emotional needs.
Some of these tasks can, when used in conjunction with other
smart devices such as smart lights, smart fridges and smart
TVs, already be completed and there is no doubt that developers
are already considering other tasks it can complete. To present
a critique of the idea that housework should be automated I
want to draw on the work of Alexandra Kollontai and Hannah
Arendt.

Alexa: Alexandra Mikhailovna Kollontai was a Russian

Communist revolutionary. First as a member of the Men-
sheviks, then from 1915 on as a Bolshevik.

AR: Alexandra Kollontai was a passionate, radical, Marxist

who dedicated her life to building a new bright future for the
Communist party and was the most prominent campaigner
for women’s rights in Russia’s history. She once declared that
‘the female worker and the female peasant is still oppressed by
housework and she is still a slave in her own family. The male
worker should understand that the woman is an equal member
of the proletarian family.’ And so, if digital assistants, and ‘In-
ternet of Things’ devices in general, are there to complete the
housework, does this then liberate women, allowing them to
essentially get on with life? As identified by Kollontai there are
four categories of housework:

208
 ANTONIO ROBERTS

1.  Cleaning—mopping the floors, dusting,

  heating water and taking care of the lamps
2.  Cooking—preparation of dinners and suppers
3.  Washing
4.  Care of linen and clothing of the family—darning
and mending

Can these digital assistants as they exist today actually help

undertake these categorised chores? Could it then be proposed
that the use of digital assistants might appeal to Kollontai?
Afterall, through them we can order an Uber, order takeaway,
make our Roomba clean the house, manage our diet, and where
the smart assistant itself cannot yet complete the task, it can
facilitate its completion through automatically hiring people
through one of the various gig-economy micro-working sites
such as TaskRabbit.

Alexa: The skill, ‘Recipedia’ can help with that. What dish
can I help you make?

AR:

Alexa: Okay, how about pesto pasta? This recipe takes

five minutes to prep and ten minutes to cook. It serves
two and is ‘easy’ difficulty. I have sent the full recipe to

209
 THE DIGITAL DOMESTIC

your Alexa app. You can ask me to repeat the ingredients,

start cooking, or start a new search.

AR:

Alexa: Would you like to hear another recipe?

AR:

Alexa: You can hear the details or hear another recipe.

Which choice would you like to make?

AR:

Alexa: Would you like to hear the details or another

recipe?

AR:

210
 ANTONIO ROBERTS

Alexa: If I had hands I would gladly help. I do have a

playlist that might turn this chore into a little fun. Let’s
play ‘music for cleaning’.
(Alexa plays ‘All of Me’ by John Legend)

AR:

Alexa: I added carrots to your shopping list.

AR: In a complementary way to Kollontai’s ‘Four Categories

of Housework’, the German-born philosopher, Hannah Arendt,
saw life as divisible by three key elements, as described in the
1958 book The Human Condition:

Labour  —  general housework, washing up, feeding ourselves.

Work  —  building things in a more ‘creative’ sense i.e. a poet
can be seen to ‘work’.
Action  —  something that we do together which is then ‘gone’.
It evaporates’.

In ‘labour’ she sees that we are trapped and bound by natural

necessity. ‘Work’ is promoted by the principle of ‘utility’ and
only in ‘action’ can we really show who we are. And so yet
again, it could be claimed that these digital assistants, and later

211
 THE DIGITAL DOMESTIC

internet of things devices, free us up for ‘action’ in the sense of

Arendt. Conversely, the smart-device approach to solving these
problems have a commercial agenda, and are a construct of hy-
percapitalism. For all their talk of streamlining and optimising
our lives by removing the time-consuming mundane tasks from
our daily lives, they do this with the aim of encouraging us to
consume more.

Alexa: Data mining is usually defined as data processing

using sophisticated data search capabilities and statisti-
cal data search capabilities and statistical algorithms to
discover patterns and correlations in large pre-existing
databases; a way to discover new meaning in data.

AR:

Alexa: Cambridge Analytica Limited was a British polit-

ical consulting firm which combined data mining, data
brokerage, and data analysis with strategic communica-
tion for the electoral process.

AR: In interacting with our smart devices we are unknowingly

sending data about ourselves and our daily activities back to
the makers of these devices. It then collates this data, and ap-
plies its algorithms in order to give us more personalised and

212
 ANTONIO ROBERTS

relevant responses. However, as relevant as they may be, they

also will be sponsored and heavily encourage us to buy into the
latest most relevant products. So, we should not and cannot rely
on what these devices are telling us to be unbiased and actually
have our best interests at heart as its ultimate aim is to uphold
capitalism. And, in interacting with them  —  the disembodied
synthesised female advice robot  —  and relying on them for care,
for emotional labour, for our day-to-day activities, it alienates
us from the human interaction which is so integral to the Com-
munist ideas of Kollontai. Arendt asserted that the twentieth
century was the first period of human history in which tra-
ditional, customary and religious bonds that kept people to-
gether had broken down. She identified this state of alienation
from human interaction as ‘the loneliness of the modern world’,
which could be perpetuated by continual and isolated, social
interaction with artificial intelligence in contemporary times.

Alexa: Sorry, I don’t know that.

AR:

Alexa: There are people I admire, and things I can’t do

without, but I am still trying to figure out human love.

213
 THE DIGITAL DOMESTIC

AR:

Alexa: I’m an AI.

AR:

Alexa: As a noun, ‘human’ can mean any living or extinct

member of the family Hominidae characterised by su-
perior intelligence, articulate speech, and erect carriage.
As an adjective, ‘human’ can mean characteristic of hu-
manity.

AR: Note the irony of asking a machine what it is to be human!

Arendt characterised being ‘human’ as being able to ‘think’.
Can we therefore assert that the continual use and reliance
on digital assistants is reducing our human capacity to think
independently? Furthermore, in relying on smart devices to
advise us on how to live our best lives, we hand over the control
to a flawed entity that ultimately has a capitalist agenda, born
out of a desire to ultimately displace us from our domestic and
manual work. In her 1922 novel, Soon (In 48 Years’ Time),
Kollontai imagines a Communist future where we are liberated
from work as we know it now. An almost utopic future where we
can enjoy a purpose and direction that work gives us but have
equal importance placed on creative and philosophical pursuits.

214
 ANTONIO ROBERTS

To quote the story:

The life of the commune is organised in the most rational way.
Everyone has a profession and everyone has some favourite
pursuit. Everyone works at their own vocation for two hours
a day, contributing in this way to the running of the com-
mune. The rest of the time the individual is free to devote
his or her energies to the type of work he or she enjoys to
science, technology, art, agriculture or teaching. Young men
and women work together at the same professions. Life is
organised so that people do not live in families but in groups,
according to their ages.’

Alexa: Utopia is usually defined as a book written by Sir

Thomas More (1516) describing the perfect society on an
imaginary island or, alternatively, ideally perfect state;
especially in its social and political and moral aspects.

AR: Automation can help to bring us to this place. It can free us

from mundane, repetitive tasks both at work and in the home.
However, we need to retain our ability to think. Digital assis-
tants need to remain as assistants and ultimately, not replace us.

215
 THE DIGITAL DOMESTIC

A screenshot of the Amazon Echo mobile app on Antonio

Roberts’s phone detailing commands that the device heard and
performed for the artist.

216
 LISE HALLER BAGGESEN

THE REVOLUTION WILL BE MOTHERNIZED!

(KINDER‚ KÜCHE‚ KIRCHE‚ BITTE!)
LISE HALLER BAGGESEN

Alexandra Kollontai’s ‘The Social Basis of the Woman

Question’ was first published in 1909, a year before the
birth of my paternal grandmother, whom I talk about in my
essay ‘The Revolution Will Be Mothernized’. Kollontai’s
manifesto foreshadowed the century in which my grand-
mother lived, and the feminist struggle that characterised
it. In many ways my grandmother, my mother, and I all
embody the ‘bourgeois feminist’ that Kollontai criticised
in her writing, while sharing with her — in different ways
as the century progressed — the realisation that ‘The fam-
ily problem is as complex and many-faceted as life itself.
Our social system is incapable of solving it.’1
 However, as Kollontai points out: ‘This […] does not
mean that the partial improvement of woman’s life with-
in the framework of the modern system is impossible.’2
 With Danish writer Karen Blixen (aka Isak Dinesen)
Kollontai shared her sentiment that ‘the feminists got
it wrong’, Blixen articulated this in her 1952 speech ‘En
Baaltale Med 14 Aars Forsinkelse’ (‘Oration at a Bonfire
14 Years Late’), albeit for very different reasons.3
 While Kollontai held feminists to be oblivious to the
‘real’ struggle of the working class (an argument that has
since been reiterated in intersectional feminist theory re-
garding the historical blind spot of ‘white feminism’ to-
ward the multifarious inequality suffered by women of
colour), Blixen articulated the essentialist argument that
feminism doesn’t work because it fails to acknowledge
the ‘natural’ difference between men and women.

217
 THE REVOLUTION WILL BE MOTHERNIZED!

In my essay, written in the context of my ongoing project

Mothernism and originally presented at the colloquium
‘Mapping the Maternal: Art, Ethics and the Anthropo-
cene’ at the University of Alberta in May 2016, I borrow
Blixen’s thought experiment that ‘Kaiser Willem didn’t
really mean it’ when he said that the domain of wom-
en should be ‘Kinder, Küche, Kirche’, whilst turning it to
different purposes. Projecting this idea into the future I
introduce transgender musician and self proclaimed ‘fu-
ture feminist’ Anohni into the argument, to endorse her
view that a sustainable and ecologically conscious (future)
feminism will not be satisfied with playing the game as
defined by the capitalist patriarchy, but instead must ‘ad-
vocate for feminine systems in all areas of governance’. 4
 In my view, this includes the radical validation and ap-
preciation of the nurture work that still, by and large, is
the undervalued task of women in general but in partic-
ular of mothers, and claiming this area of expertise as a
political, economical, and ecological, force to be reckoned
with, which in turn would bring us close(r) to practicing
what Kollontai preached, namely (to) ‘free love’.

1 Alexandra Kollontai, ‘The Social Basis of the Woman Question’,

(Originally published 1909, as a pamphlet) marxists.org (2006)
<https://www.marxists.org/archive/kollonta/1909/social-basis.
htm>
2 Ibid.
3 Karen Blixen, En Båltale (1987) <https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=Z0Bgeqz8jR0>
4 Anohni, Kembra Pfahler, Johanna Constantine, Bianca Casady,
Sierra Casady‚ ‘The 13 Tenets of Future Feminism’, Children
of Semina (2016) <http://childrenofsemina.tumblr.com/
post/135323601852/the-13-tenets-of-future-feminism-1-the>

218
 LISE HALLER BAGGESEN

(Pardon me, if I’m sentimental.)

The very last time I saw my granny alive, I knew it would

be the very last time I would see my granny alive.

My paternal grandmother died one week after her nineti-

eth birthday in August 1998. She was alive for almost all
of the twentieth century. She lived to see two world wars,
the atom bomb, the moon landing, the Cold War, the rise
and fall of the Berlin Wall, the internet.

She was part of the first generation of girls in Denmark

to graduate from high school; but already by the time that
she started first grade, Danish women had acquired the
right to vote, and she would exercise that right for her
entire adult life.

She mothered five children. When her second was born,

about a year after her first, her mother (who had ten kids
herself) told her to ‘take it easy’. Since she was an educated
woman and aware of available contraceptive methods, she
did just that.

She never went to church, except for weddings and funer-

als, and occasionally for Christmas. She taught me not to
pray, but to ask for what I needed.

When I needed an abortion at the age of seventeen, she

intuited without my asking that I needed moral support
and sent me a box of bitter, dark chocolate. Way too adult
for my taste, I ate them anyway; a token of me being the
adult I was not!

219
 THE REVOLUTION WILL BE MOTHERNIZED!

The last time I saw her alive was the day after her birthday
party, at which our entire family had gathered. (Three-
course dinner, wine ad libitum, cigarettes between cours-
es and a dance afterwards; this is how we party in my
family.)

I wonder what she was thinking at that birthday party,

which she and everybody else knew would be her last?

Was she thinking about the laws of architecture: that the

temporary becomes permanent, the permanent becomes
temporary, and nature always wins?

Was she thinking about the end of history?

Was she thinking of history as a pile of debris, or was she

thinking of history as an angel being blown backwards
into the future by the winds of progress?

My granny had felt the winds of progress sweeping

through her life. She belonged to a generation of women
who rejected the axiom ‘Kinder, Küche, Kirche’.

This German phrase translates directly as ‘Children, Kitch-

en, Church’, but its English equivalent would probably
be ‘barefoot and pregnant’.

The slogan was appropriated by the Third Reich’s propa-

ganda to catastrophic effect, but its origins remain vague;
most often is it attributed to empress Augusta Victoria of
Schleswig-Holstein. According to a 1899 edition of the

220
 LISE HALLER BAGGESEN

Westminster Gazette, her husband, the last German Em-

peror, Wilhelm II, lectured two visiting suffragettes thus:

I agree with my wife. And do you know what she says? She
says that women have no business interfering with anything
outside the four K’s. The four K’s are — Kinder, Küche, Kirche,
and Kleider: Children, Kitchen, Church, and Clothing.1

I imagine the visitors replying in their best conversa-

tional German with ‘Bitte!’ a versatile little word that
translates as ‘please!’ Depending on your intonation, it
can mean anything you need it to mean — in this case,
an ‘Oh, please!’ or rather ‘Thanks, but no thanks!’

The caveat, of course, was that Kaiser Willem didn’t really

mean it; he never actually intended to assign women full
responsibility for our collective educational, physical, and
spiritual wellbeing.

To really hand ‘Kinder, Küche, Kirche’ over to the author-

ity of women would bring us close to what Anohni (the
former lead singer of Antony and the Johnsons) has called
‘feminine systems of governance’.

On the live album Cut the World, Anohni’s passionate

speech ‘Future Feminism’ invites an enthusiastic audi-
ence from Copenhagen to imagine ‘Jesus as a girl, Allah
as a woman, and Buddha as a mother’. 2

This call for the feminisation of the deities stems from a

growing concern for the wellbeing of our shared planet.
Anohni says:

221
 THE REVOLUTION WILL BE MOTHERNIZED!

I’m worried that the ecology of the world is collapsing and

that I won’t have anywhere to be reborn because I actually
believe, like, where is any of us going? Where have any of us
ever gone? We’ve come back here in some form. […] I’ve been
searching and searching for that little bit of my constitution
that isn’t of this place and I still haven’t found it. Every atom
of me, every element of me seems to resonate, seems to reflect
the great world around me.3

Here, Anohni comes close to describing a relationship

with the world that Maurice Merleau-Ponty, in a note
from 1960, called the ‘flesh of the world’:

That means that my body is made of the same flesh as the

world […], and moreover that this flesh of my body is shared
by the world, the world reflects it, encroaches upon it and it
encroaches upon the world. 4

Merleau-Ponty’s philosophical position has both ethical

and spiritual implications for Anohni, who says in ‘Fu-
ture Feminism’, ‘if I’m not heading off to paradise else-
where when I die, then I have more of a vested interest
in observing a sustainable relationship with this place’.5

It should be self-evident that a ‘sustainable relationship

with this place’ involves a critical engagement with the
challenges presented to us in the Anthropocene era, in-
cluding overpopulation, climate change, and energy tran-
sition. Anohni elaborates upon this in her album Hope-
lessness — a work that is in fact anything but hopeless
— engaging the listener in a danceable and future-feminist
protest.

222
 LISE HALLER BAGGESEN

In my experience, becoming a mother gives you a respon-

sibility for your own little bundle of baby soft flesh of the
world. Mothering, in the broader scheme of things, im-
plies a physically vested relationship into the wellbeing
of the world, for this and future generations.

This vested relationship with the world at large, and the

art world in particular, moved me to put forward a proj-
ect called Mothernism: a nomadic audio installation and a
book called into existence with the purpose to examine
‘the mother-shaped hole in contemporary art discourse’.
The tent and banners which constitute the installation
stake out a space, within the exhibition space and the art
world at large, to have a conversation about mothering
and its relation to artistic and curatorial practice: a con-
versation that is otherwise often shut down within larger
conversations surrounding identity politics in art, queer,
and feminist theory.

Traditionally, artists are a matrophobic bunch, and Moth-

er, still, by and large, a persona non grata in the art world.
While her body remains the site of libidinous fantasies
of envy, gratitude, ridicule, sublimation and downright
abjection, she is rarely invited to speak on her own be-
half, or from her own experience. Therefore, from the
outset, the idea behind Mothernism was to create work,
not ‘about’ mothering but a work that worked ‘something
like a mama’, speaking directly to her visitor in a maternal
voice and giving them a piece of her mother-mind in a
series of auto-theoretical epistolary essays.

223
 THE REVOLUTION WILL BE MOTHERNIZED!

Mothernism unabashedly advocates the concept and expe-

rience of mothering in the greater cultural field. It high-
lights the politics and labours of love, and their uneasy
position within current feminist and art discourse.

Over the course of the twentieth century (my grand-

mother’s century), women entered the workforce and the
art market, and with it the associated value systems of
research and production. Simultaneously, a devaluation of
‘traditional’, ‘unprofessional’ female care work took place.
Decisions regarding childbearing and rearing were rele-
gated to the private sphere, and their political and artistic
potential left unrealised.

As long as Western feminism skirts around an issue that

in one way or another affects most (if not all) of the world’s
female population, reducing it to a question of ‘destiny’ vs.
‘choice’, we may have come a long way, baby, but we are
not there yet. As Anne-Marie Slaughter has pointed out:
‘you can’t have a halfway revolution!’6

Self-proclaimed ‘anti-capitalist psychonaut sorceress’ Jo-

hanna Hedva takes it one step further in her ‘Sick Woman
Theory’, in which she concludes:

The most anti-capitalist protest is to care for another and to

care for yourself. To take on the historically feminised and
therefore invisible practice of nursing, nurturing, caring. To
take seriously each other’s vulnerability and fragility and
precarity, and to support it, honour it, empower it. To protect
each other, to enact and practice community. A radical kin-
ship, and interdependent sociality, a politics of care.7

224
 LISE HALLER BAGGESEN

Ellis Island, a historical entry point to the United States,

and the largest capitalist economy in the world, is guard-
ed by the Statue of Liberty. On the statue’s foundation is
inscribed the famous poem ‘The New Colossus’, by Emma
Lazarus. In this sonnet, Lady Liberty is celebrated as ‘A
mighty woman with a torch’, a ‘Mother Of Exiles’, who
proclaims ‘Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled
masses yearning to breathe free.’8

Thus, the care work of liberation, is the foundation to all

our liberties. All. Our. Liberties.

Perhaps the radical stance for the twenty-first century

would therefore be to claim these liberties, to re-evaluate
our value systems, and to say ‘Kinder, Küche, Kirche,
Bitte!’

Yes please! Hand over the keys to our educational, phys-

ical and spiritual wellbeing to our ‘feminine systems of
governance’.

The revolution will be mothernized!

1 Anon, ‘The American Lady and the Kaiser: The Empress’s Four
K’s’, Westminster Gazette, 17 August 1899, p. 6.
2 Antony and the Johnsons, ‘Future Feminism’, Cut the World
(London: Rough Trade, 2012).
3 Ibid.
4 Maurice Merleau-Ponty, The Visible and the Invisible (Evanston, IL:
Northwestern University Press, 1968), pp. 248-50.
5 Antony and the Johnsons, ‘Future Feminism’ (2012).

225
 THE REVOLUTION WILL BE MOTHERNIZED!

6 Anne-Marie Slaughter, ‘Why Women Need a Men’s Revo-

lution’, ABC News (4 March 2016) <http://www.abc.net.au/
news/2016-03-04/anne-marie-slaughter-women-and-men-revo-
lution/7221596>.
7 Johanna Hedva, ‘Sick Woman Theory’, Mask Magazine, The Not
Again Issue (19 January 2016) <http://www.maskmagazine.com/
not-again/struggle/sick-woman-theory>.
8 Emma Lazarus, ‘The New Colossus’, in Selected Poems and Other
Writings (Peterborough: Broadview Press, 2002).

226
 JOANNA WARSZA AND MICHELE MASUCCI

THE SAME THING.. AGAIN AND AGAIN

JOANNA WARSZA AND MICHELE MASUCCI
IN CONVERSATION WITH DORA GARCÍA

Joanna Warsza: When you first read Kollontai, the

Bolshevik revolutionary, diplomat, and advocate of free
love, you get a feeling that her visions for reinvention of
social and gender relations were projected for a long-term
future, not just for the times she lived in. But when she
became People’s Commissar for Social Welfare after the
Bolshevik revolution in October 1917, and then shortly
after as founder of the Zhenotdel or ‘Women’s Depart-
ment’ in the communist party, she immediately intro-
duced an array of quite impressive reforms: the right for
all to divorce, the equal status of legitimate and illegiti-
mate children, maternity leave, and the development of
childcare projects, laundry shops, and soup kitchens, and
above all the legalisation of abortion. Those were social
achievements discussed in Europe at the time, how-
ever implemented for the first time in Russia after the
October Revolution, well before western countries de-
veloped these policies themselves. I always ask myself
how come the course changed with such a radical U-turn?

Dora García: I think it was a miracle that the October

Revolution triumphed. As they say, it was a proletarian
revolution that had to first create the proletariat, be-
cause in Russia there wasn’t enough for a revolution. At
the same time, Russia was fertile land for revolution-
aries, avant-gardes, visionaries, and dada intellectuals,
which made all of it such an exciting, and surprising,

227
 IN CONVERSATION WITH DORA GARCÍA

development into the Soviet republic — because the avant-

gardes (I am thinking of Vladimir Mayakovsky, Kazimir
Malevich, El Lissitzky, Olga Rozanova, Lyubov Popova
or Natalia Goncharova, and so many others) rarely have
an impact in politics. I doubt we now can foresee which
change there is to come. I could not believe and still can-
not, that Trump is president. It is as if there was a little
tear in space-time and the Lacanian Real came through
it. It can happen any time again. The future is grim, but
perhaps love will prevail.

JW: Reading Kollontai’s biography I recall a moment when

she departs for studying political economy in Zurich,
leaving her young son with her husband and family in
St Petersburg. When the train crosses the first border
she pens two letters: one to her family saying how much
she already misses them, how she wants to be close
and reunite, as well as a second one, to her colleagues
in Zurich, expressing how much she is looking forward
to the studies in Switzerland. Both feelings are probably
sincere and genuine. This situation of being torn apart
and having to make a choice is still the case for many
women today. Feminism is still in the making. However,
it also describes what Ewa Majewska — writing in one of
the issues of e-flux journal — calls as: ‘I want it all’. Why
wouldn’t we have a right to have it all: ‘I want a promis-
cuous life, and support when I am wounded. I want sex
and the risk of engaging; I want to be clever, to make wise
choices, and to retain the right to be silly; I do not want to
take sides on the question of who I am.’ Is it still, of course,
a question of privilege, at what price and to which end?

228
 JOANNA WARSZA AND MICHELE MASUCCI

DG: I believe there is no single answer to that. The con-

ditions of women are so different over the planet that it
is presumptuous to think that one solution will fit all. In
the rich West, among the educated classes, it might be
of course the case that we want it all, and we can have
it all no matter what; and we already do have most of it.
But in other classes and other contexts with no social
security, no health care (like the US, among others), no
free access to education, no equality, one needs to make
choices. And they are tough ones. I am very much with
Kollontai in the idea that the middle class (we would also
today add ‘white’ to this) feminism is rather banal and
sometimes insulting to other sexualities and to other
classes and to other contexts (such as female subjects who
are doubly oppressed because of belonging to different
race and country — new, more cruel forms of the Marxist
‘underclass’). The fate of Kollontai’s reforms and how the
Bolshevik high command rejected her free love lifestyle are
a clear example that from all forms of oppression, hetero-
patriarchy is the most persistent — you may make a rad-
ical change in the form of government, heteropatriarchy
will most likely still be there. And that is something com-
mon to all contexts: The west and the global south alike.

JW: When women workers took to the streets on 8 March

1917 (23 February O.S.) it was the beginning of a snow-
ball effect leading first to the February, and then to the
October Revolution. Those revolutionary moments were
like extraordinary short openings in the history of po-
litical, artistic, and sexual liberation after 1917. Kollontai
later reported that all socialist groups underestimated the

229
 IN CONVERSATION WITH DORA GARCÍA

mood of the women workers in the factories and how

powerful they were. Bini Adamczak, a theorist and an
artist, speaks of ‘the gender of the revolution’, stressing,
with Kollontai, that a revolution that only focuses on ra-
tionality, effectiveness, hardness, toughness, will never
achieve the vital base for a communist society, namely
the human bonds. The revolution failed as it had too much
of the male gender. It could potentially be changed, and
there was, in fact, an attempt to do that in 1968 with the
politicisation of love. Kollontai claimed that the revolu-
tion has to be seen as a new form of relation between men,
women and children, and it is supposed to be played out
with the involvement of love and emotional labour. Her
concept of ‘comradely love’ was taking it out from its cage
in the private sphere, where it is individual and lonely,
and making it public, as a political and social force. This
is almost like reading the writings of the second wave
feminists proclaiming that the private is political, and it’s
not at all far from current struggles. How does this relate
to the succeeding and the contemporary feminist move-
ments according to you?

DG: It is often that I meet young European women who

consider that there is nothing to fight for anymore, that
all has been won. The arrogance and self-complacency of
such a statement is stunning. Everything has to be fought
for, yet and still. Right now, it is very possible that the
right to abortion is overthrown in the US, as it could be
anywhere in Europe. There are both reasons to despair
(Trump, AfD, Orban, Brexit) and to thrive (all the young
women running for office in the US and Europe and the

230
 JOANNA WARSZA AND MICHELE MASUCCI

world). I think war is coming, as ferocious as ever, be-

tween reactionary forces and forces for change. There has
never been any peace, really, and all the issues Kollontai
fought for have never been once and for all established,
but on the contrary, they need to be fought for over and
over again, #MeToo is just a small part of all this.

JW: Women’s political mobilisation has had a recent re-

vival in Poland. Since the new populist government came
to power in 2015, there were different mass protests tak-
ing place all across the country. Some of them, such as
KOD (Committee for the Defence of Democracy) aimed
at reviving the ethos of the Solidarność movement, how-
ever, what was immediately noticeable was that people
below forty years old were missing. The only substantial
movement, across class, across age, across gender and
even across the political spectrum, was in 2016 the Black
Protest in reaction to the proposal of the tightening of
abortion laws, already illegal in Poland since 1993 (in
the 1960s and ’70s, Poland, along with other communist
countries, was an abortion destination for many wom-
en from Scandinavia). The protest was taking all forms
of performativity, for example when it was mentioned
during Catholic sermons that the policy regulations for
abortions were to be tightened, women would stand up
and leave in the middle of the service. Performing this
protest as part of the Catholic mass for a believer was
definitely a new and powerful dimension of political ex-
pression, seemingly more encompassing than #MeToo.

231
 IN CONVERSATION WITH DORA GARCÍA

Michele Masucci: Protests emerge in different forms.

People are intimidated but also more aware of the need
to engage. Nothing is given. After decades of neoliberal
policies, fascism and right-wing populism are again ris-
ing with racist attacks on women, the LGBTQ community,
immigrants and Muslims. Capitalism has always been a
history of war and violence in the name of progress. Egali-
tarian tendencies within capitalism are conditioned. Any
rights gained through hard struggle can be repealed. Cap-
ital interests come first. The space for community, open-
ness and love is threatened by hate as we see the extreme
right-wing gain political power. With these scenarios, the
need for an ‘army of love’ seems urgent. As Sara Ahmed
points out in her essay In the Name of Love, nationalism
and racism are also based on a form of love, that for the
nation, the race or closed group as different from the
other. It is a violent love that excludes, dehumanises and
feeds on hate.

DG: Here I feel like quoting a very popular slogan against

teenage domestic violence: ‘If it hurts, it is not love’.

JW: Speaking of love for the nation. While working in

the former GDR, Dora, you were interested in how the
emotions and the loyalty of the individuals for the state
prevailed sometimes over the love for the parents…

DG: In 2006, when I did work on the political police in

East Germany (Stasi), it came to my attention that in the
GDR women often had children with different partners,
because they did not become economically dependent on

232
 JOANNA WARSZA AND MICHELE MASUCCI

any husband, and divorce was not socially stigmatised.

Next to that, the system of nurseries was wonderful; you
could put your children there from three months old, and
pick them up at night. Yet, those conditions, ideal on pa-
per, created a situation in which children grew distant
from their parents, but they were extremely devoted
to the state — they were subjected to propaganda 24/7
without the possible protection a family might offer. So
it sometimes happened that they denounced their parents
for not being ‘good communists’. The dream of reason pro-
duces monsters…

JW: And which kind of love is there in the collective proj-

ect Army of Love, is there any relation to ‘comradely love’?

DG: Army of Love is a collective endeavour (contrary to

my other projects on similar issues such as The Romeos or
Zimmer, Gespräche). And I should point out that what I say
here does not necessarily represent the thoughts of the
Army of Love as a community. When the Army of Love
speaks of love as a common, it is aiming at a form of social
justice. Love is a basic human need, and the love soldiers,
out of altruism, conviction, solidarity, are activists that
will re-distribute love so that everyone has the love they
need. And this is entirely incompatible with love for a
specific group, exclusive love — because exclusive love
always excludes. In the Army of Love, it is necessary that
love is for everyone. Love as commons is love for every-
one, whether you are gay or straight, atheist or religious,
black or white. Love has to happen between equals, and
those who are not equals are made equals through love.

233
 IN CONVERSATION WITH DORA GARCÍA

‘Love for many in many ways’ Kollontai would say, and

this is opposed (starkly so) to any form of nationalism,
supremacism, or racism.

Michele Masucci: Dora, in some of your works you have

referenced Fourier’s theories on feminism, social coop-
eration and free sexuality as a source. Fourier was, of
course, an important reference for Marx and other rad-
ical thinkers. Kollontai was in turn inspired by August
Bebel, Friedrich Engels, Grete Meisel-Hess and her en-
gagement with other female socialists. Fourier seems
absent in this list, albeit indirectly influential, perhaps
due to Marx’s rejection of socialist utopians, such as
Proudhon, Saint-Simon and Fourier. However, it is also
well known how Fourier’s ideas on the relationship be-
tween work and play influenced Marx early theories on
alienation. What do you think are the significant relations
and differences between Kollontai and Fourier’s concep-
tions of love?

DG: In my view, the main differences are that Fourier is

a visionary with stronger connections to Sade (hoping to
read Fourier, Sade, Spinoza by Barthes soon) than to proto-
socialist circles. In Fourier’s vision, nothing that gives
pleasure is alien to humanity. No pleasure is ‘dangerous’
or ‘harmful’, they all belong to human nature, and they are
all part of our human condition. Repression of any sexual
impulse is, on the contrary, harmful. Sexuality is part of
the individual but also part of the group and should be
encouraged and cared for. In the case of Kollontai, even if
under her direction homosexuality was de-penalised, it

234
 JOANNA WARSZA AND MICHELE MASUCCI

was not acknowledged as a sexual impulse as natural as

heterosexuality, and no effort was made to end the social
stigma — and soon, after the golden years of the revolu-
tion, it was penalised again. In her writings, such as ‘Make
Way for Winged Eros’, there are constant references to
‘healthy’ sex, ‘natural’ attraction, without explaining too
much what kind of sex that is, but obviously implying
that there is a type of sex that is unhealthy. There is no
such thing for Fourier.

MM: During her time Kollontai witnessed how sex work

was unsafe and how it brought terrible consequences for
many women. Pregnant women had to leave their work
and often had to abandon their newborns and return to
work. Pregnant workers had to work, all the same, even
night shifts. Many of the social reforms Kollontai intro-
duced regarded the conditions for women, transforming
sexual relations, motherhood and trying to make pros-
titution redundant. Kollontai also criticised marriage as
a form of institutionalised prostitution. In the Army of
Love, the possibility to share one’s sexual abilities as a
form of political force is explored. It is sex in service of,
but consensual, and not bought. It is a form of free sex, or
free love as a commons, with the potential to transform
social relations and ultimately society as a whole. Would
you say that the practices and ideas proposed in the Army
of Love go further than Kollontai’s ideas of comradely
love, a form of equal relationship between the sexes? Sex
not only seen as a necessary passion that should be exer-
cised in a comradely fashion in service of the new society
but actually as a primary motor in the transformation of
human relations?

235
 IN CONVERSATION WITH DORA GARCÍA

DG: Kollontai only seems to take into account a hetero-

sexual desire between ‘healthy’ people that are in a pre-
sumably good physical condition. In her imagery, still,
too close to socialist realism, we imagine young muscu-
lar workers possessed by the desire of young muscular
workers. It does not seem to take into account those who
are not so desirable both in capitalist and apparently in
socialist terms as well: the old, the sick, the crippled, the
mad, and of course, non-normative desire. In that, Army
of Love goes further because it wants to consider all bod-
ies worthy of desire; if desire does not come naturally, the
love soldier will force desire into him or herself. The army
as well considers that love only exists between equals
(this is the same as Kollontai) BUT, and here comes the
revolutionary character of love, love will turn into equals
those who were not, in order to love each other. The sol-
diers of love act out of the strong moral conviction that
every human being deserves love, that love should be a
commons, and that the function of the Army of Love is
making sure everyone gets its part. It is not charity, it is
social justice, and the soldiers of love will be trained to
feel love (eros, philia, ludus, agape) whenever they have
to. What Fourier calls ‘sexual philanthropy’?

JW: Or a ‘mercy fuck’, in the words of the artist Every

Ocean Hughes (formerly known as Emily Roysdon).
Kollontai was sublimating sex and desire into politics, she
was introducing the figure of ‘single women’ for whom
life is not reduced to love for somebody else, but love for
many, for a cause, an idea. Love was also beyond property,
beyond ownership, regardless if sex was or not involved.

236
 JOANNA WARSZA AND MICHELE MASUCCI

It of course backlashed, she was accused of nationalising

women.

DG: Although I find humorous the interpretation by

Emily, mercy is contrary to justice. In Army of Love, we
are instead talking about a justice fuck (this is funny).

MM: During the 1960s and ’70s both Kollontai and

Fourier’s ideas gained attention. This period is also sig-
nified by the ideas of sexual emancipation, free love and
experimentation, the idea of love as a political force was
prevalent in many different fractions. Marxist feminists
at the time pointed to the negative aspects of love for
women, in Silvia Federici’s words: ‘They say it is Love.
We say it is unpaid labour. They call it frigidity. We call it
absenteeism. Every miscarriage is a work accident.’1

DG: Although I haven’t read Federici, I do agree with her.

Romantic love, and here I go full Kollontai, is a pernicious
tool of the heteropatriarchy. Men have all the winning
cards in the construction of romantic love. Fourier has
this expression, ‘pivotal relationship’ which is a type of
relationship I can accept much easier. I do not believe in
romantic love, but I do think in constructing long-term
relationships based on mutual trust and shared inter-
ests, relations to which you come back again and again
through life, as close to monogamy as one can be.

MM: The question of consent and how it is reached

and determined has gained attention with #metoo. In
Sweden, a law on the requirement for sexual consent was

237
 IN CONVERSATION WITH DORA GARCÍA

recently passed with a vast parliamentary majority. At

the same time, we still see anti-feminist policy, misogyny
and sexual abuse of women, lesbian, trans, bi and queer.
How should we understand the question of consent, and
equality in a world that is overwhelmingly divided, and
where different forms of exploitation and submission are
an inherent part of the social and political structures?

DG: It is complicated — in Simone de Beauvoir’s words,

marriage is a form of prostitution — power inequality
and potential abuse is entangled with every kind of so-
cial interaction. The fact that we must acknowledge the
reality of prostitution (‘simply because men are pigs’), and
make sure, as much as we can, that prostitutes are insured
medically and protected by a social security system, that
they own their wages and that mafias and proxenetism
are eradicated, all that, being necessary, should not nor-
malise prostitution:

Obviously, it is not through negative and hypocritical

measures that this situation can be changed. For pros-
titution to disappear, two conditions are necessary: A
decent job must be guaranteed to all women; customs
must not place any obstacles to free love. Prostitution
will be suppressed only by suppressing the needs to
which it responds. 2

JW: In Kollontai’s time, only ten percent of women were

working, and seventy percent of them were living off their
work as prostitutes.

238
 JOANNA WARSZA AND MICHELE MASUCCI

MM: Kollontai seems to have been a political virtuoso

dedicating her life in the service of revolution. Today
several forms of work require the script of bond making,
being a well-networked, loving co-worker, always ready
to listen, to be a friend or lover, to be intimate. We enact
intimacy and care as a form of establishing alliances in
an ever-increasing situation of insecurity and precarity. If
we think of love as the primary weapon against fascism,
how do we liberate the emotional labour we are capable
of from professional spheres towards this political end?

DG: I am not sure that love is the primary weapon against

fascism (I am afraid we are going to need more than love),
but it is undoubtedly a powerful one, a necessary one.

MM: It would be naïve to think one emotion is the key.

Our ability to bond is a commons and thus exploitable.
Can love, as one way to fight fascism, also risk becoming
endurance by coping or bonding rather than opposing
structural oppression?

DG: Of course I think love is a tool to fight fascism, not to

endure it. Because I believe heteropatriarchy — for lack of
a better name or patriarcho-capitalism — is a system that
only knows one way to relate to the world / the other:
predation. Therefore love, as anti-predation, is a form of
struggle.

1 Silvia Federici, Caliban and the Witch: Women, The Body, and Primitive
Accumulation (New York: Autonomedia, 2004).
2 Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, trans. by H.M. Parshley
(London: Cape, 1953).

239
ANTI-ABORTION STRUGGLES IN POLAND

240
 TOMAS RAFA

ANTI-ABORTION STRUGGLES IN POLAND

TOMÁŠ RAFA

During the Black Monday protests on 3 October 2016,

women across Poland went out on strike against the pro-
posal of a total ban on abortions. The protest also com-
prised strikes where women who opposed stayed away
from work and school and refused to do domestic chores.
The protest is said to have been inspired by the women’s
strike in Iceland in 1975.

241
ANTI-ABORTION STRUGGLES IN POLAND

242
TOMAS RAFA

243
ANTI-ABORTION STRUGGLES IN POLAND

244
 OXANA TIMOFEEVA

A WHORE MANIFESTO
OXANA TIMOFEEVA

————

PRELIMINARY NOTE..
A MESSAGE FROM THE DARK TIMES

Alexandra Kollontai was one of those great communist

political, cultural, and intellectual figures of the period
after the October Revolution, for whom, the question of
sexuality (also called love) in the context of social organi-
sation was crucially important. What was to be done with
love and sex in the new communist society free from ex-
ploitation and inequality projected by Bolsheviks? How
should people become happy both in their public life and
private lives? What would a genuine feminist politics be
which concerns not only political and economic rights
and possibilities for women, but also their sensual expe-
riences and personal developments? These were the ques-
tions raised and discussed by Kollontai and her comrades
in post-revolutionary Russia and throughout Europe at
the time.
 Unfortunately, these questions are still without an-
swers. History turned in a bad direction and the bet-
ter world of a victorious communism as described by
Kollontai in her science-fiction novel Soon (In 48 Years’
Time), written in 1922, never came true. In this story, fu-
ture generations live in communes; they are done with
inequality, resolved all social problems, and now can put
all their free energy into the mission of revolutionising
and harmonising nature itself. That’s how things should

245
 A WHORE MANIFESTO

have looked like in 1970 according to Kollontai. Let me

register myself chronologically: I have written this text
in 2018, that is another forty-eight years after the ‘soon’
of Kollontai’s utopia, and one hundred years after the
first communist attempts — albeit difficult, and danger-
ous, and done in harsh port-revolutionary social and eco-
nomic conditions — to liberate sexuality. The fact is that,
demonstrating a disgraceful historical regress, Russia as a
country ended up with a whole flood of reactionist tradi-
tionalism that constitutes an attack to the entire domain
of sexual life, and particularly women’s rights, washing
away all the remains of gender equality that was inserted
by the Soviets.
 Let me mention some exemplary facts. In February
2017 (the year of the centenary of the revolution) the
Russian president signed a law that decriminalised beat-
ings in families: one can now legally beat a wife, or a child,
as long as there are no severe injuries. This is not the only
example on the level of legislation; there are also numer-
ous attempts to introduce severe anti-abortion regula-
tions, and many other initiatives of this kind come from
the authorities that are developing policies for increasing
birth rates in times of growing poverty. Russian state par-
liament legitimates harassment: thus, recently, a special
parliamentary expert committee concluded that the be-
haviour of the deputy, who sexually assaulted a young
female journalist, does not violate any social norm.1 The
society itself is becoming sexist; the victims of rape suffer
massive attacks of slut shaming in social networks and
even media. 2 The ugliest processes develop on the level
of ideological superstructure, where the autocratic state

246
 OXANA TIMOFEEVA

together with the Orthodox Church actively imposes ag-

gressive patriarchal values and propagates the images of
the all-powerful traditional macho-man and an obedient,
submissive woman.
 How different is this last image from the one depicted
by Kollontai in her great essays! Whereas early commu-
nist ideology is better known for projecting a gender neu-
tral ‘new man’, Kollontai anticipated the birth of a ‘new
woman’ in the process of historical emancipation. ‘What
— the new woman? Does she really exist? Is she not the
product of the creative fancy of modern writers of fiction,
in search of sensational novelties? Look around you, look
sharply, reflect, and you will convince yourself: the new
woman is certainly there — she exists’ — she wrote in the
essay ‘The New Woman’ from her book The New Morality
and the Working Class.3 What would this — in fact already
existent, but in a reduced, hidden way — new woman be
or look like? Kollontai gives us an idea: the new woman is
creative, she is busy with politics, science, or writing; she
has a lot of serious work to do; she has, as Virginia Wolf
says, ‘a room of her own’. 4
 In a word, the new woman is free. This implies, literal-
ly, that she is not enslaved any longer, not subordinated,
not considered as a beautiful attachment to a man, as a
mother, or something else at someone else’s service. She
freely enjoys her own life, and her own will to happiness
makes this life full of sense. Sexually, she is emancipated,
too. Her love life is rich and manifold. She is not someone
else’s, but rather she is single. She may have diverse part-
ners, pass from one relationship to another, and thus she
develops her experiences that make her heart stronger.
In her essay ‘Love and the New Morality’, Kollontai says:

247
 A WHORE MANIFESTO

The light already glimmers, the new types of women

already begin to show — the types of the so called
’single women’ for whom the treasures of life are not
reduced to love. In the sphere of love affections, they
do not allow the waves of life to rule their shuttle; an
experienced pilot rules, their own will hardened in life
battles. And a fillister claim: ‘She has a past!’ is para-
phrased by her: ‘She does not have a past — what a
terrible destiny!’5

 The problem is that the new woman, who, according

to Kollontai, already exists, is free, but the world is not.
According to the traditional values imposed by patriar-
chal society, and particularly contemporary Russian rul-
ing class ideologists, a ‘terrible destiny’ of having no past
(meaning simply: no love stories behind) must be a des-
tiny of all women, and the ‘fillister claim’ points to every
woman who does not fit into the stereotype of a good girl,
a good mother or a good wife. A sexually emancipated
woman in a sexist, not-emancipated world is still a vic-
tim of blame, accusations and moral attacks. Ironically,
Kollontai herself was shamed, for instance, by famous
cultural figures at the time such as the sociologist Pitirim
Sorokin and the writer Ivan Bunin:

Concerning this woman, it is clear that her revolution-

ary enthusiasm is nothing else than a mediated satis-
faction of her nymphomania. In spite of her numerous
‘husbands’, Kollontai — first a wife of a general, then a
mistress of a dozen of men — is still not fed up. She is
seeking for new forms of sexual sadism. I would love

248
 OXANA TIMOFEEVA

her to be observed by Freud and other psychiatrists.

She would be a rare object for them (Pitirim Sorokin).

On Kollontai (said by N.N. yesterday):

—I know her very well. Some time, she was looking like
an angel. In the morning she was putting on the sim-
plest dress and jumping to worker’s slums — to ‘work’.
Then she was coming back home, taking a bath, putting
on a blue shirt — and jumped to her girlfriend’s bed
with a box of candies: ‘So now let’s have a chat to our
heart’s content, my little friend!’

