Women's Liberation Movements

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• Abstract

After the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, Russian sexual moralities underwent several changes. Alexandra Kollontai, the Soviet People's Commissar for State Welfare wrote series of articles on the New Woman's idea and on free love. Women's economic empowerment should, according to Kollontai, go hand in hand with their sexual emancipation. Being criticized both inside her own party and internationally, this new perception on intimacy has appealed the curiosity of numerous feminists around the world. The purpose of this Master thesis is to understand the reactions of the French feminists regarding the sexual morality proposed by Alexandra Kollontai through the French women's press in the 1920s. By analyzing the journeys' narrative from two French feminists to Moscow, I differentiate the perceptions shared between the various feminist movements in France. This dissertation outlines the French liberal and radical feminist perception of love, marriage and sexuality in the 1920s towards feminist press.

Keywords: Gender History, Soviet Women, Free Love, French Feminism, Sexual Moralities, Radical Feminism, Liberal Feminism.

Acknowledgements

First of all, I would like to offer my special thanks to my supervisor, Dr. Tatiana Borisova, for her valuable and constructive critiques during the development of this research. Her patience as well as her willingness to guide me have been much appreciated.

Likewise, I am grateful for the assistance and recommendations from L'Association des Archives du Féminisme, located at the Marguerite Durand Library in Paris, where I spent several autumnal mornings searching in the press records. I also want to thank Christine Fauré, Emeritus Director of Researches at the CNRS, who generously provided me with her original chapters on Alexandra Kollontai's ideologies.

To my UQÀM colleagues in Canada, Catherine, Meghan, Jean-Philippe and Julien, I am particularly thankful for kindly having reviewed my dissertation and advising me with their judicious research knowledge.

I wish to express my deep gratitude to my friend Linnea not only for carefully proof-reading my thesis, but also for giving me her moral support during this whole Master's Degree.

Moreover, I would like to thank my parents for their support and encouragements throughout my studies.

• Table of content

Introduction

Chapter 1. Women, Socialism and Free Love, Revolutionary Sexual Moralities in the USSR, 1920s

1.1 Family, Marriage and Women, Engels and Marx Theories

1.2 Kollontai, the New Woman and the Sexual Morality

1.3 Conclusions

Chapter 2. Two French Feminists in Moscow, Dialogues with Alexandra Kollontai

2.1 Free Love, French Publications and Opinions

2.2 Russian Journeys and Narratives

2.3 Madeleine Pelletier, the Radical Feminist

2.4 Louise Weiss, the Liberal Feminist

2.5 Conclusions

Chapter 3. Feminisms in Conflict, Understanding French Feminist Movements

3.1 French Feminist Realities, 1920s

3.2 First World War and the Natalist Laws

3.3 Pluralism of Feminisms

3.4 A Question of Solidarity

3.5 Socialist Parties Meeting Feminism

3.6 Conclusions

Conclusion

Bibliography

Appendix

Introduction

Women's emancipation movements began to take on increasing importance during the second half of the 19th century in Europe. The first struggles that women faced were focused on their politic and economic rights, as well as for the access to an employment that would be dignified and better paid. The initial political demands in France appeared during the Revolution of 1848, when universal suffrage was still given exclusively to men. Meanwhile, in Russia, a few years after the serfdom abolition. The abolition of serfdom in the Russian Empire took place in 1861 under the reign of Alexander II., women finally had the right to access higher education through the creation of specifically feminine programs. According to Larios Delgado Almudena, this century was still “very masculinized” on a political and social level.. Almudena Delgado Larios, “Femmes et politique : une nouvelle vision du XIXe siècle”, Nuevo Mundo Colloquium, 2008. Thus, even if women had little influence in politics, various women initiated the creation of feminist associations. Those feminist organizations, which appeared during the second half of the 19th century, had set the foundation for the first feminist wave in Europe. We can identify the first wave of feminism (1850-1945) with the struggle of reforming institutions for the improvement of married women' status and the recognition of their citizenship status: access the right to vote and universal education for girls. Feminists from the first wave used mainly pamphlets, journals and newspapers to enact their ideas. Therefore, with the emergence of feminist press both in Russia and in France, consequently creating a pole of attraction and an organ of propaganda. Ibid., social and political feminist struggles emerged in the public sphere.

