A.K. 47 - Selections from the Works of Alexandra Kollontai

Kristen Ghodsee (with Covid) reads the fourth part of the essay, "The Socialist Movement of Women Workers in Different Countries," part of the pamphlet, "Women Workers Struggle for Their Rights" published in 1918.

Mentioned in this episode is the run-off election for the French National Assembly. President Emmanuel Macron's coalition did lose their parliamentary majority.  The left coalition NUPES (New Ecological and Social Popular Union), led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, could now be the second largest power in the National Assembly.

Subscribe to Kristen Ghodsee's (very occasional) free newsletter. You'll get maybe one newsletter every 2 to 3 months.

Also, here is a 50% discount code for the new book from Verso: Red Valkyries: Feminist Lessons from Five Revolutionary Women.

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Thanks so much for listening. This podcast has no Patreon-type account and receives no funding. There are no ads and there is no monetization. If you'd like to support the work being done here, please spread the word with your networks.

Kristen R. Ghodsee is the award-winning author of twelve critically acclaimed books published in over 20 languages, and a University of Pennsylvania Professor of Russian and East European Studies. Check out Kristen Ghodsee's recent books: 

• Everyday Utopia
• Red Valkyries
• Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism
• Second World, Second Sex

Subscribe to Kristen Ghodsee’s free, episodic newsletter at: https://kristenghodsee.substack.com

Learn more about Kristen Ghodsee's work: www.kristenghodsee.com or request to follow her on Instagram @prof_kristen 

Kristen Ghodsee reads the third part of the essay, "The Socialist Movement of Women Workers in Different Countries," part of the pamphlet, "Women Workers Struggle for Their Rights" published in 1918.

Mentioned in this episode is the article about August Bebel, "Socialists Have Long Fought for Women’s Liberation," in Jacobin Magazine.

Subscribe to Kristen Ghodsee's (very occasional) free newsletter. You'll get maybe one newsletter every 2 to 3 months.

Also, here is a 50% discount code for the new book from Verso: Red Valkyries: Feminist Lessons from Five Revolutionary Women.

Send us Fan Mail

Thanks so much for listening. This podcast has no Patreon-type account and receives no funding. There are no ads and there is no monetization. If you'd like to support the work being done here, please spread the word with your networks.

Kristen R. Ghodsee is the award-winning author of twelve critically acclaimed books published in over 20 languages, and a University of Pennsylvania Professor of Russian and East European Studies. Check out Kristen Ghodsee's recent books: 

• Everyday Utopia
• Red Valkyries
• Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism
• Second World, Second Sex

Subscribe to Kristen Ghodsee’s free, episodic newsletter at: https://kristenghodsee.substack.com

Learn more about Kristen Ghodsee's work: www.kristenghodsee.com or request to follow her on Instagram @prof_kristen 

In response to a leaked Supreme Court opinion that would overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark decision that guaranteed all American women autonomy over their own bodies, Kristen Ghodsee reflects on the Romanian experience as well as a 1936 interview with Kollontai on the reversal of the 1920 Soviet law that made the Soviet Union the first country in the world to grant women access to abortion. In this interview Kollontai explains:

"As long as women or men live under the pressure of unemployment, as long as the level of wages is not sufficient for a family, as long as housing conditions are unfavourable, and as long as the state does not make motherhood easier for every woman in various ways and does not provide social services for mother and child, it is clear that the women must stand up for free abortions."

Also mentioned in this article are:

Gail Kligman, The Politics of Duplicity: Controlling Reproduction in Ceausescu's Romania. Berkeley: UC Press, 1998

Maria Bucur and Kristen Ghodsee, "How Banning Abortion Will Transform America" Project Syndicate,  May 15, 2019

Send us Fan Mail

Thanks so much for listening. This podcast has no Patreon-type account and receives no funding. There are no ads and there is no monetization. If you'd like to support the work being done here, please spread the word with your networks.