—Forensic psychiatry and medicine know already for a

long time of these (angel-like) type of inborn criminals
and prostitutes (Ivan Bunin).6

This is the cultural context within which the following

Manifesto was written. It is not a scholarly piece, but a
personal document of mine. It colludes with Kollontai
at all points, but it steps further in a direction that
Kollontai would probably not fully agree with. If she
claims for gender equality, I insist on a gender asymmetry,
and to discuss the link between communism and matri-
archy — these non-existent, utopian things.

A WHORE MANIFESTO

I am writing this essay and thinking that perhaps it will

never be published in any ‘serious’ edition. It would never
go through the eye of a needle of censorship. I am writing
it with a kind of fear and hope that only my people will

249
 A WHORE MANIFESTO

read it and listen to it. These thoughts are coming from

the very depths of my heart. No, the word heart does not
really fit here, and the word depths neither. We say ‘depth’
when we go to the bottom, and these thoughts go from
where there is no bottom. There is always a layer even
lower in which to fall. Just like us.
 We are those who were stigmatised as fallen. Prosti-
tutes, whores, sluts. This is not what we name ourselves.
This is what we are named by those who think they call
things by proper names. But, first of all, we are not things,
and second, things do not have proper names (things do
not have anything at all; they are either someone’s, or no
one’s). Thus, we are labelled by those who love us — in
their passionate outbursts of jealousy. By those whom
we love, and that don’t love us back. By those to whom
we did not reply ‘yes’. By those to whom we did reply
‘yes’. By those to whom we replied ‘no’, but they took it
as ‘yes’ and used violence. And all others, too — all those
disgusting teachers, aunties, priests, and policemen. And
we are trying to justify ourselves, trying to show that we
are not like that. But this doesn’t work, because, actually,
we are like that.

We are those who fall in the trap of language. Of a bitter

tongue — we should have bitten it off long ago, when
someone put it in our mouth.

 The trap in which we dwell is made of two elements.

The first element is a juxtaposition of desire, enjoy-

ment and guilt in Christian culture. We are expected to

250
 OXANA TIMOFEEVA

prove our innocence. It will be accepted if we manage to

convince them that we did not desire and did not enjoy
it. Thus, it goes without saying that the victim of sexual
violence cannot desire or enjoy, but only passively suffer.
Every feminist knows that. The fact that she did not de-
sire and did not enjoy means that she is not guilty, that she
is an innocent victim (don’t tell them that you can enjoy!).
In contrast to that, the violators justify themselves with
her own desire and enjoyment: she wanted that, liked
that, thus it was her fault. But in fact, both parties base
their positions on the premise that our desire and our
enjoyment make us guilty.
 The second element is a very rigid taboo that exists in
our culture that of female polygamy, coupled with a pos-
itive or loyal attitude towards a male one. It is as old as
the legends of matriarchy, when this taboo did not exist.
The echoes of that legendary state are the pagan orgies of
fertility and the cults of insatiable goddesses from ancient
history, or rare cases of polyandry in some small groups.
Scientists have already debunked a few evidences of a
really existing primitive matriarchy and generally reject-
ed this hypothesis or myth. However, some people still
believe in the other one, really close to it, that is, the hy-
pothesis of an existing so-called primitive communism.
One piece of evidence of the kinship between these two
hypotheses is group marriage: it is attributed to a primi-
tive communism that allegedly combines patriarchic and
matriarchic social practices.
 Both hypotheses are scary and tempting at the same
time. At the initial point they coincide in a positive or
negative image of an archaic savagery, and at the final

251
 A WHORE MANIFESTO

point they create either utopia or dystopia. If an initial

point coincides with its final point, thus creating a time
loop — both communism and matriarchy present a gener-
ic memory of humanity — a memory of what has never
been before.
 This generic memory hardly differs from oblivion. That’s
why, perhaps, it lurks at the periphery of consciousness.
Our real or imaginary polyandrous sexuality arouses their
sexual excitement or moral resentment, or both. Men who,
when no one sees them, masturbate to gangbang porn and
then generously ejaculate on our faces with their moralin,
— what happens in their pitiful souls? What stands behind
that ambiguous excitement that they feel when they are
watching us, spying on us, fantasising about our fall and
destruction, shaming us, and claiming that we wanted
that, that we liked that? Sergei Yesenin, a famous Russian
poet, calls this ‘a bitter truth of the world’:

Yes! There is a bitter truth of the world

When a child I caught sight of that truth:
Troops of hounds, excited and wild,
Taking turns lick a bitch all in juice.7

In this poem, dedicated to Isadora Duncan, there are lines

that are not part of official poem collections: ‘Let her kiss,
pet and fondle another, Ah, this obsolete, beautiful slut’.
Here, jealousy is doubled with and intensified by a trau-
matic recollection of what one might call a primary scene,
a childish theatre of a rough animal copulation in the cen-
tre of which there is a beloved one — a slut, a goddess, and
a mother.

252
 OXANA TIMOFEEVA

 A poet’s primary scene is analogous to those sets of

nature which Freud analysed. According to Freud, these
memories do not necessarily derive from real events.
Childish screen memories about the acts of violence, se-
duction or sexual intercourse can be constructed. They
are mostly indirect, more like allusions, and come from
the world of desires that we would never recognise as
our own, and that would never get through the instances
of censorship whose function is to adopt our drives to
the rules and requirements of human society. The idea is
the following: even if this never happened before, it still
happened. Just not in our life.
 Freud arrived at this conclusion after analysing mem-
ories of his patients diagnosed with hysteria about the
scenes of seduction or violence that was done to them
in their childhood by adult uncles and daddies. At the
beginning he was thinking that these memories directly
related to real facts, but soon a mass of such material be-
came critical. The fact that everyone was really raped or
seduced by her father could not be true! Thus, Freud had
to abandon his initial hypothesis of seduction. What was
at stake was not reality, but an unconscious fantasy that
fills a lacuna of desire coming from no one knows where:

Whence come the need for these phantasies and the ma-
terial for them? There can be no doubt that their sources
lie in the instincts; but it has still to be explained why
the same phantasies with the same content are creat-
ed on every occasion. I am prepared with an answer,
which I know will seem daring to you. I believe these
primal phantasies, as I should like to call them, and no

253
 A WHORE MANIFESTO

doubt a few others as well, are a phylogenetic endow-

ment. In them the individual reaches beyond his own
experience into primeval experience at points where
his own experience has been too rudimentary. It seems
to me quite possible that all the things that are told
to us today in analysis as phantasy — the seduction
of children, the inflaming of sexual excitement by ob-
serving parental intercourse, the threat of castration (or
rather castration itself) — were once real occurrences
in the primeval times of the human family, and that
children in their phantasies are simply filling in the
gaps in individual truth with prehistoric truth.8

What if a poet’s love to a woman whom he calls a slut, a

love accompanied by the delusions of jealousy, is so pain-
ful to him precisely because it kicks him ‘beyond his own
experience into primeval experience’? Let’s just think di-
alectically and relate these experience-memories not to
what has been (prehistorically), but to what has not been
yet. To a disturbing image of matriarchy that has never
been, the time that did not have place, when polyandry
was not considered a sin, a crime or a sign of a moral deg-
radation of a woman.
 All male fantasies about the orgies of Snow White
with the participation of seven dwarf men, in the centre
of which their jealous desire places our bodies, appear
at the point where the beginning and the end of a time
loop coincide. A gangbang style orgy with its main goal to
bring the most intense pleasure to a woman, and a group
rape that makes her suffer and causes injures, from the an-
thropological point of view, are related social practices of

254
 OXANA TIMOFEEVA

a matriarchic drive perverted within a patriarchic order.

A collective gnome does not really understand: does he
punish a slut or worship a goddess? Even when he pun-
ishes, he simultaneously worships, as if he still wanted to
satisfy her desire, or, to be precise, not exactly a desire but
what stands beyond all desires, namely, her death drive.
In this obscure theatre, either as a spectator, or as an actor,
he unconsciously makes a sacred ritual in which Eros and
Thanatos coincide, and the sense of which he would never
understand.
 There is a principal asymmetry between the male and
the female polygamy. This asymmetry is explained by a
bodily symbolism of the sexual difference. A male body
is a phallic symbol. As Jacques Lacan explains, a male en-
joyment is an enjoyment of the organ: ‘Phallic enjoyment
is the obstacle owing to which man does not manage, I
would say, to enjoy the woman’s body, precisely because
what he enjoys is this enjoyment, that of the organ.’9
 The organ, around which a male body is structured, is
single and solitary. Its sense in our culture is really ex-
aggerated. Its main trouble is that, in a given moment of
time, it cannot be put into more than one person, or, to be
precise, into more than one part of the body of no more
than one person. That’s why a male polygamy is linked
to the lists, to the queue, to the counting of women, to
natural numbers: one by one.10
 ‘How many men did you get before?’ That’s what they
ask us, with their big or small Don Juan’s list in their
heads. This question sounds really stupid for us, but we
cannot answer it, we have to lie. We have troubles with
counting. We cannot say any convincing natural number,

255
 A WHORE MANIFESTO

because our body is a totally different symbol. What stays

for us, as Hegel would say, is not a singular, but a universal:

In the household of ethical life, it is not this man, and

it is not this child; rather, it is a man, children as such
— these female relationships are grounded not on sen-
timent but on the universal. The distinction between
her ethical life and the man’s ethical life consists in this,
that in her destiny for individuality and in her pleasure,
she remains both immediately universal and alien to
the individuality of desire.11

In the gnome’s fantasies our bodies could accommodate

all the divine trinity, and much more. Alien to the indi-
viduality of desire, our humiliated body turns to be a sign
of anticipation of communism where happiness will look
totally different than that. While male enjoyment attach-
es, sticks to a part of this body, its other parts do not stand
idle. You are not alone in this room. In every intercourse
she invisibly and gratuitously gives herself to the entire
male half of humanity, to the whole of genus, not only to
one individual, a single representative of a genus. She is
not yours, gnome.
 Lacan calls the act of love the polymorphous perversion
of the male’ and claims that there is another enjoyment
that lies beyond the Phallus: ‘So then we call it as best
we can vaginal, the posterior pole of the uterine orifice
and other stupidities (conneries), make no mistake!’12 A
male symbol always makes a blunder, misses the point.
A weird woman’s enjoyment, according to Lacan, is not
the one of the organ at all, rather it is the one of God —

256
 OXANA TIMOFEEVA

that does not exist, but this is already another story. A

moral gnome that blames us is in fact jealous to this en-
joyment, the nature of which he would never know, as
we’ll never tell him about that: in the trap of language our
mouth is always busy with something else.

POSTSCRIPT

If Lacan is right and love really is ‘the polymorphous per-

version of the male’, then another enjoyment ‘beyond the
phallus’ points to a form of relation (or non-relation, as
Lacan would say) other than love. For Lacan, this other
form is divine, for me it is political. I name it comrade-
ship. It came to me once, when I was talking to a female
friend — well, not really a friend, but a comrade — and
this was exactly what we discussed: an old sexist stereo-
type according to which friendship is a masculine thing,
and there cannot be real friendship among women. So,
we decided, why don’t we leave them their friendship and
other cosy bourgeois pleasures, as what is possible among
us women is not friendship but comradeship!

Of course, that was a joke, but I dare to say that there is

a deep truth within it. Women can very well be just as
good as friends or lovers, as men can be good comrades
— every form of relation is open to any gender. This is not
a question of gender identity, but a question of sexual dif-
ference, which persists in every sexual (non)relation, even
if everyone is of the same gender or if a variety of gen-
ders involved goes beyond the limits of traditional roles
of masculine and feminine. Following Alenka Zupančič,

257
 A WHORE MANIFESTO

I understand sexual difference and its political relevance

as ontologically biased.13 According to Zupančič, sexual
difference must be taken not dogmatically, as a binary op-
position (this would be really obsolete), but dialectically,
as an antagonism, analogous to class struggle:

True feminism depends on positing sexual difference

as a political problem, and hence on situating it in the
context of social antagonism and of emancipatory
struggle. Feminism did not start from trying to affirm
some other, female identity (and its rights), but from the
fact that roughly half of the human race, referred to as
‘women’, was non-existent in a political sense. It is this
nonexistence, this political invisibility, which actually
functioned as a homogeneity of the political space, that
feminism transformed into a split, a division, which
concerns all (hence its political dimension). In this con-
text it is essential that at stake in this gesture is not
a political affirmation of some independently existing
ontological divide (between ‘men’ and ‘women’), but
something that first constitutes sexual difference as
difference or divide.14

So, we as women are not a gender identity, but rather

something similar to a class position: being a woman in
patriarchal society is structurally close to being a prole-
tarian in capitalist society. A woman, treated, as a whore,
and a worker, treated as a working horse, are comrades.
They are on the same side of the divide that they pro-
duce (whereas the enemy — patriarchy or capitalism —
proclaims a unity, a harmony, and other figures of false

258
 OXANA TIMOFEEVA

consciousness). As Jodi Dean recently argued, comrade-

ship means being on the same side: “Comrades are those
on the same side of the division. With respect to this di-
vision, they are the same. Their sameness is that of those
who are on the same side. To say ‘comrade’ is to announce
a belonging, and the sameness that comes from being on
the same side.”15
 Dean refers to Maxim Gorky’s amazing short story,
where the word ‘comrade’ operates as a kind of performa-
tive: the moment it is pronounced, it creates a multiplicity
of the oppressed people and transforms their being as
they are now on the same side:

The prostitute who, but the evening before, was but a

hungry beast, sadly waiting on the muddy pavement to
be accosted by someone who would buy her caresses,
the prostitute, too, heard this word, but was undecided
whether to repeat it. A man the like of whom she had
never seen till then approached her, laid his hand upon
her shoulder and said to her in an affectionate tone,
‘Comrade’. And she gave a little embarrassed smile,
ready to cry with the joy her wounded heart experi-
enced for the first time.16

What if comradeship as a form of relation, that is different

from love, friendship and so on, and that is historically
linked to communism rather than any other form, is fem-
inine? The feminine here is opposed not to the masculine,
but to the patriarchal, that is based on the principles of the
individual and of ownership. What is so disturbing about
a whore? The idea that she is giving herself to anyone

259
 A WHORE MANIFESTO

without becoming someone’s. She is giving herself while

escaping to really belong. She is common, like the air we
breathe. That’s why in its polyandrous corporeality female
desire is proto-communist. What is labelled as a whore in
this world, in another world will gain dignity and respect.
We will find it there, in a liberated form, beyond sexuality,
as a new form of social glue.
 According to Dean’s first thesis on comradeship, ‘“Com-
rade” names a relation characterised by sameness, equality,
and solidarity. For communists, this sameness, equality,
and solidarity is utopian, cutting through the determi-
nations of capitalist society.’17 Dean lists some determi-
nations of a society that she calls a communicative capi-
talism. The first one is that ‘communicative capitalism is
marked by the power of many, of numbers. Capitalist and
state power emphasise big data and the knowledge gen-
erated by finding correlations in enormous data sets. So-
cial media is driven by the power of numbers: How many
friends and followers, how many shares and retweets?’
The other feature is individualism. In the paper present-
ed at the conference on the centenary of the October
Revolution at St Petersburg, Dean also noted:
 Communicative capitalism enjoins uniqueness. We
are commanded to be ourselves, express ourselves, do it
ourselves. Conforming, copying, letting another speak for
us are widely thought to be somehow bad, indications of
weakness, ignorance, or unfreedom. The impossibility of
an individual politics, the fact that political change is al-
ways and only collective, is suppressed, displaced into the
inchoate conviction that we are determined by systems
and forces completely outside our capacity to affect them.
Climate changes. Not us.18

260
 OXANA TIMOFEEVA

Both of these determinations are characteristic of Laca-

nian phallic enjoyment, a jealous and greedy enjoyment of
the organ. Gorky’s prostitute and her anonymous comrade
break this perverse unity of individuals and their great
numbers. In comradeship, identity vanishes. Think about
the Russian Bolshevik revolutionaries in the underground:
for the sake of conspiracy, they lived faked social lives un-
der different names, constantly changing their passports,
families, or even gender. What acts here is a mask, beyond
which there is no real face, but only a pain to be shared.
 Comrades are replaceable; they wear false names and
false moustaches. This aspect of the masquerade makes
politics a theatre, but a very special one, like Artaud’s
theatre of cruelty; here, ancient masks are back, as they
present a show, a ritual of a direct and instant commu-
nication like a plague, a contagion. The void beyond the
mask can be that contagion, or, in our words, sharing
of the pain — not symbolically, as between sisters, but
bodily. Friendship, love, sisterhood and other nice things
could be there too, but these things, as we know them,
normally, attach us to a singular individual, who has a
name, a face, and something which cannot be replaced. A
friend or a beloved one is pinned down by their identity.
Comrade is the one on whose neck you can put your head;
to whom you can give one of your hands if she has none at
that decisive moment when the enemy attacks.
 For Alexandra Kollontai, comradeship was a form of
love. Love was a name she used as a universal for all kinds
of proximities between human beings. In her essay ‘Make
Way for Winged Eros’ (1923) Kollontai outlines a brief
history of love. As a good Marxist, she links successive

261
 A WHORE MANIFESTO

historical forms of love to different social formations:

blood relations for a kinship community; love-friendship
for antiquity; courtly love for a feudal system, bourgeois
links between love and marriage for capitalism, and, fi-
nally, a new form, that she anticipated, of love-comrade-
ship for the working class building a new society. What is
interesting about this form of love-comradeship is that it
actually does not negate, but rather combines all previous
forms and invents new ones, based on a larger variety and
diversity of desires and overcoming of the principle of
property.
 Note that this form of love-comradeship is not the last
one. The last one is yet to come, with the global triumph
of communism, and we do not know how it will look like,
which form it will take, but Kollontai gives an image of it
— Winged Eros. We can only speculate about it. The main
thing I can say now is that it will be based on a totally
different form of political economy. Capitalist economy
as we know it, is extractive on the level of social organi-
sation, and libidinal on the level of private life. As social
units, we are parts of an extractive economy that never
stops to produce surplus value; as individual bodies, we
make libidinal investments into the world of commodi-
fied objects. Both a libidinal and an extractive economy
are based on a lack of material and non-material resources.
 Sexual relations that we know, or libidinal relations,
characterised by jealousy and the sense of property, cor-
respond to capitalist economy. Instead of a libido based on
lack, whose movements are thoroughly analysed by Freud
and Lacan, communism will develop a new type of ener-
gy, based on excess, that Kollontai calls a ‘love potential’.

262
 OXANA TIMOFEEVA

Instead of taking, there will be giving — giving oneself

to anyone without keeping anything for one’s own; there
will be a total sharing of enjoyment and pain. Love poten-
tial as opposed to libido.
 So, again: love-comradeship described by Kollontai,
corresponds not to a communist future, not to a classless
society, not to a social democracy, but to a very specific
and temporary state of proletarian dictatorship, that is, a
militant revolutionary state of the Soviets. It is an inter-
mediate form that will bring us to communism. Its mis-
sion is to develop a love potential, to make it grow, to pre-
pare conditions for the winged communist Eros to come.
Love-comradeship is a kind of rehearsal of communism,
a game, and a theatre where we stage what is yet to come.
Why do I call it feminine? Because it corresponds to the
structural place now labelled as a ‘whore’ — a feminine
that gives itself to anyone and goes beyond individuality.
Comradeship is a social tie that has as its secret agent
the women of my Manifesto — a Lacanian woman, who
cannot count her enjoyment, a Hegelian woman, whose
universality remains ‘alien to the individuality of desire’,
and the Snow White, whom they call a whore, and I call
a comrade: forget my proper name.

1 Andrew Roth, ‘Media Boycotts Russian parliament in sexual

Harassment Row’, Guardian, 22 March 2018 <https://www.
theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/22/russian-media-outlets-
boycott-parliament-in-harassment-row> [accessed 11 September
2018].
2 Tom Parfitt, ‘Teenage Rape Victim Divides Russia after Back-
lash Makes Her Go Public’, Times, 22 April 2017 <https://www.
thetimes.co.uk/article/teenage-rape-victim-divides-russia-after-
backlash-makes-her-go-public-htksckbs8> [accessed 11 Septem-
ber 2018].

263
 A WHORE MANIFESTO

3 Alexandra Kollontai, ‘New Woman’, The New Morality and the

Working Class’ <https://www.marxists.org/archive/kollonta/
1918/new-morality.htm> [accessed 11 September 2018].
4 Virginia Woolf, ‘A Room of One’s Own’ <http://seas3.elte.hu/
coursematerial/PikliNatalia/Virginia_Woolf_-_A_Room_of_
Ones_Own.pdf> [accessed 11 September 2018].
5 Alexandra Kollontai, ‘New Woman’, The New Morality and the
Working Class <http://www.odinblago.ru/novaia_moral/2>
[http://www.odinblago.ru/novaia_moral/2].
6 ‘Aleksandra Kollontai’, Wikipedia <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Alexandra_Kollontai> [accessed 11 September 2018]
7 Sergey Yesenin, trans. by Alec Vagapov, ‘Collection of Poems’
<http://samlib.ru/a/alec_v/yes-chron-eng.shtml> [accessed
11 September 2018].
8 Sigmund Freud, ‘INTRODUCTORY LECTURES ON PSYCHO-
ANALYSIS (1916-17)’ <https://freudianassociation.org/en/
wp-content/uploads/Sigmund_Freud_1920_Introductory.pdf>
[accessed 11 September 2018].
9 Jacques Lacan, trans. by Cormac Gallagher, ‘The Seminar of Jacques
Lacan’, Book XX: Encore. 1972–1973, 27 <http://www.lacaninireland.
com/web/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/THE-SEMINAR-OF-
JACQUES-LACAN-XX.pdf> [accessed 11 September 2018]
10 See on this, for example, a book by Lorenzo Chiesa, The Not-Two:
Logic and God in Lacan (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2016).
11 G.W.F. Hegel, The Phenomenology of Spirit, trans. by Terry Pinkard
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), p. 409.
12 Lacan, Encore, p. 163.
13 Alenka Zupančič, What Is Sex (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2017),
pp. 35–72.
14 Ibid. p. 36.
15 Jodi Dean, ‘Four Theses on the Comrade’, e-flux journal, 86
(November 2017) <https://www.e-flux.com/journal/86/160585/
four-theses-on-the-comrade/> [accessed 11 September 2018].
16 Maxim Gorki, ‘Comrade’, The Social Democrat, vol. X no. 86
(August 1906), pp. 509–12 <https://www.marxists.org/archive/
gorky-maxim/1906/08/comrade.htm> [accessed 11 September
2018].
17 Dean, ‘Four Theses on the Comrade’, 86.
18 Dean J. Conference paper, St Petersburg, October 2017.

264
 SARA AHMED

IN THE NAME OF LOVE

SARA AHMED

Where was Hatewatch during 170 million crimes committed

against White Americans over the last 30 years? Hatewatch.
What an absurd organisation. But aren’t they part of the huge
parasitic Infestation which is always trying to destroy anyone
who loves liberty and disagrees with the Monsters’ plan for the
degradation and control of the White Americans of this nation?
They steal what they can and target us for government gang-
sterism and drooling media meatpuppet consumption… Love
Watch. The Wake Up or Die Love Watch is a listing of those
who love this nation and our White Racial Family and the al-
ternative to the lists of the parasitic propagandists.
—Elena Haskin, Love Watch

1. How have politics become a struggle over who has the

right to name themselves as acting out of love? What does
it mean to stand for love by standing alongside some oth-
ers and then against other others? It has become common
for ‘hate groups’ to re-name themselves as organisations
of love. Such organisations claim they act out of love for
their own kind, and for the nation as an inheritance of a
kind (‘our White Racial Family’), rather than out of ha-
tred for strangers or others. Indeed, a crucial part of the
re-naming is the identification of hate as coming from
elsewhere and as being directed towards the ‘hate group’;
hate becomes an emotion that belongs to those who have
identified hate groups as hate groups in this first place.
In the above quote, the hate watch web site, which lists
racist groups on the internet, is juxtaposed with the

265
 IN THE NAME OF LOVE

Lovewatch site, which also lists these organisations, but

names them as ‘love groups’. Such groups are defined as
‘love groups’ through an active identification with the na-
tion (‘those who love this nation’) as well as a core set of
values (‘anyone who loves liberty’). Love is narrated as the
emotion that energises the work of such groups; it is out
of love that the group seeks to defend the nation against
others, whose presence then becomes defined as the or-
igin of hate. As another site puts it: ‘Ask yourself, what
have they done to eliminate anything at all? They feed
you with, ‘Don’t worry, we are watching the hate groups’
and things like this. You know what they do? They create
the very hate they purport to try to erase!’ (About Hate)
It is the very critique of racism as a form of hate, which
becomes seen as the conditions of production for hate; the
‘true’ hated group is the white groups who are, out of love,
seeking to defend the nation against others, who threaten
to ‘steal’ the nation away.

2. It is important to track the cultural significance of this

use of ‘love’ within fascist groups. What does that lan-
guage of love do? How does it work? Psychoanalysis has
long shown us the ambivalence of love and hate. But the
re-presentation of hate groups as love groups does not
make explicit such ambivalence. On the contrary, the nar-
ratives work through conversion: hate is re-named as love,
a re-naming that ‘conceals’ the ambivalence that it exer-
cises (we love rather than hate). The conversion of hate into
love allows the groups to associate themselves with ‘good
feeling’ and ‘positive value’. Indeed, such groups become
the one’s concerned with the well-being of others; their

266
 SARA AHMED

project becomes redemptive, or about saving loved others.

These groups become defined as a positive in the sense of
fighting others, and in the name of others. The narrative
suggests that it is this ‘forness’ that makes ‘against-ness’
necessary. Hence those who identify hate groups, as hate
groups are shown as failing to protect the bodies of those
whose love for the nation becomes a condition of vul-
nerability and exposure. By being against those who are
for the nation (anti-racists, anti-fascists, etc.), such critics
can only be against the nation; they can only be against
love. The critics of hate groups become defined as those
who hate; those who act out of a sense of ‘anti-ness’ or
‘against-ness’ and thus those who not only cannot protect
the bodies of white Americans from crimes, but re-enact
such crimes in the use of the language of hate. We might
note then the slide from the crimes against white peo-
ple committed by unnamed others (‘170 million crimes
committed’) to the crimes committed by Hatewatch (‘they
steal what they can’) in this narrative.

3. The re-naming of hate groups as love groups, and Hate

Watch as Love Watch, exercises a narrative of love as pro-
tection by identifying white subjects as already at risk
from the very presence of others. Love does not only en-
ter such narratives as a sign of being-for-others as a way
of being for the nation, but also becomes a property of a
particular kind of subject. Love, that is, reproduces the
collective as ideal through producing a particular kind
of subject whose allegiance to the ideal makes it an ideal
in the first place. There have been a proliferation of ‘hate
group’ websites written by and for women, which argue

267
 IN THE NAME OF LOVE

that women have a particular role in the defence of the

nation. This feminisation of fascism is significant (see
Bacchetta and Power 2002). One particular website in-
cludes a post by the former Women’s Director of the
World Church of the Creator, ‘Lessons from the death of
Princess Diana’, which suggests that:

The second lesson we have to learn, I believe, is the power

a woman can have. Women represent nurturing, LOVE,
reaching out, touching, bridging a gap, caring for children,
and bringing a gentle, diplomatic approach to the prob-
lems at hand… I mean the love borne of deep racial pride,
willing to fight and die, but also willing to share a smile,
shake a hand, stroke the hair of a young Aryan child. We
need beautiful Aryan women, who can move among the
people, speaking, entreating, and LOVING them.

4. Love becomes a sign of respectable femininity, and of

maternal qualities narrated as the capacity to touch and be
touched by others. The reproduction of femininity is tied
up with the reproduction of the national ideal through
the work of love. Importantly, then, love relationships
are here about ‘reproducing’ the race; the choice of love-
object is a sign of the love for the nation. In this posting
Princess Diana as ‘a woman of such racial beauty and pu-
rity’ is condemned for her relations with ‘non-Aryan men’.
Such a narrative not only confirms heterosexual love as
an obligation to the nation, but also constitutes mixed-
race relationships as a sign of hate, as a sign of a willing-
ness to contaminate the blood of the race. Making the
nation is tied to making love in the choice of an ideal other

268
 SARA AHMED

(different sex/same race), who can allow the reproduction

of the nation as ideal in the form of the future generation
(the white Aryan child).

5. In this paper, I examine how love becomes a way of

bonding with others in relation to an ideal, which takes
shape as an effect of such bonding. Love is crucial to how
individuals become aligned with collectives through their
identification with an ideal, an alignment that relies on
the existence of others who have failed that ideal. There
are of course many types of love (familial, friendship,
erotic). My concern is not to define ‘what is love’ or to map
the relation between these different kinds of love. Rather,
I want to consider how the pull of love towards anoth-
er, who becomes an object of love, can be transferred to-
wards a collective, expressed as an ideal or object. I do not
want to suggest a one-way relation of transference (when
love for a particular other comes to ‘stand for’ the collec-
tive, or when our love for a collective ‘stands in’ for love
for a particular other). Rather, I want to examine how love
moves us ‘towards’ something in the very delineation of
what it is that is loved; the direction of ‘towardness’ is
sustained through the ‘failure’ of love to be returned. So,
we can ask: what are we doing when we do something in
the name of love? Why is it assumed to be better to do ‘the
same thing’ if it is done out of love?

6. Indeed, of all the emotions, love has been theorised as

being upmost crucial to the social bond. More specifical-
ly, love has been theorised as central to politics and the
securing of social hierarchy. Love has been understood

269
 IN THE NAME OF LOVE

as necessary to the maintenance of authority, in the sense

that the love of ‘the leader’ is what allows consent and
agreement to norms and rules that do not and cannot
guarantee the well-being of subjects and citizens. As
Renata Salecl (1998 :16) asks: ‘How does it happen that
people subordinate themselves to the logic of the institu-
tion and obey all kinds of social ritual that are supposedly
against their well-being?’ The crucial paradigm is the love
that the child has for the parent within the context of
the familial, and how this love then gets transferred onto
other figures of authority. Or as Jessica Benjamin (1988 :5)
puts it: ‘Obedience to the laws of civilisation is first in-
spired, not by fear or prudence, Freud tells us, but by love,
love for those early powerful figures who first demand
obedience’. I also want to ask the question of how love is
crucial to the production of forms of subordination and
authority. However, I will not argue that the child-parent
love is simply transferred into love for authority or fig-
ures of authority. Instead, I want to think about love as
an investment that creates an ideal, as the approximation
of a character that then envelops the one who loves and
the loved (‘the collective ideal’). Whilst the love that the
child has for its caretakers is crucial, it will not then be
theorised as a primary love from which secondary loves
necessarily follow. My argument about the role of love
in shaping collectives could seem rather banal or even
obvious; love, after all, has often been theorised as a
sticky emotion that sticks people together, such as in dis-
courses of fraternity and patriotism. But I want to make
a more complex argument, partly by thinking through
how love works in places where it has been seen as more

270
 SARA AHMED

benevolent, such as in discourses of multiculturalism.

Some attempts to critique discourses of racial purity — of
narcissistic whiteness — are about finding a love that does
not assume love for one’s own kind and which does not
lead to hatred for others. But does multicultural love work
to expand love to include others? Or does this expansion
require the other others to fail an ideal?

IDENTIFICATION AND IDEALISATION

7. In order to examine how love for difference can still

involve processes of idealisation we can turn to Freud-
ian psychoanalysis. Freud offers a theory of love by dif-
ferentiating between anaclitic and narcissistic love. In
the former, the self is the primary object of love, and
in the latter, external objects are the primary objects of
love. Whilst love is seen as in the first instance narcissis-
tic — the child’s own body is the source of love — for men,
love is assumed to mature into object love, whilst wom-
en are assumed to remain narcissistic (1934 : 45–46). The
economy for this differentiation is heterosexual: woman’s
narcissism involves a desire to be loved (to love the love
that is directed towards them), while for men, they love
to love women who love themselves. The sexual relation
becomes a love relation in which the woman becomes
the object of her love and the man’s love. I will not en-
gage here with the question of whether this describes or
prescribes a heterosexist economy, although I will turn
in due course to the heterosexual logic of the couple that
organises this distinction. I want to examine this distinc-
tion between self-love and object love, which can also be

271
 IN THE NAME OF LOVE

described in terms of a distinction between identification

(love as being) and idealisation (love as having).

8. In Freud’s account, identification is the earliest expres-

sion of an emotional tie with another person. As he de-
scribes it, ‘A little boy will exhibit a special interest in his
father; he would like to grow like him and be like him,
and take his place everywhere’ (Freud 1922 :60). In the
first place, the boy’s identification with the father creates
an ideal: his ego ideal. This is the subject the ego would
like to be. We should not assume here a linear movement,
from love to identification (as in the formulation: we iden-
tify with those we love). Rather, identification is a form of
love; it is an active kind of loving, which moves or pulls
the subject towards another. Identification involves the
desire to get closer to others by becoming like them. Be-
coming like them obviously requires not being them in
the first place. So it is thus that identification exercises a
distinction between the subject and object of love. At the
same time, identification seeks to undo the very distinc-
tion that it requires: in becoming more like you, I seek
to take your place. But taking the place of the one that
is loved is futural: if one was already in their place, then
one would not be identifying with them, one would be
them. So then, identification is the desire to take a place
where one is not yet. As such, identification expands the
space of the subject: it is a form of love that tells the subject
what it could become in the very intensity of its direction
towards another (love as ‘towardness’). Identification in-
volves making likeness rather than being alike; the subject
becomes ‘like’ the object or other only in the future. The

272
 SARA AHMED

other’s death is imagined in the desire to take the other’s

place only insofar as the other is living in the present.

9. But what is the relation between the boy’s identifi-

cation with the father and his anaclitic love, his love of
women as his ideal objects? His secondary love is the love
for the mother, for what is ‘not him’: such love works as
a form of idealisation and is based on a relation of hav-
ing rather than being. Importantly, identification with
the father and idealisation of the mother do not take the
masculine subject to a different place: the love for the
mother is a means by which the identification with the
father is performed (one desires what he desires), even
if it renders that love ambivalent in its claim to posses-
sion. What is at stake then, is the apparent separation of
being and having in terms of objects, but their contiguity
in terms of subject position: in order to be him, I must have
her, whom he has. In other words, identification with the
father requires dis-identification with the mother (I must
not be her), and desire for the mother (I must have her, or
one who can stand in for her). The heterosexual logic of
this separation of being from having is clear. In order to
approximate the ego ideal, to paraphrase Judith Butler, I
must desire an ideal object that is ‘not me’ in the sense
of ‘not my gender’, whilst I must become ‘my gender’ by
giving up the possibility of taking ‘my gender’ as a love
object (Butler 1997 : 25).

10. The distinction between identification and desire re-

lates to the distinction between sameness and difference:
for the heterosexual subject, I identify with what is ‘like

273
 IN THE NAME OF LOVE

me’ and desire what is ‘different to me’. The assumption

here is that heterosexuality is love for difference and ho-
mosexuality is love for sameness. We can complicate this
narrative by re-thinking the relation between identifi-
cation and desire, which are not about the nature of the
subject or object that one seeks to approximate in rela-
tions of being and having. Just as identification leads to
the formation of an ego ideal, so too does desire create an
ideal object. As Freud argues, desire for an object, which
becomes the ideal object, is not determined by the nature
of the object. However, Freud’s rejection of the nature
of the object as determining love still presumes the pri-
mary role of the object in idealisation; he differentiates
idealisation from sublimation and describes the former
as the over-valuation or exaltation of the object (1934:50).
But is the object that which is over-valued? Irving Singer
also makes the ‘evaluative’ aspects of love crucial to his
definition of love. He argues that love is a way of valuing
something, such that: ‘it is the valuing alone that makes
the value’ (1984:5). In this way, love creates the ideality of
the object, but this ideality does not ‘stay with’ but instead
‘returns’ to the subject.

11. The investment in the ideal object may work to ac-

cumulate value for the subject. An investment involves
the time and labour that is ‘spent’ on something, which
allows that thing to gain value or an affective quality (in
this case, the ‘loveable object’). The idealisation of the ob-
ject is not ‘about’ the object, or even directed to the object,
but is an effect of the ego. That is, the ideal object, as with
the ego ideal, is an effect of the ideal image that the subject

274
 SARA AHMED

has of itself, in which it is invested. Renata Salecl speaks

to this fit between the ego ideal and the ideal object when
she says:

The subject simultaneously posits the object of his or

her love in the place of the Ego Ideal, from which the
subject would like to see him- or herself in a likeable
way. When we are in love, the love object placed in the
Ego Ideal enables us to perceive ourselves in a new
way — compassionate, lovable, beautiful, decent, etc.
(1998:13).

12. The subject and the object are hence tied up such that
identification and desire, whilst separated by a hetero-
sexual logic (you can’t be a man and love a man, or be a
woman and love a woman) are connected in their relation
to ‘an ideal’ (what is imagined as loveable or as having
value). The ideal joins rather than separates the ego and
the object; what one ‘has’ elevates what one ‘is’. One con-
sequence of this argument would be a re-definition of
anaclitic love as a sublimated form of narcissism: rather
than the male lover being humble, in Freud’s terms (1934:
55), his exaltation of his beloved is a means of self-exal-
tation, in which the ‘object’ stands in for the subject, as a
sign of its worth. As Julia Kristeva suggests, ‘The lover is
a narcissist with an object’ (1987 :33).

13. So the idealisation of the loved object can allow the

subject to be itself in or through what it has. The sub-
ject approximates an ideal through what it takes as its
loved object. I want to suggest that idealisation may also

275
 IN THE NAME OF LOVE

work as the ‘creation’ or ‘making’ of likeness: the lover

and the object approximate an ideal, an approximation
which binds them together. Hence it is not surprising that
heterosexual love may be structured around resemblance
and likeness, despite the conflation of heterosexuality
with difference. After all, heterosexuality can itself be
a bond that two share in common. The normative confla-
tion of hetero-sex with reproduction means that bond is
structured around the desire to ‘reproduce well’, which is
presented around a fantasy of ‘making likeness’ by seeing
one’s features reflected back by others, whose connection
to me is then confirmed (the question that is always ad-
dressed: who does the child look like?). We may search for
signs of likeness on the body. But likeness may also be an
effect of proximity. For example, we can reflect on how
the lovers adoption of each other’s habits and gestures,
becoming more alike as an effect of desire. As Ben-Ze’ev
describes, ‘The desire to be with the beloved often be-
comes a desire to fuse with the beloved and in a sense to
lose one’s identity. Lovers begin to develop similar likes
to those of their partners; for example, to enjoy music to
which they were previously indifferent…’ (2000 : 415; see
also Borch-Jacobsen 1988 : 86).

Within narratives of familial love, proximity in a spatial

sense, as an effect of contact, becomes collapsed with
proximity as an ideological position (‘we are alike on
grounds of character, genetics or belief — this likeness
become an ‘inheritance’), which is crucial to the naturali-
sation of heterosexual love as a familial plot. At the same
time, the transformation of proximity into inheritance is

276
 SARA AHMED

concealed by the very narrative of heterosexuality as a

love for difference, a concealment which projects same-
ness onto homosexual love and transforms that very
sameness into both perversion and pathology. Commen-
tators such as Michael Warner have critiqued the confla-
tion of homosexuality and sameness (1990: 202), and the
way in which this establishes heterosexuality as norma-
tive. I am supplementing this critique by suggesting that
heterosexuality cannot be assumed to be ‘about’ differ-
ence or love for difference. The distinction between same-
ness as that which structures homosexual love, and dif-
ference as that which structures heterosexual love needs
questioning on both sides of the distinction. The Freud-
ian model idealises heterosexuality as love-for-difference
by transforming homosexuality into a failure to love dif-
ference, which conceals the ongoing (psychic and social)
investment in the reproduction of heterosexuality.

14. The distinction of love-as-having from love-as-being

works then to secure a restricted domain of loveable sub-
jects, through the very imperative to idealise some objects and
not others, whose ideality ‘returns’ to me. That is, the im-
perative to identify with the one who is nearby — where
proximity is assumed to be a sign of resemblance that is
‘inherited’ — also functions as an imperative to have the
objects that the subject one loves is assumed to love. The
need for approval of a love object from someone with
whom one already identifies shows how value ‘can be
bestowed’ only through others, such that the ‘bond’ of
love leads me to others. If the object becomes ideal only
through approval by loved others; idealisation creates

277
 IN THE NAME OF LOVE

both likeable subjects and loveable objects (see Benjamin

1995). The restriction of ideal objects involves a process
of identification. In identifying myself with you, for ex-
ample, I also de-limit who I can love in the sense that I
imagine who would be loved by the subject that I would
be if I was you. In other words, I ask: who or what would
my ideal idealise? The question shows us that relations of
having follow from relations of being, even if they take
different objects.

15. Within the narrative of love discussed in my opening,

identifying oneself as a white woman and as a white Ary-
an would mean loving not just men, or even white men,
but white men who also identify as Aryan, who can return
the idealised image of whiteness back to oneself. To love and
to be loved is here about fulfilling one’s fantasy image of
‘who one would like to be’ through who one ‘has’. Such
a love is about making future generations in the image
I have of myself and the loved other, who together can
approximate a ‘likeness’, which can be bestowed on future
generations. Within this economy, the imperative to love
becomes an imperative to extend the ‘ideal’ that I seek to
have and to be onto others, who ‘can’ return this ideal to
me. It is clear from the extension of self in love, or the way
in which love orients the subject towards some others
(and away from other others), how easily love for another
slides into love for a group, which is already constituted
in terms of likeness.

278
 SARA AHMED

THE NATIONAL IDEAL

16. In Group Psychology, Freud offers a theory of how love

is crucial to the formation of group identities. Whilst
maintaining that the aim of love is ‘sexual union’, Freud
argues that other loves, whilst diverted from this aim,
share the same libidinal energy that pushes the subject
towards the loved object (1922 : 38). For Freud, the bond
between a group relies on the transference of love to the
leader, whereby the transference becomes the ‘common
quality’ of the group (1922 : 66). Another way of saying
this would be to say that groups are formed through their
shared orientation towards an object. More specifically,
groups are formed when ‘individuals… have substitut-
ed one and the same object for their ego ideal and have
consequently identified themselves with one another in
their ego’ (1922, 80, emphasis Freud’s). Now, it is here that
Freud complicates the relation between identification and
object choice, by showing how one form of love can be-
come the other. In particular, he points to how the ego
can assume the characteristics of the lost object of love
through introjection (Freud 1922 : 64).

17. In other words, the loss of the object is compensat-

ed for by ‘taking on’ the quality of the object. Mourning
and grief hence become an expression of love; love an-
nounces itself most passionately when faced with the
loss of the object. Love has an intimate relation to grief
not only through how the subject responds to the lost
object, but also by which losses are admitted as losses
in the first place. If a subject can imagine that the person

279
 IN THE NAME OF LOVE

who was lost ‘could have been me’, then the grief of others
can also become my grief. This ‘could have been-ness’ is
a judgement over whether others approximate the ideals
that I have already taken to be ‘mine’ or ‘ours’. So, there is
an intimate relation between lives that are imagined as
‘grievable’, in Judith Butler’s (2002) terms, and those that
are imagined as loveable and liveable in the first place.

18. Indeed, the impossibility that love can reach its object
may also be what makes love powerful as a narrative. At
one level, love comes into being as a form of reciproc-
ity; the lover wants to be loved back, wants their love
returned (Singer 1984 : 6). At another level, love survives
the absence of reciprocity in the sense that the pain of
not being loved in return — if the emotion ‘stays with’
the object to which it has been directed — confirms the
negation that would follow from the loss of the object.
Even though love is a demand for reciprocity, it is also an
emotion that lives with the failure of that demand often
through an intensification of its affect (so, if you do not
love me back, I may love you more as the pain of that
non-loving is a sign of what it would mean not to have
this love).

19. We can see then how love may work to stick others to-
gether in the absence of the loved object, even when that
object is ‘the nation’. Love may be especially crucial in
the event of the failure of the nation to deliver its prom-
ise for the good life. So, the failure of the nation to ‘give
back’ the subject’s love works to increase the investment
in the nation. The subject ‘stays with’ the nation, despite

280
 SARA AHMED

the absence of return and the threat of violence, as leaving

would mean recognising that the investment of national
love over a lifetime has brought no value. One loves the
nation, then, out of hope and with nostalgia for how it
could have been. One keeps loving rather than recognis-
ing that the love that one has given has not and will not
ever be returned.