At the beginning of the 20th century, women's movements became radicalized through feminist associations, meetings, demonstrations and international congresses. For example, a female division of the Second Socialist International was created in 1907 with Clara Zetkin as the spokeswoman. This organization, The Socialist International Women, had three important and clandestine conferences between 1907 and 1915 (Stuttgart, Copenhagen, Bern) where women discussed political and social issues that feminism was facing. They mobilized several European socialist women such as Rosa Luxemburg, Louise Saumoneau and Alexandra Kollontai. The latter mainly denounced the fact that women still weren't admitted to public service positions. There was a desire to demand the right to work for women in specific countries and eliminate gender discrimination.. Nicole Gabriel, “L'internationale Des Femmes Socialistes,” Matériaux Pour L'histoire De Notre Temps 16, no. 1 (1989): 39. Thus, they were able to acquire more space in the public and political arena.

Subsequently to The Socialist International Women's conferences, two currents were quickly distinguished, where opinions differed on several topics: liberal feminism and socialist feminism. In Russia as in France, women's sexual oppression had become an important source of discussion across feminist organizations. Through press and pamphlets, feminist theories have been explored to outline the different sexist configurations of marriage. Hence, women's economic dependence towards the marriage components leaned to displease specific leftist feminist groups. Consequently, the idea of free love has been defined as an alternative to avert the sexual oppression generated by marriage.

The designation of free love was scripted for the first instance in late 19th century, in Europe and in the United States, to designate a social movement that encountered physical, economic, psychological and social constraints towards marriage.. Anne Steiner, “Vivre l'anarchie ici et maintenant : milieux libres et colonies libertaires à la Belle Époque,” Cahiers d'histoire. Revue d'histoire critique 4, no.133, (2016): 45. This ideology highlighted more than just the question of marriage or the monogamous family themselves. It also outlined the social and economic system, in the sense that the women's financial dependence on men should be abolished under the ideology of free love.. Ibid. The perception that women were therefore encompassed in a form of `social slavery' has often been questioned in left-wing milieus, in order to revolutionize the established order of gender relations.

Thus, theories on free love and non-monogamous family took on an increasing importance in specific feminist circles in Russia and France, as well as in other parts of the world. Certain Russian Marxist women, such as Alexandra Kollontai, outlined socialist theories written by Friedrich Engels and Auguste Bebel. Auguste Bebel, La femme et le socialism, 1891, trans. Henri Bavé (Paris: Les Presses de Sciences Po, 1978). in regards to women's sexuality, to promoted free love.. Alexandra Kollontai, The Social Basis of the Woman Question, 1909, trans. Alix Holt (New York: Allison & Busby, 1977). In France, feminist press was the main tool to write articles advocating free love. In this dissertation, by comparing sources and scholar discourses, I seek to investigate the struggles of French and Russian women regarding their sexual lives during the 1920s.

Historiography

Writing Gender history

The interest in writing on global women and sexuality histories has risen among historians since the past couple of decades. Both the history of gender and sexuality have reshaped the historical discipline by crossing geographical or analytical borders, thus showing the potential for increasing intersections. For the intersectional gender aspects of this dissertation, I rely on two historians who wrote about gender history's methodology: Joan W. Scott and Laura Lee Downs.

Scott explained the different struggles that feminist historians faced when they attempted to analyze history.. Joan W. Scott, “On Language, Gender, and Working-Class History,” International Labor and Working-Class History, no. 31 (1987): 1. According to her, language theory is very important in the differentiation of historical themes between Gender, Feminist and Women's history.. Ibid, 2. It was significant for Scott to study people's comprehension of the terms of gender and sexuality before writing history to apprehend the words'.. Ibid. Joan Scott also stated that gender was the original way to understand the meaning of power relations in society. Indeed, in this dissertation, the use of gendered history analysis demonstrates the retrieval of women's role in the formation of theories on political power, both in Russia and in France.

Also, Laura Lee Downs outlined the practice of historical writing based on historiography.. Laura Lee Downs, Writing Gender History, (New York, Bloomsbury, 2010.) Her publication is relevant to my research in order to address certain concepts, such as `feminism'. While understanding the usage of feminism nowadays, our perception of this term is slightly different than the insight in the 1920s. Contemporary feminists often introduced Kollontai's theories in their works on matrimonial, family and feminist issues. Although Kollontai never perceived herself as feminist, today's conception of feminism may imply that her theories were indeed feminist.