Kristen R. Ghodsee is the award-winning author of twelve critically acclaimed books published in over 20 languages, and a University of Pennsylvania Professor of Russian and East European Studies. Check out Kristen Ghodsee's recent books: 

• Everyday Utopia
• Red Valkyries
• Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism
• Second World, Second Sex

Subscribe to Kristen Ghodsee’s free, episodic newsletter at: https://kristenghodsee.substack.com

Learn more about Kristen Ghodsee's work: www.kristenghodsee.com or request to follow her on Instagram @prof_kristen 

Kristen Ghodsee reads the second part of the essay, "The Socialist Movement of Women Workers in Different Countries," part of the pamphlet, "Women Workers Struggle for Their Rights" published in 1918.

Mentioned in this episode is Jodi Dean's great book, Comrade.

Subscribe to Kristen Ghodsee's (very occasional) free newsletter. You'll get maybe one newsletter every 2 to 3 months.

Send us Fan Mail

Thanks so much for listening. This podcast has no Patreon-type account and receives no funding. There are no ads and there is no monetization. If you'd like to support the work being done here, please spread the word with your networks.

Kristen R. Ghodsee is the award-winning author of twelve critically acclaimed books published in over 20 languages, and a University of Pennsylvania Professor of Russian and East European Studies. Check out Kristen Ghodsee's recent books: 

• Everyday Utopia
• Red Valkyries
• Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism
• Second World, Second Sex

Subscribe to Kristen Ghodsee’s free, episodic newsletter at: https://kristenghodsee.substack.com

Learn more about Kristen Ghodsee's work: www.kristenghodsee.com or request to follow her on Instagram @prof_kristen 

Kristen Ghodsee reads Alexandra Kollontai's 1918 pamphlet: "Women Workers Struggle for their Rights."

Mentioned in this episode are the blurbs for Red Valkyries: Feminist Lessons from Five Revolutionary Women, forthcoming with Verso Books in July.

“Written with clarity and zest, Red Valkyries is an illuminating introduction to the extraordinary lives of prominent socialist women in the Soviet Union and Bulgaria.”
—Sheila Rowbotham, author of Daring to Hope

“In our historical moment, quotas of women in power positions and correct manners or expressions are obfuscating the long historical link between feminism and radical politics. Ghodsee’s Red Valkyries is exactly the book needed to correct this misperception and help feminism to rejoin its radical past. The five figures analyzed were fighters who pursued the feminist cause through their full engagement in revolutionary political struggle.”
—Slavoj Žižek, author of Pandemic! 2

“We’ve needed this book longer than we know: celebrating and learning from revolutionary socialist women, Red Valkyries gifts us with models essential to today’s struggles. Kristen Ghodsee breaks down the wall liberal feminism built in women’s history, bringing to life a vision of emancipation that continues to be worth fighting for.”
—Jodi Dean, author of Comrade

“Red Valkyries is a fascinating alternative history of the feminist movement, told from the perspective of the east rather than the west. The women Ghodsee profiles are committed socialists who realise that women’s liberation is incompatible with capitalism, and who also frequently struggle against the centralisation of power within their own countries. Required reading for anyone seeking out an alternative to #girlboss feminism.”
—Grace Blakeley, author of The Corona Crash

“A beautiful book about the intimate lives and bold ideas of Communist women who built theirrevolutionary dreams into reality. Ghodsee lifts up the immense contradiction between thefuture-oriented social hopes of these revolutionaries, these exiles from the future, and the grip ofthe social conventions of the present.”
—Vijay Prashad, author of Washington Bullets

“Until the late 20th century, you could pay close attention in school, graduate from a prestigious university with a degree in history and still never find out who Harriet Tubman was. Outrageous, right? But due to capitalist ideology and Cold War hangover, you could still do all that and never learn about Alexandra Kollontai or Inessa Armand, or any of history’s great Communist women. Kristen Ghodsee’s riveting account of these complicated, imperfect and inspiring lives is an outstanding corrective to our miseducation, one that’s long overdue.”
—Liza Featherstone, Jacobin