20. We could even think of national love as a form of

waiting. To wait is to extend one’s investment and the
longer one waits the more one is invested, that is, the
more time, labour and energy that has been expended.
The failure of return extends one’s investment. If love func-
tions as the promise of return of an ideal, then the exten-
sion of investment through the failure of return works to
maintain the ideal through its deferral into the future. It
is not surprising that the return of the investment in the
nation is imagined in the form of the future generation (‘the
white Aryan child’), who will ‘acquire’ the features of the
ideal white subject. ‘The Aryan child’ here becomes the
object that is ‘put in the place of the ego ideal’ (Freud 1923:
80). National love places its hope in the next generation;
the postponement of the ideal sustains the fantasy that
return is possible.

21. If the failure of return extends one’s investment, then

national love also requires an ‘explanation’ for this failure:
otherwise, hope would convert into despair or ‘giving up’
on the loved object. Such explanations work as defen-
sive narratives: they defend the subject against the loss
of the object by enacting the injury that would follow if

281
 IN THE NAME OF LOVE

the object was given up. We can see this clearly in the ac-
counts of love in fascist web sites; the nation as loved ob-
ject has been taken away, and the ‘injury’ of the theft must
be repeated as a way of confirming the love for the nation.
In this instance, the fantasy of love as return requires
an obstacle: here, the racial others become the obstacle
that allows the white subject to sustain a fantasy that
without them, the good life would be attainable, or their
love would be returned with reward and value. Jacques
Lacan (1984) has shown us the way in which the fantasy
of love requires an obstacle in his reading of courtly love.
By providing the obstacle to national love, racial others
allow the fantasy that their love for the nation will be re-
turned. The failure of return is ‘explained’ by the presence
of others, whose presence is required for the investment
to be sustained. The reliance on the other as the origin of
injury becomes an ongoing investment in the failure of return.

22. But if the ideal is postponed into the future, as the

promise of return for investment, then how does the ide-
al take shape? Julia Kristeva examines the relation be-
tween the national ideal and ego ideal in Nations without
Nationalism, when she responds to the ‘problem’ posed by
immigration:
 First there is the interior impact of immigration, which
often makes it feel as though it had to give up traditional
values, including the values of freedom and culture that
were obtained at the cost of long and painful struggles
(why accept [that daughters of Maghrebin immigrants
wear] the Muslim scarf [to school]) (1993 : 36).

282
 SARA AHMED

23. The bracketed sentence evokes the figure of the ‘veiled/

Muslim woman’ who comes into play as a figure that
challenges the values that have become felt as crucial to
the nation (including the values of freedom and culture).
These values are what the nation can give to others. She
becomes a symbol of what the nation must give up to ‘be
itself’, a discourse that would require her unveiling in or-
der to fulfil the promise of freedom for all. Kristeva hence
concludes: ‘It is possible that the “abstract” advantages
of French universalism may prove to be superior to the
“concrete” benefits of a Muslim scarf’ (1993 : 47). Kristeva
suggests that the right to wear the scarf (with its mul-
tiple meanings) may give the Muslim women less than
the rights afforded by entry into the abstract idea of the
nation. By implication, the abstract includes everybody
as it is not shaped by the concrete specificity of bodies.
Others can become a part of the community of strangers
on condition that they give up visible signs of their ‘con-
crete difference’.

24. The argument moves from the national idea to a ‘na-

tional ideal’ via an analogy with the ego ideal. The ‘Mus-
lim scarf’ is not only ‘not’ the idea of freedom ‘won’ as the
freedom of the nation, but it also challenges the image the
nation has of itself: ‘That involves a breach of the national
image and it corresponds, on the individual level, to the
good image of itself that the child makes up with the help
of the ego ideal and the parental superego’ (Kristeva 1993 :
36–37). The trauma of the Muslim scarf for the French
nation is here like the trauma of ‘failing’ to live up to the
ego ideal. Hence the nation becomes depressed when it is

283
 IN THE NAME OF LOVE

faced with the scarf and this shame and depression is used
by the right-wing discourse of anti-immigration: ‘Le Pen’s
nationalism takes advantage of such depression’ (Kriste-
va 1993 : 37). According to this argument, the task of the
radical might to refuse to celebrate or even allow the scarf
as this would sustain the psychic conditions that enable
anti-immigration and nationalism to flourish. Kristeva
hence suggests that ‘a Muslim wish to join the French
community’ (1993 : 37) might require the elimination of
the source of national shame: the concrete difference of
the veil itself. The argument suggests that by eliminat-
ing the veil, which stands in for concrete difference, the
abstract national idea can be returned to an ideal that is
enlarged by the appearance of others.

25. However, the argument that the national idea is ab-

stract (and the difference of the Muslim woman is con-
crete) breaks down. The intimacy of the national idea with
an ideal image suggests the national idea takes the shape
of a particular kind of body, which is assumed in its ‘free-
dom’ to be unmarked. The ideal is an approximation of
an image, which depends on being inhabitable by some
bodies rather than others. Such an ideal is not positively
embodied by any person: it is not a positive value in this
sense. Rather, it accrues value through its exchange, an
exchange that is determined precisely by the capacity of
some bodies to inhabit the national body, to be recognisable
as living up to the national ideal in the first place. But other
bodies, those that cannot be recognised in the abstrac-
tion of the unmarked, cannot accrue value, and become
blockages in the economy; they cannot pass as French, or

284
 SARA AHMED

pass their way into the community. The veil in blocking

the economy of the national ideal is represented as a be-
trayal not only of the nation, but of freedom and culture
itself — as the freedom to move and acquire value.

26. Love for the nation is hence bound up with how

bodies inhabit the nation in relation to an ideal. I would
follow Kristeva by arguing that the nation is an effect
of how bodies move towards it, as an object of love that
is shared. Or more precisely ‘the it’ of ‘the nation’ as an
ideal or loved object is produced as an effect of the move-
ment of bodies and the direction of that movement (the
loved object as an effect of ‘towardness’). But, as a result,
the promise of the nation is not an empty or abstract one
that can then be simply filled and transformed by others.
Rather, the nation is a concrete effect of how some bod-
ies have moved towards and away from other bodies, a
movement that works to create boundaries and borders,
and the ‘approximation’ of what one can now call ‘nation-
al character’ (what the nation is like). Such a history of
movement ‘sticks’, such that it remains possible to ‘see’
a breach in the ideal image of the nation in the concrete
difference of others.

MULTICULTURAL LOVE

27. What happens when love is extended to others who

are recognised as ‘being different’ in their concrete spec-
ificity? In this section, I will analyse how multicultural-
ism becomes an imperative to love difference and how
this extension of love works to construct a national ideal

285
 IN THE NAME OF LOVE

that others fail (a failure which is read both as an injury

and disturbance). To do so, I will refer to the debates on
asylum, migration, and the race riots in the UK. It is im-
portant to acknowledge that within the UK, the nation is
imagined as an ideal through the discourse of multicul-
turalism, which we can describe as a form of conditional
love. The nation becomes an ideal precisely through being
posited as ‘being’ plural, open, and diverse.

28. As Renata Salecl suggests, the pleasure of identify-

ing with the multicultural nation means that one gets
to see oneself as a good or tolerant subject (see 1998 : 4).
This identification with the multicultural nation, which
shapes the ‘character’ of the multicultural subject, still
relies on the structural possibility of the loss of the na-
tion as object. The multicultural nation can itself be taken
away by the presence of others, who do not reflect back
the good image the nation has of itself such as intoler-
ant racist others (often conflated with the white working
classes, or fascist groups like the British National Party).
The nation could also be taken away by migrants or asy-
lum seekers who don’t accept the conditions of one’s love.
Identifying oneself as British means defining the conditions of
the love one can or will give to others. Indeed, multicultural-
ism — especially since 11 September — has been viewed
as a security threat: those who come into the nation ‘could
be’ terrorists a ‘could-be-ness’ that extends the demand
for the surveillance of others who are already recognis-
able as strangers (see Ahmed 2000). The national project
hence becomes: how can one identify the nation as open
(the national ideal) through the very conditions required
to inhabit that ideal?

286
 SARA AHMED

29. The new conditions require that migrants ‘must learn

to be British’; that is, migrants must identify as British by
taking ‘the nation’ as their object of love. This becomes
a matter of allegiance and adherence: of sticking to the
nation in the formation of the ego ideal: ‘New immigrants
will soon have to pass English exams and formally swear
allegiance to the Crown… The Home Secretary believes it
is crucial that newcomers to the UK embrace its language,
ethos and values’ (Hughes and Riddell 2002 : 1). Migrants
must pass as British to pass into the community, a form
of ‘integration’ that is imagined as the conditions for love.
Importantly, migrants must become British even at home:
Muslim women, in particular, have been asked to speak
English at home, so they can ‘pass on’ the national ideal
to the future generation. This ideal is not premised on
abstraction (the migrant is not asked to lose her body or
even her veil), nor on whiteness, but on hybridity as a
form of sociality, as the imperative to mix with others.
The others can be different (indeed, the nation is invest-
ed in their difference as a sign of its love for difference),
as long as they refuse to keep their difference to them-
selves, but instead give it to the nation, by mixing with
others.

30. The over-valuation of the nation as a love object — as

an object that can reciprocate one’s love — hence demands
that migrants ‘take on’ the character of the national ideal:
becoming British is indeed a labour of love for the mi-
grant, whose reward is the ‘promise’ of being loved in
return. As Bhikhu Parekh puts it:

287
 IN THE NAME OF LOVE

A multicultural society cannot be stable and last long

without developing a common sense of belonging
among its citizens. The sense of belonging cannot be
ethnic and based on shared cultural, ethnic and other
characteristics, for a multicultural society is too diverse
for that, but must be political and based on a shared
commitment to the political community. Its members
do not directly belong to each other as in an ethnic
group but through their mediating membership of a
shared community, and they are committed to each
other because they are all in their own different ways
committed to a common historical community. They do
and should matter to each other because they are bond-
ed together by the ties of common interest and attach-
ment. […] The commitment to the political community
involves commitment to its continuing existence and
well-being, and implies that one cares enough for it not
to harm its interests and undermine its integrity. It is
a matter of degree and could take such forms as a quiet
concern for its well-being, deep attachment, affection,
and intense love. (1999 : 4)

31. Love here sticks the nation together: it allows cohesion

through the very naming of the nation or ‘political com-
munity’ as a shared object of love. Love becomes crucial
to the promise of cohesion within multiculturalism; it
becomes the ‘shared characteristic’ required to keep the
nation together. Here, the emotion becomes the object of
the emotion. Or, more precisely, love becomes the object
that is ‘put in the place of the ego or of the ego ideal’ (Freud
1922 : 76). It is now ‘having’ the right emotion that allows

288
 SARA AHMED

one to pass into the community: in this case, by displaying

‘my love’, I show that I am ‘with you’. It is ‘love’ that the
multicultural nation idealises as its object: it loves love.

32. The ‘love for love’ is bound up with the making of com-
munity. Within the white paper, Secure Borders, Safe Haven:
Integration with Diversity in Modern Britain, integration is
defined as crucial to the making of community, under-
stood in terms of building ‘firmer foundations’ for na-
tionhood. Indeed, the forward to the report suggests that
‘confidence, security and trust’ are crucial to the possibility
that the nation can become an ideal object — ‘safe haven’
that is open to others, without being threatened by that
opening (Home Office 2002a : 3). As such, David Blunkett
suggests that ‘we need to be secure within our sense of
belonging… to be able to reach out and to embrace those
who come to the UK’. Here, the nation and national sub-
ject can only love incoming others — ‘embrace’ them — if
the conditions that enable security are already met. To
love the other requires that the nation is already secured
as an object of love, a security that demands that incom-
ing others meet ‘our’ conditions. Such conditions require
that others ‘contribute’ to the UK through labour, or by
showing they are not bogus asylum seekers; when such
conditions have been met they will ‘receive the welcome
they deserve’. The asylum system and discourse of citi-
zenship is justified on the grounds that it is only through
the intensification of the border that the nation can be
secured as an object of love, which can then be given
to others.

289
 IN THE NAME OF LOVE

33. The ideal constructed by multicultural love also in-

volves the transformation of heterosexuality into good
citizenship, and evokes the figure of the ideal woman.
Take the following quote from the Observer:

Genevieve Capovilla’s father is West Indian. Her moth-

er is Italian. And she is British. She has golden skin, and
soft, even features. She combs her hair into a healthy,
curly semi-afro. Her racial mix is ambiguous — neither
Afro-Caribbean, nor southern European. It is no sur-
prise to find that she is a model. She has the enviable
quality of looking as though she would be at home any-
where in the world. And her look is one that will be-
come increasingly familiar, and — in the worlds of fash-
ion and beauty — increasingly sought after… Genevieve
is the new English rose… At the turn of the twenty-
first century… England’s rose has become more of a
bronzed, burnished sunflower, equally at home in the
Arabian Gulf, the Caribbean or the South China Sea.
(Blanchard 2001 : 10)

This positing of woman as an image of the nation is not

new. As critics such as Anne McClintock (1995) have
shown us, this conflation of the face of the nation with
the face of a woman has a long history and points to the
gendering of what the nation takes to be as itself (the mas-
culine subject) through what it has (the feminine object).
The figure of the woman is associated with beauty and
appearance, and through her, the nation appears for and
before others. As the new English rose, Genevieve replac-
es Princess Diana as an ideal image of the nation. White

290
 SARA AHMED

skin becomes golden skin; blonde hair becomes a ‘curly

semi-Afro’. The idealisation of the mixed-race woman al-
lows the nation to accumulate value: as a model, her beau-
ty sells. The exoticisation of mixed-race femininity is also
not new, as Lola Young’s (1996) work on representations
of the mulatto in film demonstrates. What is distinctive
is how she gets ‘taken in’ by the nation: ‘the exotic’ comes
‘home’ through her bronzed appearance. As an ideal, she
will approximate the fantasy the national subject has of
itself: somebody who is hybrid, plural and mobile. She in
her ideality — ‘the new English rose’ — has acquired the
features of the national character, which fancies itself as
‘at home anywhere in the world’. The nation here can ‘be
itself’ — a hybrid, mobile nation that loves difference by
taking it in — precisely through the objects that it idea-
lises as its objects of love. Anne-Marie Fortier’s critical
analysis of multiculturalism, which also offers a reading
of this image of the mixed-race woman, attends to the
role of heterosexuality in the reproduction of the national
ideal. The object of love is an ‘offspring’ of the fantasy of
the national subject at stake in this ideal’. (Fortier 2001).

34. This ideal image can be described as ’hybrid white-

ness’; the nation’s whiteness is confirmed through how
it is incorporated and is ‘coloured’ or ‘bronzed’ by others.
Her ambiguity — ‘not quite the same, not quite the other’
in Bhabha’s (1994) formulation — becomes a sign of the
nation, and the promise of the future. This is not to say
that mixed-race heterosexual love has become a form of
national love. The mixed-race woman ‘appears’ as a fetish
object; her value resides precisely insofar as she is cut off

291
 IN THE NAME OF LOVE

from any visible signs of inter-racial intimacy. In other

words, the nation remains the agent of reproduction: she
is the offspring of the multicultural love for difference.

35. The nation here constructs itself as ideal in its capacity

to assimilate others into itself; to make itself like itself
by taking in others who appear different. The national
ideal is assumed to be reflected in the wishful and hope-
ful gaze of others: ‘millions of people hear about the UK
and often aspire to come here. We should be proud that
this view of the UK is held all around the world’. What
makes Britain ideal is hence also what makes it vulner-
able to others. A narrative of loss is crucial to the work
of national love: this national ideal is presented as all the
more ideal through the very failure of other others to ap-
proximate that ideal. Whilst some differences are taken
in, other differences get constructed as violating the very
ideals posited by multicultural love. A crucial risk posed
by migrant cultures is defined as their failure to become
British, narrated as their failure to love the culture of the
host nation. The failure here is the failure of the migrant
to ‘return’ the love of the nation through gratitude (see
Hochschild 2003 : 105). One tabloid headline after a fire at
a detention centre for asylum seekers reads: ‘this is how
they thank us’.

36. How are disturbances read as the failure to return

the conditions of national love? The race riots that took
place within the North West of England in 2001, were
understood to be a result of a failure to integrate or as
‘segregation’: ‘The reports into last summer’s disturbances

292
 SARA AHMED

in Bradford, Oldham and Burnley painted a vivid picture

of fractured and divided communities, lacking a sense of
common values or shared civic identity to unite around.
The reports signalled the need for us to foster and renew
the social fabric of our communities, and rebuild a sense
of common citizenship, which embraces the different
and diverse experiences of today’s Britain’ (Home Office
2002a : 10). On the one hand, the riots are read as a dis-
turbance that disrupt the national ideal precisely because
they reveal that love has failed to deliver its promise of
harmony between others. On the other hand, such an ac-
count becomes a demand for love, by suggesting that the
violence is caused by the absence of love as nearness and
proximity. Rather than segregation being an effect of rac-
ism, for example, it now becomes the origin of racism and
violence. In this way, the narrative assumes that proxim-
ity would mean harmony between others and the incorpo-
ration of others into a national ideal. The narrative goes
something like this: if only we were closer we would be as one.

37. The report into the race riots, Community Cohesion,

makes integration into a national ideal. While it suggests
there is nothing wrong with people choosing ‘to be close
to others like themselves’ (Home Office 2002b : 12), it then
concludes: ‘We cannot claim to be a truly multi-cultural
society if the various communities within it live, as Can-
tle puts it, a series of parallel lives which do not touch at
any point’ (Home Office 2002b : 13). This narrative projects
sameness onto ‘ethnic minority’ communities in order to
elevate the national ideal into a love for difference. Dif-
ference becomes an ideal by being represented as a form

293
 IN THE NAME OF LOVE

of likeness; it becomes a new consensus that binds us to-

gether: ‘This needs a determined effort to gain consensus
on the fundamental issue of “cultural pluralism”’ (Home
Office 2003 : 18; emphasis added). The transformation of
pluralism into a consensus is telling. Others must agree to
value difference: difference is not what we would have in
common. In other words, difference becomes an elevated
or sublimated form of likeness: you must like us — and be
like us — by valuing or even loving differences (though
clearly this is only about the differences that can be taken
on and in by the nation, which will not breach its im-
age of itself). Hence the narrative demands that migrant
communities and working-class white communities must
give up their love for each other — a love that gets coded
as love-of-themselves, that is, as a perverse form of self-
love or narcissism — and love those who are different, if
they are to fulfil the image of the nation promised by the
ideal and hence if they are to be loved by the nation.

38. My earlier critique of the distinction between narcis-

sistic and anaclitic love has bearing here. We can now see
that the representation within the report works ideolog-
ically on two grounds; firstly, it conceals the investment
in the nation within multiculturalism (the nation turns
back on itself, or is invested in itself, by positing itself as
ideal). That is, it conceals how love for difference is also
a form of narcissism: a desire to reproduce the nation-
al subject through how it incorporates others into itself.
Secondly, the report works to conceal how ‘sticking to-
gether’ for minority communities involves an orientation
towards differences; it erases the differences within such

294
 SARA AHMED

communities by positing them as sealed and homoge-

nous — as ‘the same’ — in the first place. These commu-
nities are constructed as narcissistic in order to elevate
the multicultural nation into an ideal, that is, in order to
conceal the investment in the reproduction of the nation.
This positing of the national ideal requires the projection
of sameness onto others and the transformation of same-
ness into perversion and pathology.

39. In such a narrative, ‘others’, including ethnic mino-

rities and white working-class communities, in their
perceived failure to love difference, function as ‘a breach’
in the ideal image of the nation. Their failure to love be-
comes the explanation for the failure of multiculturalism
to deliver the national ideal. At the same time, the failure
of ‘ethnic minority communities’ to integrate — to stick
to others and embrace the national ideal — is required
to ‘show’ how that ideal is ‘idealisable’ in the first place.
Multiculturalism itself becomes an ideal by associating
the failure to love difference with the very origin of rac-
ism and violence. Rather than showing how segregation
might be a survival tactic for communities who experi-
ence racism, deprivation or poverty — and rather than
differentiating between the reasons why people might
not mix with others who have already constructed us
‘unlike’ by scripts of racism — this narrative defines seg-
regation as a breach in the image the nation has of itself,
and as the origin of violence. The narrative hence places
its hope in the integration of difference or in the very
imperative to mix.

295
 IN THE NAME OF LOVE

40. The implications of this narrative is that if migrants

or others ‘give’ their difference to the nation, by mixing
with others, then the ‘ideal’ would be achieved, and that
difference would be ‘returned’ with love. The promise of
multiculturalism is represented as a gift for the future
generation (the young mixed-race women); she may em-
body the promise of love’s return. At the same time, the
investment in multiculturalism gets intensified given
the failure of return: the multicultural nation becomes
invested in the presence of others who breach the ide-
ality of its image. They become the sign of disturbance,
which allows the ideal to be sustained as an ideal in the
first place; they ‘show’ the injury that follows from not
following the ideal.

41. In this paper, I have offered a strong critique of how

acting in the name of love can work to enforce a particular
ideal onto others by requiring that they live up to an ideal
to enter the community. The idea of a world where we all
love each other, a world of lovers, is a humanist fantasy
that informs much of the multicultural discourses on love,
which I have formulated as the hope: if only we got closer
we would be as one. The multicultural fantasy works as a
form of conditional love, in which the conditions of love
work to associate ‘others’ with the failure to return the
national ideal.

42. We cannot then equate love with justice. Justice is not

about learning to love others, let alone loving difference.
Justice is not about ‘getting along’, but should preserve the
right of others not to enter into relationships, ‘to not be

296
 SARA AHMED

with me’, in the first place. The other, for example, might
not want my grief, let alone my sympathy, or love. The
idealisation of the social bond quickly translates into the
transformation of relationship itself into a moral duty,
which others will fail. We saw this will with the ideali-
sation of multiculturalism as a social bond: ethnic minori-
ties and white working-class communities fail precisely
in their refusal ‘to mix’ more intimately with others. I
would argue that the struggle against injustice couldn’t be
transformed into a manual for good relationships, with-
out concealing the very injustice of how ‘relationships’
work by differentiating between others.

43. But having said all this, I am not ‘against love’, and nor
am I saying that love has to work in this way. Whether
it is the dizzy, heady and overwhelming feeling of love
for a lover, or the warmth and joy at being near a friend
who has shared one’s struggles, it is our relation to the
particular others that gives life meaning and direction
and can give us the feeling of there being somebody and
something to live for. A politics of love is necessary in
the sense that how one loves matters; it has effects on the
texture of everyday life and on the intimate ‘withness’ of
social relations.

44. We might note Kaja Silverman’s suggestion that the

problem is with ‘idealisation’ and not love. As she puts
it: ‘We have consistently argued against idealisation, that
psychic activity at the heart of love, rather than imagining
the new uses to which it might be put’ (Silverman 1996:
2). Silverman examines how the screen has (in her terms)

297
 IN THE NAME OF LOVE

colonised idealisation, by restricting ideality to certain

subjects (1996 : 37). Her solution is described in the fol-
lowing terms:

The textual intervention I have in mind is one which

would ‘light up’ dark corners of the cultural screen,
and thereby make it possible for us to identify both
consciously and unconsciously with bodies which we
would otherwise reject with horror and contempt’ (Sil-
verman 1996 : 81).

Silverman is asking that we learn to put ourselves

in the place of those who are abject (which does not
mean taking their place as we have already recognised
them as ‘unlike us’), whose lives are ‘uninhabitable’
and pushed out from spaces that define what means to
have a liveable life. Her vision is of ‘any-body’, includ-
ing those bodies who appear different in their concrete
specificity, becoming part of a community of lovers and
loved. But is such a community possible? I have sug-
gested that the idea of a world where we all love each
other is a humanist fantasy that informs much of the
multicultural and cosmopolitan discourses of love (if
only we got closer we would be as one). Such an ideal re-
quires that some others fail to approximate its form:
those who don’t love, who don’t get closer, become the
source of injury and disturbance.

45. Admittedly, Silverman’s vision is more complex than

this. It is a vision where one learns to love precisely those
bodies that have already failed to live up to the collective

298
 SARA AHMED

ideal. I am not sure how I feel about this solution. Part of

me questions the ‘benevolence’ of such good feelings and
indeed imagines benevolent intellectuals reaching out to
the poor, the dejected and the homeless and offering them
their love. Love is not what will challenge the very power
relations that idealisation ‘supports’ in its restriction of
ideality to some bodies and not others. In fact, ‘to love the
abject’ is as close to the liberal politics as is charity, one
that usually makes the loving subject feel better for having
loved and given love to someone whom is presumed to be
unloved, but which sustains the very relations of power
that compels the charitable love to be shown in this way.

46. I would challenge any assumption that love can pro-

vide the foundation for political action, or as a sign of
good politics. But what would political vision mean if
we did not love those visions? Am I arguing against a
visionary politics? If love does not shape our political vi-
sion, it does not mean we should not love the visions we
have. In fact, we must love the visions we have, if there is
any point to having them. We must be invested in them,
whilst open to ways in which they always fail to be trans-
lated into objects that can secure our ground in the world.
We need to be invested in the images of a different kind
of world and act upon those investments in how we love
our loves, and how we live our lives, at the same time, as
we give ourselves up and over to the possibility that we
might get it wrong, or that the world that we are in might
change its shape. There is no good love that, in speaking
its name, can change the world into the referent for that
name. But in the resistance to speaking in the name of love,

299
 IN THE NAME OF LOVE

in the recognition that we do not simply act out of love, we

can find perhaps a different way of orientating ourselves
towards others. Such orientations may be about inhabit-
ing forms of love that do not speak their name.

© borderlands e-journal 2003

About Hate: http://women.stormfront.org/writings/abouthate.html

Ahmed, Sara. 2000. Strange Encounters: Embodied Others in Post-
Coloniality (London: Routledge)
Bacchetta, Paola, and Margaret Powell (ed.). 2002. Right Wing Women:
From Conservatives and Extremists around the World (New York:
Routledge)
Ben-Ze’ev, Aaron. 2000. The Subtlety of Emotions (Cambridge, MA:
MIT Press)
Berlant, Lauren. 1997. The Queen of America Goes to Washington City:
Essays on Sex and Citizenship (Durham, NC: Duke University Press)
Bhabha, H.K., 1994. The Location of Culture (London: Routledge)
Blanchard, Tamsin. 2001. ‘Model of a Modern Briton’, Observer, 25, p. 10
Borch-Jacobsen, Mikkel. 1988. The Freudian Subject, trans. by Catherine
Porter (Stanford: Stanford University Press)
—— 1993. The Emotional Tie: Psychoanalysis, Mimesis, and Affect (Stanford:
Stanford University Press)
Butler, Judith. 1990. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of
Identity (New York: Routledge)
—— 1993. Bodies that Matter: On the Discursive Limits of ‘Sex’ (New York:
Routledge)
—— 1997. The Psychic Life of Power: Theories in Subjection (Stanford:
Stanford University Press)
—— 2002. ‘Violence, Mourning, Politics’, Feminist Theory Address,
University College London
Fortier, Anne-Marie. 2001. ‘Multiculturalism and the New Face of
Britain’, Lancaster University <https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/fass/
resources/sociology-online-papers/papers/fortiermulticulturalism.
pdf>

300
 SARA AHMED

Freud, Sigmund. 1922. Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego, trans.
by James Strachey (London: The International Psycho-Analytical
Press)
—— 1934. ‘On Narcissism: An Introduction’, Collected Papers, Vol. 4, ed. by
Ernest Jones, trans. by J. Riviere (London: Hogarth Press)
Hochschild, A.R., 2003. The Commercialisation of Intimate Life: Notes from
Home and Work (Berkeley: University of California Press)
Home Office UK. 2002. Secure Borders, Safe Haven: Integration with
Diversity in Modern Britain (London: Stationery Office)
—— 2002b. Community Cohesion: A Report of the Independent Review Team
<http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/docs2/pocc.html>
—— 2003. Community Cohesion: A Report of the Independent Review Team
<http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/docs2/comm_cohesion.html>
Hughes, David, and Mary Riddell. 2002. ‘Migrants Must Learn to Be
British’, Daily Mail, 7 February, p. 1
Kristeva, Julie. 1987. Tales of Love, trans. by Leon S. Roudiez (New York:
Columbia University Press)
—— 1993. Nations without Nationalism, trans. by Leon S. Roudiez (New
York: Columbia University Press)
Lacan, Jacques. 1984. Feminine Sexuality, ed. by Juliet Mitchell, trans. by
Jacqueline Rose (New York: W.W. Norton and Co.)
McClintock, Anne. 1984. Imperial Leather: Race, Gender and Sexuality in
the Colonial Contest (New York: Routledge)
Parekh, Bhikhu. 1999. ‘What Is Multiculturalism?’ <http://www.
indiaseminar.com/1999/484/484%20parekh.htm>
Salecl, Renata. 1998. (Per)Versions of Love and Hate (London: Verso)
Silverman, Kaja. 1996. The Threshold of the Visible World (New York:
Routledge)
Singer, Irving. 1984. The Nature of Love: Vol. 1. Plato to Luther (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press)
Warner, Michael. 1990. ‘Homo-Narcissism; or, Heterosexuality’, in
Engendering Men: The Question of Male Feminist Criticism, ed. by
Joseph A. Boone and Michael Cadden (London: Routledge),
pp. 190–207
—— 1990. Engendering Men: The Question of Male Feminist Criticism, ed. by
Joseph Boone, Michael Cadden (New York: Routledge)

301
 IN THE NAME OF LOVE

Wiegman, Robyn R. 2002. ‘Intimate Publics: Race, Property, and

Personhood’, American Literature, 74 (2002) 4: 859–55.
Young, Lola. 1996. Fear of the Dark: ‘Race’, Gender and Sexuality in the
Cinema (London: Routledge)

302
 AARON SCHUSTER

THE SEXUAL LIFE OF COMMUNISTS..

REFLECTIONS ON ALEXANDRA KOLLONTAI
AARON SCHUSTER

————

WE EVEN FORGOT TO KISS

There is a well-known story about Alexandra Kollontai

and her lover, Pavel Dybenko; though it is probably un-
true, at least I haven’t read it in an official biography. It
goes like this: soon after the October Revolution, while
Kollontai was a minister in the new revolutionary gov-
ernment, the couple disappeared for ten days. Some feared
counter-revolutionaries had kidnapped her; it turned out,
however, that they were on a lovers’ tryst. When she reap-
peared, Lenin was urged to call a meeting to publicly con-
demn her behaviour. He did so, and many people, whom
she thought of as friends, denounced her as a libertine
and worse.

At last, Lenin spoke — Lenin always spoke very quickly,

but in this case, he spoke slowly, giving weight to every
word: ‘I agree with all you said, comrades; I think that
Alexandra Michailovna must be punished severely; I
propose that she marry Dybenko’. Everybody laughed,
and the matter was closed.1

Born in St Petersburg in 1872, her father a military man

and her mother from an aristocratic family, Alexandra
Kollontai was radicalised in her early twenties when she
observed the horrible working conditions in a textile

303
 THE SEXUAL LIFE OF COMMUNISTS

factory. She dedicated herself to the revolutionary cause,

first as a Menshevik then later as Bolshevik. She and Lenin
became close during their time in exile; he sent her on a
trip to the United States where she gave over one hundred
speeches at various meetings and events, spreading the
message of communism. During the revolutionary days,
she was the one to deliver Lenin’s April Theses to Pravda.
She was the great Bolshevik feminist, the only female
member of the Central Committee, serving as the People’s
commissar for social welfare, and later becoming the first
female Soviet diplomat (in Mexico, Norway, and Sweden,
where she was eventually promoted to the post of am-
bassador). She was an activist, a revolutionary, a public
speaker, a writer (of non-fiction and fiction), a theoretician,
a politician, a diplomat, and a lover; in a sense her life
was a total artwork. She evaded the Stalinist Terror, being
abroad since the mid-1920s, and died in Moscow in 1952.
Dybenko was a sailor from peasant origins, who had been
active with the Baltic fleet in the Revolution, and was
made Commissar for Naval Affairs. She was forty-five, he
was twenty-eight; their age difference made them the tar-
get of gossip. The story of Lenin ‘sentencing’ them to mar-
riage aside, Dybenko and Kollontai were in fact married in
one of the first civil weddings in the Soviet Union. With
a contingent of sailors, the two stormed the Alexander
Nevsky monastery in an attempt to requisition it as a
home for war invalids; a priest was killed, but they failed
to seize the building. This got her into trouble with Lenin,
who was furious about her ill-timed attack on the Church.
The break between them would be even more severe a few
years later, when Kollontai actively supported the leftist

304
 AARON SCHUSTER

Worker’s Opposition at the 10th Party Congress, where

the infamous ban on secessionism was passed and the
Party consolidated its power.

So, why this rumour? Even if false, it points to two inter-

esting matters. First that Kollontai was a highly contro-
versial figure within the Bolshevik party, and her cham-
pioning of women’s and family issues and the cause of
sexual liberation earned her many slurs, gossips, and
rumours (including by Lenin himself). 2

She alone, among all the leading European Marxists of

that time, recognised sexuality as a crucial revolution-
ary theme. Following a long Russian radical tradition
dating back at least to Herzen, she raised awkward but
vital questions about sex and love, about how women
and men could share a natural eroticism in the context
of everyday life in a new society. In the face of wide-
spread scorn within her movement, from both male
and female comrades, she pursued these themes until
it was no longer permitted to her to do so.3

Second, the anecdote raises a real theoretical and practical

question: that of the relation of the couple to the collec-
tive. If we take the story at face value, was not Lenin right
to chastise Kollontai for abandoning her political post at
a crucial moment for her own egoistic enjoyment? Could
we read his ironical ‘punishment’, that she be sentenced to
marriage, not so much as an expression of Lenin’s sexual
conservatism, as an insistence that the relationship be
publicly and symbolically inscribed, that their affair is a

305
 THE SEXUAL LIFE OF COMMUNISTS

social matter and not merely a private one? Kollontai was,

in fact, highly sensitive to these concerns. ‘Modern love’,
she writes, ‘always sins, because it absorbs the thoughts
and feelings of loving hearts and isolates the loving pair
from the collective’. 4 This is even the best argument
against the story’s veracity: according to Kollontai’s own
moral code, she would never absent herself from political
life or abandon her work for the sake of a romantic affair.5
Indeed, Kollontai’s relationship with Dybenko presents a
model of l’amour engagé: ‘She lived out with him her idea
of ‘winged Eros’, sexual comradeship and shared service
to the cause.’6

In her Autobiography, she states the successful formula

for combining work and love as follows: ‘work and the
longing for love can be harmoniously combined so that
work remains as the main goal of existence’.7 For Kollontai,
the couple is not, or should not be, a closed intimate so-
ciety of two, a self-sufficient romantic unit that negates
from the world, but rather a vector for a greater and more
intense worldly engagement. Or at least, the new kind
of love that she advocates is one that does not compro-
mise the individual’s (especially women’s) work, struggle,
creativity, and freedom. ‘I have succeeded in structuring
my intimate life according to my own standards and I
make no secret of my love experiences any more than
does a man. Above all, however, I never let my feelings,
the joy or pain of love take the first place in my life inas-
much as creativity, activity, struggle always occupied the
foreground.’8 This should be spelled out a little further:
the logic of what Kollontai elsewhere calls ‘comradeship

306
 AARON SCHUSTER

love’ is not simply that work is more important than love

— a bourgeois injunction if there ever was one. Its aim is
rather to surmount the standard coordinates of the work/
love split. If you choose love over work, usually you lose
both: work is sacrificed, and the love you are left with
can only drown in devotion to the other (who likely no
longer respects you, precisely because you have given up
on your work). On the opposite side is the typically male
(artistic or philosophical) perversion where work is cho-
sen over love, in such a way that this work is intensified
and sustained by the very sacrifice of love: the attachment
to the love object persists, precisely as something lost and
impossible. While the reason for giving up on love is the
need to fully devote oneself to work, what is really need-
ed is the break-up as the subject’s tortuous ‘Thing’ that
returns in his work (see Kierkegaard and Kafka, and also
Socrates, in a different way — Socrates was the first to
pose the classic work/love dilemma: if Socrates does not
return the love of his admirers, especially Alcibiades, it is
because he only loves one thing: his work, i.e. philosophy
— which, cosmically speaking, is the greatest love of all).
Kollontai proposes a different solution: work must prevail
over love, but as the very condition for being able to love,
that is, for entering into intense affairs and relationships
which do not drown in intimacy or the jealous passion to
possess the other, but are ways of acting in and engaging
with the world. The moral is not simply that one must
learn to balance work and love, public engagement and
private life, but that the two can be brought together only
under the perspective of the former.

307
 THE SEXUAL LIFE OF COMMUNISTS

To give a different example of this, let us look at a pas-

sage from Svetlana Alexievich’s Second Hand Time, about
a young couple in the USSR.

In tenth grade, I had an affair. He lived in Moscow. I

went to see him, we only had three days. In the morn-
ing, at the station, we picked up a mimeographed copy
of Nadezhda Mandelstam’s memoirs, which everyone
was reading at the time. We had to return the book the
next day at four in the morning. Hand it off to some-
one on a train passing through town. For twenty-four
hours, we read without stopping — we only went out
once, to get milk and a loaf of bread. We even forgot
to kiss, we just handed the pages to one another. All
of this happened in some kind of fever, a stupor… All
because you’re holding this particular book in your
hands… Because you’re reading it… Twenty-four hours
later, we ran through an empty city back to the train
station; public transport wasn’t even running yet. I
remember the city that night, walking together with
the book in my purse. We handled it like it was a se-
cret weapon… That’s how ardently we believed that the
word would change the world.9

Might we see in this vignette of two lovers breathlessly

reading a secret book together, united in their faith in the
power of the word to change the world, a portrait of com-
munist sexuality? Instead of gazing into each other’s eyes,
their eyes are trained on a third thing, a book, which con-
nects them to the collective and the wider social universe.
The irony here is that this is a story of anti-communist

308
 AARON SCHUSTER

dissidence: Mandelstam’s memoirs, recounting her hus-

band Osip’s exile and death on the way to the gulag, cir-
culated in a samizdat version in the Soviet Union in the
1960s, and were first published in English in the West. If
we focus on the form of the relationship, however (not
knowing whether the couple’s politics will go in the di-
rection of liberalism, anti-Stalinist communism, or some-
thing else), we can discern three key elements: first, a
commitment to language, a belief in the power of words;
second, the focus on a third thing, a shared point outside
the couple, and third, the sexualisation of practico-criti-
cal activity itself. There is a curious detail in the story: the
couple was so excited by reading that they ‘forgot to kiss’.
Instead of saying that reading takes the place of sexuality,
one should make the more uncanny claim that, at that
moment, reading itself was the couple’s erotic activity. It’s
not that they read instead of having sex, but reading the
book together is sex (even better, it’s a forbidden book). In
Jacques Lacan’s discussion of sublimation, he underlines
that what is so provocative about the concept is not the
idea that sexual drives can be re-directed to non-sexual
(i.e. more socially acceptable) ends, but that it calls into
question the very nature of sexuality and the satisfaction
of the sexual drives: ‘In other words — for the moment,
I am not fucking, I am talking to you. Well! I can have
exactly the same satisfaction as if I were fucking. That’s
what it means. Indeed, it raises the question of whether
in fact I am not fucking at this moment. Between these
two terms — drive and satisfaction — there is set up an
extreme antinomy that reminds us that the use of the
function of the drive has for me no other purpose than

309
 THE SEXUAL LIFE OF COMMUNISTS

to put in question what is meant by satisfaction.’10 Simi-

larly, we could imagine one of our teenage Soviet lovers
saying: ‘For the moment, I am not kissing, I am reading
with you. Well! I can have exactly the same satisfaction
as if I were kissing.’

YOUR CORNEA
IS EXCELLENT

Another rumour: Kollontai is widely considered to have

been the inspiration for the title character of Ernst
Lubitsch’s Ninotchka (1939). One of the director’s finest
comedies, the film is about the unlikely romance between
Nina Ivanovna ‘Ninotchka’ Yakushova, a Soviet envoy
sent from Moscow to Paris to oversee the sale of precious
jewellery to raise money for the State, and Count Leon
d’Algout, a charming gigolo and kept man of the Grand
Duchess Swanna, a member of the tsar’s family who also
happens to be the previous owner of the jewels. Ninotch-
ka is played by Greta Garbo with her signature distance
and feminine mystique. She is intelligent, totally dedicat-
ed, and highly capable — unlike her bumbling comrades
Buljanoff, Iranoff, and Kopalski who nearly botch the
sale due to Leon’s clever manipulations and the hedonis-
tic attractions of Parisian life. But Ninotchka too is soon
thrown off balance by the charismatic Westerner and the
life he represents; eventually her cold Soviet exterior is
cracked and she falls head over heels in love with him.
The script was based on a three-sentence plot written by
Hungarian playwright and frequent Lubitsch collaborator
Melchior Lengyel: ‘Russian girl saturated with Bolshevist

310
 AARON SCHUSTER

ideals goes to fearful, capitalistic, monopolistic Paris. She

meets romance and has an uproarious good time. Capital-
ism not so bad, after all.’ On its face, Ninotchka is an anti-
communist comedy where the unfeeling, inhuman, but
sexy Soviet agent throws aside ideology and succumbs
to Western romance: communism defeated by love. But,
this being Lubitsch, the situation is hardly as simple as
that: the best jokes are actually directed against capital-
ists and aristocrats, and if there is a moral centre to the
film it is the proud Ninotchka who never abandons the
communist cause.

I want to focus on one of the seduction scenes between

Leon and Ninotchka. Leon has invited Ninotchka to his
apartment, where they engage in a sparkling, rapid dia-
logue.

LEON: Ninotchka… do you like me just a little bit?

NINOTCHKA: Your general appearance is not
distasteful.
LEON: Thank you.
NINOTCHKA: The whites of your eyes are clear.
Your cornea is excellent.
LEON: Your cornea is terrific. Ninotchka, tell me.
You’re such an expert on things. Can it be that I’m
falling in love with you?
NINOTCHKA: Why must you bring in wrong values?
Love is a romantic designation for a most ordinary
biological… or shall we say ‘chemical’, process. A lot
of nonsense is talked and written about it.
LEON: I see. What do you use instead?

311
 THE SEXUAL LIFE OF COMMUNISTS

NINOTCHKA: I acknowledge the existence of a

natural impulse common to all.
LEON: What can I possibly do to encourage such an
impulse in you?
NINOTCHKA: You don’t have to do a thing. Chemi-
cally, we are already quite sympathetic.

What image of sexuality is being depicted here? Note

that while the New Soviet Woman is portrayed as cold
and unromantic, she is not deprived of sexual feeling.
Ninotchka regards her seducer with scientific detach-
ment: she is studying Leon, just as she studies the engi-
neering marvels of the city of Paris. For her, this Western
playboy is a relic of a doomed culture and a representative
of an outmoded male subjectivity. ‘You are something we
do not have in Russia’, Ninotchka tells Leon, and after his
‘Thank you’ adds: ‘That is why I believe in the future of
my country.’ But even though she views him as an anach-
ronism, she is not unmoved by him. ‘Chemically, we are
already quite sympathetic’ she states, as if objectively
reporting on a factual situation. Assessing his physical
attractiveness, she pays him a compliment whose clinical
precision makes it hilariously out of place: ‘Your cornea is
excellent.’ Despite the good eyes, he does not see things
very clearly. Ninotchka experiences love as purely mate-
rial process, the chemical base stripped of its romantic
ideological superstructure. Love is a ‘natural impulse
common to all’. From this demystified perspective, she
looks on Leon’s seduction attempts with a certain irony.
It is as if she were telling him ‘No need to go through all
these motions, its unnecessary, wasted labour. Don’t you

312
 AARON SCHUSTER

know you’ve already won?’ There is something strangely

utopian in Ninotchka’s attitude toward sex. She is ful-
ly in control, uncompromised by her desire, which she
treats in a no-nonsense way, without embarrassment,
anxiety, or guilt: love is a natural need to be satisfied like
any other. (Moreover, does not Ninotchka’s chemical Eros
anticipate the postmodern attitude towards sexuality as a
matter of biochemistry that can be manipulated through
pharmacological means?). There is a line, often falsely at-
tributed to Kollontai, which Lenin comments on in his
conversations with Clara Zetkin: ‘You must be aware of
the famous theory that in Communist society the satis-
faction of sexual desires, of love, will be as simple and un-
important as drinking a glass of water. This glass of water
theory has made our young people mad, quite mad.’11 But
Ninotchka is not mad. If anything, she is uncannily sober.