Kollontai and the Women's Movement in the Early Soviet Society

I would like to highlight the Russian's uniqueness as a starting point for historical analysis.. Concept employed by the historian Erica L. Fraser in Erica L. Fraser, “Gender and Sexuality in Russian History: New Directions,” Journal of the Canadian Historical Association 25, no. 2 (2014): 324. Indeed, the new Bolshevik Russia became, after the Revolution of 1917, not only a source of curiosity for the societies during this period, but also a unique State to analyze and to compare for numerous scholars. The genesis of the Russian female's movement itself is a significant theme for this dissertation, to understand what led women to claim more rights and struggle for them. Richard Stites examined the historical origins of the female interest in communism through their emancipation. According to Stites, women's emancipation movements constituted a single and continual activism, with several fights. Richard Stites, The women's liberation movement in Russia : feminism, nihilism, and bolshevism, 1860-1930 (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1978), xvii.: the revolutionary settlement of women's role has had a tremendous impact on feminist struggle movements. He argued that both women and men learned from these movements in the USSR.. Ibid, 105. In a gender analysis perspective, Stites highlighted the continuity of several movements and the foundation of women movements in Russia, which helps to understand what led Kollontai to her positions.

The pre-revolutionary Russian feminist movements were also studied by several other scholars. Later, historians relied on The Women's Liberation Movement in Russia: Feminism, Nihilism, and Bolshevism, 1860-1930 to explore certain concepts addressed by Stites through different perspectives. According to Barbara Engels Alpern, the rise in popularity of contemporary feminism among Western scholars had encouraged a re-discovery of the historical framework on the subject of Russian women.. Barbara Engel Alpern,“Engendering Russias History: Women in Post-Emancipation Russia and the Soviet Union,” Slavic Review 51, no. 02 (1992): 309. For instance, Anne Bobroff, outlined the coexistence of different women's segments and feminist organizations, she mentioned the scission between the Mensheviks and the Bolsheviks, which therefore marked a clear separation in the female movements in Russia. The bourgeois feminism was a strong counter-movement to the Bolsheviks on women's struggle. Thus, women's empowerment in post-revolutionary Russia remained an important topic in the historical analysis of feminism. However, according to Beatrice Brodsky Farnsworth, the theme of woman became a source of hostile factionalism and an unfortunate consensus.. Beatrice Brodsky Farnsworth, “Bolshevism, the Woman Question, and Aleksandra Kollontai,” The American Historical Review 81, no. 2 (1976): 292. Here, she portrayed Kollontai as the central figure for the women's struggle in the USSR.

Another important subject around Kollontai's theories was the economic reasons behind women's sexual emancipation. Matthieu Renault, interprets Kollontai's vision of privacy by underlining her contribution the 1919 Workers' Opposition to the unions, in order to acknowledge the economic reasons for sexual empowerment.. Matthieu Renault, “Alexandra Kollontai et le dépérissement de la famille… Les deux verres d'eau de Lénine,” In Pour un féminisme de la totalité, (Paris: Éditions Amsterdam, 2017), 47. According to him, Bolshevik Russia needed to create favorable conditions for the formation of the masses.. Ibid. Renault's vision on Kollontai's new dialectic was written through family's withering away in junction with free love.. Ibid, 63. Thence, the institutional structures in regards to family became a central subject in order to improve women's life conditions.

According to Stephen Kotkin, the Soviet institutional structures were oriented towards class-consciousness, which served as a rational basis for Soviet policies after the Revolution.. Stephen Kotkin, “Introduction: A Future for Labor under Communism?,” International Labor and Working-Class History, no. 50 (1996): 1-2. To this extent, the institutionalization of People's welfare had immediately became a Soviet ambition to put in place. Thus, this institutionalization of welfare went through the collectivization of Soviet society, on several levels, such as family, love, housing, etc.