“Funny and politically illuminating, Ghodsee writes with the clear-sighted directness of the revolutionary women she describes. Women’s sexual, political and daily emancipation were the eye of the socialist storm for Kollantai, Krupskaya, Armand and Lagadinova. Ghodsee’s book breathes new life into their stories of how to create a world without patriarchy.”
—Elizabeth Armstrong, Smith College

“Kristen Ghodsee’s new book is a well-documented and immensely personal guide to the 20th-century East European socialist women’s movement."
—Agnieszka Mrozik, Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences

Send us Fan Mail

Thanks so much for listening. This podcast has no Patreon-type account and receives no funding. There are no ads and there is no monetization. If you'd like to support the work being done here, please spread the word with your networks.

Kristen R. Ghodsee is the award-winning author of twelve critically acclaimed books published in over 20 languages, and a University of Pennsylvania Professor of Russian and East European Studies. Check out Kristen Ghodsee's recent books: 

• Everyday Utopia
• Red Valkyries
• Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism
• Second World, Second Sex

Subscribe to Kristen Ghodsee’s free, episodic newsletter at: https://kristenghodsee.substack.com

Learn more about Kristen Ghodsee's work: www.kristenghodsee.com or request to follow her on Instagram @prof_kristen 

In this bonus episode, Kristen Ghodsee speaks with an anarchist activist recently returned from a pipeline resistance camp (who wished to remain anonymous). They discuss theories of organizing for successful social movements, and the lingering fears of the vanguard party that haunt the left.

Mentioned in this episode are the books:

Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity Through This Crisis (and the Next), by Dean Spade
Neither Vertical nor Horizontal: A Theory of Political Organization, by Rodrigo Nunes

Send us Fan Mail

Thanks so much for listening. This podcast has no Patreon-type account and receives no funding. There are no ads and there is no monetization. If you'd like to support the work being done here, please spread the word with your networks.

Kristen R. Ghodsee is the award-winning author of twelve critically acclaimed books published in over 20 languages, and a University of Pennsylvania Professor of Russian and East European Studies. Check out Kristen Ghodsee's recent books: 

• Everyday Utopia
• Red Valkyries
• Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism
• Second World, Second Sex

Subscribe to Kristen Ghodsee’s free, episodic newsletter at: https://kristenghodsee.substack.com

Learn more about Kristen Ghodsee's work: www.kristenghodsee.com or request to follow her on Instagram @prof_kristen 

For the 100th episode of A.K. 47, Kristen Ghodsee reads Alexandra Kollontai's 1915 speech, "The Third International," which she delivered in the United States while rallying Americans against World War I. 

Send us Fan Mail

Thanks so much for listening. This podcast has no Patreon-type account and receives no funding. There are no ads and there is no monetization. If you'd like to support the work being done here, please spread the word with your networks.

Kristen R. Ghodsee is the award-winning author of twelve critically acclaimed books published in over 20 languages, and a University of Pennsylvania Professor of Russian and East European Studies. Check out Kristen Ghodsee's recent books: 

• Everyday Utopia
• Red Valkyries
• Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism
• Second World, Second Sex

Subscribe to Kristen Ghodsee’s free, episodic newsletter at: https://kristenghodsee.substack.com

Learn more about Kristen Ghodsee's work: www.kristenghodsee.com or request to follow her on Instagram @prof_kristen 

Kristen Ghodsee reads a 1912 speech which Alexandra Kollontai delivered on May 1st in Stockholm, Sweden. She talks about the intersections of war and capitalism.

Mentioned in this episode is former U.S. Secretary of Defense William Perry's Book, My Journey at the Nuclear Brink where he discusses his opposition to the eastward expansion of NATO.

For this episode, the Internationale is in Ukrainian. 

Send us Fan Mail

Thanks so much for listening. This podcast has no Patreon-type account and receives no funding. There are no ads and there is no monetization. If you'd like to support the work being done here, please spread the word with your networks.