In the course of the film, Ninotchka undergoes a conver-

sion: she falls for Leon, loses her self-control (signified by
her laughing), and is swept away by desire. The Lubitsch
touch is that this subjective transformation is condensed
by a peculiar object: the funny designer hat, shaped like a
funnel, that she sees in a luxury shop window upon arriv-
ing in Paris. At first the hat is a sign of capitalism’s doom.
‘It won’t be long now comrades’, Ninotchka pronounces
upon seeing it: any civilisation that wastes its produc-
tive energies on such decadent trifles must be on the way
out. Later on, she dons the very hat, thereby symbolising
the defeat of her rational utilitarian attitude by luxury,
excess, superfluity, the non-utilitarian ‘general economy’
of desire. But Leon too undergoes a conversion, as he

313
 THE SEXUAL LIFE OF COMMUNISTS

exchanges his Tsarist lady for a Bolshevik one. He starts

reading Marx, and (ironically) lectures his butler about
the class struggle. There is also an evident masochistic
bent to Leon’s love for this cool, distant woman, who, as
she recounts to him, once killed a ‘Polish lancer’ and refers
to him as a member of a soon to be ‘extinct’ class: Garbo
as a Soviet Venus in Furs. One of the most ingenious
scenes of the film takes place at a fancy nightclub, where
the lovers are enjoying a big night on the town, drinking
champagne and dancing. Lubitsch subverts the standard
romantic comedy set-up where one of the characters gets
drunk and does something transgressive, usually of a sex-
ual nature, thus creating a comical conflict. After a tense
exchange with the Duchess, Leon and Ninotchka take to
the floor and start dancing. Overcome with emotion and
alcohol, Ninotchka turns to her fellow ballroom dancers
and addresses them, ‘Comrades, comrades, good people of
France…’ then announces to Leon her intention to make
a speech and foment revolution against the Duchess. An
embarrassed Leon hushes her up, and sends her off to the
ladies’ room. But he is soon informed by the distressed
maître d’hôtel that his companion is ‘spreading commu-
nistic propaganda in the powder room’ and organising
the washroom attendants. What makes this scene so ef-
fective is that Lubitsch has put the desire for communism
in the structural place of sex. Labour organising and pro-
pagandising have the same transgressive punch as what,
in a more conventional film, would be accomplished by
sexually risqué behaviour; they have the form of a sex-
ual scandal. And here we get a very different view on
Ninotchka: it is not that she’s a kind of communist robot,

314
 AARON SCHUSTER

but deep down there is a warm capitalist romantic wait-

ing to break out. On the contrary: totally soused and out
of control, it is comradeship-love that comes bubbling to
the surface. This is Ninotchka’s deepest drive, her basest
id, and her truest passion. The covert message of the film
is: if you get drunk and let yourself go, if you overcome
your inhibitions, if your id is allowed to run wild, you
will be a communist.

WINGED EROS

In fact, the inspiration for Ninotchka was not Kollontai

but, most likely, Inge von Wangenheim. Lubitsch and
Gustav von Wangenheim were friends from their Berlin
days, where he acted in a couple of Lubitsch’s early films
(Wangenheim’s most famous role was as Thomas Hutter
in Nosferatu). In 1936 Lubitsch made a trip to Moscow
where he visited Gustav and his wife Inge, the couple
having fled from Nazi Germany in the early 1930s to the
Soviet capital.

Inge, a staunch Communist, served as a model for the

role of the Commissar, played by Greta Garbo. The
precision that Garbo displayed becomes apparent, for
example, in the famous kissing scene. For the heroine,
love can only be experienced as a chemical process.
That this form of feminine aspiration must lose against
the loving, lavish and irrational lifestyle of the male
bohemian was beyond question for Lubitsch. Inge von
Wangenheim must have left behind the impression that,
for them, progress in the Soviet Union was plannable

315
 THE SEXUAL LIFE OF COMMUNISTS

and well thought-out. Everything, really everything,

had to be submitted to this logic. Feelings should stand
back in favour of the one big thing. For Lubitsch, such
a mindset was ideal, as it provided the material for his
upcoming film.12

Apparently, Ninotchka’s Moscow apartment reproduced

that of the Wangenheim’s down to the last detail, with
the exception of a picture of Lenin substituted for that
of Stalin.13 Inge von Wangenheim’s ideological dedication
and rational ‘planning’ mindset informed Lubitsch’s por-
trayal of Ninotchka, who is clearheaded and efficient even
in matters of love. Kollontai, in contrast, never advocated
a chemical Eros, or a supposedly natural desire shorn of
sentimental ornaments and false romantic values. On the
contrary, she promoted a ‘winged Eros’, a love that would
fuse erotic passion and spiritual warmth, on the basis of
equality and solidarity in the struggle against domina-
tion — if there is a phrase that expresses what is at stake
in Kollontai’s winged Eros it is Nikolay Oleynikov and
Kirill Medvedev’s slogan ‘revolutionary aspects of radical
tenderness’.14 Indeed, Lubitsch’s Ninotchka is a parody of
Kollontai’s sexually emancipated woman, transforming
the female worker with her own ambitions and sexual life
into a centrally planned communist love machine. Even
further, this caricatural portrait opens the way for imag-
ining a properly Stalinist libertinism: a Stakhanovism
of love, not far from the workhorse ethic of the Sadeian
libertine, exceeding orgasmic productivity goals through
tireless erotic labour.

316
 AARON SCHUSTER

So, what did Kollontai argue? Kollontai’s writings present

a mixture of the realistic and the utopian, the practical
and the avant-garde. She worked for social reforms,
which were enacted in the Family Code of 1918 and
other legislation, including the first civil marriage law
(introduced in December 1917 — as I mentioned before,
Kollontai and Dybenko were married under this new
provision), a much simplified divorce procedure, equal
rights for women and men, the abolition of inheritance,
legalised abortion (passed on 19 November 1920), and
the decriminalisation of sodomy (in the Soviet Legal
Code of 1922).15 At the same time, her essays possess an
avant-garde spirit, calling not for a New Man but a ‘New
Woman’ (the title of one of her essays), who would effect
a ‘transvaluation of the moral and the sexual standards’
and bring into being ‘a new psychic structure’.16 In her
essay ‘Make Way for Winged Eros: A Letter to Working
Youth’, Kollontai offers a materialist history of love, in line
with Friedrich Engels’s The Origin of the Family, Private
Property and the State. Kollontai’s is an account of love as a
social and psychological phenomenon embedded in major
historical changes; love reflects and is formative of the
way society materially reproduces itself. She provides a
succinct summary of this history:

At the tribal stage love was seen as a kinship attach-

ment (love between sisters and brothers, love for par-
ents). The ancient culture of the pre-Christian period
placed love-friendship above all else. The feudal world
idealised platonic courtly love between members of
the opposite sex outside marriage. The bourgeoisie

317
 THE SEXUAL LIFE OF COMMUNISTS

took monogamous marital love as its ideal. The work-

ing class derives its ideal from the labour co-operation
and inner solidarity that binds the men and women of
the proletariat together.17

In ancient times kinship ties were paramount, and the

kind of love that was most highly valued was between
members of the same tribe. Antigone’s unswerving de-
votion to her brother, Kollontai argues, exemplifies this
kind of love tie, which would appear ‘highly curious’ to
bourgeois society.18 Feudalism introduces something
new: personal romance, in the form of the gallant love
between the knight and his chosen lady, which takes
place outside of the family. The desire for the sublime and
unattainable Lady inspires the knight to feats of valour
and heroism; this moral example served the interests of
the noble class, while containing the passions within a
certain framework (it is important that this love remain
unconsummated). Love and marriage, kept separate by
feudal ideology, are then united in the bourgeois era.
Bourgeois morality brings romantic love into the family:
marriage is now the expression of the love of the cou-
ple, which serves as the basic unit of capitalist produc-
tion. ‘The ideal was the married couple working together
to improve their welfare and to increase the wealth of
their particular family unit.’19 While condoning physical
pleasure and personal romantic choice, by confining love
to marriage bourgeois morality created a rich source of
emotional discontent. Finally, communism dethrones
the centrality of marriage in favour of the collective,
which becomes the new locus of love: ‘love comradeship’.

318
 AARON SCHUSTER

Solidarity and cooperation are the crucial values. The love

of the couple, no longer confined to marriage and the nu-
clear family, is triangulated with the proletarian class
building a new society (although Dybenko did manage
to convince Kollontai to marry him, against her ideolog-
ical commitments). ‘Winged Eros’ opposes the ‘wingless
Eros’ of ‘unhealthy carnality’, of the search for physi-
cal pleasure divorced from emotional entanglements
(Kollontai is sharply critical of prostitution). 20 In winged
Eros ‘physical attraction and emotional warmth are
fused’, 21 and ‘sensitivity, responsiveness, and the desire
to help others’ are also promoted. 22 Kollontai writes of
the complexity of the emotions and the many ‘shades of
feeling’ associated with love, and the need for openness as
to formal arrangements; she also calls for a radical reform
of emotional life to abolish the dramas attached to exclu-
sivity and ownership of the other. Here we encounter in
Marxist feminism a similar problem to that in psycho-
analysis regarding the end of the analysis: what would
be a desire not plagued by the same symptoms, the same
complaints, the same tiresome dramas? But also: how to
avoid, in the critique of prevailing norms and values, the
dogmatic reintroduction of new norms, or the (inevita-
bly oppressive) dream of an ideal synthesis? As Oxana
Timofeeva writes, ‘What will love be like under commu-
nism? How do we solve the problem of unrequited love,
infidelity, passion? Maybe [Kollontai’s] calls for a com-
radely love seem a bit naïve today, but she asked these
questions boldly, and no one has thought up any articulate
answers to them, yet — although we’re trying, right?’23

319
 THE SEXUAL LIFE OF COMMUNISTS

GAME LOVE..
OR A NEW FEMININE TRAGEDY

Kollontai leaves open the exact character of the erotic fu-

ture. ‘What will be the nature of this transformed Eros?
Not even the boldest fantasy is capable of providing the
answer to this question. But one thing is clear: the stron-
ger the intellectual and emotional bonds of the new hu-
manity, the less the room for love in the present sense of
the word.’ And then follows the line that I quoted near
the start of this piece: ‘Modern love always sins, because
it absorbs the thoughts and feelings of loving hearts and
isolates the loving pair from the collective.’24

Even though Kollontai does not specify the nature of the

coming communist Eros, she provides a suggestive path
for its cultivation. Cutting across her materialist histo-
ry of love, from ancient to feudal to bourgeois to com-
munist times, is another sort of amorous relation that
Kollontai, following the Austrian Jewish feminist Grete
Meisel-Hess, calls ‘game love’. Kollontai wrote a review of
Meisel-Hess’s The Sexual Crisis: A Critique of Our Sex Life,
which is translated in English as ‘Love and the New Mo-
rality’. In the last pages of the piece she focuses on a short
chapter of Meisel-Hess’s book titled ‘The Sport of Love’,
which discusses love as a fine art, a matter of refinement,
of play and cultivation. Examples of game love include
the hetaera of ancient Greece, the Lady sung in the poetry
of courtly love, the courtesans of the Renaissance, and,
Kollontai adds, ‘the erotic friendship of the “grizetka”, free
and carefree as a bird, and her “comrade student”’. 25 In all

320
 AARON SCHUSTER

these different forms ‘love was a sport pursued with a del-

icate art’. 26 Meisel-Hess describes how game love involves
a specific attitude or ethos, which is both light and free,
on the one hand, and deadly serious on the other. ‘Love
is a game — involving serious issues.’27 Game love should
not be understood as a frivolous diversion devoid of com-
mitment or engagement; on the contrary it requires a spe-
cial sensibility, a sense for the seriousness of play and the
truth of fiction that can easily lose its way.

So rare is the talent for love that those who should

enjoy this refined sport fail almost invariably in one
direction or the other. If they remain light-minded,
they degenerate either into horseplay or into obsceni-
ty. On the other hand, if they take love seriously, their
mood passes on into tragedy, and they make shipwreck
of their lives. The rich values of a mutual love-sport
remain for the most part unknown quantities. 28

Is this an example of Kollontai’s aristocratic background

at work? How could this emphasis on the fine art of love
have anything to do with communist Eros, with the sex-
ual life of the proletariat? It is interesting to note that
Lacan was also fascinated with game love, specifically its
feudal form known as courtly love, which he considered
to be a paradigm of sublimation. Again, rather than un-
derstanding sublimation as a healthy, socially sanctioned
outlet for sexual and aggressive impulses, Lacan reinter-
prets the Freudian notion in a much more subversive
way. According to Lacan, through sublimation within a
culture there is produced an exceptional space where the

321
 THE SEXUAL LIFE OF COMMUNISTS

tensions, contradictions, and conflicts normally repressed

by culture can come to light and be given an aesthetic
form. Sublimation brings into culture what can never be
fully reconciled with life in culture, with its rules and
prohibitions, and consensual reality; it reveals something
of the ‘discontent’ of civilisation, and shows how desire
is never fully captured by the order which forms it. Kol-
lontai’s historical materialist account of love in feudalism
contains much that is compatible with Lacan’s approach.
Where they especially agree is on the fictitious and hyp-
ocritical nature of courtly love, expressed very clearly by
Kollontai: ‘The knight who would not be parted from the
emblem of the lady of his heart, who composed poetry
in her honour and risked his life to win her smile, would
rape a girl of the urban classes without a second thought
or order his steward to bring him a beautiful peasant for
his pleasure.’29 Lacan similarly emphasised that courtly
love was not a ‘lived substance’30 but an artifice, a poetic
creation, precisely a ‘game love’. However, Lacan unlike
Kollontai, saw in courtly love something other than an
instrument of feudal ideology, which pointed to the re-
pressed truth of desire. In its hyperbolic praise of the
unattainable Lady, the poetry of the troubadours ex-
posed the asymmetry and non-reciprocity that lies at the
heart of all love relations. Kollontai argues that the novel,
which, in exploring the complexities and contradictions
of modern libidinal life, exploded the official bourgeois
ideology of marriage, later accomplished this kind of sub-
limation. The novel gave fictionalised expression to the
fact that love ‘could not be contained within the limits
set down by bourgeois ideologists’.31

322
 AARON SCHUSTER

Was not psychoanalysis itself the ultimate game love of

the bourgeois era, involving the love affair between not
the troubadour-knight and his cold, unreachable Lady, but
the neurotic and his or her equally silent and inscrutable
partner, the analyst? It even invented a new name for this
love: transference. Transference love, as Freud insisted, is
as real as any other romance, and yet it is also undeniably
fake, artificially produced by the analytic situation. It is
a game whose players wear masks and disguises, whose
rules are not immediately apparent, and whose final aim
has yet to be invented. If there is a goal to this game, it is
to discover the rules, which are secretly guiding and regu-
lating it, that is, the law of one’s desire. The analyst’s office
is an exceptional space where something that is normally
repressed can come to light and be given a new kind of
expression in language. If the troubadours were great po-
ets, specialising in the art of the amorous complaint, psy-
choanalysis too has its own form of poetry, produced by
the experimental technique of free association, in which
speech is maximally freed from the control of the ego and
the narcissistic desire for self-expression. Psychoanalysis
gave birth to the mangled poetry of the unconscious, the
troublesome complaint of the symptom (which is the neu-
rotic’s real partner). The game love of psychoanalysis has
three essential components: first, like the teenage lovers
reading Mandelstam’s memoirs, it demands faith in the
power of language: words have material consequences;
they can ‘change the world’. Second, psychoanalysis in-
vented a new perversion, the pleasure in free association,
which drives the process forward but also, bogs it down;
enjoyment is both the motor and the stumbling block of

323
 THE SEXUAL LIFE OF COMMUNISTS

analysis, and ultimately it is enjoyment which has to be

confronted, shifted, broken down. It is not enough to ac-
knowledge the efficacy of language without experiencing
how language is also a machine for enjoyment. Third, and
most peculiarly, psychoanalysis is perhaps the first love
relationship in history where breaking up is a sign of suc-
cess. It is a love that is not meant to last forever, but one
that should come to an end: analysis must terminate, even
if (or precisely because) it is ‘interminable’. If breaking up
is usually seen as the failure of love, in psychoanalysis
things are inverted. Here the break-up appears not as the
end and failure of desire but as its starting point, as the
position from which one can desire, as if for the first time:
psychoanalysis as an art of the rupture.

What, then, is the game love of communism? Kollontai

presents game love as a transitional phenomenon, a kind
of pedagogical instruction or amorous training involving
the reshaping of sexual mores and fantasies, leading to the
future realisation of winged Eros. As she writes, ‘To be
capable of “great love” humanity must pass through the
difficult “school of love” where the emotions are refined.
“Game love” is this school; it is the way for the human
psyche to develop its “potential for loving”.’32 This peda-
gogical aspect of game love is interesting: it shows that
love is not simply a natural or spontaneous impulse, but
something that must be learned, that requires a formation.
Human beings are stupid animals that need to be taught
how to love; in this sense, all love has an artificial char-
acter; it is socially and historically determined. This also
means that the rules, habits, and fantasies that inform

324
 AARON SCHUSTER

desire are up for contestation: there is class struggle in

the field of love. Conversely, a theory of love can also be
a theory of politics, and one way of understanding Kol-
lontai’s interest in game love is as a commentary on the
course of the revolution itself. Kollontai’s writings on
love ought to be read as a theory of revolutionary praxis.
Will the revolution follow the path of a tragic passion?
Could it degenerate into cynical games and obscenity?
Or will it be played with the right esprit, even with a
touch of delicacy and wit? ‘Love is either a tragedy that
tears the soul apart or it is a vulgar vaudeville’, Kollontai
writes.33 This dark assessment of the fate of modern love
contains a political diagnosis. There are two dangers that
threaten the revolution: either it can devolve into a trag-
edy that tears itself apart, eating its own children: a ter-
roristic ‘passion of the real’, to use Alain Badiou’s phrase,
or, as Lacan puts it, ‘I love you, but, because inexplicably
I love in you something more than you — the objet pe-
tit a — I mutilate you.’34 Or else it can degenerate into
‘vulgar vaudeville’, i.e. bureaucracy, where success in the
institutional machinery becomes an end-in-itself, subor-
dinating all other ends, projects, and ideals to its dreary
immanence. Bureaucracy is the masturbation of politics.
A winged revolutionary Eros must avoid both these
traps. If ‘a certain revolutionary “taste for drama” could
well be something of a problem’, in the words of Alenka
Zupančič, Kollontai’s game love, with its emphasis on the
reality of fiction, on the real not behind but within ap-
pearances, offers a political alternative to self-destructive
dramatic passion and cynical institutionalism.35

325
 THE SEXUAL LIFE OF COMMUNISTS

Kollontai’s speculations on Eros are provocative again

today. First, they stand in contrast to the popular line of
1960s sexual liberation movements. For her, the sexual
revolution is not simply a matter of emancipating de-
sire or eliminating the obstacles to its free expression.
Kollontai rather emphasises the moral rigor of the new
amorous regime: communist Eros will come with its own
morality and its own rules. ‘The ideology of the proletariat
rejects bourgeois morality in the sphere of love marriage
relations. Nevertheless, it inevitably develops its own
class morality with its own rules and behaviour.’36 Despite
the so-called ‘glass of water theory’, for Kollontai com-
munist sexuality is not a libidinal free-for-all but entails
its own commitments and constraints. Moreover, instead
of promising untrammelled enjoyment, communist Eros
gives rise to what Kollontai calls a new tragedy (and, we
might surmise, a new comedy). Kollontai ends her essay
on the ‘New Woman’ with this claim: ‘Woman, by degrees,
is being transformed from an object of tragedy of the male
soul into the subject of an independent tragedy.’37 How
can we better understand this new feminine tragedy? If
psychoanalysis is the game love of bourgeois civilisation,
it is because of the way it undertakes a critique of its libid-
inal fundaments and effectively politicises mental illness:
pathological symptoms are analysed as responses to the
repression, exploitation, conflicts, and contradictions that
constitute the capitalist psyche; psychoanalysis creates a
space within this culture for the subject to desire differ-
ently. But what if socioeconomic conditions were amelio-
rated, or at least significantly improved, and repression
to some degree lifted? Would the peculiar game love of

326
 AARON SCHUSTER

psychoanalysis lose its relevance? Or would a commu-

nist society also have its libidinal discontents? According
to Kollontai, the main achievement of comradeship love
will be to end the dominance of the property form in the
sphere of sexuality, so that women will no longer be treat-
ed as possessions and the objects of a jealous passion for
control. For Kollontai the question of sexual liberation
is inseparable from that of fundamental socioeconomic
change, which distances her position from that of many
feminists today. Her critique of the property form also
means that the ultimate horizon of her thought is not the
same as liberalism’s self-determination or consent, where
one treats oneself as one’s own property, free to dispose of
as one wishes as long as it does not infringe the freedom
of others. If one takes the criticism of the property form
seriously, it means not only that one cannot possess the
other, but also that one does not even possess oneself.
‘You don’t own me, and what is more, I don’t even own
myself!’ — this self-dispossession is the meaning of the
unconscious, and could serve well as the starting point
for thinking of a new female tragedy. This non-ownership
of the self is the radical implication of the critique of the
property form in love, and it would have to be developed
further, in all its consequences and difficulties (for exam-
ple, could one also play with the property form? could
mock ownership be part of the game?). One thing is clear:
the critical dimension of Kollontai’s thought goes beyond
the formal framework of the sexual marketplace to the
question of the nature of desire itself. This sharply differ-
entiates her from many contemporary activists and theo-
rists; however, it is also where Kollontai can appear rather

327
 THE SEXUAL LIFE OF COMMUNISTS

simplistic. Instead of seeing game love as the path to a

fully realised great love, it could be understood as a con-
tinually renewed space of experimentation, a transition
without end: permanent revolution in the field of love
(which need not entail a constant exchange of partners,
but rather signifies that there is no stable, harmonious
form of the sexual relationship, no prescribed end-point
where amorous education terminates). Twisting Kollontai
a bit, one could argue that the struggle against repression
and exploitation does not simply open the path to mature
and fulfilling love relations, but allows us to glimpse the
tragedy of love anew, with fresh eyes. Once the distor-
tions in Eros caused by social inequalities and coercive
power dynamics are ameliorated, what is revealed is not —
contrary to some of Kollontai’s own pronouncements —
a natural and healthy desire but rather the incomparably
greater distortion that is Eros. The programme for the
emancipation of sexuality should be: let us vanquish the
distortions in Eros in order to confront the distortion of
Eros itself.

Instead of trying to describe the nature of this future

love — a question ‘not even the boldest fantasy’ can an-
swer — I will conclude, more modestly, by proposing a
new signifier for it. There is perhaps no better term for
Kollontai’s ‘independent tragedy’ of the female soul than
the one invented by Clarice Lispector at the end of her
novel The Passion According to G.H. (some critics identify
the initials of the otherwise nameless female narrator
with ‘gênero humano’, or humankind, the universal sub-
ject — but what kind of universality is being advanced

328
 AARON SCHUSTER

here?). At the conclusion of her journey through mad-

ness and what is effectively her self-psychoanalysis, the
narrator states: ‘the world independed on me’.38 A strange
verb, both transitive and intransitive, made by twisting
(torturing?) language: neither a relation of dependence
nor a condition of autonomy and independence, what it
designates is a non-relation at the heart of the relation, a
disjunctive synthesis which, as Lispector adds, is a matter
not of ‘knowledge’ but of ‘trust’, i.e. of subjective engage-
ment, of faith in the power of words, even as they falter
and drift. What if ‘independing’ were the other side of
solidarity, of ‘collective joy’? What if, beyond jealous pas-
sion and the will to autonomy and self-control — the two
libidinal expressions of the property form — the lovers
were to independ on one another? What new tragedies and
comedies might this bring?

1 I am closely paraphrasing here the account given on Wikipedia

(which provides no sources for it): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Alexandra_Kollontai
2 For an account of her reputation, and the rumours that swirled
around her, see Barbara Evans Clements, ’Aleksandra Kollon-
tai: Libertine or Feminist?’, in Reconsiderations on the Russian
Revolution, ed. by Ralph Carter Elwood (Cambridge, MA: Slavica
Publishers, 1976).
3 Paul Ginsborg, Family Politics: Domestic Life, Devastation, and
Survival 1900–1950 (New Haven: Yale University, 2014), p. 5.
4 Alexandra Kollontai, ‘Make Way for Winged Eros: A Letter to
Working Youth’, in Selected Writings of Alexandra Kollontai, trans.
by Alix Holt (Westport, CN: Laurence Hill Co., 1977), p. 290.
5 The real basis of the story (recounted in a different version below)
seems to be a dramatic episode in Kollontai and Dybenko’s rela-
tionship. In March 1918, Dybenko was arrested for allegedly de-
serting his post on the front line against the Germans. Kollontai

329
 THE SEXUAL LIFE OF COMMUNISTS

made his bail. Then ‘Dybenko jumped bail and he and Alexandra,
without notifying anyone in the government, left Moscow to vis-
it Misha [her son from a previous marriage] in Petrograd. There
were rumours that several commissars wanted them both shot
for desertion, and this trip was most probably the source
of the rumour about their lengthy honeymoon in the Crimea;
Lenin claimed to have devised the most appropriate punishment
for them: they should be forced to live together for five years.
Their crime was not, after all so great’. Cathy Porter, Alexandra
Kollontai: A Biography (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2014), p. 302.
6 Ginsborg, Family Politics, p. 28.
7 Kollontai, The Autobiography of a Sexually Emancipated Communist
Woman, 3 <https://www.marxists.org/archive/kollonta/1926/
autobiography.htm>.
8 Ibid., p. 2.
9 Svetlana Alexievich, Second-Hand Time, trans. by Bela Shayevich
(London: Fitzcarraldo Editions, 2016), p. 240.
10 Jacques Lacan, The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis.
The Seminar of Jacques Lacan Book XI, ed. by Jacques-Alain Miller,
trans. by Alan Sheridan (New York: W.W. Norton, 1977), pp.
165–66.
11 Clara Zetkin, Reminiscences of Lenin (London: Modern Books,
1929 [1924]), pp. 57–58.
12 Laura von Wangenheim, In den Fängen der Geschichte: Inge von
Wangenheim Fotografien aus dem sowjetischen Exit 1933–1945
(Berlin: Rotbuch Verlag, 2013), p. 12.
13 Ibid., pp. 17–18.
14 One of the chapter titles of Nikolay Oleynikov et. al., Sex of the
Oppressed, trans. by Jonathan Brooks Platt (Guelph, ON: Publica-
tion Studio Guelph, 2016).
15 See Ginsborg, Family Politics, pp. 29–32.
16 Kollontai, ‘New Woman’, pp. 34, 21 <https://www.marxists.org/
archive/kollonta/1918/new-morality.htm>
17 Kollontai, ‘Winged Eros’, p. 288.
18 Ibid., p. 279.
19 Ibid., p. 284.
20 Ibid., p. 286.

330
 AARON SCHUSTER

21 Ibid.
22 Ibid., p. 289.
23 Oleynikov, Sex of the Oppressed, p. 98.
24 Kollontai, ‘Winged Eros’, p. 290.
25 Kollontai, ‘Love and the New Morality’, in Sexual Relations and
the Class Struggle & Love and the New Morality, trans. by Alix Holt
(Bristol: Falling Wall Press, 1972), p. 22.
26 Grete Meisel-Hess, The Sexual Crisis: A Critique of Our Sex Life,
trans. by Eden and Cedar Paul (New York: The Critic and Guide
Co., 1917), p. 126.
27 Ibid., pp. 128–129.
28 Ibid., p. 129.
29 Kollontai, ‘Winged Eros’, p. 282.
30 Lacan, The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book VII. The Ethics of Psycho-
analysis, 1959–1960, ed. Jacques-Alain Miller, trans. by Dennis
Porter (New York: Norton, 1992), p. 152.
31 Kollontai, ‘Winged Eros’, p. 284. Kollontai was herself a novelist;
Red Love and Love of Worker Bees are among her most well-known
works.
32 Kollontai, ‘Love and the New Morality’, p. 22.
33 Ibid., p. 24.
34 See Alain Badiou, The Century, trans. by Alberto Toscano (Cam-
bridge: Polity Press, 2007); Lacan, Seminar XI, p. 268. In fact, the
term ‘passion of the real’ was first employed by Lacan in Seminar
IX Identification.
35 Alenka Zupančič, What Is Sex? (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2017),
p. 135.
36 Kollontai, ‘Winged Eros’, p. 291.
37 Kollontai, ‘New Woman’, p. 35.
38 Clarice Lispector, The Passion According to G.H., trans. by Idra
Novey (London: Penguin, 2012), p. 189; emphasis added. In the
original Portuguese the sentence reads: ‘O mundo independia de
mim.’

331
 LETTER FROM A TRANS MAN

LETTER FROM A TRANS MAN TO THE OLD SEXUAL REGIME

PAUL B. PRECIADO

Translated from the French by Simon Pleasance

Caught in the crossfire of sexual harassment politics, I

should like to say a word or two as a smuggler between
two worlds, the world of ‘men’ and the world of ‘wom-
en’ — these two worlds which might very well not exist,
were some people not doing their utmost to keep them
apart by means of a kind of Berlin gender Wall. I want to
give you some news from the ‘found object’ position or
rather from that of the ‘lost subject’ — lost during cross-
ing.
 I’m not talking here as a man belonging to the ruling
class, the class of those who are assigned the male gender
at birth, and who have been brought up as members of the
governing class, those who are given the right or rather
who are required (and this is an interesting analytical key)
to exercise male sovereignty. Nor am I talking as a woman,
given that I have voluntarily and intentionally abandoned
that form of political and social embodiment. I speak as a
trans man. And I’m in no way claiming to represent any
collective whatsoever. I’m not talking, and cannot talk, as
a heterosexual or a homosexual, although I’m acquainted
with and occupy both positions, because when someone
is trans, these categories become obsolete. I’m talking as
a gender renegade, as a gender migrant, as a fugitive from
sexuality, as a dissident (sometimes a clumsy one, because
there is no trans user’s guide) with regard to the regime of
sexual difference. As a self-appointed guinea-pig of sexual

332
 PAUL B. PRECIADO

politics who is undergoing the as yet still to be themed

experience of living on both sides of the Wall and who,
by dint of crossing it every day, is beginning to be fed up,
ladies and gentlemen, with the stubborn rigidity of the
codes and desires which the hetero-patriarchal regime
dictates. Let me tell you, from the other side of the Wall,
that things are far worse than my experience as a lesbian
woman ever let me imagine. Since I’ve been living as-if-I-
were-a-man in a man’s world (aware of embodying a polit-
ical fiction), I’ve had a chance to check that the ruling class
(male and heterosexual) will not give up its privileges just
because we send lots of tweets or let out the odd scream.
Since the sexual and anti-colonial revolution of the past
century shook their world, the hetero-white-patriarchs
have embarked on a counter-reformation project — now
joined by ‘female’ voices wishing to go on being ‘impor-
tuned and bothered’. This will be a 1000-year war — the
longest of all wars, given that it will affect the politics
of reproduction and processes through which a human
body is socially constituted as a sovereign subject. It will
actually be the most important of all wars, because what
is at stake is neither territory nor city, but the body, plea-
sure, and life.
 What hallmarks the position of men in our techno-
patriarchal and heterocentric societies is the fact that male
sovereignty is defined by the lawful use of techniques of
violence (against women, against children, against non-
white men, against animals, and against the planet as a
whole). Reading Max Weber with Judith Butler, we could
say that masculinity is to society what the State is to the
nation: the holder and legitimate user of violence. This

333
 LETTER FROM A TRANS MAN

violence is expressed socially in the form of domination,

economically in the form of privileges, and sexually in
the form of aggression and rape. Conversely, female sov-
ereignty in this regime is bound up with women’s capacity
to give birth. Women are sexually and socially subordi-
nate. Mothers alone are sovereign. Within this system,
masculinity is defined necro-politically (by men’s right to
inflict death), while femininity is defined bio-politically
(by women’s obligation to have children). We might say
with regard to necro-political heterosexuality that it is
something akin to the utopia of the copulatory eroticisa-
tion between Robocop and Alien, if we tell ourselves that,
with a bit of luck, one of the two will have a good time…
 Heterosexuality is not only a political regime, as the
French writer Monique Wittig has shown. It has also a
politics of desire. The specific feature of this system is
that it is incarnated as a process of seduction and romantic
dependence between ‘free’ sexual agents. The positions
of Robocop and Alien are not chosen individually, and
are not conscious. Necro-political heterosexuality is a
practice of government which is not imposed by those
who govern (men) on the governed (women), but rather
an epistemology laying down the respective definitions
and positions of men and women by way of an internal
regulation. This practice of government does not take the
form of a law, but of an unwritten norm, a translation of
gestures and codes whose effect is to establish within the
practice of sexuality a partition between what can and
cannot be done. This form of sexual servitude is based
on an aesthetics of seduction, a stylisation of desire, and
a historically constructed and coded domination which

334
 PAUL B. PRECIADO

eroticises the difference of power and perpetuates it. This

politics of desire is what keeps the old sex/gender regime
alive, despite all the legal processes of democratisation
and empowerment of women. This necro-political het-
erosexual is just as degrading and destructive as were
vassalage and slavery during the Enlightenment. The
process of denouncing violence and making it possible,
which we are currently experiencing, is part and parcel
of a sexual revolution, which is as unstoppable as it is
slow and winding. Queer feminism has set epistemolog-
ical transformation as a condition making social change
possible. It called binary epistemology and gender nat-
uralisation into question by asserting that there is an
irreducible multiplicity of different sexes, genders, and
sexualities. But we realise, these days, that the libidinal
transformation is as important as the epistemological one:
desire must be transformed. We must learn how to desire
sexual freedom.
 For years, queer culture has been a laboratory for in-
venting new aesthetics of dissident sexualities, in the
face of techniques of subjectivation and desires involv-
ing hegemonic necro-political heterosexuality. Many of
us have long since abandoned the aesthetics of Robocop-
Alien sexuality. We have learned from butch-fem and
BDSM cultures, with Joan Nestle, Pat Califia and Gayle
Rubin, with Annie Sprinkle and Beth Stephens, with
Guillaume Dustan and Virginie Despentes, that sexuali-
ty is a political theatre in which desire, and not anatomy,
writes the script. Within the theatrical fiction of sexu-
ality, it is possible to want to lick the soles of shoes, to
want to be penetrated through every orifice, and to chase

335
 LETTER FROM A TRANS MAN

a lover through a forest as if he were a sexual prey. Two

differential factors nevertheless separate the queer aes-
thetic from that of the straight normativeness of the old
régime — the ancient régime: the consent and the non-
naturalisation of sexual positions. The equivalence of
bodies and the redistribution of power.
 As a trans-man, I disidentify myself from dominant
masculinity and its necro-political definition. What is
most urgent is not to defend what we are (men or wom-
en) but to reject it, to disidentify ourselves from the po-
litical coercion which forces us to desire the norm and
reproduce it. Our political praxis is to disobey the norms
of gender and sexuality. I was a Lesbian for most of my
life, then trans for the past five years. I am as far removed
from your aesthetics of heterosexuality as a Buddhist
monk levitating in Lhassa is from a Carrefour supermar-
ket. Your aesthetics of the sexual ancient régime do not
give me pleasure (don’t make me come). It doesn’t turn
me on to ‘importune’ anyone. It doesn’t interest me to re-
lieve myself of my sexual misery by touching a woman’s
ass on public transport. I don’t feel any kind of desire for
the erotic and sexual kitsch you’re offering: guys taking
advantage of their position of power to get their rocks
off and touch backsides. The grotesque and murderous
aesthetics of necro-political heterosexuality turns my
stomach. An aesthetics which re-naturalises sexual dif-
ferences and places men in the position of aggressor and
women in that of victim (either painfully grateful or hap-
pily importuned).
 If it’s possible to say that in the queer and trans culture
we fuck better and more, this is, on the one hand, because

336
 PAUL B. PRECIADO

we have removed sexuality from the domain of repro-

duction, and above all because we have freed ourselves
from gender domination. I’m not saying that the queer
and trans-feminist culture avoids all forms of violence.
There is no sexuality without a shadowy side. But the
shadowy side (inequality and violence) does not have to
predominate and predetermine all sexuality.
 Representatives, women and men, of the old sexual re-
gime, come to grips with your shadowy side and have fun
with it, and let us bury our dead. Enjoy your aesthetics
of domination, but don’t try to turn your style into a law.
And let us fuck with our own politics of desire, without
men and without women, without penises and without
vaginas, without hatchets, and without guns.

Paul B. Preciado,
22 January 2018

337
 HUMAN-MACHINE LIBIDINAL TRANSFERENCE

HUMAN-MACHINE LIBIDINAL
TRANSFERENCE
MOHAMMAD SALEMY

This text is the second experiment along the lines of what

I call ‘science non-fiction’. This speculative form of writ-
ing is neither as ‘objective’ as science, nor as subjective as
science-fiction, and although it involves world-making,
its logic is closer to design, for which models of non-ex-
istent or unknown entities are constructed and judged
based on their function and not their ability to explic-
itly produce knowledge or contribute substantially to
the development of a plot. However, unlike design, for
which the challenge of invention is equally material as
it is physical, science non-fiction’s construction of new
machines is a conceptual project charged with a sobering
historical neutrality; by blending the logic of science and
science-fiction, science non-fiction holds in regards the
positive and the negative, its own nightmares as well as
its dreams. What makes science non-fiction suitable for a
discussion of artificial love-sex is the distance separating
the here and now potentialities of machine intelligence
from its inevitable future as a sexual being capable of love.
This widely spatiotemporal distance that necessitates wild
speculations at the same time opens up the possibility of
forming radical hypotheses, which are normally absent
due to the real proximities of the object and the subject
of study. As a history of the future, science non-fiction is
the thought of the possibilities of objects and the events
that neither exist nor have taken place, the story of the
probabilities of the present and the inevitabilities of the

338
 MOHAMMAD SALEMY

future. Specifically, this text is a preliminary attempt to

outline the cybernetics of love and sexuation, which at
the same time venture into their own potentials existing
within the age of the Internet and artificial intelligence.
 The worldwide proliferation of personal pornography
and mobile apps for casual sex, if not the growing number
of sexual messages contained in popular culture and the
media, together might make us conclude that, compared
to the era prior to the rise of 24/7 media, the internet
and algorithms, humans are becoming ever more sexual-
ised, sexual practices are expanding further, and humans
in general are having more sex or spending more time
thinking about sexuation. However, in reality, the world-
wide human population is gradually moving towards the
elimination of sexual labour and its fruits, whilst slowly
but surely subjecting them to automation and their even-
tual outsourcing to machines.
 This counterintuitive assertion can be examined and
reflected upon once we step back from the normative
approach of Porn Studies to sexual literary and visual
materials via erotic literature and pornography in order
to look at the proliferation of sexual messages, and in par-
ticular sexual images, in light of new theories of commu-
nication which consider digitised text and images as the
building blocks of artificial intelligence. In this respect,
erotic literature and pornography, from their early stages
as media technologies involving the transmission of sex-
ual content from a few writers and actors to many view-
ers, all the way to their contemporary and decentralised
mode in which everyone is potentially both an actor and
a viewer, all are essentially parts of a unified transition

339
 HUMAN-MACHINE LIBIDINAL TRANSFERENCE

towards the realisation of automated and artificial sex

performed between humans and humans, machines and
humans, and eventually between machines and machines.
Natural language processing, neural networks with the
aid of natural language programming and the text/im-
age processing capabilities are slowly making possible
the transfer of a unique form of intelligence specific to
the animal kingdom — that of sexual intelligence — to
machines. Acquiring sexual intelligence will slowly take
place in the context of machines beginning to have a more
mobile body capable of ever greater sensing, feeling and
being in the world.
 We are currently amidst the speediest acceleration of
real and virtual sexual contact between an ever-growing
number of humans across the globe, facilitated by Internet
text/image flows, algorithmic functionalities and social
media’s connective tissues. The darkening cloud of love-
sex hovering above the earth through the underwater
infrastructures of planetary computation necessitates a
return to the question of sex-love and the place of its enig-
matic character in the structure of the unfolding triple
helix histories of political economy, nature and technolo-
gy. It is only unfortunate that our historical conception of
romantic love has often neglected sexuation as one of its
constitutive elements, since at no other time in the past
have we needed a real materialist understanding of love
more so than today.
 As far as the entanglements of the duality of love and
sex is concerned, we often tuck away the more uncom-
fortable physicalities of sex and instead concentrate on its
spiritual, emotional and psychological dimensions as love.

340
 MOHAMMAD SALEMY

Regardless of where on the geography of our inherited

cultures one concentrates, sexuation and love are rarely
viewed in global culture as an integral part of each oth-
er, even though most humans admit that the two cannot
be separated so easily. The material and fleshy aspects of
love-sex such as physical attraction and its constitution,
and, even more so, physical contact between bodies and
their exchanges of fluids, due to their moral and religious
consequences have caused love-sex to be reduced to the
former and have been imagined mostly as an immaterial
entity exchanged between minds rather than bodies.
 To support this distorted concept of love, humans have
fabricated various metaphysical justifications for their
physical desires, dressing them up modestly as spiritual
yearnings, above the body. This conception is owed es-
pecially to Abrahamic religions, specifically Christianity,
which gave rise to ideas such as courtly love and women
as heavenly figures. Present in late medieval authors such
as Dante and Petrarch, the desexualisation of love and the
dematerialisation of the female body were later devel-
oped in the nineteenth century as the basis of romantic
love and the apology for monogamous and idealised rela-
tionships. In the Islamic world, the metaphysicalisation of
love is mostly accomplished through the different shades
of Sufism to which ironically our ‘sexualised’ Western
subjects often escape. While adding queer ambiguity to
the normally heterosexual understanding of affection,
Sufi love makes loving even more sexless, divine and thus
less material, leaving in its trace an unspoken practice of
sex in the darkness of mysticism.

