Reply #95: There certainly was that strain in the early years

[RZM]

If you haven't read it already, you would probably also enjoy this work:

http://www.amazon.com/Bolshevik-Feminist-Life-Aleksandra-Kollantai/dp/0253312094/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1322005456&sr=8-1

Kollontai was the most prominent early Bolshevik woman. She actually was kind of a free-love type. Lenin didn't particularly approve of that and he had a very funny slap down of that mindset, the details of which escape me at the moment.

Of course Bolshevik feminists (including those who were men) were highly critical of 'bourgeois feminism' as well - they believed it was much more important to focus social energy on liberating the working class. Only after you had done that could you move on to women. If you just focused on women, they believed you were missing the whole point.

Of course, as time passed, the Soviet state turned further and further away from their early progressive attitude on gender issues and eventually came to embrace the traditional hierarchy since it was more agreeable to the goals of the Stalinist state (the increase and maintenance of state power, industrial growth, demographic health, etc.)