Kristen R. Ghodsee is the award-winning author of twelve critically acclaimed books published in over 20 languages, and a University of Pennsylvania Professor of Russian and East European Studies. Check out Kristen Ghodsee's recent books: 

• Everyday Utopia
• Red Valkyries
• Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism
• Second World, Second Sex

Subscribe to Kristen Ghodsee’s free, episodic newsletter at: https://kristenghodsee.substack.com

Learn more about Kristen Ghodsee's work: www.kristenghodsee.com or request to follow her on Instagram @prof_kristen 

Kristen Ghodsee's (now twenty-year-old) daughter interviews Ghodsee about the original idea for the podcast and how it has developed since January 2019 when she posted her first episode. 

Mentioned in this podcast are these books and articles:

• Red Valkyries: Feminist Lessons from Five Revolutionary Women, Verso Books, 2022
• “The Most Famous Feminist You’ve Never Heard Of,” Ms. Magazine, March 29, 2020
• “How the socialist behind paid child care and parental leave was erased from women's history, “ NBC Think, March 7, 2020
• "Crashing the Party: The radical legacy of a Soviet-era feminist," World Policy Journal, No, 2, Summer 2018
• Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism: And Other Arguments for Economic Independence (Bold Type Books, 2018)

Send us Fan Mail

Thanks so much for listening. This podcast has no Patreon-type account and receives no funding. There are no ads and there is no monetization. If you'd like to support the work being done here, please spread the word with your networks.

Kristen R. Ghodsee is the award-winning author of twelve critically acclaimed books published in over 20 languages, and a University of Pennsylvania Professor of Russian and East European Studies. Check out Kristen Ghodsee's recent books: 

• Everyday Utopia
• Red Valkyries
• Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism
• Second World, Second Sex

Subscribe to Kristen Ghodsee’s free, episodic newsletter at: https://kristenghodsee.substack.com

Learn more about Kristen Ghodsee's work: www.kristenghodsee.com or request to follow her on Instagram @prof_kristen 

Kristen Ghodsee records part of a spontaneous chat with Minja Bujakovic and Marta Chmielewska, both Ph.D. researchers at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy. Over a bottle of wine, Minja discusses her Master's thesis examining the work of Kollontai as it was disseminated in interwar Yugoslavia. Of particular interest is the reported conversation that the French liberal feminist Louise Weiss had with Kollontai when Weiss visited Moscow in 1921.

Minja Bujakovic is a first-year Ph.D. researcher at the Department of History and Civilization. In her Ph.D. project titled: Revolutionary Women Transcending Borders: The Communist Women’s International and the Struggle for Women’s Emancipation , she proposes a transnational analysis of the Communist Women’s Movement in the interwar period, mapping its evolution and development over time, through the membership and activism of individual communist women.

Marta Chmielewska is second-year PhD researcher at the Department of History and Civilization interested in labour and gender history, queer theory, and global socialism. Her thesis "Bra Production in Socialist and Postsocialist Small-Town Central Poland: from Cooperation to Competition? explores how the introduction of capitalism influenced transitions in labour organisation, gender order and family lives at the local level. 

Kristen Ghodsee's author website: www.kristenghodsee.com

Popular Books:

• Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism: And Other Arguments for Economic Independence
• Red Valkyries: Feminist Lessons from Five Revolutionary Women

Send us Fan Mail

Thanks so much for listening. This podcast has no Patreon-type account and receives no funding. There are no ads and there is no monetization. If you'd like to support the work being done here, please spread the word with your networks.

Kristen R. Ghodsee is the award-winning author of twelve critically acclaimed books published in over 20 languages, and a University of Pennsylvania Professor of Russian and East European Studies. Check out Kristen Ghodsee's recent books: 

• Everyday Utopia
• Red Valkyries
• Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism
• Second World, Second Sex

Subscribe to Kristen Ghodsee’s free, episodic newsletter at: https://kristenghodsee.substack.com

Learn more about Kristen Ghodsee's work: www.kristenghodsee.com or request to follow her on Instagram @prof_kristen