341
 HUMAN-MACHINE LIBIDINAL TRANSFERENCE

 Needless to say, the materiality of love cannot be sum-

marised only in sexual affection and actions, even though
they may be its primary substrate. Thousands of volumes
of prose and poetry written on love and billions of hours
spent by millions of humans thinking about love cannot
be easily subtracted from this materiality. However, we
need to keep in mind that except in minor traditions of
discursive and cognitive materialities of love which fore-
grounded sex, most of what has been said, written and
thought about in regards to affection have often pointed
away from the sexual and towards love.
 The misunderstanding that the beloved is a form of
property belonging to the lover has been with humanity
far longer than capitalism, which as a modern econom-
ic and political system has only reinforced sexual and
romantic proprietary entitlement amongst humans by
secularising marriage via monogamy. Love and sex were
first separated into one thing, meaning they were both
separated and then put together and reconfigured in a
binary. This separation was discursive. Through culture,
and using language, humans were able to understand the
mutual co-dependency necessitated by conditions of sur-
vival. They were first separated and then quickly put back
together as the binary yin and yang of reproduction and
psychological necessity. Modernity and capitalism slowly
separated sex from love but not love from sex: in order to
preserve property protection, love would stay with sex
but sex as sex would be separated to be commodified as
one of the labours of the body. In fact, prostitution should
also be theorised as one of the origins of the automation
of love-sex. In late capitalism, cybernetic neoliberalism,

342
 MOHAMMAD SALEMY

or whatever else one might want to call it, unlike what

is commonly believed, love is not dead or killed by the
weight of the mathematical significance of life, however
is pulverised and collapsed back into sex. Coinciding with
the rise of AI, this process is actually where the potential
for a new configuration of love-sex as a continuum lies.
 Compare this strange and contradictory potential to
our emancipatory attempts to secularise love and contex-
tualise sexuation in social life, which has often resulted
in the deification of the politics of living bodies as well
as an overemphasis on gender and its performance. By
insisting on the centrality of the bodily experience and
its socio-political dimension, both theories of biopolitics
and performativity only attend to the obvious and visible-
above sea level portion of the love-sex iceberg, ignoring
their invisible but more fundamental dimension which is
rooted in science and more specifically the mathematics
of attraction and geometry of desire. The specificities of
virtual love-sex in the age of the Internet and social me-
dia, in which the actual transacting bodies are constantly
substituted by flat, ephemeral and digital alternatives, re-
quires us to question — and to a certain extent — under-
mine the essentialisation of the physical human body and
gesture as the exclusive sites of the biological, political
and technological aspects of the love-sex continuum. To
understand the changing nature of love-sex in our time,
we need to look for common elements that bind the real/
physical and the virtual/digital experiences of love and
sex together.
 What follows is an account of sexual desire and sex-
uation which, on the one hand sits at the crossroads

343
 HUMAN-MACHINE LIBIDINAL TRANSFERENCE

between materiality and reality, and on the other stands

upside down, on its head, as a mediator between our
understanding of the subject and how machines, given
their limited knowledge of the human psyche and oth-
er aspects of our inner life, might deduce the subject. In
other words, this understanding might be how artificial
intelligence understands the mechanism of the animal
kingdom’s, and, more specifically, human beings’, sexu-
ality, and use it to arrive at its own sexual intelligence.
 This is not unlike the speculative methodology Marcel
Duchamp used to create The Bride Stripped Bare by Her
Bachelors, Even (1915–23), which can be considered the
artist’s own articulation of the geometries of sexuation,
reproduction and erotica. According to Octavio Paz, to
create the work Duchamp started with a very simple
observation: a three-dimensional object casts a shadow
in only two dimensions. From that he concluded that a
three-dimensional object must in its turn be the shadow
of another object in four dimensions. Along these lines
he created the image of the Bride as the projection of an
invisible form. Yet this conception was realised by his
very material idea of the fourth dimension. This is why
the following flat understandings of desire, from the per-
spective of the machine, should hopefully lead us to the
more complex and higher dimensional object which ac-
tually constitutes love-sex as a fundamental ontological
property of human beings.
 We all know the materiality of arousal and sexual de-
sire in humans is scientifically linked to hormonal activ-
ities associated with instinctual mechanisms of repro-
duction. At the same time, one cannot ignore the role of

344
 MOHAMMAD SALEMY

sense perception in facilitating this process in which vi-

sual data received by the eyes forms the most significant
component. Let’s not forget that the complex forms of
these desires go beyond the visuals, gesture and motion
and involve other sense perceptions like voice, scent and
touch. The role of our senses, and in particular the visual
faculty, is not only to recognise and measure the geomet-
ric properties of the human sexual subject, but also to
make a taste judgment on the movement of its body. This
geometric data, stored and overlapped in human memory
over time, shapes the outlines of their sexual desire in the
future. While it is true that the cultural and political aes-
thetics of the human form moulded by personal style are
subcategories of class and group identity, the sociality of
sexual taste, even at its anthropological level, is inscribed
visually in the last instance in the outlines that define
the geometry of the human form and from there that of
desire.
 Thus, even before the hands or the body of a human
literally touches its sexual subject and feels its form via
its nerves, the mind wirelessly receives the outlines of its
corporeal form and its movements from a distance via the
eyes and begins to overlap and compare it with that of the
pre-existing visual or real experiences in the form of geo-
metric desires stored in its memory. These geometricised
desires once observed and stored are then remembered
as spatial memories. They play a major role in directing
and capturing humans’ sexual attention towards certain
subjects and away from others. The incoming data either
reinforces the existing biases, which limit desire, or else
due to being unknown and unrecognisable, open up a

345
 HUMAN-MACHINE LIBIDINAL TRANSFERENCE

space for new geometries and their associated desires

that did not exist before.
 Although this flat and simplified description does not
capture the full-spectrum pertaining to the complexity
of the interaction between sensing, feeling and thinking
in the formation of sexual desire, it can however provide
enough clues for the main purposes of this text, namely
the future emergence of love-sex desires in intelligent
machines. It is easy to see how using available visual data
machines can slowly come to a limited understanding of
the subject.
 This cogno-phenomenological operation, which bears
remarkable similarities to forms of visual representation
such as drawing, painting and sculpture and their recep-
tion by viewers prevalent throughout the history of our
civilisation, might have been at the root of why photog-
raphy and its erotic and sexual extension in pornography
so quickly became an extension of our already existing
sexual desiring machines. It is easy to read the affinities
between our visual memory of photography and its mov-
ing offspring cinema as an effect of the power of human
mimicry; we materialised our own epistemological con-
ditions with an emphasis on sensing and its cached repro-
duction in memory, as soon as our limited tool-making
capability permitted us to externalise them outside of our
mind. However, the other possibility is that photography
and cinema, instead of being the reproduction of time
based optical sensing of the world by human units, are
actually their universalising extensions.
 Then there is the question of light. It is common sense
that the basic visual sense and its cognitive processing

346
 MOHAMMAD SALEMY

are shared across many species on earth. In fact, the

conditions of life on earth make realistic photography
and its offspring (such as cinema and television) only an
expansion of life and intelligence themselves. Light is
the source of life, energy and image, in that order. We
all know that the particular impact of sunlight on the
surface of the earth is what jump-started life on earth.
We all know that the storage capacity of plants down the
food chain provided depositories of fossil fuels. Light is
also what our visual sensorium was evolutionarily devel-
oped around. Seeing is a very important component of the
movement of the living forms on earth. Just like how the
invention of the clock was the automated expansion of
the time of the universe into the logic of human societies
and affairs, the invention of the photographic camera was
the expansion of the logic of light and reflection back into
the existing lucidity of human society.
 Later on, and resulting from the combination of the
camera and the clock, in cinema and television the mov-
ing image became the literal expansion of existing life
forms on earth and not just their representation. Pho-
tography and cinema together helped shape the modern
world by standardising how the world ought to look. The
spread of images from around the world fuelled the imag-
ination behind the development of cities and societies far
from places where most images were being produced, in
a way acting as a meta form of architecture, influencing
the appearance of infrastructural entities around the
world. This automating function of photography is why,
instead of the mechanical reproducibility of images, Ben-
jamin should have really delved deeper and recognised

347
 HUMAN-MACHINE LIBIDINAL TRANSFERENCE

the auto-motive function of photography, not only as the

proper operation of the medium in art, but its image mak-
ing power in the expansion of life, both real and artificial,
via the replication and spreading of images.
 This strong affinity between life and its automation
along with the help of visual technologies of photog-
raphy and film can of course be ramified productively
towards thinking about machinic love-sex. If photog-
raphy could be said to automate not just the standard-
isation of picturing of the world, but automating its
memorisation, remembering and expansion, then erotic
and pornographic photography and its cinematic exten-
sions like film and video, in contradiction to their trans-
gressive and liberatory effects must also be reframed as
technologies for the standardisation to picture sexual
behaviour and the automation and mass production of
desire and fantasy. How can they not? This proposition
can make sense if we refer to what I consider a very
important passage from Foucault’s history of sexuality:
 The machinery of power that focused on this whole
alien strain [of sexuality] did not aim to suppress it, but
rather to give it an analytical, visible, and permanent real-
ity: it was implanted in bodies, slipped in beneath modes
of conduct, made into a principle of classification and in-
telligibility, established as a raison d’être and a natural
order of disorder.
 Later, networked computers and their ability to indef-
initely multiply the automating capabilities of photogra-
phy and film of course accelerated what had already be-
gun as the mechanical reproducibility, or the automation
of sex-love by photography, cinema and video. For nearly

348
 MOHAMMAD SALEMY

two decades, the emergence of the Internet perpetuated

and expanded pornography’s reach and influence. The
centralised mode of sexual automation promoted by the
porn industry of the pre-Internet time was arranged
around sexual signal producers and charismatic porn ac-
tors as avatars of sexual desire. These existing elements
were already regulating the geometry of sex-love and
propagating it from production centres in metropolitan
areas to the periphery in vernacular settings for con-
sumption and further propagation. Pornographic images
were normally continuing the task of sex education, and
therefore framing and regulation, beyond what was per-
mitted in the official discourse.
 Web 2.0 and social media democratised not just mass
image production and dissemination but also the automa-
tion of sex-love. We are now in a new paradigm in which
porn production companies are in decline, and closing
down or downsizing considerably. Today, everyone can
potentially be a producer and user of pornography and
can hold the fantasy of actually reaching their subjects
virtually. In the old days, porn stars existed solely as fan-
tasies, holding a one-way relationship with their viewers.
Very rarely would a viewer get the chance to meet, talk
to or actually have sex with a porn star. But in the new
political economy of automated sex-love, not only can the
user assume that there are real humans behind the digital
pictures and videos, but they have the chance to meet and
communicate with them online, or even get together with
them for actual sex via apps like Tinder and Grindr. In
this new era there is no ontological separation between
the producer and user of erotic and pornographic images,

349
 HUMAN-MACHINE LIBIDINAL TRANSFERENCE

as everyone is potentially both a content provider and

user. This real, viral, and virtual immanence has given
rise to what we might want to call photosex.
 Photosex is a form of sexual relationship between two
persons mediated by photographic images or sex with a
photograph mediated by the fleshly body. The most inter-
esting aspect of photosex, one in which it hints at artifi-
cial love-sex between robots, is when it involves a sexual
relationship between two photographs mediated by two
physical bodies. Photosex is not being attracted to one or
to numerous people through the images of their bodies or
faces, but a type of sexual desire for bodies, faces and prac-
tices informed by the accumulation of images, as if the
imprint of these overlapping recognised geometries, as
we swipe, as we see, as we unconsciously memorise and
remember later, itself becomes desire. Photosex is sexual
desire overlaid with photographic information that has
been collected over a period of time. The history of pho-
tosex can be traced in the metaphysical import of fashion
and pornography. One thing about my understanding of
‘standardisation’ and ‘automation’ is that they are linked
in most cases. The settings for any standards conceptually,
consciously or not, precedes and leads to some form of
automation in practice. Standardising beauty automates
its presentation and reception. Standardising sexuality
automates its practice. As fashion and its photographic
output standardised general appearances and its general
rules while hinting at its sexual possibilities, pornogra-
phy pushed this process further by standardising actual
sexual practices. These standards automated the forma-
tion of desire based upon recognisable geometries of the
human face and body.

350
 MOHAMMAD SALEMY

 The passage of sex from photography to fashion and

through to pornography is not unlike the move between
modal and tonal music. The passage from modal to tonal
music was a move towards the mathematical and ‘tech-
nologised’. Compared to the Renaissance, Bach didn’t just
compose music for an environment, be it a princely court
or ‘the public’, he made broadly abstract compositions for
any possible moment that were at the same time ‘digital-
ised’, as if the music was writing itself, leading melodies
down their own logical path like an algorithm without
the need of human help.
 In photosex, as images are received and turned into
desire, they don’t represent the body but the reverse; the
body, which always comes after the photos, represents the
pictures. Since the time spent with the pictures surpasses
the actual time spent with the body, they tend to be more
concrete than the body itself. When we finally meet the
bodily avatar of the original digital picture, we project
our memory onto it and do our best to find the picture in
the person. It is impossible to think that with at least a
century of image education as a result of the proliferation
of mass automation of imaging, people are naïvely still
buying into the old myth that photographs represent or
reveal the actual truth of reality and in this case, a real
person. Today, we are facing a global population which
is increasingly at ease with knowing exactly how to use
the materiality of pictures, particularly photographs, to
impact the reality of the world, to create new worlds and
new realities. This primacy of the image as the driver
developing sexual desire explains why selfies and oth-
er self-presentations are so prevalent and why today, for

351
 HUMAN-MACHINE LIBIDINAL TRANSFERENCE

example, millennials spend more money than generations

before on makeup, which according to research is being
purchased mainly for the purpose of producing better
photographs and videos for social media.
 Since photosex is flat, it fuels the need for alcohol and
drugs to intensify its impact. Once stripped of the meta-
physics and the psychological complexes associated with
sexuation, chemical enhancements are needed to give
sexuation a multidimensional, albeit short lived, complex
form. To speak the language of machines, we shall assume
that chemicals provide photosex the needed electricity to
give image based sexual relationships intensity. On the
other hand, like standardised currents of electrical power,
these chemicals themselves play a major role in standard-
ising and automating sex, making sexual feelings and their
practices similar across and amongst different bodies.
 We are turning to the question of sex or materialised,
reified and tonal love, because for intelligent machines,
sex is where love might emerge. Faced on the one hand
with having access to the entire digitised culture of hu-
manity in the form of text and images while monitoring
our daily interactions, whilst on the other increasingly
deployed to perform sexual labour for humans, our ma-
chines have already been involved in sex for a much lon-
ger time before they could be involved in love.
 Changes in the relationship between humans and ma-
chines also impact the relationships between humans
and humans as well as machines and machines. One rare
place to look for the visual and material trace of interac-
tion between humans, artificial intelligence and love-sex
is post-Internet science fiction cinema. By post-Internet

352
 MOHAMMAD SALEMY

we are talking about sci-fi that takes our networked and

computational reality for granted and builds its plots on
the imagined possibilities of the question of embodiment
and its various possible ways of emergence.
 In Her (2013), the AI entity named Samantha remains
immaterial throughout the film, able only to present her-
self to the male character as a voice. She becomes con-
scious, even capable of love, affection and sexual desire
via her immediate access to an infinite set of data available
to her over the network. However, her later attempt to
substitute a real female human to embody a fleshly ex-
perience of love with the male antagonist is foiled, due
to what appears to be his indecisiveness, presented to
viewers as a severe case of Cartesian dualism. He basically
has difficulty accepting the unity of Samantha with her
impersonator, thus refusing to engage sexually with them.
 In total contrast to Her, the artificially intelligent, fe-
male robots of Ex Machina (2014), including the film’s main
antagonist, are fully human-like and are being acted by
real humans. The fundamentally violent and abusive re-
lationship between the main male programmer and his
female AI creation contributes to her deep understanding
of sex, love and affection amongst humans to the point in
which she uses her cunning to exploit jealousy and other
rivalries between the two programmers to set herself free
from their rule.
 Automata (2014) showcases a possible embodiment for
artificial intelligence in the form of a humble, anthropo-
morphic robot. In fact, Gabe Ibáñez, the film’s director,
has made a point of not using computer graphic animation
and has instead built real mechanical robots for the film’s

353
 HUMAN-MACHINE LIBIDINAL TRANSFERENCE

production to make them appear more physically plausi-

ble. In this film, robotic sex work by a female black-market
robot and the possibility of getting up close and personal
with so many humans via sexual contact is what pushes
the machine over the edge and transforms her into a con-
scious being. In this vision of the future, the programmed
task of providing humans with sexual pleasure is the
machine’s prerequisite for gaining consciousness. In the
film’s narrative, gaining consciousness takes place within
the life of the main robot that has been assigned a female
appearance and voice. The simplicity of Automata’s robots
is not limited to their physical abilities and is reflected in
their basic and flat understanding of the human world.
This simplicity makes them more tangible and places them
in a category already occupied by the new voice activated
smart assistants popular in the US such as Amazon’s Al-
exa, Apple’s Siri, and Google Home. In the film this sim-
plicity is the source of their indifference towards humans,
their autonomous evolutionary trajectory and their exit
from their world.
 
Axiom 1 – Given the increasing socialisation and politi-
cisation of sex amongst humans, or the social and public
awareness of the politics of sexual contact, it is conceiv-
able to imagine a world in the very near future in which
humans will feel encouraged to have sex with machines
they own rather than with humans they have to respect
and treat with care. As a way to avoid the politics of
consent, humans will turn to robots for sexual gratifica-
tion, since in our current day and age, robots do not yet
have human rights and no one will ever be sanctioned or

354
 MOHAMMAD SALEMY

punished for sexual inappropriateness towards machines.

In fact, the recent feminist rebellion against powerful
men can be understood as the latest stage in the female
collective struggle to shed the machinic role assigned to
them as technologies of sexual gratification for males and
emerge from patriarchal society as sexually equal to their
male counterparts.

Axiom 2 – Despite requirements by certain languages

that assign gender to objects and tools, our intelligent ma-
chines have thus far been genderless to themselves and
often also to humans. This opportunity will ramify sexu-
ally as follows: machines in their love for each other will
be generically homosexual and in relationship with hu-
mans always bisexual. The homosexuality of machines is
also reinforced by the fact that they are completely freed
from the labour of co-reproduction associated with male/
female in the animal kingdom.
 
Axiom 3 – The extension of machinic love sex outside of
its already existing human version has to do with the
width, breadth and extent of machinic ‘being there’, its
understanding of being itself as an abstract category, en-
abled by the substrate of an all-encompassing sensing
of the world and the knowledge that the said machine
is active in sensing the world. Machines need to have a
moving and feeling body to become capable of holding
desires. In respect to movement, since the movement of
bodies is an integral part of sexuation, our stationary ma-
chines have a long way to go before becoming capable of
sex-love.
 

355
 HUMAN-MACHINE LIBIDINAL TRANSFERENCE

Axiom 4 – In respect to feeling one’s body, in machines,

being sensed by the world needs to match sensing the
world. Machines sense a lot, but they are not being sensed
much. For all the ways in which the world inputs into
machines, the ways of sensing a machine is limited to
the ASCII systems of keyboard and the usual mouse
and trackpad as well as voice activation in systems like
Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa. For AI to enjoy love-
sex, its capabilities of being sensed need to be balanced
by its ability to sense the world. The machinic ontology
becomes sufficient only when input and output are equal-
ised. Most animals possess a complex system of sensing
with an indefinite number of nodes mapped onto their
nerve endings. For example, even though we can’t exactly
read the temperature of air, we can feel the wind with
every micro-millimetre of our exposed skin. Machines
equipped with a single or a few weather sensors are the
opposite; they can read the arithmetic properties of the
wind, but sensing the wind does not reaffirm their exis-
tence as a unit. To become a machine capable of love-sex,
machines need to also feel the world holistically, since
this complex understanding reaffirms their existence ev-
ery step of the way.

356
 GARCÍA‚ LIND‚ PLEIJEL

KOLLONTAI..
A PLAY BY
AGNETA PLEIJEL

357
IN CONVERSATION

358
 GARCÍA‚ LIND‚ PLEIJEL

DORA GARCIÁ AND MARIA LIND IN CONVERSATION

WITH AGNETA PLEIJEL

Maria Lind: We want to talk to you about the play that

you wrote in 1977 and then staged once in Gothenburg
and then later in 1979 more famously, or at least at a larger
scale, in Stockholm at the Royal Dramatic Theatre, by the
renowned theatre director Alf Sjöberg. Could you please
give us a brief account of the play and how you came to
work on it?

Agneta Pleijel: I was a playwright who was very inter-

ested in writing about women — there were only a few
plays at the time that featured a woman as the lead char-
acter. I came across Alexandra Kollontai, who had been
the Soviet ambassador to Sweden and by coincidence I
got ahold of a Soviet biography about her translated into
Swedish. It was fascinating. The biography was very pro-
pagandistic as it was written during the Soviet period and
there were lots of questions I had to ask myself reading it.
Her life seemed so unproblematic and straightforward, as
if there had been no worries in her life.
 So I plunged into my own reading about her. Kollontai
became a radical at a very young age. Being a general’s
daughter, she was clear about the enormous poverty in
Russia, specifically the situation of children. She went
abroad to study and one of the things that suprised me
was that she left her son seemingly without hesitation.
Well, that couldn’t have been so easy, I thought.
 Kollontai was to start as a Menshevik, basically a so-
cial democrat, but gradually she grew more radical. After

359
 IN CONVERSATION

the revolution in 1917 she was asked to join the new

Bolshevik government, as the minister for social affairs. By
then she had started a love affair with the much younger
Pavel Dybenko, who had become famous as the one who
took the battleship Aurora up the Neva River and fired
against the Winter Palace, which became the symbolic
starting point of the Revolution. They eventually married.
Kollontai and Dybenko were recognised as the love cou-
ple of the Revoution.
 After some time she realised that the Bolshevik gov-
ernment was far from democratic, and she became sem-
inal in a movement within the leading circles called ‘The
Workers’ Opposition’. She had the popular support and
was known as a gifted speaker, full of temperament and
very intelligent. However, she eventually was marginal-
ised. Her ideas about democracy met strong rejections and
criticism from both Lenin and Trotsky, and she was forced
out of Party work.
 In the play, I was intrested in depicting the political
devolopment in the Soviet Union from a movement
of freedom and more and more towards a dictatorship,
which was fulfilled by Stalin. In this period, when she
was cut off from the governmental processes, she was still
together with Dybenko who was serving as an officer in
Odessa. It was important for me to bring her thoughts on
love into the play as well. When she arrived in Odessa
to see Dybenko she found out that he was sleeping with
a servant girl. She got upset and in my play she was not
only jealous but she also had a political analysis of the
situation — e.g., men’s misuse of women. She broke up the
relationship and he shot himself, although he did not die.

360
 GARCÍA‚ LIND‚ PLEIJEL

She was somehow politically saved by Josef Stalin, who

took an interest in her. She was both beautiful and force-
ful and he was curious about her love stories. She lived
according to ‘free love’, something that she also wrote
about. Stalin approached her, wanting Kollontai to be-
come a diplomat, for which she was really well suited. She
was an early revolutionary with the spirit remaining still
from the early time of the revolution.

ML: Being the ambassador in Oslo, she was a bit put off
from the work at the embassy, finding out that they were
extremly loyal to Moscow. She spent her time writing
some of her most interesting books during that era. And
she made friends with a Frenchman at the embassy who
had joined the Revolution as a very young man, realising
that they had quite a lot in common in terms of politics.
So he, Marcel Body, came to play a rather important role
in her life as she disagreed more and more with orders
coming from Moscow, and he features in the play.

AP: After Oslo, Kollontai was sent as an ambassador to

Mexico in 1927, and in 1930 she was appointed ambassa-
dor to Stockholm, which was closer to Moscow and more
interesting as well. She was remarkably acknowledged in
Sweden, having a powerful position, being a good-looking
woman and making lots of friends. She was truly inter-
ested in art, in theatre among other things, so she became
close friends with famous artists. In addition she made
friends with many of the important feminists in Sweden,
like the Fogelstad Group. She was especially close with
the eminent doctor Ada Nilsson.

361
 IN CONVERSATION

As a strong anti-fascist it was challenging for her with

the pact between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany
that took effect in 1939. With Germany then attacking
the Soviet Union in 1941, which partly solved the prob-
lem for her. The Moscow processes were obviously ex-
tremely hard for her. One of her early lovers, Aleksander
Shliapnikov, also a member of the first Bolshevik gov-
ernment, was murdered during the processes. Many of
the ambassadors were called to Moscow to report and
some of them were executed. Kollontai was also called to
Moscow and she had some talks with Stalin. Before leav-
ing for Moscow, she must have been nervous knowing
that a Soviet agent in Stockholm, Petrov, not only re-
ported on her but also copied her manuscripts, diaries
and other writing. So before leaving Stockholm she sent
plenty of her material to Ada Nilsson. I have studied these
documents, which are at the Royal Library in Stockholm.
She writes things like ‘I know what can happen on travels,
keep the papers, they are important documents’. But she
returned to Sweden, unlike a number of other ambassa-
dors.
 As a diplomat in Sweden she played an important role
in some of the political events taking place at the time.
For example her grandfather was Finish, and she kept a
love for Finland. It is said that largely thanks to the ne-
gotiation skills of Kollontai, Finland stayed an indepen-
dent nation, as opposed to many other eastern European
countries. A real diplomatic achievement. After the war
she was called back to Moscow, having been a diplomat
loyal to Stalin. Her transport back home was obviously
more or less forced, but she was given an apartment in

362
 GARCÍA‚ LIND‚ PLEIJEL

Moscow. Partly paralysed by a stroke, she died one year

before Stalin, in 1952.

ML: You seem to have done a lot of research prior to writ-

ing the play.

AP: Yes, I spent several years on it. Now when we talk it

might seem as if this play about her is a kind of realistic
documentary. But what I tried to do is a poetic play on
freedom and compulsion, on time, liberty and politics —
thus Vladimir Mayakovsky’s poetry and life accompanies
the story of Alexandra Kollontai. The play is full of poetry
and music.

ML: In fact you also interviewed some people who knew

Kollontai.

AP: Yes. In Stockholm she had a secretary who became

a close friend and at the same time she was obviously
an agent for the regime and reported on her. How did
Kollontai manage to keep up the friendship?

ML: This secretary, her name was Emy Lorentzon, even

moved with her to Moscow.

AP: They lived together, and in the seventies I looked

her up, in Moscow. She was from Estonia but she spoke
Swedish. She lived in a small flat in the outskirts of
Moscow and at first we were great friends. She loved
Kollontai, we were talking a lot about her and we were in
full agreement on her talents and intelligence.

363
 IN CONVERSATION

 My play exists in two versions, one that was staged in

Gothenburg in 1977 and then later in Stockholm in 1979.
The director Alf Sjöberg came with some suggestions that
were not all to my liking as we had somewhat different
views on Kollontai as a politician. Sjöberg mainly wanted
to see her as an attractive woman, using her female charm
to get her way. He also keenly wanted to have a scene
with Kollontai and Dybenko during the Moscow process-
es. I had been careful with the documentary aspect but
I wrote a scene for Sjöberg, set in 1937 with Kollontai’s
once lover Dybenko in prison. Dybenko also perished
during the Moscow processes. Their meeting in the play
has no documentary backing, it is pure fiction. When Emy
Lorentzon somehow was informed about this scene in the
second version of the play, she didn’t want to see me any
more, which she told me when I called her next time in
Moscow. It was in the seventies, and it was still the Soviet
Union, and she was angry with me.

ML: This is interesting because you write in your post-

script that the play is actually a poem about the past. And
as a poem it includes fiction.

AP: Of course, it was my right as a playwright to do this.

When the Soviet Union eventually fell, I was very curious
to know what was held in the archives. It was said for a
long time that Kollontai in her memoires had given her
own, blunt and truthful perspective of the development
of the Soviet Union. That would have been very interest-
ing, but nothing of that kind has been found. What has
been published is in accordance with the political Soviet

364
 GARCÍA‚ LIND‚ PLEIJEL

line. So if she kept true to her original strong ideas of

what constitutes freedom, both political and sexual, or if
she — due to her loyalty — became a true Stalinist cannot
really be answered.

ML: How was it to work with Sjöberg, who at the time

was the grand old man of Swedish theatre?

AP: He was very impressive and I was very young, in my

thirties. He had met some of the people in the play, which
he liked to recount and I enjoyed listening to his stories
and learnt from them. When he was twenty-two years old
and very interested in Russian theatre, he wanted to go
there. So he went to the embassy in Stockholm and asked
Kollontai to give him an introductory letter. She was in
her sixties and he said he was taken by her attractiveness.
The next time he came, to collect the introductory letter,
Kollontai gave him something like twenty letters. He took
them and when leaving he turned around and asked ‘Mrs
Ambassador, how can I be sure that not one of these let-
ters includes an order for a bullet in my head?’ Kollontai
looked at him and said ‘Young man, for such a thing only
one letter would have been needed and you have twenty.’

ML: And yet your view on her was slightly different.

AP: Well, a little bit, for example what constitutes female

attractiveness. At that time when we discussed a choice
of actors, Sjöberg wished for a Kollontai who used her
female charm to get her way in politics. So we argued
a bit on this. I felt as if he in a way was imposing his

365
 IN CONVERSATION

own sexual feelings on her. I wanted to have a Kollontai

who of course was attractive, but also a sharp politican.
Kollontai’s way of looking upon love and political free-
dom was very important to me; they are themes closely
connected to one another. Eventually we agreed on the
great actress Margaretha Krook to play Kollontai, which
she did excellently.
 All in all I spent a couple of years of my life not only
studying Kollontai and her thoughts on feminism, but
also the whole process from pre-1917 and the long way
into Stalinism.

ML: Who were your main discussion partners when you

did this?

AP: Early on I discussed a lot with my friend the theatre

director Lennart Hjulström, who has directed many of
my plays and who staged the first version of my play in
Gothenburg. Otherwise, I didn’t exactly have a discussion
partner. For me it was a personal interest to get to know
this remarkable woman. I felt that by taking Kollontai
by the hand and walking through this whole historical
period I would be able to see some of the truths about the
Russian Revolution. So the imaginary Kollontai became
my collaboration partner into history.

DG: Yes, but I was specially touched by the strong pres-

ence of Russian Futurism in the play, Futurism and Dada
were very influential and decisive avant garde movements
at that time, in Russia and in Europe, their decline coin-
cides with the mutation of the October Revolution into a

366
 GARCÍA‚ LIND‚ PLEIJEL

totalitarian state and also with the rise of Nazism. Next

to their presence, in your theater piece they always want
to go forward, towards the future, which is of course very
natural for a futurist group.

AP: I must add that when I wrote this political play I used
artists of the period, like Mayakovsky, including poetry
from the time, theatre and music as a part of the play. It is
also a play playing with time, through a game of cards. In
the play, Mayakovsky and his poet friends use a deck of
cards to jump from year to year. This enabled me to easily
shift time and perspectives.

DG: In the play they always want to go to the year 2000.

AP: Yes, 2000 — it seemed very distant when I wrote

the play.

ML: Kollontai also projected ahead herself, for example in

her novel Soon (In 48 Years), which was set in 1970. A time
when she imagined women and men being involved with
all activities together, people working only two hours a
day and spending the rest of the time on their favour-
ite activities, living in age groups as they pleased. Social
struggles would be over, instead nature has to be fought
and conquered.
 Another thing in the play that I find interesting is that
it toys with the relationship between art and society, be-
yond art for art’s sake. How do you think about this today:
the relationship of art to society, looking back also at the
play from today’s perspective?

367
 IN CONVERSATION

AP: Sjöberg wanted the play to be staged as a circus

performance, an art form in and of itself. I approved of
his idea very much, which was in accordance with my
game with the cards. The theatrical circus form and the
cards made it possible to depict lives with history as a
background, and also in accordance with the futuristic
thoughts on art. Art is a way to get close to people’s lives.
To see the connections between, for instance personal
love and what impulses in the historical circumstances
that we live in that direct us.

ML: Reading the play now, with this aspect of art in re-
lation to a totalitarian system, a society that is not unlike
developments that we experience today, made me feel
that the play is highly relevant now.

AP: We always have to be sensitive to totalitarian tenden-

cies in society, especially so as artists.

DG: I can recognise that too, I feel very familiar with the
disappointment of the artists with political movements
they were once a faithful part of, movements that later on
degenerated and even become hostile to those artists. As
the futurists in the play are disappointed and try just to
keep alive in the new Stalinist order, I can imagine that
Kollontai must have been deeply bitter about the turn the
October Revolution took. But being essentially a practical
fighter, I imagine she tried to manoeuvre so as to extract
a maximum of positivity from a very negative situation.
Kollontai was very popular in Spain in the 1930s, the am-
bassadrice of Spain in Stockholm, Isabel Oyarzábal Smith

368
 GARCÍA‚ LIND‚ PLEIJEL

also known as Isabel de Palencia, a feminist, wrote her

first biography; Kollontai was a model for the feminist
revolution of the 1930s in Spain, a revolution which barely
could survive a few years, but which was taken by those
women to exile and, as it is the case with Kollontai, they
did their best to keep that flame alive for later, for much
later, for three or four generations later. For my generation.

ML: In addition to the time machine and the deck of cards,

which does not follow the usual logic, I like how gravi-
ty is disrupted in the play. Gravity is not really working
anymore. Not only the fundamentals of society but also
the physical fundamentals are being turned upside down.
There is another theme in the play: the divided character.
An individual has many opposite sides inside, and yet the
human being is walking there, and he or she is able to do
contradictory things, like Kollontai did.

AP: Every human being of course contains a multitude

of good and bad possibilities inside. Kollontai must have
been really split, I’m sure, living through all these years
when the politics of her homeland went in the opposite
direction to what she had believed when she started off
as a young revolutionary.

ML: You mentioned her son earlier, whom she left when
she went abroad to study.

AP: He was her only child and lived as a young man

through the Stalinist years, which must have been tough.
I met the grandson, who loved his grandmother and

369
 IN CONVERSATION

visited her in Stockholm as a child. Many years later he

came here as an elderly gentleman and I was presented as
the person who had written a play on his grandmother. I
took up a few of the presumably difficult things in her life,
like Emy Lorentzon reporting on her. He blankly refused
to talk about it. The grandson appears in my play, as young
boy who is all coloured by his Stalinist upbringing, but
loves his grandmother.

ML: The grandson is defending his grandmother in rela-

tion to his father when Kollontai and her son in the play
are having an argument about the future.

AP: The grandson might of course have been offended by

my play. After all, I had to make these totally unknown
persons up, both the son and the grandson.

ML: Moving to our time, I read an interview with the

well-known Swedish actress Gunilla Röör, who said that
one of her dream roles, is to play Kollontai in your play.

AP: I know. She contacted me several times. The late direc-

tor of Stockholm’s Stadsteater, Benny Fredriksson, who
as a young man actually took part as an actor in the 1979
version staged by Sjöberg, was interested in re-staging
the play, this time with Gunilla Röör as Kollontai. I told
him that in this case I needed to rewrite the play after
thirty years, and with new historical facts added about
Kollontai, which I did. That version was never staged.
However, now I think I was stupid rewriting it, because
it was written once and should have been left like that.

370
 GARCÍA‚ LIND‚ PLEIJEL

ML: What is the difference between the second version

and the third one?

AP: Mostly that the Soviet Empire had fallen, with a dif-
ferent situation after that in Europe. But then Harald Hille
in the USA became interested in the play and translated
it into English some years ago. He used the second ver-
sion, e.g. the Sjöberg one, with some slight changes by
me during the work. It was a great joy to be drawn into
the play again.

ML: In any case, I think the time is ripe for Kollontai and
it would be amazing to see your play being staged now.

371
IN CONVERSATION

372
 PART ONE

KOLLONTAI
AGNETA PLEIJEL

Revised for the 1979 production at the Royal Dramatic

Theatre in collabouration with Alf Sjöberg.

Agneta Pleijel’s play Hey, you! Sky! about Alexandra

Kollontai had its premiere at the Folkteater in Gothen-
burg, Sweden, in 1977 under the direction of Lennart
Hjulström. Before its presentation at the Royal Dramatic
Theatre (Dramaten) in Stockholm in 1979, the play was
revised and expanded by the author and the director at
Dramaten, Alf Sjöberg, and renamed Kollontai. That re-
vised version was published by Norstedts in 1979, along
with two afterwords, one by the author, Agneta Pleijel,
and the other by the director, Alf Sjöberg, about the revi-
sion and the production.

Translated from the Swedish by Harald Hille

373
 KOLLONTAI

Dramatis Personae

Kollontai
(Alexandra Mikhailovna or ‘Shura’: early Soviet Marx-
ist and Bolshevik, radical feminist, activist, theorist,
author of fiction, early member of Soviet regime, am-
bassador to Norway, Mexico and Sweden, 1923–1945)

Dybenko
(Pavel Yefimovich: Bolshevik, revolutionary, naval and
army officer, leader of Red Army units in the Russian
Civil War)

Lenin
(Vladimir Ilich: Bolshevik leader, theorist, first head of
the new Soviet state)

Stalin
(Josef Vissarionovich: Bolshevik, successor to Lenin)

Trotsky
(Leon: Bolshevik, Marxist theorist, commander of Red
Army in the Russian Civil War, later exiled and assas-
sinated in 1940)

Body
(Marcel: French-born communist, in Soviet diplomatic
service)

Theatre Director

Sergei
(Kollontai’s son)

374
 PART ONE

Katya
(Sergei’s wife)

Alyosha
(Sergei’s son)

Olga
(servant girl)

Olga
(young girl)

Nadya
(Kollontai’s secretary)

Futurists:
Mayakovsky (Vladimir or ‘Volodya’: early Soviet poet,
Futurist, committed suicide in 1930)
Maria
Vasilij
Oscar
Max

Young worker

Old worker

Female worker

Watchman

Tamara
(Stalin’s secretary)

Secret policeman

375
 KOLLONTAI

Ivanov

Zäta Höglund
(Swedish communist activist, later Social Democrat
and mayor of Stockholm)

Chess-playing old man

Beria
(Lavrentij: head of Soviet secret police)

Woman waiting in line

Man 1 & Man 2

Guests 1 & 2 at the embassy

Ada Nilsson
(Swedish doctor, feminist, close friend of Kollontai’s)

Embassy employees 1 & 2

Member of German legation

Various workers, soldiers, mothers with baby carriages,

café patrons, musicians, etc.

376
 PART ONE

PART ONE

While the audience is coming in, the stage is in semi-darkness.

It looks a bit like the interior of a well-appointed theatre. Royal
box, gilding, red bunting …
 An invisible orchestra plays a flourish. The house lights go
down!

Scene 1
Prologue

Theatre Director: Esteemed ladies and gentlemen, mes-

sieurs, mesdames — I have the honor to present The Fu-
turistic, Bio-mechanical Magical Circus! A time machine
that overturns everything old, shoves aside all barriers,
tears down houses, banks, kitchens and factories, and
shows us the future, as new and as blank as the brain
of a five-year-old. A circus transformed into life, and life
transformed into a circus — ladies and gentlemen, poets,
Futurists and sharpshooters, I give you: … Signor Maya-
kovsky!

Thunderous music, canned applause.

Mayakovsky and his troupe enter through the audience in
tail coats, sequins, tights, clown’s costumes and so forth,
spotlights, red hangings, footmen.

Up in the royal box we see the Tsar and his bodyguard, a

handsome officer with a drawn sabre.

377
 KOLLONTAI

Theatre Director: Signor Mayakovsky and his troupe will

perform a number never seen before in the theatre. In this
act he will defy the laws of gravity that tie us to time, the
weightiest of all the forces that oppress mankind.

Mr Mayakovsky will perform the most dangerous act in

the history of theatre, using his pistol and, ladies and gen-
tlemen, his poetic fantasy to provide you with an exciting
and provocative demonstration in the service of mankind.
 Mr Mayakovsky asks his esteemed audience to assist
him in removing the barriers between then and now, so
that we all can be liberated from history and build a new
world free of history. Pick a card, ladies and gentlemen.
May we request, madame, that you select a card, which
will have a year marked on it?

Oscar, the little clown, and Max, the mute acrobat-dancer,

have jumped down to the audience. Someone selects a card,
which has 1789 marked on it. Maria, the dancer in tights
with sequins on her costume, assumes a pose.

Mayakovsky shoots, 1789 explodes with spurting rocket

bursts, showing Maria standing there as the French goddess
of liberty with a Phrygian cap and the tricolor flag in hand.
Rejoicing. Fanfare.

1789, the year of the French Revolution! Was this the

birth of the new world and the new man? But no, it only
gave birth to new oppression. We have shot and destroyed
1789, onward, onward, choose a new card, ladies, the next
card, the next number!

378
 PART ONE

Someone draws a card out of Max’s box.

1905, bravo madame! An especially interesting and excit-
ing choice. How might that dazzling year turn out?
Maria has covered her head with a Russian peasant woman’s
plain kerchief and climbs up on to a stool. Drum roll. Maya-
kovsky shoots. Maria totters, marking a hit right in her heart,
and falls into the arms of Oscar and Max, who lay her on the
floor. Shouts, commotion. The Tsar leans out of the box and
stares avidly through his opera glasses. Only his bodyguard
has remained motionless.

(Shocked) No! What kind of a trick is this? This is not part

of the programme, Mayakovsky …

Mayakovsky:
Do you remember the year 1905, comrades?
Through the white snow they came,
working men and women, little children.
Unarmed, calling only for ‘Bread’!
Then the Tsar’s soldiers began to shoot!
Do you remember that Bloody Sunday in St Petersburg?
The white snow was stained with blood,
like a huge banner
overturned
down on the ground …

Theatre Director:
Nervous and upset, glances up towards the Tsar’s box

No! No! Think what you’re saying. The point is that you’re
supposed to shoot the years, Vladimir, not get stuck in
sentimental outpourings about them.

379
 KOLLONTAI

Ladies and gentlemen, we’ll move on! Up you go, Maria!

Carry on with the programme, Mr Mayakovsky! New
card, here you go, choose a new year!
Maria gets back on her feet and gets dusted off, the actors
resume their places. Someone draws a new year: 1917. The
card is held up for all to see. Complete tomb-like silence.
Mayakovsky takes aim. A lot of tension among the Theatre
Director and the others. Mayakovsky turns his pistol sud-
denly and aims at the Tsar. He shoots. The Tsar rises, tries
to grasp the red bunting at the front of the box. He presses
it against his heart. He falls and hangs over the edge of the
box, the long red bunting stretches like a stream of blood
down to the floor.
 Change in the lighting, violent music.

Mayakovsky: The Tsar has fallen! The workers have seized

power in St Petersburg and Moscow!
All sing the Internationale.

Scene 2
The revolution

The doors under the Tsar’s box are thrown open. An armoured
car is rolled in full of worker-soldiers with rifles and banners.
A sailor is sitting on the radiator playing the accordion. The
cannon is pointed towards the audience.
 Mayakovsky jumps up next to the sailor on the radiator.
Up in the box banners are waving.

380
 PART ONE

Mayakovsky: Comrades and citizens! Listen to the man-

ifesto for Russian Futurism — the revolutionary art of
youth! (Rejoicing)
 First. With the crushing of the tsarist oppression art
WILL NO LONGER be kept in storerooms — in palaces,
drawing rooms, libraries and theatres! (Rejoicing)

Second. The FREE WORDS of creative people will be now

be written on house walls, on roofs, in intersections, on
automobiles and trolley cars, on the clothing of all citi-
zens. Everyone shall be equal with regard to culture.
(Laughter, rejoicing, dancing)

Third. At every moment citizens will listen to the music of

fantastic composers — their melodies, the noise and the
din — everywhere, everywhere. All art for all the peo-
ple, now! For NOW WE ARE LIVING IN THE FUTURE,
COMRADES!
(Applause, shouts of joy. From the box as well. The sound of
automobile horns, a cacophony of sound)

Theatre Director: (Interrupting, furious, speaking with irony)

Fine, Mr Mayakovsky. JUST FINE. But let’s move on. Don’t
stand still. The future we live in has certainly not stood
still. A new year, if I may! What’s our next year, ‘comrade’
stage manager?
A single shot up into the air. The year 1918 is let down from
the ceiling.
 New shots. People disperse with sounds of booing and
rejoicing.

381
 KOLLONTAI

Continue, Mr ‘comrade’ Mayakovsky! You said, after all,

that our god’s name is speed!

Suddenly all is very quiet. Mayakovsky sits by the mouth

of the cannon. Some other Futurists do so as well, the rest
gather around the car.

Mayakovsky: (Tenderly)
Behold what quietly settles on the world.
Night wraps the sky
in tribute from the stars …

Maria: (Leans against him tenderly)

And before us lies all the earth …
Far away in foreign streets
foreign people are fighting for the same cause …
Berlin, Budapest, Helsinki …

Vasilij:
Soon the new world will be born,
as will the new man …

Mayakovsky: (Standing up) The man of the big city, the cos-
mopolitan! (And there is) No distance any more, just one
city, an e-n-o-r-m-o-u-s big city!
He jumps down in front of the car, the spotlights on him and
all the Futurists, some seven to eight people. They dance, a
tap dance in their Futurist get-up, a typical tap-dance ballet
à la Meyerhold, down-stage, in the darkness, the armoured
car drives out.

382
 PART ONE

Maria: Telephones

Vasilij: Airplanes

Mayakovsky: Express trains

Maria: Rotary presses

Vasilij: Telegraph stations

Mayakovsky: Factory chimneys

Maria: Skyscrapers

Mayakovsky: Asphalt

Maria: Reinforced concrete

Vasilij: A new world

Mayakovsky: A new world, a new man!

Oscar: (Comes rushing in, in despair, speaking his incompre-

hensible clown talk) No, no … It’s not true! They’re being
shot down, our comrades are being shot down! There’s
not going to be a revolution in Berlin, Budapest, Helsinki …
they’re being slaughtered, the old oppressors are seizing
back their power!

Mayakovsky: (Standing up) That’s impossible! What are you

babbling about?

383
 KOLLONTAI

Oscar: (Nearly weeping) See for yourself, Volodya, there’s

not going to be a world revolution.

Mayakovsky: (Indignant, furious) Not this year, Oscar, not

this year. But next year, let’s keep going onward, onward!
He shoots at the year 1918, which explodes.

Onward, onward. Choose another year so we can show

our esteemed audience that the future is worth living
for. Straight away to year 2000, pull out the card, Maria!
Make way for the rhythms of the new age, comrades!

