Why the most radical feminists were also communists
Kristen R. Ghodsee is professor of Russian and East European Studies and a member of the graduate group in anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania. She is the author of ten books and her articles and essay have been translated into over 25 languages and have appeared in The New Republic, The Baffler, Dissent, Jacobin, The Lancet, Le Monde Diplomatique, Foreign Affairs, The Washington Post, and The New York Times.
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*
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*
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. Can we still
imagine this, in our era obsessed with victimization?
*Slavoj Zizek*
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*
A beautiful book about the intimate lives and bold ideas of a range
of Communist women, people who built their revolutionary dreams
into reality. Ghodsee lifts up the immense contradiction between
the future-oriented social hopes of these revolutionaries, these
exiles from the future, and the grip of the social conventions of
the present.
*Vijay Prashad*
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. The author extracts from silence and saves from oblivion
five women who have made an attempt to change not only their own,
personal history, but also political, social and cultural history
of women in Europe and worldwide. It is a story about a communist
revolution in which women played a significant role, creating and
implementing the project of a better world for all people.
Reflections on the past are not, however, used to celebrate it
nostalgically, but to draw conclusions for the future - how to act
to build an alternative to the hegemony of capitalism and
nationalism. This well-written, passionate story about the "red
Valkyries" shows that socialism is not a song of the past, but
still valid and long-awaited response to the challenges of the
present world. Ghodsee argues that the history is not over, but
rushes forward. Speeding up, however, it needs signposts to avoid
falling into the abyss. The Red Valkyries will be perfect for this
role.
*Agnieszka Mrozik, Institute of Literary Research of the Polish
Academy of Sciences*
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*
Compelling...by telling unfamiliar and forgotten stories, [Red
Valkyries] suggests there are other fronts on which the battle can
be fought than those favoured by western feminists.
*Northern Soul*
Illuminating...Ghodsee equips us with five extraordinary role
models whose tenacity, perseverance and dedication to revolutionary
politics should serve as inspiration to anyone seeking to build a
better world for all.
*Red Pepper*
This is an eye-opening deep dive into an underexamined aspect of
feminist history.
*Publishers Weekly*
As an expert in her field, [Ghodsee] deftly covers vast amounts of
history, political theory, and complicated personal
relationships....A timely and fascinating volume for those
interested in Russian and socialist history.
*Library Journal*
Ghodsee weaves these women's ideologies and feminist views into the
larger picture of a time, that of multiple world wars, open
revolution, burgeoning socialist societies, and the knowledge that
extreme change was needed in dire circumstances.
*Booklist*
A compelling book, a call for a broader understanding of the
history of women's political practice, the ideas that informed it,
and its implications for our own time.
*Chicago Review of Books*
Any utopia first needs to be imagined. For that endeavor, Ghodsee's
gripping book, with its important ideas distilled (yet not made
banal) for those who might be encountering them for the first time,
is available.
*LIBER*
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