The necessity of the appropriation of people's behaviors was approached within the idea of a Soviet collectivity. On this subject, Willimott enlightened that Russian society had to turn towards a material collectivism: the communes were thus created in order to be subsequent to this ideology of collectivization.. Andy Willimott, “`How do you live?': experiments in revolutionary living after 1917,” The Journal of Architecture 3, no. 22 (2017): 444. Consequently, in this momentum, Kollontai saw a pertinence to integrating the more general idea present - that was, the socialization of family and love - with the question of women's emancipation. To do this, by working alongside with the Zhenotdel, they elaborated the socialization project of the domestic housework to lighten women's burden of household chores. Hence, Alissa Klots addressed the domestic labor question in the early Soviet society, explaining that the Bolshevik party presented women's emancipation through the socialization of housework as a crucial accomplishment.. Alissa Klots, “The Kitchen Maid as Revolutionary Symbol: Paid Domestic Labour and the Emancipation of Soviet Women, 1917-1941,” In The Palgrave Handbook of Women and Gender in Twentieth-Century Russia and the Soviet Union (London: Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2018), 86. She emphasized that the `redivision' within the household wasn't accomplished, which led to the remaining of the gender hierarchy in the private sphere.. Ibid, 87. To this extent, the possibility of a true gender equality remained difficult to achieve, which led scholars to criticize the “utopia” of a real women's sexual emancipation in Russia.

Similar concerns were depicted by scholars in regards to the women's question in Russia by focusing on women's labor history. Rose Glickman demonstrated the extreme oppression of peasant women in Russia by addressing their lack of access to their own rights within their lands.. Rose Glickman, “Women and the Peasant Commune,” in Land Commune and Peasant Community in Russia: Communal Forms in Imperial and Early Soviet Society, ed. Roger Bartlett (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1990), 329. The status of subordination of peasant women portrayed the difference between female workers and peasant women in the understanding of Zhenotdel's tasks. Bolshevik feminism, as stated by Alpern, became part of the political discourse and promise to transform the patriarchal family.. Alpern, “Engendering Russias History,” 312. To do so, the Zhenotdel sought the opportunity to advocate for women's emancipation with the new socialist perception of the family. Indeed, this ambition was quite promising; some scholars would relate this objective to a sharp utopia. In the case of Barbara Evans Clements, she examined the utopianism of the Zhenotdel by analyzing its actions before and after the end of the Civil War in Russia, in 1922.. Barbara Evans Clement, “The Utopianism of the Zhenotdel,” Slavic Review 51, no. 3 (1992): 485. She highlighted that during the civil war, the leaders of Zhenotdel were able to focus on the development of a leftist utopia regarding the women's emancipation. She enlightened that Kollontai had become a prominent revolutionary figure in regards to her relations to socialism, questioning the traditional family structure.. Ibid, 486. Because of this, much attention has been given Kollontai's approach to women's emancipation.

The historiography on women's movements in the USSR also often revolved around Kollontai's figure. In recent years - as International Women's Day gained gradual importance and recognition - Kollontai has been depicted as a founding figure, as well as a major protagonist in the advent of a new feminism. On the other hand, her official biography in English only dates back to the 1980s. Cathy Porter, Alexandra Kollontai, The Lonely Struggle of the Woman Who Defied Lenin (New York: The Dial Press New York, 1980), 19., which highlights a gap in the new approaches that scholars could take on Kollontai's theories. Nevertheless, the French scholar, Christine Fauré addressed Kollontai's theory with the Histoire Croisée theoretical framework. She wrote on Kollontai's sexual morality: La démocratie sans les femmes.. Christine Fauré, La Démocratie sans les Femmes, Essaie sur le Libéralisme en France (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1988). She first illustrated Alexandra Kollontai's theories about the New Woman, before analyzing the receptions of her ideologies on the sexual emancipation movements in the communist press, in France following May 68. . French publishers were once again interested in Kollontai's work after the events of May 1968 where, according to Fauré, a new understanding of politics and a libertarian inspiration resurfaced in France. She relied to the early Soviet society's distinctiveness on the women's question. According to Fauré, Kollontai's ideology had several references to a utopian ideal of women.