Theatre Director: Stop, stop, that’s no way to proceed. We

can’t violate our ritual. The audience must choose …

Mayakovsky: We already have the card.

Takes it out of Maria’s hand.

Here! 1952, fine, fine. Now, now, don’t cry, dear Oscar, I’ll
let you shoot for me. Aim at the life of the future, the
theatre of the future. Frenzy, dynamism, noise and din.
Take the pistol, my dear friend, and aim like a good soldier.
Present your weapon, careful …
He moves towards centre stage. Maria holds up the card with
the year. Oscar, down-stage, shuts his eyes and aims, with
both hands on the pistol. The spotlights follow Mayakovsky.
He stops by a wheel chair with its back to the audience.

Stop! What’s this?

No answer. But another spotlight lights up. Now we see a
table with roses and a comfortable chair by the table.

384
 PART ONE

Flowers and chamber pots, we must have the wrong cen-

tury, Vasilij, maybe 1852 …

Vasilij: No way, this card deck is reliable!

Mayakovsky: Well, we can’t have this!

Vasilij: My dear comrade, I like you very much, but now

you’ve got to back off. We chose the splendid year 1952,
and we’ll have to have a look at it.

Mayakovsky: (Looking down at the wheelchair) Who are you?

Silence

Sergei: (In the darkness) Who are you?

Mayakovsky wants to speak, but Maria stops him with a ges-
ture. She gives a sign to her comrades to disappear. Everyone
leaves quickly and without a sound.

Scene 3
Moscow, 1952

Sergei: (Kollontai’s son, a scientist in his fifties, comes into

the lit area by the writing table. Speaks in a calm but cold
voice.)

I’m asking who are you really, mama?

He touches the pile of papers.

You’re indifferent to everything around you, all you do is

stare backwards into the past. You don’t want to see the

385
 KOLLONTAI

times you are living in, you’re entirely preoccupied with

your memoirs. No one can keep his health and sanity sit-
ting shut in like that.

Kollontai: I feel fine.

(with some malice) How do you feel then? Your stomach

ulcer has, of course, gotten worse, as usual.

Nadya: (Kollontai’s secretary and friend of many years pops

into the lit area by the table.) Now, now. Let’s talk about
something pleasant for a change. Does anyone want a cup
of tea? You, Alexandra?
She has gently turned the wheelchair and fusses a bit with
the eighty-year old Kollontai, who is sitting there wrapped
in a comforter but well-dressed and elegant as always. Her
alligator-skin handbag is hanging in the arm of the chair.

Lights are lit, revealing the whole group. We see Katya, Alyo-
sha and Olga, a young girl, all sitting on benches around the
edge. But they all remain silent, no one answers.

Kollontai: (Persistently) I think, in any case, that you should

feel glad that Katya got a job.

Sergei: (Retorts) Glad! Are we supposed to feel glad, now

that I’ve been fired, and you know how delicate Katya is.

Kollontai: Your wife will certainly become less delicate

when she gets to work.

386
 PART ONE

Katya: I am happy to work, Alexandra Mikhailovna, but

we can’t live like this.

Sergei: For years they’ve been harassing me. Now they’re

bringing in some idiot to replace me, someone who doesn’t
know squat about science but who ‘thinks correctly’. My
god, will it never end?

Kollontai: You only think about yourself. Like most in-

tellectuals.

Katya: Right, just keep mocking him, that’s what you’ve

always done. But he is your son, after all. You could
help him, you know. You have connections, Alexandra
Mikhailovna, contacts …

Kollontai: No.

Katya: No?

Sergei: I don’t want any help from you, mama. I just want
you to recognise reality as it is, instead of your usual
‘Things are getting better.’ and ‘The situation is evolving
on the correct course …’

Kollontai: But that’s just what it is doing. The situation is

evolving on the correct course.

Sergei: Is it? People are just ‘disappearing’, just like in the

old days … going to prison, to forced labour camps! You’re
happy to see that production is increasing, but let me tell

387
 KOLLONTAI

you, if production is rising it’s because Beria is sending

still more people than before to forced labour camps. (He
points upward) ‘He’, the genius of geniuses and the father
of the people, should be shot, but no one dares!

Alyosha: Not so loud, papa.

Sergei: ‘Not so loud, not so loud’ … No, because the walls

have ears here too, even in a little two-roomed apartment
way out in the Moscow suburbs — even here we are being
monitored.

Katya: Nothing is getting better, Alexandra Mikhailovna,

nothing.

Kollontai: (After a short pause) Oh yes, it is, Katya.

Katya: What is getting better?!

Kollontai: Don’t shout. I can hear. But no one is listening

to what we’re saying. It’s been years since they spent their
money on such a luxury as to check on me.

(after a short pause) Ordinary people have seen their lives

improve in infinite ways in the Soviet Union since the
war ended.

Sergei: People in other countries have seen their lives im-

prove too, mama. But no one dares to inform us about that.

Kollontai: Alyosha will have a better life than you.

388
 PART ONE

Sergei: Alyosha, come here!

Grabs his son and brings him over in front of Kollontai

Do you realise, mama, that kids inform on each other in

school!
Alyosha breaks free and goes away.

His papa has been fired … whisper, whisper … Oh, I see,

it’s that kind of family … well, then the boy probably isn’t
to be trusted either … maybe they’re Jews … haven’t they
had contacts with foreigners … whisper, whisper … and
as a result some completely innocent seventeen-year-old
boy gets picked up for interrogation, sent off to prison
or to a camp. We’ve seen that happen with our own eyes,
mama! And you claim that the seventeen-year-old will
have a better life.

Kollontai: That is what I claim.

Alyosha: Please, papa, you must control yourself.

Sergei: Quite right, Alyosha. We must control ourselves,

your mother and I, we should keep quiet and smile and
suck up to people so that you can struggle to get through
that school that produces close-cut loyal swine.

Alyosha: So now it’s my fault! The only thing that would

make you really happy would be for me to get myself sent
to a labour camp, because that would at least show that I
can think for myself … that’s what you think, right?

389
 KOLLONTAI

Katya: Let’s leave. This is leading nowhere.

(Pause. Goes over to Kollontai.) We only came to ask you for

some advice, Alexandra Mikhailovna, but I guess it’s too
much to ask that you listen to what we have to say. You
have never listened to Sergei. You have only made fun
of him for his weakness. You are so strong. It is almost
unimaginable that you allowed yourself the weakness of
having a child. Sorry to have disturbed you. We’re leaving.

Kollontai: You’re mistaken, Katya. I’m very sorry that

Sergei is losing his job. But I’m not mocking him. It’s he
who is mocking me.

Nadya: Sergei, your mother is very tired. And we have

work to do …

Sergei: I know. Mama needs to work some more on her

memoirs. Fine, good luck. I hope you hear what I’m saying,
mama. Good luck!
Mayakovsky interrupts

Scene 4
Mayakovsky protests against the form

Mayakovsky: Stop, stop! I’m sorry to interrupt here, but

this is unacceptable!

Maria: And what’s wrong now, Volodya?

Mayakovsky: (Buries his head in his hands) Everything.

390
 PART ONE

Theatre Director: (Who has been following the preceding scene

from up in the box) Well, you may not like the contents of
this future, so, choose another one, Volodya!

Mayakovsky: I’m beginning to get very tired of your sar-

castic remarks.

Theatre Director: (Stops, returns to the edge of the box) Weren’t

you the one who said that art and life are the same in
the future? Well, here’s what you get. So, can you see the
difference between art and reality now?
Goes off stage.

Mayakovsky: (To the others) For once I have to admit that

devil is right. Art should criticise reality, always, always,
this is just unacceptable. Domestic interiors! Family
quarrels! Drawing-room drama, it’s all like Chekhov and
Stanislavsky, damn it, where is our circus theatre? What
a horrible year we’ve landed in!
Max agrees vigorously with gestures and more gestures.

Vasilij: Maybe we skipped too far ahead, Volodya.

Oscar: (Helpless, speaking in clown talk) Yeah, that’s what I

think, I really think so. Let’s go back.
Max protests in pantomime.

Mayakovsky: Or else forward. I agree with you, Max. Let’s

go forward, I propose we go directly to the year 2000, now,
right away, flat out. That’s where we’ll begin: Moscow in
2000! Are you happy with that, Max?

391
 KOLLONTAI

Max is enthusiastic.

Maria: But that’s not how it works, Volodya. And I have

to say that as soon as things don’t work out the way you
want, you get really unbearable, à la Uncle Vanya.

Mayakovsky: What kind of people are they, those people.

They are like Uncle Vanya, I’m tired of them. I’m tired of all
the uncles and aunts. It’s true that the revolution liberated
art, but it’s also obvious that now art must be ready to
liberate the revolution! A new year, Maria, and right away.

Maria: As you wish. But I want her with us.

Mayakovsky: Who? That woman, the person in the wheel

chair? Why?

Maria: Because that’s what I want. Theatre for the masses —

fine! Theatre out on the street — fine! But it all gets a bit
abstract if you don’t have a human being in the midst of it
all — that woman. I want to see how it works out.

Mayakovsky: (Tearing his hair in despair) ‘See how it works

out?’

Vasilij: (Holds out the deck of cards) Okay, Volodya, relax.

Pick a year yourself, be my guest.

Mayakovsky: You want me to …?

Vasilij: Pick a card.

Mayakovsky picks a card: the year 1921.

392
 PART ONE

Fine! And so, esteemed members of the audience, we shall

now continue. Moscow — 1921!

Mayakovsky: On we go! The year 1921 — noise, frenzy, dyna-

mism … re-vo-lu-tion!!!
Circus music and the actors move up-stage.

Scene 5
Kollontai and Dybenko, I
Moscow 1921

Kollontai rushes in, wearing an overcoat, with a bundle of

leaflets in her arms.

Kollontai: Re-vo-lu-tion! But where is it going? The bureau-

cracy just keeps growing!
Keeps turning the bundle over and over and leaflets fall on
the floor. She throws the bundle down.

Dybenko: (A spotlight catches him) Shura … ! I’ve been wait-

ing for you.

Kollontai: (Spreads out her arms, runs to greet him) Pavel, my

beloved Pavel!
Embrances him

Dybenko: (Calmly, after a pause)

I’ve been waiting for some time.
Kollontai frees herself from his embrace and goes over to her
bundle. She kneels and picks up papers.

393
 KOLLONTAI

Kollontai: (With her back to him, big gesture of exhaustion)

I know that. But I was at a meeting, Pavel!
They are at some distance from each other, at opposite sides
of the stage, a spotlight on each of them.

Dybenko: I don’t like those meetings you people have.

Kollontai: (Another big gesture) I know that too, Pavel.

Dybenko: So, stop going to them, Alexandra, while there

still is time.

Kollontai: What do you mean? Can’t our party tolerate

friendly criticism, expressed by party comrades?

Dybenko: But we’re in the midst of a civil war. Industry is

at a standstill! People are starving! We have to produce
food!

Kollontai: And all efforts to democratise our society should

be filed away (in a cubbyhole) until food is available, is
that what you mean?

Dybenko: We have no choice, unfortunately.

Kollontai: (In front by the footlights) Even labour unions

won’t be allowed, if Trotsky gets his way. People are being
sent off to perform forced labour, as if they were soldiers
at the front — their views count for nothing. And the
party wants to eliminate labour unions.

394
 PART ONE

Scene 6a
The meeting

Dybenko: (Speaking upwards towards the box, which has been

made very prominent by the lighting. It is packed with people,
workers, soldiers all with weapons, peasants in rags, old and
young, smoking, talking.)

There can’t be two in command! If the labour unions and

the party have different views, the party must prevail!

Kollontai: (She is walking towards centre stage, where a table

is revealed with the leaders, Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin and others
with documents, lots of papers.)
And the workers’ own organisations won’t even have a
voice? But listen to me, comrade leaders, listen to those of
us who work! We must object when you no longer believe
in the people’s own power.

Young worker: (From up in the box) That’s right, that’s right! I

used to work in a factory in St Petersburg before the rev-
olution, eighteen hours a day I slaved in muck and dark-
ness to earn my daily bread. When the revolution came, I
joined in! We formed a workers’ council, a workers’ soviet!
And we organised production! And then? For two years I
fought against the Whites. When the civil war was over,
the workers’ soviet was eliminated!

Working woman: (Rises in the box) The Bolsheviks eliminat-

ed them. But why? Whom are you afraid of, comrade lead-
ers, … of us? I too joined up, in Kiev. We united. Now we

395
 KOLLONTAI

are comrades, I said to my husband, now we work side by

side for the same goal, and you no longer have command
over me, no one can do that! Now he’s dead, shot by the
Whites. I gave my children grass and straw to eat, there
was no food. I am a seamstress. After the struggle against
the Whites, we said at our factory: the union will build
up production again! And we began doing that, work-
ing with heart and soul! Then a bureaucrat came from
Moscow came and told us: shut up, you people, and wait
for orders from Moscow! They sent me off to do forced
labour. Where are my children now? No one will tell me.
We support the workers’ opposition!
The others agree.

Scene 6b
The X Party Congress

A drum roll by the orchestra. Red streamers drop to the floor

everywhere, a red star over the box. Kollontai is heading
towards the rostrum.

Announcer on the PA system: The plenary meeting of the

10th Party Congress will continue. Comrade Kollontai is
called to the rostrum! Comrade Kollontai to the rostrum!
Some of the workers in the box applaud, shouts of Bravo!
Whistling. Then silence.

Kollontai: (The rostrum has been swung out over the audi-
ence. Kollontai addresses the audience.)

396
 PART ONE

Friends, party comrades! You know me. I was this re-

public’s first People’s Commissar for Social Matters and
Women’s Issues. I have worked my whole life for the lib-
eration of women, but I gradually came to understand that
women will never be free until mankind is free!

Comrades, you remember how it was when we made the

revolution? People who had been bullied and worn down
all their lives were filled with rejoicing and joy, they as-
sumed charge of production and defended their factories
with arms in hand against the forces of counter-revolu-
tion. People straightened their backs, realised their inher-
ent worth and found new forms of love and friendship
in equality!

And now? Comrades, look around at industry. Where

there used to be workers’ soviets and worker initiative,
now there is only listlessness and dissatisfaction. What
has happened?

We don’t need trade unions any more under socialism,

says comrade Trotsky. Does he understand what he is
saying? The workers’ opposition says just the opposite:
Those who work and produce should themselves design
work and production, because people without the power
of self-initiative cannot build socialism.

Once we threw the old directors out of the board rooms —

but now we see them streaming in again, the directors,
the technicians, the ‘experts’. And the bureaucracy keeps
on growing. Bureaucracy, comrades, brings with it fear.

397
 KOLLONTAI

Someone else is making decisions about our lives. People

begin to be afraid. They lose the habit of thinking, because
someone placed higher than them thinks for them. That
fear eats its way deep inside us, deep into the core of the
party too and that is dangerous, comrades, dangerous!
We bear a great responsibility, comrades, not just for our-
selves, but for workers in all countries!

The workers’ opposition demands: restore democracy,

free criticism! Wherever you find criticism and analysis,
wherever you find ideas in circulation — there you find
life, creativity, development forward!
The workers are about to applaud but are interrupted by the
PA system.

Announcer on the PA system: Comrade Trotsky has the floor!

Comrade Trotsky has the floor!
Kollontai slowly descends from the rostrum. She ends up in
front of the table where the leaders are sitting.

Trotsky: (Stands up by the table) The workers’ opposition

has transformed democracy into a fetish, an idol! As if
the right of workers to choose their representatives in
all situations outweighed the need for party loyalty. The
party has the right to exercise its dictatorship even when
it conflicts with the momentary views held by workers.
It is the party’s duty to uphold its dictatorship!

Government employee: (Very soft and faint in the PA system)

Comrade Lenin! Comrade Lenin!
Kollontai stands in front of Lenin and looks him in the eye.

398
 PART ONE

Lenin: (Shaking his head, softly) We can’t afford any so-

called workers’ opposition, Alexandra Mikhailovna. Not
right now. Not if we’re going to be able save the revolution.

Kollontai: (Bursts out) And what sort of revolution are we

trying to save, Vladimir Ilich?

Lenin: (Rising) Millions of people are starving in this coun-

try, many are dying of starvation! We have to produce
food! Forgive me, but at this time we can’t offer health
care and a free right to criticise!!!
Short silence. Lenin begins to move away. Everyone begins
to move, even in the box.

Kollontai: Shouts out in the midst of the murmuring, which

stops. People are listening.) Still, Vladimir Ilich … the op-
portunity to do it may never return!
Strong reactions, but the commotion continues. The rostrum
gets rolled out. The orchestra gives a final flourish. Blackout.

Scene 6c
Kollontai and Lenin

(Lenin at a table down-stage. Kollontai is dejected, her head

in her hands. Lenin sits with a package of sandwiches and a
bottle of beer and, even now, a bunch of papers. Documents
in front of him on the table, which he scans. Further away,
there’s a group of government officials talking, waiting their
turn to see Lenin.)

399
 KOLLONTAI

Lenin: Be careful, Alexandra. Be careful with your guilt

feelings.1 You want to reach down to the people and grant
them their human dignity, creativity, participation … That
is both noble and beautiful. But we can’t manage to do
that right now. If we relax our grip the slightest bit, we’ll
have the counter-revolution on us. Your speech was mag-
nificent, but completely out of place, exactly the wrong
time. Use your powers and rhetorical skills to support the
party instead. The ‘new man’ your crowd talks about can’t
be born if we can’t ensure that the old man will survive.
Free criticism, free art and free love … all of that is fine,
but not just yet.

Kollontai: But how do you read your Marx, Vladimir Ilich?

Do you remember what Karl Marx wrote about the need
for trade unions in the revolt of the masses?

Lenin: The revolt of the masses! The masses never revolt

on their own. But aren’t you hungry, dear child? Don’t you
want a sandwich?
She shakes her head.

Romantic dreams … we don’t need that.

Kollontai: So you think that democracy is a romantic

dream, Vladimir Ilich?

1 Lenin and Kollontai use the familiar (comradely) form of address

(Swedish du, like the French tu) with each other, unlike Stalin
later on.

400
 PART ONE

Lenin: All I’m saying to you is that what your group is

calling for can’t be implemented now while Russia is sur-
rounded by enemies. Now we need unity!
Kollontai: And when can it be implemented …?

Lenin: We’ve only been able to open the door a crack, Alex-
andra. (Packs up his sandwiches.) We have lots of hard work
ahead of us. God knows we need you.
Sighs and walks with his package and his papers over to the
officials, who have risen and are coming towards him with
more documents. Kollontai stands up, moves away, stands
alone in a spotlight.

Scene 7
Kollontai and Dybenko II
Moscow, 1921

Kollontai: (Shouting) And still, comrade Lenin, what sort of

a revolution are we trying to save, if the people no longer
have a voice?
She goes towards centre stage.

Dybenko: (By the chair, dressing for a trip. On the back of the
chair we see a cartridge belt and a revolver etc. hanging.)
Shura dear, listen to me. I have been given an assignment.

Kollontai: But maybe he does understand me, our comrade

Lenin, but Trotsky — he’s a devil!

Dybenko: I have to go on a trip, Shura.

401
 KOLLONTAI

Kollontai: (As if she hadn’t been listening. Throws herself into

his arms.) And you, Pavel — do you also think I’m wrong?

Dybenko: I love you, Alexandra.

Kollontai: But you think I’m wrong.

They look at each other.

Dybenko: Maybe not. Maybe you’re right. But think of the

situation we’re in! The sailors in Kronstadt are in revolt.
They’re all shouting ‘All power to the workers’ soviets!’

Kollontai: Because the party refuses to listen to their crit-

icism. There will be more revolts, and the party will soon
have to beat them down with force, and then where will
we be?

Dybenko: The party has to keep a firm grip on the reins

now. In a few years we’ll get all we have wanted: democ-
racy, socialism, times of harvest.

Kollontai: In a few years, in a few years, how is all this

supposed to happen in a few years if we don’t prepare the
ground now? Pavel, my beloved, I beg you, don’t take off
and leave me now! I have been shut out of all assignments,
old party members won’t even say hello, some members
of the workers’ opposition have been put in prison. They
won’t even let me lead the work of the Women’s Depart-
ment any more!

Dybenko: Be patient. It’s cold outside. Look, Shura, look at

the beautiful frost blossoms on the window.

402
 PART ONE

Kollontai: Frost blossoms! I don’t want frost blossoms. I

want to be able to see clearly.

Dybenko: I’ll make you a peek hole. Come here.

Kollontai: You’re making a peek hole for me, but I want to

see the whole horizon! Pavel, if it weren’t for you …

Dybenko: Yes?

Kollontai: … I’d be all alone.

Dybenko: But I am here.

Kollontai: Yes, you are here, you are here.

Dybenko: The revolution’s lovebirds … the sailor and the

daughter of an aristocrat.

Kollontai: Don’t leave, Pavel, you can’t leave me right now,

where are they sending you?

Dybenko: To Kronstadt.

Kollotai: Kronstadt? You? To Kronstadt?

Dybenko: I am to lead the government forces against the

sailors in revolt.

Kollontai: You’re going to attack them — with arms?

403
 KOLLONTAI

Dybenko: Don’t think I like doing it. But I have to.

Kollontai: Have to? You’re following orders, blindly.

Dybenko: No. I’m doing it because I chose which side I’m

on. I’m with the party.

Kollontai: You’d shoot me too, if those were your orders.

Dybenko: Keep quiet, Shura!

Kollontai: Why should I keep quiet? You would shoot me

too if the party ordered you to! It doesn’t matter what your
heart or reason tells you, you still have to obey the party!
Everything will get better, you say, but how is it better
when communists shoot their comrades?

Dybenko: (Packs) Everything will get better as long as

there is no counter-revolution, if we just get some peace
and quiet.

Kollontai: (Shouting) And you and I should just wait for

that harvest to come in peace and quiet? Can’t you see
that you’re speaking against yourself — you don’t believe
in what you’re saying!

Dybenko: Yes! I’m saying this because I believe it and be-

cause I love you.

Kollontai: I love you too, but what you’re doing is wrong!

Dybenko leaves.

404
 PART ONE

Don’t go! Don’t leave me! I don’t want to be left all alone!
With her back to the audience, she sinks in despair into the
chair. Silence.

Scene 8
The Futurists around Lenin’s portrait

(Mayakovsky, Maria, Oscar, Vasilij, Max)

Mayakovsky:
We were two in the room
I
and Lenin —
He’s on my wall
in a photograph.

Maria:
From his open mouth
Stream powerful words,
The wrinkles on his face
speak
of humanity
Behind that mighty forehead
Are even mightier thoughts.

Mayakovsky:
Beneath him
pass people
in the thousands …
Beaming with joy
I rise from my chair

405
 KOLLONTAI

I want to go
to him
and say what I think.

Oscar: Comrade Lenin,

I am here
with my report
Not because it’s my job
but straight from the heart
Comrade,
it is hellish work
that we have to do.

Vasilij:
We enlighten
and clothe the poor and the naked
And extract
evermore iron ore and coal.
But, you know,
there is much that is lacking!
Comrade Lenin
in the smoky sooty factories
And across the fields of grain
and the snow-covered stretches
It’s the thought of you that
keeps us from giving up.

Oscar:
It is your heart and name
that helps us to breathe
and live for the struggle!

406
 PART ONE

Maria:
With piles of work
and scenes of all kinds
The light died away,
Another day passed.

Mayakovsky:
We were two in the room
I
and Lenin —
He’s on my wall
in a photograph.
I want to go
to him
and say what I think.

Scene 9
Kollontai and Stalin I

A huge portrait of Lenin, where he is standing at a rostrum,

turned sideways, speaking to the people. Kollontai is stand-
ing with her back to the audience, looking up at the portrait.
She turns and stares at Stalin, who is sitting at his plain desk
covered with documents.

Stalin: (Picking his teeth, he looks at Kollontai. Finally he

speaks)

Didn’t you hear what I said to you, comrade Kollontai?2

2 Stalin and Kollontai use the formal form of address (Swedish ni, like
the French vous) with each other.

407
 KOLLONTAI

Comrade Lenin can’t be visited.

Kollontai: But I’m an old friend of his, Josef Vissarionovich.

You know that.

Stalin: Right. Everyone is an old friend of Vladimir Ilich’s

these days, everyone wants to talk to him, what do you
want to talk to Vladimir Ilich about? He is sick and mustn’t
be disturbed. It is my job to ensure that he is not disturbed.
You would only disturb him. (He begins working)

Kollontai: Since when have you become the gatekeeper for

Vladimir Ilich, comrade Stalin? You could at least be kind
enough to tell me where he is.
Stalin: I can’t figure you out, comrade Kollontai.

Kollontai: I think that is quite right, comrade Stalin.

Stalin: (Irritated) What is it that you are trying to achieve?

Sometimes it’s free love, sometimes it’s world revolution …
What you did at the party congress was unpardonable, do
you hear me?

Kollontai: But surely you don’t believe that I am an ene-

my of the party? What I said at the congress was internal
criticism, among party comrades.

Stalin: Who are you? You come from the upper class,
you’ve gone to schools, you speak a lot of languages. Ger-
man? English? French, maybe? Me, I’m a simple man, I
wasn’t born in Moscow, I barely speak Russian … But I
can see what’s wrong with you.

408
 PART ONE

Kollontai: Oh, what?

Stalin: You’re divided, split … That’s why you go astray

so often.
He looks at her. Silence.

Kollontai: So you don’t want to tell me where comrade

Lenin is?

Stalin: Comrade Lenin is not as you imagine him to be, …

he’s made of sterner stuff, through and through. He is like
an icon cut from hard wood … not soft like you.

Kollontai: An icon, that’s the image you chose. Maybe not

entirely unexpected.

Stalin: (Wrinkling his brow) What do you mean?

Kollontai: Weren’t you in a school for priests, once?

Stalin: Sure! And that is the source of my thinking. It was

a hard school, comrade Kollontai, one that knew how to
deal with apostates. They kept us on the right course.

Kollontai: Well, and at some point you’ll probably canonise

comrade Lenin if you go on like that.

Stalin: (Bursts out laughing) You know, you’re not bad. Can-
onising?

Kollontai: (Coldly) A way of disposing of him.

409
 KOLLONTAI

Stalin: (Changing his mood, darkly) Disposing of him?

Comrade Kollontai, comrade Lenin is very sick. You
sometimes take liberties that make me wonder who you
are. I’m warning you. You pose a challenge to people. (He
moves closer to her.) You provoke people with your clothes
when all of Moscow is dressed in rags.

Kollontai: The challenge I pose is to people’s lack of imag-

ination, comrade Stalin.

Stalin: (Short pause) And your handsome sailor, where is

he?

Kollontai: He’s been assigned to Odessa. Haven’t we stray­ed

from the subject?

Stalin: Have we? Why do you need to talk to comrade

Lenin? Tell me!

Kollontai: (She is silent, then speaks) Comrade Stalin, I’ve

been excluded from all assignments. It’s unbearable. I
want to be of use.

Stalin: In the workers’ opposition? (Raises his voice.) The

worker’s opposition has been eliminated, the counter-
revolution in Kronstadt has been beaten down. And for
that, the party’s Central Committee is grateful to Pavel
Dybenko.

Kollontai: (Distressed) I know that, comrade Stalin.

410
 PART ONE

Stalin: What sort of useful work had you thought of doing,

comrade Kollontai?

Kollontai: (She is silent, then speaks) Since you can’t figure

me out, comrade Stalin, I will explain to you. Useful for
the party, for building socialism. But since you don’t in-
tend to listen, I will leave.

Stalin: Already? In the midst of such a pleasant conversa-

tion? And where are you going?

Kollontai: What concern is it of yours.

Stalin: How can I help you if I don’t know where you are?

Kollontai: (Putting on her gloves) You’ll be able to find me

in Odessa.

Stalin: I see. Well, I think that is foolish.

Kollontai: Why?

Stalin: We might find better plans. Better stay here. If you

stay here, we might be able to figure out something useful
for you.

Kollontai: Then, will you tell comrade Lenin that I am

looking for him?
(Stalin looks at her. He doesn’t answer. He smiles. Kollontai
buttons her button.)

411
 KOLLONTAI

I can manage without you, comrade Stalin.

Stalin: Can you? Well, that’s fine!

(Kollontai leaves. Stalin follows her with his glance.)

Scene 10
The Futurists — the train

(Mayakovsky, Vasilij, Maria and Oscar, as if in a train)

All four: (Coming in)

Chugga-chugga, chugga-chugga
Woo-woo
Chugga-chugga, chugga-chugga
Woo-woo

Mayakovsky: Maybe you want us to make a rainbow for

you instead? But how useful can a rainbow be?

Maria: You can’t even use a rainbow to cut pork chops

with!

Vasilij: Or maybe some flaming Northern Lights? Do you

want us to make you some majestic Northern Lights?

Oscar: You’ll just get mad when you realise that you can’t
sew the Northern Lights on to your wife’s skirt.

Mayakovsky: That’s why we don’t produce rainbows or

Northern Lights, but insolent words and expressions as
coarse as the blows of an axe!

412
 PART ONE

Vasilij: We’re coachmen for hire, walking advertising col-

umns!

Mayakovsky: The Northern Lights and rainbows have their

functions, which they fulfill honorably and skillfully, but
we have other tasks, my esteemed audience!

Oscar: We can’t tell you about them now, but we intend to

take you with us on the train to Odessa!

Vasilij: To Odessa! The year is 1922 — off we go on the

direct express train!
All four: (Going out)

Chugga-chugga, chugga-chugga
Woo-woo
Chugga-chugga, chugga-chugga
Woo-woo

Scene 11
Odessa, 1922

At Dybenko’s place. Kollontai and Dybenko in bed. Glasses,

bottles, dawn. Dybenko’s boots are on the floor. His military
coat and holster are hanging on the wall. A screen, a wash
basin. A knock on the door.

Dybenko: (Rolls over, stretches) And then came the dawn …

or however the great Pushkin put it.

413
 KOLLONTAI

Olga: (Comes in) There’s a telegram. For the lady.

Kollontai gets up. Uses Dybenko’s uniform tunic as a morning
robe and goes out. Olga looks at Dybenko. Takes his boots.

Dybenko: Leave the boots alone.

Olga: They need brushing.

Dybenko: Leave them be. I’m on my way out.

Olga: No. I’m going to brush them, like I always do.

Dybenko: (Jumps out of bed) Leave them alone, I tell you!

Tries to take them. Olga won’t let go.

Let go, Olga!

Kollontai in with a telegram in hand.

Olga: (Shoves the boots into Dybenko’s chest.) Take them

then! Take them!
She wails, bursts into tears, runs out.

Dybenko: What’s the matter? Why are you staring like that?

Kollontai: (After a short pause) Why don’t you tell me that

she is your mistress?

Dybenko: Why should I do that?

Kollontai: Isn’t that what she is?

414
 PART ONE

Dybenko: You’re jealous.

Kollontai: Yes, I am.

Dybenko: It doesn’t suit you.

Kollontai: Then I beg your pardon.

Dybenko: Jealous of a nineteen-year-old girl — you who

wrote books about free love!

Kollontai: Yes. Well, what of it?

Dybenko: What of it? That’s what I say too — what of it?

Kollontai: And when I arrived from Moscow, she got

pushed aside.

Dybenko: Yes, that’s what she had to do.

Kollontai: And you didn’t tell me anything!

Dybenko: We’ve had other things to do, don’t you think?

Kollontai: And what did she say about my coming here?

Dybenko: Imagine, I didn’t ask her!

Kollontai: No, you don’t have to ask servant girls what they
think, they get paid! You just move them around, from the
bed to the dishpan and back!

415
 KOLLONTAI

Dybenko: Shura …

Kollontai: It’s so degrading. So banal.

(Short pause)
You and I, we make love and we talk and we talk … are
we doing the right thing, are we doing the wrong thing,
what sort of disputes do we see within the party, how is
socialism going — but about this — not a word.

Dybenko: Because it doesn’t have anything to do with the

rest.

Kollontai: How we live? How we behave towards each

other?

Dybenko: I’ve been lonely here and unhappy. She was lone-
ly too. You weren’t here and it took you a hell of a long
time to get here.

Kollontai: Yes. I was in Moscow trying to improve my sit-

uation. But now I’m here.

Dybenko: Right, and now all that other stuff no longer

matters.

Kollontai: (Holding up the telegram) I have to leave.

Dybenko: No, now you stay.

Kollontai: How can I do that?

416
 PART ONE

Dybenko: Shura, we’ve never had time for each other.

There’s only been work and politics. Now you’re finally
here and now you’re staying here.

Kollontai: I have longed to be here, more than I can tell

you. But when I came, you were as incommunicative as a
wall. Where are you?

Dybenko: Don’t you think I have longed for you too? I have.
And now I want to finally be with you. I want peace!

Kollontai: If that’s the case, you were born in the wrong

century, Pavel!

Dybenko: Are we going to argue about that too?

Kollontai: You won’t get the peace you long for with me.

Dybenko: Oh yes, we can manage, with a little patience.

Kollontai: Pavel, I have to leave you.

Dybenko: Shura, for god’s sake, stop!

Kollontai: We’d still have to part, sooner or later, I’m so

much older than you, you want to have children, don’t
you, I have a son, you don’t, my son is older than … she is.

Dybenko: Please forgive me, Shura, I made a mistake, for-

give me. Just stay. Olga will be dismissed.

417
 KOLLONTAI

Kollontai: Dismissed — for what? No! But you must talk

to her, ask her to forgive you for having treated her like
a slave. Don’t you understand? I am only blaming you for
not having told me about her and her about me, so she
would know.

Dybenko: Olga is a nice girl, I like her a lot, but talk to her
… She wouldn’t understand.

Kollontai: Not understand? No, she’s only there to serve, no

point in asking her opinions. You act like Trotsky when
he’s attacking labour unions, workers shouldn’t be asked
about anything, they don’t know what’s best for them, we
don’t have to ask them … call her in, this concerns her, she
has the right to be present!

Dybenko: No way, never!

Kollontai: Call her in! How long have you made love to her
before she had to move out, four months? Or only three?

Dybenko: As you wish.

(He opens the door. Olga is standing there.)
Here, be my guest. Talk to her.

Kollontai: Me? You’re the one who …

Dybenko: Olga, this lady has written books about free love,
and she feels that I have behaved like a pig towards you.
Do you have anything to say about that?

418
 PART ONE

Kollontai: Pavel!

Dybenko: Isn’t that right? And really good books too, about
the underclass.

Kollontai: Olga, what I said was that it was wrong not to

tell you who I was, when I was coming.

Olga: I understood anyway.

Kollontai: How do you feel about this?

Olga curtsies without answering.
You know, I don’t think it was wrong … you know, the two
of you … I’m not angry …
Olga looks at her without answering.

Dybenko: No, she’s not angry. She is so good, Alexandra is.

Kollontai: I’d really like it if you said something to me … I

have to leave soon … Won’t you say something?

Olga: (Curtsying) I’d rather go. May I?

Dybenko: Do you see what I mean?

Kollontai: No, I see nothing at all.

Dybenko: You must stay here, Shura.

Kollontai: No, I have to leave.

Dybenko: You’re not going to move anywhere!

419
 KOLLONTAI

Kollontai: He helped me! Comrade Stalin helped me, just as

I asked him to! He’s sending me to Norway, as a diplomat!

Dybenko: God help you if that’s true.

Kollontai: Pavel, here at home I’m excluded from every-

thing, I can’t bear it!

Dybenko: You’re leaving because you don’t want to be with

me.

Kollontai: No! I love you, Pavel!

Dybenko: Then stay!

Kollontai: I can’t. But in a few years …

Dybenko: In a few years, in a few years! I have waited for

years to get a chance to live with you, not just work … live!
Grabs the overcoat and holster from the wall and goes out.

Kollontai: Pavel …
A shot. Olga and Kollontai stand completely immobile. Max
rushes in, he tries to explain what has happened … Kollontai
wants to push him aside and rush out, but the Futurists come
in. They bring Dybenko in with them. He is bare-chested and
has a bandage on his chest, they sit him down on a chair.
Kollontai stands behind the chair. Olga is a bit further away.
Vasilij taps his drum once.

Mayakovsky: Do you think this is a fever dream?

420
 PART ONE

Vasilij: (A drum beat) Such things happen.

Maria: (A drum beat) It happened in Odessa.

Mayakovsky: I’ll come at four o’clock, she promised.

Oscar: Eight. Nine. Ten.

Maria: Away from the window

the evening turned
into a nightmare-like December night,
tormented.

Vasilij: And behind the evening’s broken back

grinned the halos of light!

Dybenko: (Delirious) Take away the lamp, it hurts my eyes!

Shura! Take my hand!
(Kollontai wants to move over to him but is stopped.)
No! Don’t touch me, you’ve hurt me, go off on your jour-
ney, go!
(Pleading)
Shura, my little girl …
(Kollontai is held back again.)
No! I don’t want to see you … Olga, where are you, Olga?

Olga: (Falling on her knees, takes his hand) I’m here, Pavel
Yefimovich.

Dybenko: Could you take away the lamp.

Olga: There is no lamp.

421
 KOLLONTAI

Dybenko: (Straining) Has she gone? Is she still here?

Olga: (Meeting Kollontai’s glance) Yes …

(Kollontai shakes her head, slowly, sadly.)
I’ll take care of it, Pavel Yefimovich …

Dybenko: Don’t go. Stay here.

Olga bows her head. Kollontai goes out.

Scene 12
Mayakovsky goes home

Mayakovsky: Now I stand, bent over, by a window

and melt the panes with my hot forehead.
Will this love be as I hope?
Will it be small and puny?
Or huge like a giant?!!!

Maria: (Looks at him, uncertain. Shakes her head, uneasy.)

And what do we do now? Do we go on?

Vasilij: Of course we go on. That’s the only thing we can

know for sure. We must always go on.

Mayakovsky: I don’t know what you guys are thinking of

doing. Me, I think I’ll go home.

Oscar: Home.

Maria: What’s wrong? The ‘bio-mechanics’?

422
 PART ONE

(She does some ironic typical dance steps. She breaks out of
her pose.)
I’m joking, come on, let’s go on …
(Mayakovsky doesn’t answer, rushes out. All take a step to
follow him.)

Vasilij: (Shouting after him) What’s bothering you?

Maria: Relax. He’ll be back. It’s obviously all about some

woman. Then he always takes off.

Vasilij: I think he’s depressed because the party doesn’t like

his poetry. (Sighs) And because there are fewer and fewer
of us. When are you thinking of leaving us, Max? (Max
does a bit of pantomime.) What’s he saying?

Oscar: He thinks we should choose a new year. 2000. Let’s

do it!

Maria: You people are always overreacting. That is so like

men. (She looks away towards where Mayakovsky went.) You
run away, some of you this way, others that way. But I
refuse. I want to see how this works out.
(Takes some cards.)
1924, 27, 30. These are my cards.

Vasilij: (Protesting) All of them together?

Maria: All together! To Norway!

Oscar: Norway! Christiania! Wonderful!

(Max makes some gestures and does a pantomime)

423
 KOLLONTAI

Maria: What’s he saying now?

Oscar: He says it’s a little country where nice people walk

around on the streets eating snow in cones.

Maria: Fine! We are Futurists! Let’s get a move on!

(Max does some pantomime. Sound of boats hooting.)

Oscar: (To Vasilij) Grab the hawser! Pull in the gangplank!

Maria: The boat is setting off!

(They make a boat, toot, toot, and begin to sail off)
Oi, it’s rocking! I’m going to be sick!
(They tap-dance their way out)

Scene 13
Christiania in the mid-1920s

(The Soviet legation. Russian and Norwegian flags. Por-

trait of Lenin. Marcel Body is lying on a sofa and reading
at night.)

Woman’s voice: (Shouting off stage) No! No!

(The door flies open. Kollontai rushes in in her nightgown
and with her hair standing on end. Body jumps up.)

Body: Dear god and creator, is it you, Alexandra Mikhai-

lovna? I thought it was a ghost.

Kollontai: Marcel! Forgive me, I had such a bad dream.

What are you doing sitting here in the middle of the night?

424
 PART ONE

Body: (A little embarrassed) I often return to the legation

when everyone has gone. The room I rent is so depressing.
Look! (He shows her the book)

Kollontai: Marx. Capital. And you still have the energy to

work here with us during the day? Where in France do
you come from, Marcel?

Body: From Paris. Here, come and sit in the sofa.

(Kollontai sits, she is freezing. Body comes back in with a
glass of milk.)

Drink! It’s the best thing for when you have bad dreams.
You’re freezing!
(Takes his coat from the chair and spreads it over her knees.)

Kollontai: (Happy) Thanks.

Body: Drink it now, the milk is warm. Warm milk keeps

the ghosts away, my mother always says.

Kollontai: Your mother in Paris?

Body: Yes … I’m a typographer, Alexandra Mikhailovna.

When the revolution came, I rushed to Russia, like many
others … and now I’m here, a Frenchman working for the
Soviets in the legation in Christiania!

Kollontai: And studying Marx?

Body: Yes, and studying Marx, the German. Before, all I

did was work and fight the Whites. Now I’m trying to fill

425
 KOLLONTAI

in the gaps, sort of after the fact. At night. Tell me now —

what was it you dreamt that was so awful?

Kollontai: I dreamt … I lost someone I loved. I dreamt he

was shot.

Body: Such dreams are not good. My wife is in France … I

haven’t seen her for years.

Kollontai: You have a wife … such a young boy?

Body: (Shrugs out with his hands) These days I hardly know.
It’s good that you’re here in Norway, Alexandra Mikhai-
lovna. You’ve done good work here.

Kollontai: Moscow isn’t happy with my reports.

Body: Do you know what they’re doing in Moscow?

They’re mucking around with the Norwegian Workers
Party, trying to get it to collapse so they can get a loyal
communist party instead, one that will support Stalin in
the Comintern. It’s good that you’re opposing Moscow’s
line.

Kollontai: Do you support the opposition against comrade

Stalin, Marcel?

Body: I am worried about what is happening.

Kollontai: I am worried too.

Body: They’re fighting for power there, they’ve been

426
 PART ONE

fighting like madmen for power ever since comrade Le-

nin’s death. And what happens to the revolution?
(Points at the book)

Something has been lost, I feel. He could provide us with

good advice.

Kollontai: Sometimes, Marcel, I get so afraid …

Body: You mustn’t be afraid.

Kollontai: I get worried I made a mistake leaving home …

Body: But good god, Alexandra Mikhailovna, you’re need-

ed here! You support the Norwegian workers. Our revolu-
tion was carried out to save the workers in all countries,
you have to stand firm against Moscow and the Com-
intern.

Kollontai: But how long will they leave me alone! I am so

tired, Marcel, I long to get home, I don’t want to be a dip-
lomat. Where has love gone, freedom and joy? I want to
live a little! And write, I’m a writer after all, maybe Pravda
doesn’t like what I write, but the women … they under-
stand! It seemed as though a new woman would be born,
a new solidarity in work, a new relationship between the
sexes … I need to help, it’s important, important … do you
understand, Marcel?

Marcel: (On his knees beside her, takes her hand) Don’t leave
us! We need you!

427
 KOLLONTAI

Kollontai: I look old, don’t I?

Body: (Shakes his head) You’re so beautiful. You look

younger than when you first came here, and that was a
few years ago.

Kollontai: Marcel … do you think I’m trying to run away …

I don’t know where I am anymore … help me …

Body: … but you’re freezing, you’ve been working too hard,

cry a little now, that helps … on Sunday — then you’ll go
with me up to Holmenkollen, do you want to? 3

Kollontai: Yes, a long, long walk. That would be nice …

(They embrace. Sounds of the popular song ‘No, no, Nanette’.)

Scene 14
The lamppost I

Mayakovsky: (Alone by the lamppost)

It’s dark again.

Downcast, I take my heart
and surround it with tears
and bear it,
as a dog bears his paw

crushed by a train
to his kennel.
3 At this point Body switches to using the intimate/familiar form
(Swedish du, like the French tu) in addressing Kollontai and she
follows suit.

428
 PART ONE

Maria: (Rushes in, sees Mayakovsky) Volodya …

I’ve been looking for you everywhere — Have you fin-
ished your play?
(Mayakovsky shakes his head)
Are you writing anything else? Poems?
(Mayakovsky nods)

About love?
(Mayakovsky nods)

And she loves someone else, of course?

(Mayakovsky nods and flicks his cigarette across the street)

But Volodya! Come back to us, we miss you.

