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

Kristen R. Ghodsee reads and discusses 47 selections from the works of Alexandra Kollontai (1872-1952), a socialist women's activist who had radical ideas about the intersections of socialism and women's emancipation. Born into aristocratic privilege, the Ukrainian-Finnish Kollontai was initially a member of the Mensheviks before she joined Lenin and the Bolsheviks and became an important revolutionary figure during the 1917 Russian Revolution. Kollontai was a socialist theorist of women’s emancipation and a strident proponent of sexual relations freed from all economic considerations. After the October Revolution, Kollontai became the Commissar of Social Welfare and helped to found the Zhenotdel (the women's section of the Party). She oversaw a wide variety of legal reforms and public policies to help liberate working women and to create the basis of a new socialist sexual morality. But Russians were not ready for her vision of emancipation, and she was sent away to Norway to serve as the first Russian female ambassador (and only the third female ambassador in the world). In this podcast, Kristen R. Ghodsee – a professor of Russian and East European Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and the author of Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism: And Other Arguments for Economic Independence (Bold Type Books 2018) – selects excerpts from the essays, speeches, and fiction of Alexandra Kollontai and puts them in context. Each episode provides an introduction to the abridged reading with some relevant background on Kollontai and the historical moment in which she was writing.

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Avsnitt(166)

158 - A.K. 47 - Bonus Episode - The Political Economy of Love in Capitalism

Kristen Ghodsee reads her own December 2025 essay "The Political Economy of Love in Capitalism” This text appeared as the featured essay in the Winter 2025 special issue of Jacobin.de on “Love.” Below...

15 Dec 202535min

157 - A.K. 47 - The Communist Valkyrie - Part 4

Kristen Ghodsee reads the final part of her biographical chapter on Alexandra Kollontai from Ghodsee's 2022 book, Red Valkyries: Feminist Lessons from Five Revolutionary Women. Mentioned in this episo...

10 Dec 202521min

156 - A. K. 47 - The Communist Valkyrie - Part 3

Kristen Ghodsee reads the third part of her biographical chapter on Alexandra Kollontai from Ghodsee's 2022 book, Red Valkyries: Feminist Lessons from Five Revolutionary Women. Mentioned in this episo...

1 Dec 202527min

155 - A.K. 47 - Bonus Episode - Kristen Ghodsee and Astrid Zimmerman in Berlin (6 November 2025)

A special extended, bonus episode for those of you traveling for the long weekend. Kristen Ghodsee shared a conversation with Astrid Zimmerman for the Shakespeare and Sons bookstore in Berlin, Germany...

25 Nov 202546min

154 - A.K. 47 - The Communist Valkyrie - Part 2

Kristen Ghodsee reads the second part of her biographical chapter on Alexandra Kollontai from Ghodsee's 2022 book, Red Valkyries: Feminist Lessons from Five Revolutionary Women. Mentioned in this epis...

13 Nov 202526min

153 - A.K. 47 - The Communist Valkyrie - Part 1

Kristen Ghodsee reads from her own chapter on Alexandra Kollontai from her 2022 book, Red Valkyries: Feminist Lessons from Five Revolutionary Women, available now in Spanish, Italian, Slovak, Chinese...

5 Nov 202526min

152 - A.K. 47 - My Heart Belongs to the Finnish Poor

Kristen Ghodsee reads the first English translation of Alexandra Kollontai’s “My Heart Belongs to the Finnish Poor,” originally published as "Suomen köyhälistölle kuuluu sydämeni" by the Finnish Trade...

28 Okt 202528min

151 - A.K. 47 - Narva

Kristen Ghodsee reads Cathy Porter’s translation of an excerpt from Alexandra Kollontai’s autobiography. Reflecting on a visit to Narva, Estonia in March of 1896, when she was just 24-years-old, Kollo...

19 Okt 202526min