In this day in 1872 the great Russian revolutionary Alexandra Kollontai was born. Kollontai was born into a bourgeois family but became a convinced Marxist quote early in life. She rigorously applied the Marxist method to the question of the liberation of women and produced several seminal works on this vital subject.

Kollontai took a revolutionary internationalist stance during world war one and backed the line taken by Lenin. She remained a dedicated internationalist and played a role in the early Comintern. After losing an internal party battle in 1921 she accepted that she was in the minority and (unlike Trotsky et al) got on with implementing the line of the party. Following this Kollontai went onto a distinguished career in the Soviet diplomatic core serving in Mexico initially before becoming the Soviet ambassador to Sweden. This last post was hugely important as it put Kollontai in the position of running Soviet intelligence networks in the Nordic countries. She also led negotiations to secure the surrender of Finland and even had to enter into discussions with the nazis when the German leaders started asking for a truce when it became clear they were losing the war.

Kollontai remained a dedicated communist to the very end of her life and even after her formal retirement continued to advise Vyacheslav Molotov until her death in 1952.

Alexandra Kollontai still.has much to teach us on the question of women’s liberation and her writings are a treasure trove on this subject. Her life was one dedicated to fighting for socialism and we hail her legacy on this the day of her birth.