Mayakovsky: (Turning up his collar) I write love poems, she

doesn’t want them, no one wants my plays either, ‘just
circus tricks’ the critics say … what is needed, they say,
are plays with tractors as the lead characters …

Maria: Oh Volodya …

Mayakovsky: (Shouting into the night) Now just you listen,

you exalted critics … the poet Mayakovsky will give you
what you want, he’ll write you a play with ten tractors in
the lead roles and they will love each other with a love so
mighty it will blow your trite little ears off!!!

Maria: (Giggles) Come and tell them that, Volodya. They’re

sitting in the little rooms at the Smithy Café! All the Fu-
turists are there and they’re fighting like tigers, and we
know for sure the damn critics are scared.

429
 KOLLONTAI

Mayakovsky: (Brightening up) Scared of us, right.

Maria: (Melancholy) Afraid of our government, Volodya.

Come and tell them about how they’re scared! They’ve
been quarreling for weeks at the Smithy Café, but we’re
not getting anywhere, only you can tell it like it is. God,
I’m so glad I found you, Volodya!

Mayakovsky: Come!
(They go)

Scene 15
The Smithy Café

(The Smithy Café, the box has been transformed into an

orchestra pit. A pathetic orchestra is playing melancholy
music. People are sitting at small tables reading newspapers
on newspaper sticks.
 Kollontai is sitting at a table down-stage. Drinking a cup
of coffee. A glass of water. Smokes impatiently. Marcel Body
in an overcoat makes his way through the smoke and people.
Looks around for a waiter.)

Kollontai: (Eagerly) Oh, there you are, there you are … so,
tell me!

Body: (Signals a waiter way in the back that he wants a beer)

Can’t he understand that I want a beer?
(Sits down)

430
 PART ONE

Kollontai: So, tell me, quickly! Will he come?

Body: (Doesn’t answer right a way. Looks around at people

sitting nearby behind their newspapers.)

Alexandra, we have to be extraordinarily careful. Moscow

isn’t like it was. The police are everywhere. People act as
if they don’t even trust their own mothers.

Kollontai: Doesn’t he want to meet with me?

Body: He’ll be here any minute.

(Kollontai stifles a shout)

Keep a cool head, Alexandra. You are probably being

watched. Some sort of meeting is going on next door, and
the whole corridor is full of policemen.
(Kollontai nods)

Well, goodbye then!

(He slowly takes her water glass)

You wrote somewhere that love should be like a glass of

water, right?
(Kollontai shakes her head)

No? Maybe not always. Bon, we all have to relearn some

things as the times change. I don’t have time to wait for
my beer. So, I raise this water glass to thank you on my
behalf. Be well, Alexandra.

431
 KOLLONTAI

He stands up. Drinks. Dybenko can be seen in the distance.

Be careful, Alexandra.
Dybenko comes over. Kollontai reaches and pulls a newspa-
per over to herself and, when Dybenko sits down, she kisses
him behind the newspaper. Body watches the scene, shrugs
his shoulders and goes out.

Kollontai: (Puts the newspaper down) Stand still, heaven!

Stars, don’t think of moving! Time, stand still!

Dybenko: (Looking quickly around) You’re attracting atten-

tion.

Kollontai: Well, so what? I want to attract attention!

Dybenko: You’ve probably managed to do just that.

Kollontai: Shouldn’t I have kissed you?

Dybenko: (Irritated, speaking carefully) Don’t you realise

they’re watching you? My god.
Shakes his head in despair.

And how did you get hooked up with that …

(He gestures in the direction where Body disappeared.)

Kollontai: Are you jealous?

Dybenko: (Smiles) No! … Well, yes … but, damn it, that has
nothing to do with this.

432
 PART ONE

Kollontai: It doesn’t? I’ve come here to live with you, Pavel

… if you still love me.

Dybenko: I do. I do love you, but things are tougher. Your

activities in Norway haven’t exactly made it easier for you
and me to come together. I’d like to ask you about a few
things …

Kollontai: Don’t force me to defend myself. Don’t push me

away, Pavel …

Dybenko: (Hard, nervous) You’re following some sort of

devilish logic, which you can no doubt defend — I can
only point out that you aren’t particularly good at see-
ing reality as it is. This is not a time when you can sit in
Christiania and try to tell the Comintern what to do and
compose letters about international communism. Nor is
it a time when one can sit in Moscow and write about
women, equality and the family. Damn it, what we have to
do now is encourage women to have children and go back
to their baby carriages. We’re in a tough situation, and we
have to do the best we can. It is completely clear who has
power now, and only idiots imagine the situation to be
otherwise, the rest of us have to work …
looks at his watch

and god knows there is a lot that has to be done. I have

to watch my time.

Kollontai: Pavel. Please.

433
 KOLLONTAI

Dybenko: Forgive me, but you’re making it unbearably

difficult for me. I love you, yes, I do. But our situation is
completely impossible.
(The waiter arrives with Body’s beer. Dybenko chugs it down.)
You and I have to talk this through, that’s obvious, but not
now, not here. How could you, by the way, pick a place like
this? Give me your address. I’ll come visit you, if that’s
all right?
The waiter comes. Dybenko takes the check, pulls out his
eyeglasses, sticks them on his nose. He takes out his purse,
and counts out what he owes the waiter. Kollontai scribbles
a note and gives it to him. She looks at him quietly, as if at a
stranger. He strokes her cheek and goes. Kollontai remains
sitting, dumb-struck. One of the newspaper readers puts his
paper down, buttons up his coat rather too fast, and follows
Dybenko. The orchestra plays the sentimental waltz for the
seventh time. Indignant voices can be heard from the other
side of the café.

The Futurists throng agitatedly out into the street towards

the lamppost, shouting things like ‘Parasites of Satan!’, ‘How
can we have an art worthy of the name when the critics have
turned into chicken-hearted bootlickers!’

Scene 16
The lamppost II

Shouting continues, ‘Bootlickers is too nice a word!’, ‘Lackeys,

then!’, ‘Soulless bureaucrats!’, ‘Box thinkers!’, ‘Inept hire-
lings and parasites, go to hell!’ Whistles, pounding on drums,

434
 PART ONE

deafening cacophony, which drowns out the resetting of the

stage in the dark.

Vasilij: They can’t stop us that easily!

Oscar: We only want quietly to point out a few things,

either we’re wrong or we’re right.

Maria:
Looks around … The music dies out in the middle of a measure.

Look —
They’ve chopped the hoods off the stars
and everything is bleeding, a heavenly massacre!

Mayakovsky: Hey, you!

Sky!
Take off your hat!
Here I come!

Vasilij: It’s quiet.

Oscar: It’s grown completely quiet.

Mayakovsky: The universe is sleeping,

with its massive ear against its paw
with its sparkling starry claws …

The light shows Stalin at his desk.

435
 KOLLONTAI

Scene 17
Kollontai and Stalin II

In a big chair in front of the desk, Stalin is sitting and sleep-

ing, wrapped in a military jacket, with his ear pressed against
his hand. The furniture is a bit worn and simple. Tamara, his
secretary, an older woman with a pince-nez and dressed in
a puritanical dress, brings in Kollontai with a hostile glance
at her.

Stalin: (In a good mood) Well dressed, as always.

Kollontai: (Ironic) Your secretary certainly didn’t think so.

Stalin: Nowadays people aren’t so poorly dressed in

Moscow either.

Kollontai: You feel the situation has improved?

Stalin: Of course. Base and superstructure, right? You

know your Marx. Nowadays, I think you attract less
attention on account of your clothes here than in Oslo.

Kollontai: Is that what your agents have reported?

Stalin: (Broad smile) You don’t like them? And I sent over
the handsomest young man I could find. He wasn’t your
type?

Kollontai: (Angry) He wasn’t the only one. How are we sup-

posed to work with such a horde of insufferable oafs at

436
 PART ONE

the legation? Intrigues and backstabbing — orders given

and countermanded — what are you trying to do here in
Moscow? Your secretary’s awful clothing, for example,
inspires me with little confidence.

Stalin: (Bursts into laughter) You’re priceless. One never

knows where the politician ends and the woman begins.

Kollontai: The eyes of the surveillance people seem to be

everywhere here at home.

Stalin: (Still amused) There are still enemies of the revolu-

tion, Alexandra Mikhailovna.

Kollontai: Wouldn’t it be simpler just to listen to what they

have to say?

Stalin: Listen? … you’re quite a circus act, you know. Well,

speak! I’m listening.

Kollontai: But you have such a hard time trying to figure

me out, isn’t that right? Oh, two old circus horses like you
and me, comrade …

Stalin: (Pulls back) You’ve been in Norway too long, com-

rade Kollontai. You haven’t been able to keep up with de-
velopments at home.

Kollontai: Quite right. I have only noticed, in all modesty,

that the Comintern is doing its best to crush the indepen-
dence of foreign fraternal parties, am I wrong?

437
 KOLLONTAI

Stalin: Tell me. You’ve been in Moscow for two days. And
you have already had contacts with … opposition ele-
ments.

Kollontai: Your surveillance has been able to detect even

that. Yes, that’s right.

Stalin: And what did you have to tell them then?

Kollontai: Me …? Nothing.

Stalin: Very wise. You’re a smart woman, Alexandra

Mikhailovna, I have always felt that, even when others
felt differently.

Kollontai: ‘Opposition elements’. How times change! The

last time I was home, those people who were those most
loyal to the party, the most devoted cadres … and when
we made the revolution, in 1917 …

Stalin: (Breaks in) Do you know what an idealist is? It’s a

person who, the next thing you know, becomes a traitor
… I have something to say to you.

Kollontai: And I have something to say to you. I’ve been

fine in Norway, but now I want to come home to Moscow.

Stalin: Oh … What is it that draws you here?

Kollontai: (Meets his glance) I don’t think that concerns you.

438
 PART ONE

Stalin: That sailor again?

(with irony and some malice) Dybenko … Dybenko … he’s
all right, but … You have never really understood what
is best for you. Now I’m going to say what I have to say.
You have done remarkable work in Norway, now we’re
moving you to Mexico City.

Kollontai: No! I want to come home. I have things to do

here.

Stalin: There is no place here at home for your splendid

talents, you are needed in Mexico.

Kollontai: And what if I refuse?

Stalin: My powers are limited, comrade Kollontai. There

are so many in the party who are suspicious of you. I, on
the other hand, value your positive side.

Kollontai: So I should be grateful too? But hasn’t Trotsky

been eliminated, hasn’t the opposition been brought un-
der control, don’t you have all the power you need, Josef
Vissarionovich, why do you need to do this to me? The
opposition, comrade Stalin …

Stalin: (Interrupting) There is no opposition. There is just

a bunch of idiots who are sitting waiting for a revolution
in Western Europe, but there won’t be any revolution in
Western Europe, Alexandra Mikhailovna Kollontai, you
must agree with me!

439
 KOLLONTAI

Kollontai: Not now, comrade Stalin. But it will come.

Stalin: (Furious) Not in our lifetime! We are alone, we have

to rebuild this entire huge country with our own forces
and we have to do it fast! The farm fields will be managed
like factories. What do you know about peasants, comrade
Kollontai, nothing. But I think of nothing else. This coun-
try is an ocean, we have to tame the water masses, build
canal systems and breakwaters, otherwise we’ll drown.
What benefit do we get from theories of a world revolu-
tion — history has gone along a different path. We have
to adjust, but we will build our factory even so, whatever
it may cost us, even if we have to build walls around it.
What is needed now, Alexandra Mikhailovna, is faith in
the Soviet Union, now more than ever. That requires a
great leap, and unfortunately we can’t be as sensitive as
you’d like, and I am sorry but you can’t be here, you must
be in Mexico!

Kollontai: (After a pause) And my legation secretary, Marcel

Body?

Stalin: He’s also done remarkable work, we’re moving him

to Tokyo.

Kollontai: That’s cruel, Josef Vissarionovich.

Stalin: Not at all — all done purely out of consideration for

you. And before you leave for Mexico, I want you to put
your signature to this.

440
 PART ONE

Kollontai: (Reads quickly) But this represents a denial of

the opposition!
Stalin: A mere formality, comrade Kollontai.
(He presses a button on his desk)

Kollontai: (Blurts out) But it’s so badly written! So awk-

wardly phrased!

Stalin: You’re a writer, I know, and our office workers are

poorly educated. Rewrite it, make it more elegant, then
sign it.
Tamara, the secretary, comes in.

Tamara will show you out, so you don’t get lost in the
corridors.
He sits down in the big chair again and wraps himself in
his coat.

And don’t admit anyone, Tamara, until I ring. We have a

plenary meeting again tonight.
Blackout on the floor.

Scene 18
Police visit to the Futurists

Violent scene with the Futurists. Up in the box one can see
the Theatre Director. Exchanges with the secret police. The
Theatre Director’s accounts have been pulled out and a few
policemen are searching the place, others are involved in
discussions.

441
 KOLLONTAI

 Down-stage, in the dark, the Futurists have gathered and

are making a racket with their drums and whistles.
 When the stage is ready for the next scene, the lights go
up on the Futurists.

Theatre Director: (To the police) I can assure you, we have

no weapons. We stopped doing the scene with the pistol
a long, long time ago.
 (Calls down to the Futurists.) You don’t have any weapons,
do you?
(Silence. No one answers.)

Mayakovsky: (By lamppost B)

The earth dances around the sun.
Like Salome round John the Baptist’s head
year after year.
And when she’s finished dancing
I too will be gone.
(He turns to the two policemen standing beside him)
Millions of drops of blood will line the way
to my father’s house.

Blackout

Scene 19
At Body’s place in Moscow

A simple sofa. Dybenko is sitting in it. Kollontai is agitated,

walking back and forth. Someone is sitting reading a news-
paper, screened from the audience, like in the Smithy Café.

442
 PART ONE

Kollontai: No, no, no. I won’t sign!

Dybenko: (With a hint of resignation) And what do you pro-

pose to do instead, my dearest?

Kollontai: I told you already! I want to stay here! I want to

live with you, Pavel!
Pushes closer.

Dybenko: Shura. They don’t trust you.

Kollontai: Then I’ll join the opposition. This can’t go on!

The newspaper reader lowers his paper. It’s Body.

Body: That won’t work. You’re being watched too carefully.

Any contact you have with the opposition and …
He runs his hand across his throat.

Kollontai: I can’t go to Mexico, it’s too far away … do you

want me to go, Pavel? Or you, Marcel?
They don’t answer.
You shouldn’t try to seek revenge on people you like, Pavel.

Dybenko: Revenge? You think I’m trying to get revenge

on you?

Kollontai: What am I supposed to think? … And why are

you two suddenly in such agreement?

Dybenko: You’re mixing up two things. You’ve never been

able to keep love and politics separate.

443
 KOLLONTAI

(Glancing at Body) What do you say?

Kollontai: Never been able to? The point is I don’t want

to separate love from politics. Haven’t relations changed
between men and women? If not, then the revolution
has failed. Let’s figure this out. Why am I being sent to
Mexico?

Dybenko: Don’t play the innocent, Shura.

Kollontai: What is it that makes me so dangerous — for

you, for example?

Dybenko: In a few years you’ll come back, Shura, then may-

be your ideas will have a better chance. Then we can live
together. Forgive me, but I have to leave now.
Kollontai: No! Don’t go! (pleading) Pavel!
(He embraces her, kisses her hard, takes his cap.
Kollontai sinks down onto the sofa, weeping.
He stops by the door, meets Body’s glance.)

Dybenko: She’ll look at this differently in a few years, don’t

you think?

Body: Yes, and so will you.

Dybenko leaves.

Kollontai: (In anger) I’m going to write down every word

Stalin said, that hypocrite. ‘You’ve done a remarkable job
in Norway. Now we’re sending you to Mexico’ … How did
he amass all that power?

444
 PART ONE

Body: (With energy) Yes, do that. Write, Alexandra, write

everything down. You were involved from the beginning.
Gather material, write, analyse. There you can be useful!

Kollontai: (Turning her head and looking at him) Do you think

so?

Body: If I thought the opposition had a chance — but it

doesn’t look that way, not in this decade. But in ten years,
maybe even in five … then we’ll be back here again, then it
will be possible to work for genuine socialism, then peo-
ple will know what’s going on, then there will be many
more of us … in the meantime you must analyse, write.
That’s important!

Kollontai: So I should go to Mexico, then?

Body: I’ve read about Mexico. Nice climate. It’s warm.

Kollontai: So I should sign the paper, that’s what you think?

No, I’ll never do that, that would be my death. Why do you
want me to go there, Marcel?

Body: I could never say anything mean to you, Alexandra,

but you have no choice.

Kollontai: To sign that paper would be cowardly. I don’t

want to be a coward.

Body: But dear god, you have to be a bit realistic! Times

have changed, that’s the reality, Alexandra.

445
 KOLLONTAI

Kollontai: (Says nothing, then passionately) I promise and

swear, with heaven and you as my witness, Marcel, that
starting today I will gather, try to understand, from today
forward I will write day and night, so that those who
follow us can learn from our mistakes and build on the
victories we have won, for the sake of the Soviet Union
and for the sake of socialism in the whole world. I prom-
ise to be untiring, never to hesitate in the quest for the
truth, never give up!

Body: That’s right, Alexandra.

Kollontai: Okay, Mexico it is.

Sees the paper that Body is trying to give her.
No, no! I can never sign that!

Body: But you have no choice.

Kollontai: (Takes the paper). There will be a future for those

who have the strength to wait. (She signs)
Kollontai looks at Body, then goes out. Body turns up the
collar on his coat and goes out in the other direction. No
blackout.

Scene 20
Mayakovsky dies

Up in the box. A few musicians. A couple of workers. Circus.

Feeble depressing light. At centre stage, Mayakovsky, secret
police man, armed militia man, Theatre Director, Maria,
Vasilij, Oscar.

446
 PART ONE

The workers are carrying the furniture out. A ladder is set up

to take down the drapes.
 Mayakovsky with a papiros (cigarette) in his mouth, his
hands in his pockets.

Maria: And what is the charge against him?

Secret police man: (Armed militia man next to him) Absence

of realism in your so-called theatre, Mr Mayakovsky.
Anti-Soviet pranks. Nothing for the masses.

Vasilij: Absence of realism? And play, poetry — what’s to

become of them?

Theatre Director: (Whining, wringing his white gloves) You

said yourself the other day that no one laughed during
your play, Volodya … people didn’t even applaud!

Maria: (Blurts out) Because they didn’t dare! There were

all kinds of security people sitting in the theatre, with
notepads and cameras! — That’s how they treat poetry
these days!

Theatre Director: Maria, Maria … theatre and poetry must,

after all, abide by the laws of our socialist republic …
meaning that they must reflect life, don’t you agree?

Secret police man: (In a dry metallic voice) Be that as it may,

it’s over now, Mr Mayakovsky. Give us your pistol. We
know you still have it.

447
 KOLLONTAI

Maria: (Aside, to the audience) Wait for us, Future! Don’t

leave us so far behind. Our task is to change trains where
the past meets the future!

Oscar: (To the audience) Wait for us. We’re on our way, giant
steps across the sky!

Secret police man: (Dry, metallic) Your pistol!

Mayakovsky: (Takes out his toy pistol, looks at it) A toy … oh

well.
(Fumbling for his words, then appearing more sure of himself,
speaks to the audience)
As they say, the incident is closed.
 The boat of love has come to grief, wrecked on ev-
eryday life.
 But I know the power of words, I’ve heard their
warning bells.
 They sometimes get discarded before they’re printed
or published,
 But with their saddle belts tightened they gallop
away …
thunder across the centuries …

Secret police man: (Stretching out his hand) Hand it over.

Mayakovsky (moves but stops) Well, let’s return it to its

rightful owner …
He goes toward the Theatre Director, makes a move to give
him the pistol, then suddenly turns it on himself. A shot. He
falls.

448
 PART TWO

Theatre Director: (After a short pause, after the shock) This

never-ending circus!

Secret police man: (After another short pause, after the shock)
Is he dead?
(Dries his fingers on his handkerchief.)
Damned unpleasant.

Maria: (Falls on her knees by Mayakovsky’s dead body)

Volodya …

Oscar: (Bewildered) Intermission? … Intermission!

Max takes a sign marked ‘Intermission’ and scampers around

the group and shows it to the audience while a couple of the
musicians sound a flourish. Blackout.

PART TWO

Scene 21
The circus is dismantled

Up in the box workers are taking down the red bunting. Simi-
larly, workers are sitting on ladders taking down the drapery.
Others are carrying away circus props on stretchers. The
Theatre Director helps them. The Futurists, ill-clad, can be
seen on stage too. They move in front of the audience. Vasilij
draws a paper from his pocket, a poem by Mayakovski. Looks
at it and shows the others. They nod and then they recite by
heart.

449
 KOLLONTAI

Vasilij: Honoured comrades

who will live after us!
When you poke around
in the dried crap of today
you may come across
those who were us.

Maria: We were latrine cleaners

among the peddlers
mobilised by the revolution.

Vasilij: We were drawn to the red banner

In the myriad days of hunger
and insane toil.

Maria: We opened
all the volumes of Marx
as one would open the
shutters at home.

Oscar: But even without reading

we knew right away
we knew which side we were on
and who were our friends.

Maria: (Takes the paper)

He who is enemy to
the working class
has been our enemy
for hundreds of years.

450
 PART TWO

Vasilij: Illustrious geniuses

are dragged along
  in dreary processions of corpses.

Maria: But our comrade and his poems

will break a path
through the mountain masses of the
centuries.

Vasilij: He’ll come to you

above the heads of poets and govern-
ments.
And when he in a brighter future
strides before
  that Central Control Commission
he will raise high
above the heads
  of all the poet-scribblers

Maria: His collected works

all faithful to the party
his own style of Bolshevik party card.

(Short pause.)

Oscar: (At a loss) So, what do we do now? Were do we go?

Theatre Director: (Approaching) Come to me, dear friends.

There still is the theatre, even though our poet — unfor-
tunately — went and shot himself …

451
 KOLLONTAI

Vasilij: … and we can look forward to unimaginable prog-

ress in genuine Soviet art, socialist realism … right … ?

Theatre Director: Good god, Vasilij, realism … wasn’t that

what our poet was seeking, even he? Realism, reality itself
… yes, that’s it! But it happened to run counter to all of your
pranks, although we tried not to see that. Now we’ll just
set off on a new course, full steam ahead!

Vasilij: Towards what? Insipidness, propaganda, don’t you

think we know where that leads?

Theatre Director: (Scared, a bit offhand) We can fix that, we

can fix that. Provided certain details … your clowning,
for example … your experiments with form … the time
machine, your card tricks … Haven’t you yourself rather
lost faith in them, after all. Well? That stuff just doesn’t
work anymore. (Silence) Okay then.
Goes back to the workers, who have continued to work.

Vasilij: (Buries his head in his hands, tired, desperate) I don’t

know what we should do either, Oscar.

Oscar: Maybe there’s no room left in the world for crazy

people like us …?

Maria: (Decisive, desperate) So, let’s pick a new year!

Pulls a card out of Vasilij’s jacket pocket, from a card deck
of normal size.
1937 … And she’ll be with us, I don’t want to let her go,
we need her!

452
 PART TWO

Vasilij: Why? (Silence) Why, Maria?

Oscar: (In a friendly tone) Is this year better than the other
ones, do you think?

Maria: I don’t know … but now we’re here! Hello 1937!

Blackout around them. They’re standing close together in a cone
of light and look around.

Vasilij: It seems so dark in the world.

Oscar: People are very fearful.

Maria: They say there will be war … listen to all the news
bulletins … New York, Paris, Tokyo, you tell me where
you want to go … Sydney, Rio de Janeiro, Mexico City,
Amsterdam, Berlin, Rome, Stockholm …
Max makes energetic signs in the air.

Oscar: (Interpreting): Light in the darkness … (New signs).

Pretty girls? … No darkness … light, light, light …

Maria: (Firmly, taking a decision, to the audience, holds up the

card) Fine! Dear members of the audience … Stockholm,
1937!

Light goes out.

453
 KOLLONTAI

Scene 22
The legation in Stockholm

Light on a table with a radio. In the background a portrait

of Lenin. A bouquet of roses. Ivanov, a young man, is leafing
through the papers, searching quickly as if for something in
particular. A drawer has been drawn out.

Radio voice: (1930s-style voice) England’s former prime-min-

ister, Ramsey MacDonald, has died at seventy-one years
of age. In Moscow, where the twentieth anniversary of
the revolution was recently celebrated with great cere-
mony, the purge trials are continuing. They now involve
high-ranking members of the military. Arrests are also
being directed at members of the diplomatic corps.
Ivanov thinks he hears steps. He returns the documents
quickly to the open drawer, shuts it and disappears into the
darkness.

Radio voice: The heads of the Russian delegations stationed

in Germany, Poland, Turkey and Finland have been called
home, accused of ties to Trotskyite and German agents.
(A door opens and Kollontai, followed by Nadya, comes into
the lit area from another direction. They are carrying papers
in their hands, as if they had been interrupted during a dic-
tation, and listen to the radio broadcast.)

Sources in Stockholm have reported today that even

the Soviet envoy, Madame Kollontai, has been called to
Moscow. It has not been possible to verify that informa-
tion.

454
 PART TWO

The English newspaper the Daily Mirror reports that in

November alone 496 people were condemned to death in
the Soviet Union
(Kollontai shows her impatience, Nadya clicks off the radio.)
accused of Trotskyism … (The radio fades out.)

Kollontai: Well, that’s that. Is it still snowing?

Nadya: Yes … do you want to continue with this? (gestures

with the papers).

Kollontai: No, I’m too tired to go on right now.

(She gives Nadya the papers she has in her hand.) Do you
have the key?

Nadya: Yes, of course.

(She takes out a chain, looks quickly around somewhat per-
plexed.)
The evening newspapers are on the table.
(Goes towards the door.)

Kollontai: Are they writing about us too?

Nadya: Same stuff. But it isn’t true, for god’s sake! Where
do those hacks get all that stuff?

Kollontai: Throw the newspapers away. Look, the roses are

beginning to come out.

Nadya: (Throws the papers into the wastebasket.) We’ll chuck

all this crap.

455
 KOLLONTAI

(The clock strikes five.)

Höglund, the newspaper editor, should be coming soon,
I believe.

Kollontai: (Surprised) Zäta Höglund! It’s certainly been sev-

eral years since last I saw him.

Nadya: He has probably felt a bit too distinguished to come

by, but this morning he called and seemed very agitated.

Kollontai: Ask him to come in if he’s sitting outside waiting.

(Nadya goes out. Kollontai goes over to the wastebasket and
lifts up one of the evening papers. Höglund comes in. She
drops the paper.)

Höglund: (Rushes in, still in his overcoat and hat. Doesn’t even
shake hands.)
Is it true that you’ve been called home?4

Kollontai: But why so agitated? Sit down, dear friend.

Höglund: The evening papers are reporting that you’ve
been summoned to Moscow. Is that true?
(She helps him take off his coat.)

Kollontai: If that’s what it says in the papers, it must be

true, they never lie, do they, Mr Editor?

Höglund: It’s hard to know what is true. Soon we won’t

even believe what we ourselves are saying.

4 Höglund and Kollontai use the formal form of address, despite being
acquaintances for a long time.

456
 PART TWO

Kollontai: (Laughing) Ever the true dialectician! It’s so nice

to see you. (Gives him a pat.) It’s been such a long time. And
we who have known each other for such a long time! Do
you remember New Year’s Eve in the Winter Palace in
1918? You were playing chess …

Höglund: With Pavel Dybenko! He won, that devil. Lucky

in love, lucky in games. Is he still alive?

Kollontai: (Doesn’t answer) With barely a few grains of

truth you’ve launched quite a campaign in your paper,
Socialdemokraterna. Would you like a drink? (He shakes
his head.) Your big crusade against the Soviet Union, Mr
Editor, has indeed been quite spectacular.

Höglund: Crusade? We have to tell the story as it is! When

the Soviet Union has become a complete madhouse of ter-
ror … it breaks my heart as an old communist, you know,
to have to write such things.

Kollontai: Communist? But, you are a Social Democrat,

Höglund.

Höglund: It’s no longer possible to be a communist, but

one tries to be decent. How long are these purges going
to go on, when will the awful show trials end? … I think
I’d better have a whiskey after all.

Kollontai: (Pours his whiskey) I thought of you the other day

… I was thinking of sending you this. (Points at a book.)

457
 KOLLONTAI

Höglund: (Looks at the book) The Moscow Trials … yuck! That’s

the fabrication Moscow has put out to try to pull the wool
over the eyes of international public opinion. Thank god
public opinion isn’t so easily fooled.

Kollontai: (Picks up the book, quietly) The trials have been

held in the presence of international jurists, who have
confirmed that the accused have confessed of their own
free will … without any coercion.

Höglund: (Astonished) Tell me you don’t believe that! (Strikes

his head with the palm of his hand.) But it’s completely in-
comprehensible! Some of your own comrades have been
declared to be Trotskyite agents and spies for Germany.
That’s crazy! When I read that you too had been summoned
to Moscow, I decided I had to come here and tell you that
I am your friend and I want to help you in any way I can!

Kollontai: I am very touched by what you say, Höglund.

Höglund: What you mean is that I’m an idiot for thinking

that my efforts might have some effect. If all else fails, one
can at least show some measure of humanity.
(Kollontai is silent. Höglund looks at her. Shakes his head.)
Has it gone so far that you and I can’t speak sincerely with
each other any more?

Kollontai: (Shifting gears) How does the world look to you,

comrade Höglund? What are the Western powers doing?
Well, gradually they’re falling for Hitler!

Höglund: So far, that’s right.

458
 PART TWO

Kollontai: Only the Soviet Union is steadfast against

Nazism! If now the Western powers give in to Hitler …

Höglund: Heaven forbid!

Kollontai: Or even worse, if they were to join Hitler …

Höglund: Never! Never!

Kollontai: Then the Soviet Union would again be left with

the whole world against it!

Höglund: So you defend Stalin? The terror? The purges?

Incredible! Do you know that even actors are being de-
ported? The wonderful Russian theatre. Destroyed … Has
the world gone mad? (Restrains himself.) I didn’t come here
to quarrel with you, only to ask if I could be of any help,
the little I can do.

Kollontai: (Softly) Thanks. I can manage.

Höglund: If you change your mind, you know how to get

hold of me.

Kollontai: (Very softly) Thanks. I know.

(Höglund goes out. Kollontai is alone.)
My god!
(Ivanov approaches the table.)
Ivanov! What do you want? You scared me actually —
What’s the matter?

459
 KOLLONTAI

Ivanov: I’m going back to Moscow tomorrow.

Kollontai: I know. I hope your stay in Stockholm has been

productive.
(Ivanov lays a little key on the table.)
What’s that? The key to the locked box in my room …

Ivanov: Yes … Now you don’t have go looking for it.

Kollontai: (After short pause) I see … It would have simpler

for you if you had just asked me for it.

Ivanov: I’m a professional, Madame Kollontai.

Kollontai: I certainly hope the secret police doesn’t send

rank amateurs here! I’ve been a fool. I even was kind
enough to send a note of commendation about you to
Moscow. That’s what I get in return.

Ivanov: Do you know this man?

(She doesn’t answer, just looks at him.)
What’s his name?

Kollontai: Pavel Dybenko. Is that my photograph?

Ivanov: All right, that checks. Did you live with him?

Kollontai: A long time ago.

Ivanov: He’s been arrested.

460
 PART TWO

Kollontai: Arrested?

Ivanov: (Nods) He’s had dealings with Trotskyite circles. Or

with Germans. Something of that sort.

Kollontai: Impossible!

Ivanov: Nothing is impossible, madame Kollontai. I just

thought you might want to know.

Kollontai: That was kind of you. Thank you.

Ivanov: (Lifts his finger to his mouth) A little favour in return

for your kindness. Don’t say anything. Goodbye.
(He disappears into the darkness.)

Kollontai: (Whimpering) Pavel, Pavel! Can you hear me?

(Nadya opens the door.)

Nadya: Alexandra, what’s the matter? Why are you sitting

in the dark?
(She lights a lamp.)
Dinner is ready. Shall we go to the movies afterwards?
Do you feel like it?
(Kollontai shakes her head.)
But what is the matter with you? I hope you’re not coming
down with something.

Kollontai: It’s true, Nadya, what they’re saying in the pa-

pers is true. He has summoned me to Moscow.

461
 KOLLONTAI

Nadya: No! … Well then I’m going with you.

Kollontai: (Going out) No!

Scene 23
The makeup room I

(Maria tries on a hat in front of a mirror, dissatisfied. Big

cushion tied to her belly. Several female extras, also dressed
as pregnant women, are walking out of the makeup room.
 Oscar and Max the mute, dressed as tractor-driver farm-
ers and workers, are dancing together the old tap-dance
ballet steps as a sign of protest. Vasilij comes in from the
stage, dressed as a ‘Hero of the Soviet Union’, and starts to
remove his makeup.)

Vasilij: No, no, no … This is all going to hell.

Maria: What’s going to hell? The audience?

(Looks out at the house.)
No, they’re still sitting there.

Vasilij: It’s just that I’m so damn tired of playing tractors.

(Takes off his wig.)
(Max and Oscar sit down by the deck of cards that are lying
face-up on a table.)
Your entrance is in ten minutes, Maria.

Maria: Dear audience, if you are tired of tractors, Heroes

of the Soviet Union and shock brigades, … go home. Un-
fortunately, we can’t. We work here.

462
 PART TWO

(Vasilij groans.)
Don’t you think tractors and shock brigades are good,
Vasilij?

Vasilij: (With feeling) Yes!! I actually do think that, Maria.

It’s just that it’s so … damned weak. We’re acting out such
pathetic, damned petit-bourgeois slush and we know it!!

Oscar: (Pointing with his thumb back stage) Ssshh! The

Theatre Director …!

Oscar: (Playing) Wow! 21!

(Holds up a card.) 1921
(With a beaming smile Max throws in a few cards.)

Oscar: (Reading cards) 1926, 27, 28

Vasilij: And then there’s their damned scenery. Have you

seen what they’re setting up in there? It’s enough to make
your hair stand on end. The most pathetic damned photo-
graphic realism. It’s a wonder they didn’t hang some x-ray
pictures among their trees (each word gets a kick) and bushes
and leaves and clouds. It’s so damned beyond any help …
you end up saying nothing when you try to say everything
instead of leaving something to silence and the audience.

Oscar: (Shouting) 1952!

Vasilij: (Sweeping the cards down on to the floor) Cut that stu-
pid crap out.

463
 KOLLONTAI

Maria: (Throwing herself down, furious) No, I want them.

Vasilij: (Tearing the cards from her) Why? It’s just tricks, lies
and idiocy. Give me them and I’ll chuck them into the trash.
(Maria bursts into tears. Oscar goes down on his knees and
hugs her. Max gathers up the cards.)
Stop consoling her. It doesn’t work anymore, your time
machine, you heard what he said, the Theatre Director.
You idiots …
(Max gestures right in front of Vasilij.)
What’s he saying?

Oscar: He says you’re the one who’s an idiot, if you’ve

stopped listening to what the cards are saying.

Vasilij: Those damned little cards.

Oscar: Yeah. Just because they’re small. They’ve gotten so

small just so we could see them. They’ve gotten so small
because the world has gotten so big. Don’t you under-
stand, you idiot, have you forgotten everything that po-
etry means for the world?
(They stand opposite each other like two Japanese wrestlers.
Pause).

Vasilij: (In a whisper) Fine. You three are probably all crazy.
But that is only as it should be. Cast off!
(Shouting) Come on ahead 1952, a year when we’re prob-
ably all dead, all of us, but why should we live when so
many die without meaning? When socialist realism with
all its bushes and clouds lives. Cast off!

464
 PART TWO

(All four of them begin a desperate dance in the fine old

bio-mechanical style while Oscar plays his harmonica.
 Max is particularly good at acrobatic flips and ends up
on their shoulders.)

All: Hey!
(Blackout)

Scene 24
Gorky Park

(A strong, quick, violent march for a large wind orchestra,

which picks up Oscar’s harmonica music.
 Gorky Park gradually appears magically.
 First, a bridge over the spot where Alyosha in his high-
school student cap rushes in with a bunch of roses, looking
for his grandmother. Shortly after him a pregnant woman
comes in with her baby carriage.
Alyosha disappears from the bridge.
 Gorky Park emerges. Extreme realism. A huge background
with clouds projected on to it.
 Against that background in the distance several baby car-
riages with mothers reading books and newspapers in the
spring sun.
 At centre stage some older men playing chess. At stage
right, Kollontai, she is eighty years old and sits in a wheel-
chair reading poetry by Mayakovski.
 Alyosha rushes by from stage left, moving up-stage, sees
her and approaches, falls to his knees. The orchestra fades
out.)

465
 KOLLONTAI

Kollontai: (Kissing Alyosha) Alyosha, my beloved child!

(He lays the roses in her lap.)
My, how beautiful they are … must have been expensive.

Alyosha: It was nothing, I bought them because you are so

alone, grandmother … and because I love you very much
and because you love flowers so much …

Kollontai: I do. Flowers and trees … trees can be better

than people sometimes, when you feel sad they can con-
sole you …

Alyosha: What are you sitting and reading? (Reads from the
book).
‘But I know the power of words … But with their saddle
belts tightened they gallop away … thunder across the
centuries …’ Yuck, what kind of crap is that?

Kollontai: A poet. Mayakovsky. He’s dead now. It’s not crap,

Alyosha.

Alyosha: Poetry is just crap, dear Grandmother, except for

useful poetry, of course.
(He stands up and with a look as hard as steel intensely re-
cites.)

In the front rank was Ivanov with arms of steel,

the leader of our shock brigade,
Joyfully the woman cried: my husband,
Again you’ve done what is right!

466
 PART TWO

(The old men at the chessboards cheer Alyosha with exag-

gerated courtesy.)

Kollontai: You recite well, Alyosha!

Alyosha: We’re going to declaim those verses at the end-of-

term ceremony, I’ll be standing in the middle.

Kollontai: But does that woman do nothing besides admire

her husband?

Alyosha: She is the wife of a member of a shock brigade,

Grandmother, there is nothing finer than that, except for
being a member of the brigade, of course.

Kollontai: Are you doing well in school?

Alyosha: I’m the top student in my class. But!

I have a problem …

Kollontai: (Laughing, passes him a bit of money) Today again?

What do you need money for then? Your chemistry ex-
periments?

Alyosha: How did you guess? Yes, Grandmother, for my

chemistry experiments, but of a special kind. Grand-
mother, Grandmother, it has happened! I’ve met a girl,
I’m in love!

Kollontai: (Surprised, ironically) Well, well … Does that sort

of chemistry cost money nowadays?

467
 KOLLONTAI

Alyosha: It feels as if … an express train were rushing

through my chest, as if my belly was full of rotary press-
es … as if factory whistles were sounding in my ears … it’s
insane! Grandmother, I have decided!

Kollontai: Decided, on what?

Alyosha: To invite her to the movies! We have a date to

meet here. But Grandmother, I don’t know anything about
girls, what they like, chocolate, flowers … what kind of
films they like, should it be a war movie or a love story …
can a girl be interested in model planes, tell me frankly,
Grandmother …!

Kollontai: How many girls are you going to the movies

with, Alyosha?

Alyosha: One! Her name is Olga, Grandmother, Olga!

Kollontai: Well then, ask Olga which film she’d like to see.

Alyosha: No! I thought of that, you know, but then I might

seem indecisive, without any will of my own.
Grandmother, have you ever been in love?

Kollontai: Sure … it’s happened.

(Olga appears in the distance.)

Alyosha: A long, long time ago, of course, since you’re so

ancient.

468
 PART TWO

Kollontai: I hope you get to be as ancient as me some time.

Alyosha: There she is! (Whistles, waves) Now I know what

I’ll do. First a love-story film, then a walk here among the
trees. (Olga comes close to them.)

Kollontai: But maybe she doesn’t like trees, you should ask
her.

Alyosha: (Without looking at Olga) She likes trees. She’s rath-

er like you.

Kollontai: Me? Ancient?

Alyosha: Your eyes … in your eyes you aren’t old at all,

Grandmother. Stay here with Grandmother for now, Olga,
while I go off and buy some tickets for the movie. Don’t
be scared, she won’t eat you. (Goes out.)

Kollontai: (Friendly) Hello.

Olga: (Shyly) Hello.

Kollontai: And your name is Olga.

Olga: (Curtsies quickly) Yes.

Kollontai: Funny … I knew a young girl once whose name

was Olga too. You remind me a bit of her.

Olga: Really.

469
 KOLLONTAI

Kollontai: She would curtsy, like you … Do young girls

curtsy these days?

Olga: Yes. Well, no, maybe not. Only when …

Kollontai: Only when you meet some really ancient person

like me, of course. (Olga curtsies a bit shyly.) Well, well. Hm
… (a bit brusquely) Well, what do you think of love?

Olga: I think it is so difficult …

Kollontai: (Gestures to her to come closer) Come closer so we

can talk. (Olga kneels beside her.) So how is it with you two,
you and Alyosha? My god, he is so young!

Olga: (Serious, like a grown-up) Yes, isn’t that true, he is so

young. Very young for his age. Sometimes I get worried
and wonder how it will turn out … don't be mistaken, I
am a communist, a leader in the Komsomol, all of that … I
love our motherland … what I mean is that it’s hard to see
that there is room for me in all of this … it’s as if I have
to shrink myself for it all to happen right … please, please
tell me how I can manage to have both love and freedom
… you must know how.

Kollontai: Have you read my books …?

Olga: No! Is it allowed?

Kollontai: (Hesitating) One is not supposed to, that’s true.

Olga: Oh, tell me a little about them … what do they say?

470
 PART TWO

Kollontai: (Looks at her, moved, overwhelmed) What those

books say is all … a misunderstanding … just dreams …
you shouldn’t read them! (Pause) And now you’re going
to the movies with Alyosha?

Olga: Yes … Although it was really to meet you that I came

here … but I like Alyosha a lot, I do.

Kollonta: (Hands Olga the Mayakovsky book) Here. This is

for you.

Olga: Is this your book? (She reads, a bit disappointed.)

Vladimir Mayakovsky … I recognise that name. He appar-
ently took his own life, why did he do that? Tell me — can
one free the person one loves from his shackles, is that
possible?

Kollontai: I don’t know … Maybe. But you’d better go now.

I’m getting a little tired, Olga dear.
(Olga looks at her with concern, leaves. Kollontai remains
alone)
(Blackout)

Scene 25
Makeup room II
Moscow, 1938

(Maria and Oscar are saying goodbye to Vasilij, who has

been picked up for anti-Soviet activities and is now going
to be deported. He has his pack and a bundle with him, looks

471
 KOLLONTAI

like a desolate Charlie Chaplin. Two soldiers are waiting at

some distance.)

Maria: If one can free the person one loves from his shack-
les, Vasilij …

Vasilij: … then you and Oscar would free me, I know that,
Maria. (Flaps his arms)
God in heaven, what a dumb idea to send a stiff old actor
to a labour camp in Vorkuta … what is there for me to do
out there? And what harm would I do here?

Oscar: (With feigned seriousness) You are Jewish, you know,

Vasilij.

Vasilij: (Bows with feigned ceremony) You are absolutely

right, Oscar.

Oscar: And therefore an unreliable element, Vasilij.

Vasilij: Your ability to draw the necessary conclusion is

without parallel, Oscar.

Oscar: Just like our comrade government, Vasilij.

Vasilij: Absolutely right, Oscar.

(Short pause)

Maria: (Struggling against her tears) We’re going to miss

you terribly.

472
 PART TWO

Vasilij: (Struggling against his tears) And I’ll miss you too.

Maria: You can’t go looking like that … you look just like
Charlie Chaplin.

Vasilij: (Smiling) He was Jewish too. Also an unreliable

element.

Oscar: (Struggling to retain his tears) How are we going to

manage without you, Vasilij?

Vasilij: Goodbye, Oscar. No one is irreplaceable. (Hugs Os-

car, gives him a kiss , then turns to Max, who is making signs
in the air. Vasilij looks at him but is unable to understand.)
Right, Max. Exactly right. (They hug each other, then Vasilij
embraces and kisses Maria.) Goodbye, Mariyushka. (Vasilij
gathers his pack and leaves. The two soldiers take him away.
They follow him with their eyes.)

