TY - JOUR

T1 - What makes reading Alexandra Kollontai so intriguing today?

AU - Martinez Mateo, Marina

AU - Neuhann, Esther

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © The Author(s) 2025.

PY - 2025

Y1 - 2025

N2 - The Soviet feminist Alexandra Kollontai has gained renewed attention in contemporary feminist discourse. In particular, family-abolitionist perspectives draw on her critique of the family and bourgeois love, invoking her idea of free (‘red’) love as a form of solidarity. We share this revived enthusiasm, as Kollontai's work continues to offer valuable and inspiring insights today. As we argue in this article, it is especially her dual analysis of gender inequity, including a ‘moral’ or psychic and an economic or material dimension, that proves relevant for current debates. Her work holds the potential for bridging subject-centred and materialist approaches. However, we also recognise pitfalls in Kollontai's conception of the relationship between economic structures and subjectivity which are echoed in contemporary appropriations of her work. We maintain that re-reading Kollontai can raise awareness of the complicated nature of combining a materialist and ‘moral’ perspective on gender. While Kollontai does not fully achieve this mediation, she provides resources for this project that have thus far been overlooked and may still prove useful today.

AB - The Soviet feminist Alexandra Kollontai has gained renewed attention in contemporary feminist discourse. In particular, family-abolitionist perspectives draw on her critique of the family and bourgeois love, invoking her idea of free (‘red’) love as a form of solidarity. We share this revived enthusiasm, as Kollontai's work continues to offer valuable and inspiring insights today. As we argue in this article, it is especially her dual analysis of gender inequity, including a ‘moral’ or psychic and an economic or material dimension, that proves relevant for current debates. Her work holds the potential for bridging subject-centred and materialist approaches. However, we also recognise pitfalls in Kollontai's conception of the relationship between economic structures and subjectivity which are echoed in contemporary appropriations of her work. We maintain that re-reading Kollontai can raise awareness of the complicated nature of combining a materialist and ‘moral’ perspective on gender. While Kollontai does not fully achieve this mediation, she provides resources for this project that have thus far been overlooked and may still prove useful today.

KW - Alexandra Kollontai

KW - capitalism and care

KW - family abolition

KW - love

KW - materialist feminism

KW - property

KW - Philosophy

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=105004462957&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1177/14647001251336165

DO - 10.1177/14647001251336165

M3 - Journal articles

AN - SCOPUS:105004462957

JO - Feminist Theory

JF - Feminist Theory

SN - 1464-7001

ER -