ABSTRACT
Aleksandra Mikhailovna Kollontai entered the women's liberation movement in Russia at a time of revolutionary change. Although she served in the Soviet government during its early years, her radical ideals ultimately left her isolated. In 1921 Kollontai's influence went into irreversible decline, however, when she supported a democratic party faction known as the Workers' Opposition. Describing herself as a “Bolshevik Antichrist,” she also sought to undermine the church's strength by supporting a law separating church and state for the first time in Russian history. Alexsandra Kollontai's example in the Soviet government and her many writings continued to inspire the women's movement in the Soviet Union. Kollontai's vision of a new Soviet woman unencumbered by marriage and children, however, went unrealized. The revolutionary ideals that consumed intellectuals such as herself during the 1920s were redirected under Stalin and finally died out in the 1960s.