French Women and the Pluralism of Feminisms

As mentioned in the introduction, the interpretation of French feminism in the 1920s represents the central interest of this thesis. Historiography on the subject of women, marriage and free love in France was mainly developed around feminist claims themselves.. Sylvie Chaperon, “Le genre et l'histoire contemporaine des sexualités,” Hypothèses 8, no. 1 (2005): 332. Yet, until recently, silence was imposed on women's history. This quietness, according to Michelle Perrot, was reflecting women's self-restraint through family, since women's lives were socialized to be hidden.. Michelle Perrot, Les Femmes ou les silences de l'Histoire (Paris: Flammarion, 1998), III. The significance of women's history in France was mostly established after the 1997 colloquium, The history and the profession of historian in France, 1945-1995, where the absence of gender scholarship was hardly important.. Michelle Perrot, and Georges Duby, (dir. Françoise Thébaud) : Histoire des femmes en Occident. V.5, Le XXe siècle (Paris: Pion, 1990-1991) 240. This has caused a lot of discontent among the academic community. Therefore, we can see an impressive rise of books dedicated to gender and women historical scholarship in early 2000s' France. The history of sexuality was mostly first put forward by militant circles for sexual liberation, few was written by scholars.. Chaperon, “Le genre et l'histoire contemporaine des sexualités,” 335.

There is a certain continuity in the literature written by historians on radical French feminists and their international openings. One of the most important figures for understanding French radical feminism is Madeleine Pelletier. Maignien and Sowerwine pointed out that for Pelletier, the unequal treatment on gender was done from birth.. Charles Sowerwine, and Claude Maigien, Madeleine Pelletier, une féministe dans l' arène politique (Paris: Les Éditions ouvrières, 1992), 18. According to them, this would be the fundamental explanation of the social relations between the sexes, since the hierarchy that builds the psychology of human beings would be predetermined.. Ibid, 22. They also highlighted Pelletier's theories about the inferiority and superiority, as well as the gender's condition in private and public spheres.

The scholarship of women's sexual morality in France shifted from a strictly social and political approach to a feminist approach. Claudine Mitchell, Charles Sowerwine and Christine Bard are three authors who have mainly focused on the subject. Sowerwine and Bard approached the history of sexual life from a social, militant and female identities point of view.. Charles Sowerwine, “The Organization of French Socialist Women, 1880-1914: A European Perspective for Women's Movements,” Historical Reflections/Réflexions Historiques 3, no. 2 (1976): 4. The latter enlightened the actions radical feminists like Madeleine Pelletier undertook, by insisting on the activities taken by them to campaign in a world where action belonged to the male domain. On the other hand, Mitchell presented Madeleine Pelletier's work from a strictly political perspective.. Claudine Mitchell, “Madeleine Pelletier (1874-1939): The Politics of Sexual Oppression,” Feminist Review 17, no. 33 (1989). For Mitchell, it appeared significant to depict her different political agendas towards time in order to understand the complexity of Pelletier's actions for women's right.

Several historians have been interested in Louise Weiss' work, especially in the social and pacifist actions she undertook in the 1930s and 1940s. She is characterized by scholars as a convinced republican - in the traditional French understanding - and therefore she is not often cited for her interest on Bolshevik Russia and her dialogue with communism during the 1920s. Thus, few critical writings have outlined her feminist ideologies. For instance, she has a secondary role behind Madeleine Pelletier in Scott's analysis of French feminist history.. Joan W. Scott, La Citoyenne Paradoxale: Les Féministes Françaises Et Les Droits De L'homme (Paris: Albin Michel, 1998). Radical feminists had more place in the historiography of women's movements of the 1920s in France. Weiss was rather known for her pacifist intentions in the 1930s, so therefore, she was less cited in her actions of the 1920s. Yaël Hirsch, on the other hand, had a critical reading of Weiss' feminism, by detailing her dialogue with Russian communism through the two journeys she made to Moscow, in 1921 and 1923. Yaël Hirsch, “Louise Weiss, l'« aristo-prolo ». Un féminisme libéral en dialogue avec le communism,” Aden 1, no. 6 (2017).. Hirsch's analysis is the only one that depicted Weiss' hesitancies facing her feminist belonging.

Similarly, other historians have previously outlined the pluralism of feminism in France. As Christine Bard justified in her book on French feminist history, that there has been a lack of interest in the history of women activists committed to women's emancipation.. Christine Bard, Les filles de Marianne : histoire des féminismes 1914-1940 (Paris : Fayard, 1995), 177. She outlined why through several sources on the private life of French women between the beginning of the First World War until the collaboration of Nazi France in 1940. For her, the coexistence of several feminisms created movements in itself, which had the potential to become conflictual.. Ibid. Essentially, Bard argued that the excessive diversity of French women's movements has become an obstacle in their work for obtaining certain rights. Indeed, with regard to the sexual emancipation of women in France, these distinct feminist currents did not agree together on a precise consensus. To this end, liberal and radical feminists had two different discourses on women's sexuality.