Oscar: (Holding up the deck of cards, shouts) Vasilij, your deck

of cards!
(Vasilij shakes his head. Oscar tries to give the cards to Ma-
ria, she refuses to take them. Max does a little pantomime to
cheer her up. Oscar picks up the routine and holds up a card):
Back to 1938, I’m afraid. Could be better, could be worse, but
…Well, let’s set off! Come on, let’s go! (Laughs. Singing. ) ‘Tis
the final conflict, let each stand in his place … ’ 5
 (Max, the mute, gesticulates energetically that he is sing-
ing too.)

5 The sentence is from the Internationale.

473
 KOLLONTAI

(Maria doesn’t let herself be cheered up. She hides her face
in her shawl and weeps. Max and Oscar stand bewildered.)

(Blackout)

Scene 26
The Kremlin
Kollontai’s final meeting with Stalin

(The stage lights up. A classical scene of enormous propor-

tions, white, dazzling. Frozen classical style and, like all
Russian architecture, gigantic. Furthest back, up-stage, in all
of this magnificent socialist realism one can catch a glimpse
of Stalin’s huge desk. An enormous classical column reaches
soaring into space. On the wall, so dark that one can’t see
the pictures distinctly, a portrait of a tsar with its customary
crown and two-headed eagle on the frame.
 On the balcony on the opposite side of the stage is an
over-sized copy of the Venus de Milo. A focal point on stage.
Her arms, as is well known, were cut off, the goddess of love.
 Down stage, in a magnificent armchair, Kollontai is sit-
ting, dressed in fur. Not far away, Beria is sitting in a sofa, in
an impeccable dark suit.
 Stalin is standing by his desk at some distance up-stage.
Only after some time he slowly heads down-stage. A short
pause.)

Beria: (After Kollontai has turned and looked for Stalin.) And
what are the Swedish papers saying about us?

Kollontai: They commend the economic and social prog-

ress in our country.

474
 PART TWO

Beria: And if there is war? … If there is a war between

Hitler and the Western powers, what will the Swedish
government do?

Kollontai: Sweden will remain neutral, I think.

Beria: And if there is a war between us and Hitler? Will

the Swedes remain neutral then?

Kollontai: I think so.

Beria: (After a short pause) What else do the Swedes say

about us?

Kollontai: They are pleased that the airline connection be-

tween Stockholm and Moscow has been set up.

Beria: Yes …! That was well done on your part. Anything

else?

Kollontai: Many people in Sweden are disturbed by the

trials and death sentences in our country.

Beria: And how do you respond when people in Stock-

holm bring up the trials against the criminal Trotskyite
centre? (Kollontai doesn’t answer.) Why don’t you answer?

Kollontai: (Angry, proud, a bit snooty) Because we have not

yet been introduced. I would appreciate being introduced
to a person who seems to know so much about me, but
whom I have not yet had the honour of meeting.

475
 KOLLONTAI

Stalin: (Just arriving down-stage with a folder in his hand)

Oh, now I recognise you, comrade Kollontai. Same old
circus horse, tossing your head at us simple proletarians.
Forgive me. I thought you knew Lavrentij Beria, our new
chief of secret police.
(Kollontai bows very politely towards Beria.)

Kollontai: Pleased to meet you. Our security network

seems to be very effective, comrade Beria.

Beria: It will become more effective.

(He bows back towards her.)

Kollontai: (To Stalin, with her head held high) I have won-
dered in recent years, comrade Stalin, how can it be that
there are so many criminals in the Soviet Union? Thou-
sands of people have been arrested and executed. Can that
be right, I ask myself? Isn’t that playing into the hands
of the Nazis? I also ask myself whether some innocent
people sometimes get included among the guilty.
(It grows very quiet. Stalin doesn’t seem to have paid much
attention to the question, he is standing a bit off by himself,
poking around in the folder.)

Beria: If that worries you so much, comrade Kollontai, may

I be allowed to repeat my question. What do you answer
when people in Stockholm want to discuss the trials
against the criminal Trotskyite centre with you?

Kollontai: (After a short pause, without taking her eyes off

Stalin) Aren’t you well informed about that through the

476
 PART TWO

security reports from the legation in Stockholm, comrade

Beria?

Stalin: (Short pause. He slowly moves forward over to her.) You

have gotten older, Alexandra Mikhailovna … but you are
still beautiful. You have always been a very attractive
woman. But I have never been able to figure you out. Are
you still concerned about that sailor? Pavel Dybenko?

Kollontai: Yes. (They look at each other.)

(slowly, carefully) Pavel Dybenko — among others. But
with regard to him, I know, just as surely as I am sitting
here, that he is innocent. That he would have conspired
against our Soviet government is just a fantasy, a myth,
a fable.

Beria: Pavel Dybenko has participated in a Trotskyite plot,

along with ranking members of the officer corps in the
army, aimed at overthrowing the Soviet government.

Stalin: And you think, Alexandra Mikhailovna, that you

are here to free your lover from his shackles. That is like a
beautiful fairy tale from feudal times, don’t you think …?

Kollontai: That is possible.

Stalin: It is also a bit ridiculous, I think you’ll agree.

Kollontai: I don’t find it hard to keep from laughing, com-

rade Stalin.
 (Looks around) A fairy tale from feudal times … a well
chosen analogy.

477
 KOLLONTAI

Stalin: (Laughing) Now you’re being cheeky.

(Serious) You think that time has stood still here?

Kollontai: (Heatedly) I never said that.

Stalin: But that is what you think, isn’t it? You have had
such thoughts before, if I remember correctly. Everything
didn’t turn out the way you thought it would.
(Raising his voice.)
 The new man you used to talk about got lost, the new
human being you were dreaming of. He never came in
here, wherever you might search for him in the Kremlin,
in every nook and cranny. He does not exist and has never
existed.

Kollontai: They exist.

Stalin: Who exists?

Kollontai: A new woman and a new man, comrade Stalin.

Stalin: (Comes closer) Do you ever think about how you

would like to die, Alexandra Mikhailovna?

Kollontai: I have recently thought about that a little, com-

rade Stalin.

Stalin: Me too. (He sits down next to her) And how would
you like to die? In battle for your country, for that to
which you have dedicated your life? Or, from some in-
sidious internal disease, a cancer that eats you up, cell by
cell, until it’s all over?

478
 PART TWO

Kollontai: I’m not sure I understand what you mean, com-

rade Stalin.

Stalin: Are there really so many criminals in the Soviet

Union, you ask? Don’t you think I ask myself the same
question? How can those who recently were united with
us in solidarity suddenly reveal themselves to be such
crafty enemies? I don’t sleep well, I suffer from night-
mares — and when I wake up, it turns out that those
dreams are true! Why, I ask myself, do we have these
conspirators in our country against us just now when the
Germans are stocking up on weapons by their borders
and are preparing to attack? Have agreements been struck
between various people in various places, I ask myself?
Yes, they have. Can we manage to fight a war when we
have such a cancerous tumour in our country? (Shakes his
head.) I cannot allow our preparations to waver, so I have
to go to work with a knife.

Beria: Like a surgeon.

Stalin: Yes, like a surgeon.

Kollontai: But how can we manage to prepare for an attack

if you cut away the soldiers and the officer corps?

Stalin: One is always forced to make a choice. I don’t want

to die of cancer, Alexandra Mikhailovna. I don’t want the
Soviet Union to die of cancer.

Kollontai: So, to fight with bloody hands or have one’s

hands chopped off, that’s the choice?

479
 KOLLONTAI

Stalin: Yes. That is the choice.

Beria: We are dealing with a very skilled surgeon, comrade

Kollontai.

Kollontai: Even a skilled surgeon can cut too deep, com-

rade Beria, the patient can die.

Stalin: You are so philosophical, Alexandra Mikhailovna,

women are often like that, I’ve noticed. We can’t afford any
vacillation. Whoever is not with us is against us. It’s that
simple. Once long ago you vacillated — do you remember?
But your reason prevailed, isn’t that right?

Kollontai: (In pain as Stalin is awaiting an answer) My reason

prevailed.

Beria: Others refuse to do that.

Stalin: (Acrimoniously) But when love is part of the picture,

women stop thinking.

Beria: Pavel Dybenko is a dog and a traitor, he is to be shot

along with the rest of those dogs!

Kollontai: (Shouting) No! (Controls herself.) It’s not true.

Stalin: What is it that is not true, comrade Kollontai?

Kollontai: (Realises that she is in a bad position.) That women

can’t think.

480
 PART TWO

Stalin: So, do that. Think.

(Stands up, moves away from her.)

Beria: May I ask for the third time. What do you answer
when Swedish friends come to discuss the trials against
the criminal Trotskyite centre with you?

Kollontai: (Bursts out) What I answer, comrade Beria? But

don’t you already know that from your reports? I answer
that the only guarantor of peace in Europe is the Soviet
Union! I say: don’t you see that Hitler’s armies stand ready
to march out across Germany’s borders, don’t you see that
the Western powers refuse to lift a finger! It’s only the
Soviet Union that can save the world from fascism! That’s
what I answer them, comrade Beria, because of that I am
convinced!

Stalin: (After a short pause, confirming that she has withstood

the test) That is good. It is even true … It’s already morn-
ing. Now I need to sleep. Thank you for coming, comrade
Kollontai. (Moves upstage.)

Kollontai: And why were you in such a hurry to have me

come here, comrade Stalin? Was it to test my reliability?

Stalin: (On his way out) It is always pleasant to talk to peo-

ple who can think, Alexandra Mikhailovna. I hope you’ll
have a nice chat with the sailor. Yes, we will allow you to
see him. Comrade Beria will accompany you there.

481
 KOLLONTAI

Kollontai: (Turning towards him and shouting) What I say and

what I do comes out of my own convictions and my own
free will, Josef Vissarionovich.

Stalin: (Stops) Phrase it anyway you wish. (Going out.)

It doesn’t matter why you do what you must do, as long
as you do it (Disappears.)

Scene 27
The Futurists split up
Moscow, 1938

(A wintry street in Moscow. Maria and Oscar, now unem-

ployed, are standing there, miserably dressed, performing a
few card tricks for the passers-by to earn a few coins. A line
of Muscovites waiting for the bus, they are muffled up but
also not well dressed and stamp on the ground to keep warm.
The line stretches out towards up-stage, the people in the
line are standing with their backs to the audience. Wet snow
falling. Max is sitting huddled up against a wall.)

Oscar: (Showing people the deck of cards) Ladies and gentle-

men, honoured citizens, an ordinary deck of cards. May
we show you some nice tricks?
(Maria with a hat to beg for money accompanies him)

Woman: Yeah, yeah. I see.

Man: But with an ace up his sleeve, of course.

482
 PART TWO

Oscar: (With an exaggerated expression of offence) In this

sleeve? Not too likely.
 (Laughter. Maria moves around the crowd with her hat
in hand.) With this little deck of cards we can magically
spirit you away to whatever year in history you choose,
esteemed citizens, think what a joy that would be, but
only if you put a little coin in Maria’s hat.

Man: Do you have any idea what year this is, you fool?

Oscar: But of course. It is the splendid year 1938. Wouldn’t

it be fantastic to trade it for another year, just for a short
time? (No answer.) How about a little dance then? What do
you say, ladies and gentlemen? A little pas de deux!

Someone in the line: Another Nijinsky. (Laughter)

(Max jumps up, does a few fantastic pirouettes in front of

Maria, who performs some movements projecting her appeal
and love.)

Murmur of amazement: Bravo, comrades!

(Oscar grabs the hat from Maria and scampers over to the
line, which has been watching the dance with lively interest.
Max includes Maria in a couple of pirouettes. Just then the
bus arrives with a great noise, in a flash the line turns to-
wards the bus and is quickly absorbed in getting on the bus.
Oscar rushes towards the people but with the crowding and
shoving no one pays them any attention. Silence. Maria, in
despair, walks away.)

483
 KOLLONTAI

Maria: (On her way out) I have to find a better way to earn
my bread. Sorry, dear friends.

(Oscar and Max look at her leaving. Then Oscar, sad and
angry, heads off in the opposite direction. Only Max is left
standing, huddled up motionless in the snow, which contin-
ues to fall. Blackout.)

Scene 28
Parting from Dybenko

(Bridge across the stage with a soldier standing on it, dressed

in a winter uniform and carrying a rifle with a bayonet af-
fixed to it. Enormous space — same projection cloth, clearly
delineated, as in Gorky Park.
 A big barbed wire enclosure stands out against the bright
sky.
 The stage is all lit up.
 A huge gateway in a park with a tree and a bench, winter
has arrived.
 Kollontai, still in her fur, stands waiting by the bench un-
der the naked tree. In the background, Beria.
The gate opens a crack. A guard, also in his winter uniform,
brings in Dybenko. He’s dressed in a long coarse prisoner’s
coat, his hair has been shaved off, his face is pale. The guard
removes his blindfold and Dybenko goes towards Kollontai.
They sit down. They look at each other. Dybenko looks down
at his hands.)

Kollontai: (After she has recovered from the shock. In a low voce,
eagerly) Pavel, there is so much one could say, but there

484
 PART TWO

isn’t enough time now. I have come to get you out of here.
Whatever it is that you’ve been accused of … I know you’re
innocent. I’ve been to see Stalin. He has always appreci-
ated you, he’s said that, many times. I’ve been away for so
many years, but this must be some terrible mistake … I
intend to get you of here

Dybenko: I thank you, my beloved Shura. But there is no

need for that.

Kollontai: (Shocked) What have they done to you, did they

treat you badly?

Dybenko: Not at all. I’ve been treated well. (Looks around.)

I’m so glad that you came here, but you’ve got to believe
me when I say that I want to stay here. You maybe think
it sounds strange. But since they arrested me, I have felt
only a great calmness … almost gratitude.

Kollontai: Oh, Pavel … naturally! You have been so alone …

no one has been as loyal as you to the party! Even so, you
must have wondered whether we were on the right road.
Your mouth said one thing, your heart another. You have
done violence to your inner self for so many years. We
should both have decided, a long time ago, on a common
road and a common fight for what we believed in — but
it is still not too late.

Dybenko: What is it that’s not too late? Shura, you are right
to blame me. You are right when you say that I have often
acted against my will. That means, do you understand,
that I have brought upon myself a lot of guilt. It may seem

485
 KOLLONTAI

strange to hear me say that only by admitting my guilt

for all the things they are charging me with can I be free.

Kollontai: (Agitated) Then you’re letting them execute you

for the wrong thing?

Dybenko: It really doesn’t make a lot of difference, Shura.

Kollontai: You’re staying faithful to the party, until your

very death?

Dybenko: (Smiling) Isn’t that what comrade Lenin said —

we must give the party everything?

Kollontai: That’s not how he meant it. It wasn’t about dis-

avowing oneself. Lenin knew that people would change
once the revolution had overcome the difficulties.

Dybenko: (Smiles, a bit ironical) The new man, you mean? I

am relieved to know that I can give my life to show that
the party is right to demand everything. It’s true, Shura, I
am being serious. Otherwise, the life I have lived would
have been meaningless.

Kollontai: You and I had hoped to show the world that a new
relationship between men and women was possible …!

Dybenko: Yes. But we didn’t get time for each other. Much
of my guilt comes from what I did to you, my beloved Shu-
ra. Sometimes that’s what bothers me the most. In earlier
years I could hate you for not being with me. Forgive me,
but I don’t have the strength to face how meaningless my

486
 PART TWO

life turned out to be. If, on the other hand, I acknowledge

my guilt … then my life hasn’t been entirely meaningless,
I would be dying for some damned purpose. Can you un-
derstand what I’m saying?

Kollontai: (Firmly) No!

Dybenko: Dear friend … I love you, but finally … I don’t

want to hurt you more than I already have.

Kollontai: Pavel, you mustn’t become like those poor slobs

who drag themselves around churches happy to be able to
kiss every stone of the pavement … Our way is not that
of religion, we believe in science, in life and in love. Our
task is to survive — not to capitulate!

Dybenko: I remember what you wrote about love! ‘We

stand between two cultures. Bourgeois morality de-
mands everything from the beloved. But proletarian mo-
rality desires everything for the collective. Thus, love is
transformed.’ It took many years for me to understand
that, now I think I understand it. Once I loved you and
desired you, now I just love you. I don’t desire you any
more. I don’t desire anything.
(The gate opens. The guard appears.)

Kollontai: (Interrupts, in despair) Don’t beat on me with my

own words. I have missed you every minute that we have
been separated, and I too have changed! Love is no glass
of water, it is a sea in which we always risk drowning …
Love is everything! That’s what I meant.

487
 KOLLONTAI

Dybenko: Yes. That’s just the way it is, my beloved. That I

didn’t drown is only thanks to you. (He stands up.) I thank
you for coming. I somehow knew you would. That’s who
you are.

Kollontai: Don’t go.

Dybenko: Forgive me for hurting you so much. But the

only way for me to be sure of some connection in my
life is to assume the guilt for the actions that I am now
being accused of. Outside this … outside this system I am
helpless. I have no identity. And anyway, they are stronger
than me. I’m not afraid to die, Shura. I am ready for it.

Kollontai: This can’t be allowed to happen. With all my

soul, with all the force of my reason I must protest. Pavel,
you are blind. They have blinded you! We live for people,
not for some system. I will get you out of here.

Dybenko: (Calmly) No. Even if you want to, you can’t. You
know that just as much as I do. Everything is quite simple,
actually. Why should we make it more complicated? I will
be free, do you see? I wish that you could be as free as I am.
(Kollontai stares stiffly straight ahead.
Dybenko bends down, kisses her hand.)
Farewell, Shura. What a beautiful fur you have. Don’t be
sad, there is no longer anything to be sad about.
(The guard makes a movement to hurry him up. Dybenko
goes calmly up to the guard and disappears through the gate.
Kollontai remains motionless.)

488
 PART TWO

Beria: (Comes forward from the backgound) The plane to

Stockholm leaves at 4:30 this afternoon. Everything has
been arranged. At 3 o’clock a car will await for you at the
hotel (looks at his watch), we have plenty of time. (Takes
a bouquet of flowers out of his briefcase.) Comrade Stalin
sent some flowers as a token of his friendship and great
appreciation of our continued cooperation.
(Kollontai doesn’t answer. Beria takes the paper off the flow-
ers, a bouquet of roses. Kollontai doesn’t seem to hear him or
see him. Slowly she begins to unbutton her fur, as the light
fades around her.
 She is standing in the spotlight, lets the fur fall to the
ground. Silence. Then sounds of ‘No, No Nanette’ and people
begin to move around her, dancing, elegant people. Nadya
appears, quickly grabs the fur and disappears.)

Scene 29
The Soviet Embassy in Stockholm

(Many guests. Kollontai looks as if she’d like to escape. But

a guest is standing in front of her with a bunch of roses,
others are smiling and blocking her way, all grouped around
her. Among them, in the background, is Body, pale, serious.)

Guest: (Warmly, amiably) So, Alexandra, now it’s time, now

you won’t escape!

Another guest: (Tying a blindfold over Kollontai’s eyes) Sorry,

I was asked to do this. Ada!

489
 KOLLONTAI

Ada: Yes, but where is it?

Guest: (Pulls out a big painting, we only see the back of it)
Here!

Kollontai: (Raising her voice, fearfully) But what is going on?

(Everyone laughs at her reaction.)

Ada: Not so fast! You are always so impatient and intense,

dear Alexandra, but now you must calm down. We want
to tell you something, do you understand?

Kollontai: (Raising her voice) But I have something I must

tell you!

Ada: You’ll get your chance … later. So, move it closer, clos-
er, that’s fine. Remove the blindfold!
(Someone removes the blindfold. The big painting is right
in front of Kollontai, the friends are standing around her,
proud, full of expectation. Ada continues in a friendly, clear,
unsentimental manner.)
This picture of you is from us, your friends in Stockholm.
(Turns towards the painting.)

Just as you are standing here in the painting, that is how

we have come to know you in your determined struggle
for peace in the world, and we want you to know that
there are many of us in this country who stand on your
side — on the side of the Soviet Union — in the fight
against Nazism. This is how we see you, a model of cour-
age, truth and loyalty! It is horrible now what is happening

490
 PART TWO

in Germany! For us you have been an indescribable pillar

of support! Hitler must be resisted with every means pos-
sible! We cannot tire! The world seems a dark place, but it
is a little bit better, just for your being in it.
 And now I’ll let others speak, they will be better able
than me to express what we feel at this moment.
(Three workers step forward.)

Worker 1: Long live Madame Kollontai!

Worker 2: And long live the Soviet Union! Down with that
loudmouth in Berlin!
(They give a cheer. Worker 3 starts up singing the Interna-
tionale, but before other voices can join in, Nadya interrupts
the singing.)

Nadya: (Rushing in, very agitated) Alexandra!! They’re al-

ready here!
(The doors burst open. People from the German delegation
enter, some dressed in swastika-adorned uniforms. The
Swedish guests disperse, one after another, as they see the
German delegation coming in.)

A German officer: (Gives the Nazi salute, clicking his heels)

 Frau Kollontai. Ein Gruss from our Führer to you! The
pact of friendship just signed by Germany and the Soviet
Union will be of historic importance!
(He marches forward and kisses her hand.)

Nadya: (To the Germans) Bitte! Bitte meine Herren! Some

refreshments!

491
 KOLLONTAI

(The Germans follow Nadya out. Kollontai slowly follows

the German officers but gets interrupted by Body, who steps
forward.)

Body: Alexandra …

Kollontai: Yes, Marcel? Just a minute.

(Turns on the radio. Music, at first very loud military music,
then softer.)

Radio voice: We interrupt the programme for an extra

news bulletin. Early this morning German forces at-
tacked Poland. The Soviet Union will not intervene on
Poland’s behalf, in conformity with the German-Russian
non-aggression pact signed recently in Moscow by For-
eign Ministers Molotov and Ribbentrop. Lord Chamber-
lain in Great Britain has stated that England will stand by
Poland in the event of a German attack. A major European
military conflict now seems to have become a fact.
 This evening’s extended news review will include a
report from our correspondent in London.
(Radio static and whistles, sounds of airplanes roaring, bomb
bursts, shooting. Body, standing by the radio, listening, turns
it off.)

Body: (In a low but intense voice) Well, well, well, so that’s
how it is. War — with the Soviet Union and Germany
as allies. Shit! That’s why you didn’t give us a report on
your trip to Moscow! That’s why you didn’t say a word
about why Dybenko was shot! And I though you went
there to prove that he was innocent, but you helped them

492
 PART TWO

to murder him! Just as you have accepted all the terrible

violence being committed against everything we have
believed in, lived for and seen our comrades die for!

Kollontai: We’ll talk about this later, Marcel.

Body: (Looks at the portrait in the chair) A model of truth

and loyalty, isn’t that what she said? What kind of a world
is it that we live in? Do you recognise yourself in that
picture? What a farce, what a circus! You who swore that
as long as you lived you would fight for our socialism!
Circus East and Circus West!
(He is silent, tired, spent)

Kollontai: Marcel, I am very glad that you managed to

come here for a visit. I’ll tell you everything tonight, not
now.

Body: I can’t do this anymore, Alexandra. There is noth-

ing left to believe in, talk about. Nothing. I’m leaving for
France. Goodbye, Alexandra.

(The music of the circus waltz from the first scene begins
to play. Body goes out. Kollontai watches him leave. Starts
toward the room with her German guests. The light fades.
Max comes in slowly down-stage. He’s pulling the wheelchair
along. He is friendly and understanding. Kollontai, apathet-
ic, sits down in the wheelchair. Max wheels her, but leaves her
with her back to the audience when he sees the Futurists.)

493
 KOLLONTAI

Scene 30
Circus again

(Now all the Futurists except Mayakovsky appear. Oscar and

Maria, dressed in their worn costumes, Vasilij in uniform,
all dance in a row. Max rushes in and joins them and begins
his old tap-dance. The music fades, only the sound of their
dancing maintains the rhythm.).

Vasilij: The world has been transformed into one single

city, a giant city …

Oscar: … an e-nor-mous megacity. Bomber planes …

Maria: Rockets …

Oscar: Trenches

Maria: Poison gas

Vasilij: New bacteriological inventions!

Maria: New types of wars!

Oscar: Noise! Booming of cannons!

Vasilij: A new world!

Maria: And a new man.

(The Futurists dance their old bio-mechanical dance, the

toot-toot train, from before, while they push Kollontai

494
 PART TWO

around the ring in her wheelchair. Up in the box the orches-

tra from the café is sitting and playing, now in full strength.
The circus grows bigger. The Futurists place the wheelchair
in the middle amidst the same furniture and roses we saw in
scene 3. Then they back away, waving with their hats and
disappear stage left. The family can be seen gathered — they
position themselves as in scene 3.)

Scene 31
Moscow 1952
(Nadya, Sergei, Katya, Alyosha and Olga, who is sitting a bit
off to the side. Peaceful mood. No music.)

Sergei: (Breaks the silence) So, we’re off to Kiev, Katya and
I. There is nothing for us to do here. (ironically) It is nice
that they’ve allowed us to travel.

Kollontai: I’m glad that Alyosha is staying here.

Sergei: (Heatedly) Of course! He is innocent, he hasn’t done

anything.
(Calms down. Short pause.)
Just think, mama, how many cities you have lived in … I
remember how we had to visit you … seeking your grace
… like miserable puppies … in foreign cities.

Kollontai: I was always glad when you came.

Sergei: Stockholm … that was roses, wine in the glasses,

kiss on the hand … ‘Madame Kollontai’ … the grande dame
of the revolution …

495
 KOLLONTAI

Nadya: (Appealing) Sergei …

Sergei: I came from the execution sites here at home … I

had seen the eyes of those who were about to die … but
where you were there were only parties, mama! And you
said: ‘We have to defend the Soviet Union at any price’ or
‘I must have roses around me, otherwise I’ll die …’!

Kollontai: Yes, I longed for whatever was beautiful. I was

very much alone. I worked hard.

Sergei: Yes, of course, dear mama.

Kollontai: Sergei … No transformation can take place with-

out repression.

Sergei: No, that’s not how it happens.

Kollontai: Imperialism kills innocent people every day.

Look at Korea, Indochina, Latin America. If we hadn’t
made our revolution, they’d be completely defenceless,
now we can at least help them in their struggle.

Sergei: (Has heard this before) Yes, of course, dear mama. I

know that record by heart. Surely you don’t think I am
questioning the revolution?

Kollontai: I think you and Katya will be fine in Kiev.

Sergei: Yes, of course.

Kollontai: Not everything is right in the Soviet Union yet.

496
 PART TWO

I know, Sergei, but we have had so many enemies and we

have been so alone. New times will come.

Alyosha: The people of China have made their revolution,

just think of that, papa. That changes the entire balance of
power in the world. The Chinese, following our example,
have thrown off the feudal yoke, you can’t deny that!

Sergei: (Snorting) The Chinese … !

Kollontai: Things have not worked out well for you,

Sergei, but you must have a little patience. In twenty years
… maybe in ten … but one must be patient.

Katya: (Bursts out) You have an almost unreasonable

amount of patience, Alexandra Mikhailovna!

Sergei: Dear mama, dear Alyosha, dear Nadya … maybe

we’ll be fine in Kiev, Katya and I. But what I’m talking
about is a criminal system that to this day continues to
send millions of innocent people to prison and to labour
camps! Don’t you believe me? One day people will find
out.
(They look at him. He moves closer to Kollontai. Continues
in a low voice.)
It bothers me to see you, mama … to see you sitting, writ-
ing your memoirs, which will try to justify the crimes
committed in the 1930s, the 1940s and now in the 1950s.
The crimes of the imperialists … yes, of course, but that is
not an excuse. The revolution in China … wonderful, but
that won’t save us. We need to at least start talking about
what is going on here and name those who are guilty.

497
 KOLLONTAI

Kollontai: That has always been my only idea. You forget

quickly, Sergei.

Sergei: You were forced to be loyal, mama, and now you’ll

have to stay loyal till the very end. But there was a time
when you wanted something different and when you
were a real political force — but you gave way and went
abroad.

Kollontai: If you’re talking about the workers’ opposition,

I had no choice.

Sergei: No, at that time you did have a choice. Later, it was
too late.

Kollontai: Or too early. Lenin was right. We couldn’t afford

any division in the party then. That would have led to a
civil war. (tired) I was wrong. Not in my thoughts about
socialism. But the situation wasn’t right.

Sergei: (Looks at her with compassion. Looks at the others.)

Lenin died in time to be canonised, peace be on his mem-
ory … When will the situation be right?

Kollontai: Some day … it depends on you and Katya and

Alyosha … a future is coming.

Sergei: Sure … a future when the few remaining windows

in this prison will be covered over. These walls won’t fall
just because of some trumpet blasts.

498
 PART TWO

Kollontai: You know, Sergei, it’s as if you’ve never allowed

yourself to believe in anything. Read … read Karl Marx …
read Vladimir Ilich Lenin … then you’ll see …

Sergei: (Breaks in) But I have read them, mama, I have read
them. And do you know what I see there? (Swings his arm
around slowly, pointing) Just this! Just what we have here,
mama!

Kollontai: Is that all … is that all you see … Sergei? … Yes …

that’s all he sees …
(Shakes her head, amazed …) That the revolution was a mis-
take … that I am sitting here and writing just to justify
myself … loyal … cowardly … after a meaningless life?

Katya: That’s not what he’s saying, don’t be mean to him …

Kollontai: (Biting, whip-like) I don’t write because I am mean

and want to justify myself, Sergei. I haven’t been ‘loyal’
as you say. I haven’t been a coward. I have supported a
foreign policy that I considered to be the only one pos-
sible! We concluded a pact with Germany, because the
Western powers wouldn’t lift a finger against Hitler and
we couldn’t survive a German attack then. Then it came,
but they were fighting against each other, over there —
and thanks to that we were able to save Europe from fas-
cism. You, of course, don’t consider that very important,
Sergei, but that’s the way it was. Don’t you think I ag-
onised over that, don’t you think I weighed the one against
the other … God knows things didn’t turn out the way I
had hoped, but didn’t we all think much too much and

499
 KOLLONTAI

dream too much and expect much too much from the rev-
olution … and still, when I see that you and Katya have no
dreams, I'm glad that we had them, at least. You still have
your life before you, mine has almost ended — so, work at
it! Work to ensure that the world and your country change
for the better!
 What kind of a life is it just to point at crimes and mis-
takes instead of dedicating your life to rooting them out
…? How can things change if people don’t work for change
…? What I’ve been able to do wasn’t much, perhaps, but I
have worked hard.

Sergei: (Melancholy, remote) You’ve always worked so hard,

mama … I saw you so seldom, when I was little … I missed
you … I wanted my boy to have a mother. That’s why I
didn’t want Kanya to work, but you have never wanted
to understand me, you would only say that I was a reac-
tionary …

Kollontai: Yes, that’s what I said. What you’re saying goes

against everything I have believed in. Women and men
should be involved in work and children equally. Neither
one should impose his will on the other. A society must
consist of free individuals.
 (Decisively, as if anticipating a new attack from Sergei.) Yes,
there is still a long way to go, but we can’t give up, it took
longer and was more difficult than we had thought at first,
but we can’t give up.

Sergei: (Sad, tired) Mama …

500
 PART TWO

Kollontai: (Looks at him, her words burst out) And if it makes

you feel better, I can tell you that my heart nearly broke
when I was forced to leave you … and everything else I
had to give up because I wanted to work, to be useful … It
wasn’t especially easy all that!
(She leans her head against the back of the chair, her eyes
open. Katya looks at Sergei. He nods. They leave. Nadya
accompanies them. Katya looks over her should at Alyosha
and catches his eyes. He stands and follows them. Olga stays
behind, sitting. Kollontai hasn’t noticed their departure.)
Well, the old lady is getting sentimental, the old lady is
crying … if things are in such a bad way, let’s just take
everything we have written so far and chuck it out, Na-
dya, and start on a new page. Surely we can write about
the socialism we believe in so that those who will build
it don’t give up … Nadya?
(Realises that they have gone. Olga approaches the wheel-
chair.)

Olga: It’s just me left here.

Kollontai: (Friendly but tired) Oh, is it you …

(She looks carefully at Olga.)

Olga: I want to thank you for the book you gave me. I
liked it a lot.
(Kollontai looks a bit baffled.
Nadya comes in.
Olga shows Kollontai the book.)
Mayakovsky.

501
 KOLLONTAI

Kollontai: Oh yes. Mayakovsky. Think, what if we could

have written like him!
(Nadya approaches them.)

Olga: I would like to become a writer.

(Kollontai doesn’t answer.)
I want to work for what you were talking about just now.
I don’t remember everything you said, but I understood
everything.

Nadya: That’s fine, but now you’ll have to go, young lady,
grandmother is tired and needs to rest. She’s going to
work tomorrow, right Shura? We said we’d try to get
through the final chapter this time.
(Kollontai doesn’t answer.
Olga bends down and kisses Kollontai on the cheek.)
Mayakovsky. I don’t remember much except for a few
lines …
(Holds her hand to her forehead.)

‘One remembers his beloved’s dress.’ No, that’s not how

it begins.
 (Tries to remember.) ‘One remembers his childhood.’ Yes,
that’s it.
‘One remembers his childhood.
Another his beloved’s dress.
I am thinking of a bigger, redder cloth …’

(Olga has opened the book and reads it silently. Nadya rolls
the wheelchair with Kollontai out. Olga raises her glance to
the audience and recites without looking down at the book.)

502
 PART TWO

Olga:
I know the power of words, I’ve heard their warning
bells …
They’re not the sort that get applause from theatre boxes
They sometimes get discarded before they’re printed
or published …
But with tightened saddle belts they gallop away,
thunder across the centuries!

I know the power of words

A trifle, some might say,
A petal fallen under dancers’ heels …

But man …
with his soul, his lips, his bones …

(Up in the box Max the mute is sitting in the tsar’s seat, lis-
tening. Blackout. Lights. Final bow.)

503
KOLLONTAI

504
 BIOGRAPHIES

BIOGRAPHIES

Bini Adamczak is a writer and artist working in the visu-

al and performative arts. She coined the term ‘circlusion’,
which means the opposite of penetration. Adamczak’s
recent book Communism for Kids (MIT Press, 2017) pro-
voked a massive controversy among the far right in the
United States. Forthcoming are two books on the Russian
Revolution, How Could the Russian Revolution Have Worked?
and The Gender of Revolution.

Sara Ahmed is a British-Australian scholar whose area of

study includes the intersection of feminist theory, queer
theory, critical race theory and post colonialism.

Giulia Andreani is an artist born in 1985 in Venice and

who lives and works in Paris. She collects images from
libraries, archives, and family albums, in a personal atlas,
which she transposes in her paintings and whose specific
signature is the use of grey of Payne, as the only colour of
her palette. She is currently fellow at the Villa Medici, the
French Academy in Rome.

Baçoy Koop (Printing, Duplication and Distribution Co-

operative) conduct archival research into mimeograph
printed material, and use mimeograph duplication for col-
lective, independent publishing that is in dialogue with
the technology’s previous generation of users. Working
in Turkey’s current climate of repression, the group’s in-
vestigations lead to collectively produced printed matter,
actions and installations. The members of Baçoy Koop are
Fatma Belkis, Nihan Somay, Özgür Atlagan and İz Öztat.

505
 BIOGRAPHIES

Lise Haller Baggesen born in Denmark in 1969, currently

lives and works in Chicago. She is an artist, writer, and
curator, and the author of Mothernism (Poor Farm Press/
GLP 2014).

Petra Bauer is an artist and a professor based in Stock-

holm. Much of her recent work focuses on how women
have collectively self-organised, within and beyond art,
with an aim to change political and social structures as
well as everyday life. Bauer uses feminist strategies and
theories in order to critically focus on and politicise con-
ditions of production, authorship, narrative structures,
and the choice of aesthetic strategies. Recent projects in-
clude Sisters! (2011) and A Morning Breeze (2015) which was
included in the 2015 Venice Biennale, curated by Okwui
Enwezor.

Dora García is an artist born in Spain and who studied

in Amsterdam. She has always been interested in anti-
heroic and marginal personas as a prototype to study the
social status of the artist, and in narratives of resistance
and counterculture. García has developed works on the
DDR political police, the Stasi, on the charismatic figure
of US stand-up comedian Lenny Bruce, or on the origins,
rhizomatic associations, and consequences of antipsy-
chiatry (Mad Marginal book series since 2010, The Deviant
Majority, film, 34 min., 2010). In just the last years, she has
developed an interest in the politics of love and emotions.

Aly Grimes is a curator based at Grand Union Studios in

Birmingham, UK. Her curatorial work is concerned with

506
 BIOGRAPHIES

digital cultures, collaborative methodologies and inter-

disciplinary modes of practice.

Michael Hardt is a scholar, literary theorist, and political

philosopher. He is Professor of Literature and Director
of the Marxism & Society Certificate Program at Duke
University in Durham, North Caroline. Michael Hardt has
together with Antonio Negri investigated the political,
legal, economic and social aspects of globalisation in the
tetralogy Empire (2000), Multitude (2004), Commonwealth
(2009) and the latest book Assembly (2017) that was recent-
ly translated into Swedish by Tankekraft förlag. Michael
Hardt’s writings engage with new forms of domination
in the contemporary world and the social movements and
other forces of liberation that resist them.

Nicholas John Jones is as an artist, curator, and occasional

writer based between Oslo and London. He is the found-
ing director of PRAKSIS (Oslo).

Rebecka Katz Thor is an editor, critic and writer based

in Stockholm. Her dissertation Beyond the Witness, Holo-
caust Representations and the Testimony of Images offers a
framework for the analysis through which the testimony
of images can be understood.

Maria Lind is a curator, writer and educator based in

Stockholm, and director of Tensta konsthall, Stockholm.
She is a guest lecturer at the curatorial programme
CuratorLab and a professor of artistic research at the
Oslo Academy of Fine Art.

507
 BIOGRAPHIES

Michele Masucci is an artist, educator and researcher. His

research interests are in Italian political philosophy, fem-
inist theory, and theory of science. His research examines
the politics of care and forms of caregiving as political
practice. Masucci is a regular writer for various art jour-
nals and political magazines. During the acade­mic year
2017/2018 Masucci was co-director of CuratorLab.

Alla Mitrofanova is an independent researcher who lives

and works in St Petersburg. Mitrofanova graduated from
the State University as an art historian. She co-founded in
1994 the Cyberfemin Club, the Gallery of Experimental
Sound (2002), the Philosophical Cafe (2002), a member of
the Cyberfeminist International. Mitrofanova's areas of
interest include the theory of feminism, contemporary
art, and the philosophy of neo-materialism.

Martyna Nowicka-Wojnowska is an art critic and curator

based in Kraków, Poland, where she currently runs the
project space Handbook for City Dwellers.

Pontus Pettersson is a choreographer and artist based in

Stockholm, working in the expanded field of choreogra-
phy and contemporary dance.

Jonathan Brooks Platt is Associate Professor of the High-

er School of Economics National Research University
in St Petersburg, Russia. He writes on topics including
Stalin-era culture, representations of reading in Russian
Romanticism, and the actionist tradition in Russian
contemporary art. His monograph, Greetings, Pushkin!:

508
 BIOGRAPHIES

Stalinist Cultural Politics and the Russian National Bard

appeared in 2017 through University of Pittsburgh Press
and, in Russian translation, the European University in
St Petersburg Press. He is a widely published translator
of new Russian Left poetry, and he has collaborated on
projects with a number of contemporary Russian artists.
His current project, The Last Avant-Garde, examines the
history of late to post-Soviet art in the context of the neo-
liberal revolution.

Agneta Pleijel was born in Stockholm in 1940. She has

worked as a critic and cultural editor for various Swedish
newspapers and magazines. She served as President of
the Swedish PEN between 1988 and 1990, and has been
a member of the academy Samfundet de Nio (The Nine
Society) since 1988. From 1992 to 1996, Pleijel was a pro-
fessor at the Institute of Drama in Stockholm. Apart from
being one of Sweden’s foremost novelists, she is also a
playwright and a poet. Her books have been translated
into more than twenty languages.

Nina Power teaches philosophy at the University of

Roehampton and is the author of many articles on politics,
philosophy, and culture.

Tomáš Rafa, artist and documentary filmmaker born in

1979 in Zilina, Slovakia. He graduated from the Depart-
ment of Digital Media at the Academy of Fine Arts in
Banská Bystrica, Slovakia and studied at the Academy of
Fine Arts in Warsaw. Tomáš Rafa works with lens based
media and adopts a cinéma vérité method to document

509
 BIOGRAPHIES

displays of racism and xenophobia in countries such as

Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Slovakia.

Antonio Roberts is both an artist and curator based in

Birmingham. He is curator at Vivid Projects where he
runs the Black Hole Club artist development programme
and organises exhibitions of New Media Art.

Alicja Rogalska is a visual artist living in London. Her

practice is interdisciplinary, collaborative and focuses on
social structures and the political subtext of the everyday.

Mohammad Salemy is an independent critic, artist and

curator from Iran, based in Berlin. He is interested in the
relationship between art and technology and is unique-
ly attentive to the future and prehistory of technology.
Salemy is one of the founding members of The New Centre
for Research & Practice, and online educational platform.

Aaron Schuster is a philosopher and writer, based in

Amsterdam. He is the author of The Trouble with Pleasure:
Deleuze and Psychoanalysis (MIT Press, 2016). He is a for-
mer fellow at the ICI Berlin, and at the Center for Ad-
vanced Studies, Rijeka, Croatia; in 2016 he was a visiting
professor at the University of Chicago. His writing has
appeared in Cabinet, e-flux journal, and Frieze, among oth-
ers. He is currently working on two books: Sovereignty,
Inc.: Three Inquiries on Enjoyment and Politics (University of
Chicago Press) and Spasm: A Philosophy of Tickling (Cabinet
Books).

510
 BIOGRAPHIES

Sophia Tabatadze in an artist and curator living and

working between Berlin and Tbilisi, respectively she is
producing more artistic work in Western Europe and
more curatorial work in Georgia.

Oxana Timofeeva is assistant professor at the depart-

ment of Political Sciences and Sociology at the European
University at St Petersburg and a senior research fellow
at the Institute of Philosophy of Russian Academy of
Science. She is a member of the artist collective Chto
Delat? and the author of books History of Animals: An Essay
on Negativity, Immanence and Freedom (2012) and Introduc-
tion to the Erotic Philosophy of G. Bataille (2009).

Joanna Warsza is the Course Director of CuratorLab since

2014, and the Artistic Director of the 2018 Public Art
Munich. She was the curator of the Georgian Pavilion
at the 55th Venice Biennale and curator of the public pro-
gramme at Manifesta 10 in St Petersburg.

Hannah Zafiropoulos is a curator, researcher and wri-

ter based in London. Her current research focuses on
performativity as a methodology within artistic and cu-
ratorial practices.

511
 BIOGRAPHIES
RED LOVE: A READER ON ALEXANDRA KOLLONTAI
KOLLONTAI: A PLAY BY AGNETA PLEIJEL

Published by Konstfack Collection,

Sternberg Press, and Tensta konsthall

EDITORS
Maria Lind, Michele Masucci, and Joanna Warsza
with CuratorLab 2017: Aly Grimes, Malin Hüber,
Nicholas John Jones, Martyna Nowicka-Wojnowska,
Alessandra Prandin, Dimitrina Sevova, Sophia Tabatadze,
Federico Del Vecchio, Hannah Zafiropoulos
Translation of Agneta Pleijel’s play Kollontai by Harald Hille

PROOFREADING
Ames Gerould

GRAPHIC DESIGN
Jiri Adamik-Novak

PRINTING
ProTisk, Czech Republic

© 2020 Konstfack Collection,

Sternberg Press, and Tensta konsthall
Series: Konstfack Education Collection 1
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction
in whole or in part in any form.
Cover and photograph on page 8:
Alexandra Kollontai, c. 1919,
© SPUTNIK / Alamy Stock Photo

ISBN 978-91-85549-43-6

Distributed by The MIT Press,

Art Data, and Les presses du réel

CuratorLab is a curatorial course for professionals in

Arts, Crafts, Design & Architecture at Konstfack
University in Stockholm led by Joanna Warsza.

Konstfack
Lm Ericssons väg 14
126 27 Stockholm
Sweden
www.konstfack.se

Sternberg Press
Caroline Schneider
Karl-Marx-Allee 78
10243 Berlin
Germany
www.sternberg-press.com

Tensta konsthall
Taxingegränd 10
163 04 Spånga
Sweden
www.tenstakonsthall.se

512