The Autobiography of a Sexually Emancipated Communist Woman Quotes

“Para la mujer antigua, el dolor más grande era la traición o la pérdida del hombre amado; para la mujer nueva es la pérdida de sí misma.”
― Alexandra Kolontai, Autobiografía de una mujer sexualmente emancipada

“Yet the longing to be understood by a man down to the deepest, most secret recesses of one's soul, to be recognized by him as a striving human being, repeatedly decided matters. And repeatedly disappointment ensued all too swiftly, since the friend saw in me only the feminine element which he tried to mold into a willing sounding board to his own ego. So repeatedly the moment inevitably arrived in which I had to shake off the chains of community with an aching heart but with a sovereign, uninfluenced will. Then I was again alone.”
― Alexandra Kollontai, The Autobiography of a Sexually Emancipated Communist Woman

“Gravemente yerran quienes piensan aún que la mujer nueva, soltera, es el fruto de los heroicos esfuerzos de individualidades fuertes que han tomado conciencia de sí mismas. [...] La transformación de la mentalidad de la mujer, de su estructura interna espiritual y sentimental, se lleva a cabo ante todo y muy especialmente en las profundidades sociales.”
― Alexandra Kolontai, Autobiografía de una mujer sexualmente emancipada

“We, the older generation, did not yet understand, as most men do and as young women are learning today, that work and the longing for love can be harmoniously combined so that work remains as the main goal of existence. Our mistake was that each time we succumbed to the belief that we had finally found the one and only in the man we loved, the person with whom we believed we could blend our soul, one who was ready fully to recognize us as a spiritual-physical force.

But over and over again things turned out differently, since the man always tried to impose his ego upon us and adapt us fully to his purposes.”
― Alexandra Kollontai, The Autobiography of a Sexually Emancipated Communist Woman

“How difficult it is for today's woman to cast aside this capacity, internalized in the course of centuries, of millenniums, with which she tried to assimilate herself to the man whom fate seemed to have singled out to be her lord and master. How difficult she will find it to convince herself that woman must reckon self-renunciation as a sin, even a renunciation for the sake of the beloved and for the sake of the power of love.”
― Alexandra Kollontai, The Autobiography of a Sexually Emancipated Communist Woman

“Es esta la cuestión que, hoy en día, se le plantea de nuevo a la juventud trabajadora de la Rusia soviética. Un rápido vistazo sobre la evolución del ideal de las relaciones amorosas y conyugales te ayudará, mi joven camarada, a comprender que el amor no es en absoluto un "asunto particular", como podríamos creerlo a primera vista. El amor es un precioso factor psicosocial por el que la humanidad se ha guiado insintivamente, en interés de la colectividad, a lo largo de su historia. Corresponde a la humanidad trabajadora, armada del método científico del marxismo y receptora de la experiencia del pasado, comprender esto: ¿qué lugar debe reservar la nueva humanidad al amor en las relaciones sociales? ¿Cuál debe ser, por consiguiente el ideal amoroso que responda a los intereses de la clase que lucha por dominar tales relaciones sociales?”
― Alexandra Kolontai, Autobiografía de una mujer sexualmente emancipada