Subsequently to this argument on the excessive diversity of feminist currents in France, Rochefort and Bard were arguing that there was not a unilateral French feminist movement, but several actions to achieve women's struggle. This theory enlightened a large part of my research analysis: as it is possible to denote antagonistic relations and visions in the sexual emancipation movement, Bard's theories explained how to interpret these different perspectives on sexuality. She explained that both movements disturb an order established by men, destabilizing the separation between the private and public spheres by mixing domestic matters within politics. Bard clarified that women were not only feminists, but were often invested in various other social causes such as class struggle, war patriotism, anti-fascism and resistance.. Ibid.

Also, Christine Bard and Florence Rochefort effectively demonstrated that the distance between different feminist movements is preventing them from forming a collective struggle; I should emphasize on the radical feminist movement in order to outline their discourse with the French left parties. To this end, the analysis of the women's question in the French left political parties is primordial in order to understand their level of influence.

Finally, according Sowerwine and Rebérioux on women's implication in socialist parties very few academic works have been written on the specific women contributions in the French socialist sphere. The historians stated women's involvement in the Section Française de l'Internationale Ouvière (SFIO). French Section of the Worker's International., created in 1905, as well as the failures of feminist sections in the later political party. According to the authors, although Marxism advocated equality between men and women, the SFIO had difficulty to attract women because of their lack of openness towards them.. Charles Sowerwine, “Militantisme Et Identité Sexuelle: La Carrière Politique Et L'œuvre Théorique De Madeleine Pelletier (1874-1939),” Le Mouvement Social, no. 157 (1991): 26.

Questions of Research and Hypothesis

In this revolutionary context of the women's emancipation in Russia, French feminists established their own political agendas, which helped them articulate their inner differences. To this extent, I have as a fundamental research question: What was the French feminist's press reactions to the principles and practices of the new Soviet sexual morality proposed by Kollontai in the early 1920s? The objective of investigating those perceptions is to problematize the French feminists' report to the free love union. It is not only a question of studying the French feminist medias, which are mainly newspapers, but also of understanding the different feminist dynamics in France during this period. In this sense, I do not intend to define this research as a simple analysis of feminist movements in women's periodicals, but I seek to comprehend the perceptions' differences between `radical' and `liberal' feminism in regards to women sexuality. What kind of dialogue was there between French feminism and Kollontai's sexual emancipation movement? My aim is not to create a new original analysis on the New Woman in the USSR, nor to recognize Zhenotdel's. Russian Central Party Department which took direct actions with women between 1919 and 1930. modes of action, since these topics were already widely covered by scholars, as Clement and Engels Alpern addressed in their work. I do, however, consider that it is important to clarify some of the basics on the New Woman's ideology, as well as to understand the evolution of Kollontai's theories on sexual morality.

While investigating the discourses of Pelletier and Weiss, one can easily ask the following question: what influences did they have regarding the sexual emancipation of women? By exploring the two feminist perspectives on free love, without omitting the link between Kollontai and the French feminism, it will be possible to reach a better comprehension of women's movement in France through the historical literature. Was there any possible cooperation between these women? What were the consequences of Madeleine Pelletier's and Louise Weiss' journeys on their feminist discourse afterwards? By analyzing French feminists' testimonies about their meetings with Kollontai, I distinguish two opposite approaches to her vision of women's emancipation. As Rochefort and Bard determined in their publications, Pelletier had a radical take on free love and sexual freedom by following the reading of her story in the newspaper La Voix des Femmes. On the other hand, by studying Louise Weiss' texts, as well as focusing on Hirsch's article, we can easily sense that her apprehension about this subject was very distinctive. Their meetings with Kollontai proved that the two women were poles apart in terms of new sexual morals.

Finally, this research aims to review the historical literature in regards to the questions of women's place in the public sphere. This imperative seemed all the more crucial considering the absence in the women's sections in French political parties, even those on the left. Michelle Perrot clarified that women's visibility-invisibility in the decision-making spheres, was therefore a testimony of sexual inequality: the marginalization, or devaluation, justified the deficiency of women's activities in the French political milieus.. Perrot, Le Silence des femmes, IV. Thus, by addressing women's attempts to join mainly leftist party, I prove that the women question was not a priority for these parties. Thus, the connection between the class struggle and the emancipation of women were largely different from theories outlined by Engels or Bebel for example.

French and Russian societies were therefore very different, so even if many feminists were convinced that socialism in France would be the best option for the country, they were not interested in changing the whole process of sexuality within their society. Consequently, I suggest the hypothesis that women with a negative view of “successive monogamy” did not believe in a transcendental transformation of the political system. These feminists, mostly liberal, mainly advocated their feminist activism to obtain the right to vote. By analyzing women's figures through media in case studies, it is quite possible to underscore that these women didn't have a nihilistic approach towards this ideology. As we can read in Richard Stites analysis of women movements in Russia, he explains the difference between feminism where they want to change parts of the world and how nihilism wants to change the world in its entirety. Stites, The women's liberation movement in Russia, 80.; they only wanted to change certain aspects of society in order to gain a greater freedom. This utopia of the New Woman was welcomed as an interesting concept by the French press, but it was seen as impossible to achieve in their country.

Sources and Methodology

This dissertation seeks to fill historiographical gaps by answering the questions previously mentioned. In order to tackle these issues, I consulted several primary sources to establish the basis for my project. Part of my sources are the various documents and works produced by socialist figures during the 19th and 20th centuries. As mentioned in my introduction, the first section of this dissertation is initially based on the socialist theoretical foundations of marriage, women, and family. I would like to stress that the acknowledgment of the early socialist theory, written by Marx and Engels, is essential to the understanding of Soviet sexual morality in the 1920s. By consulting a Marxist database, I was able to fulfill the basic theoretical foundations on socialist perception of love.

Texts written by Kollontai between 1909 and 1923 and translated in English, such as The Social Basis of the Woman Question. Kollontai, The Social Basis of the Woman Question., Communism and the Family. Alexandra Kollontai, “Communism and the Family,” trans. Alix Holt (New York: Allison & Busby, 1977)., New Woman The New Morality and the Working Class Sexual Relations and the Class Struggle. Alexandra Kollontai, “New Woman and The New Morality and the Working Class,”

1918, trans. Salvator Attasio (New York:1971)., represent the major part of my literature for my dissertation. A collection of texts chosen by Patricia Latour, Alexandra Kollontai, The Revolution, Feminism, Love and Freedom. Patricia Latour. Alexandra Kollontai, La Révolution, le féminisme, l'amour et la liberté (Paris : Les Temps des Cerises, 2017)., presents the entirety of Kollontai's theories in relation to this subject.

For my empirical research on French feminists, it was necessary to consult written sources. I decided to focus on the media analysis, since diaries, as well as the autobiographical archives, did not reveal the necessary information to answer my problematic. I analyzed the prominent question of gender and sexuality in the French press addressed to women. Evidences about sexual practices were rare in autobiographical archives or newspapers, making it difficult to analyze this aspect of privacy. Chaperon explains that most writings on this subject were closely related to procreation and the marriage bond.. Chaperon, “Le genre et l'histoire contemporaine des sexualités,” 68.

This dissertation is essentially constituted on the analysis of the French women's press. Consequently, I mainly focused my attention on two important periodicals, La Voix des Femmes and L'Europe Nouvelle, in order to deepen my analysis on French women's views on sexual moralities. I had access to French women's journals, as well as Madeleine Pelletier's complete book Mon Voyage Aventureux en Russie Communiste. Madeleine Pelletier, Mon voyage aventureux en Russie communiste (Paris: Éditions Giard 1922). online, based on data from the Bibliothèque Nationale de France. A visit to the Center for Feminist Archives, located at the Bibliothèque Marguerite Durand in Paris, was imperative in order to go through the documentation contained in La Voix des Femmes, which served as a guideline for me in understanding radical feminism in France. There, I found not only frequent articles on the ideology of free love, but also on the institution of marriage, as well as the feminist perception on the new Bolshevik Russia. In addition, I consulted the database Le Maitron (http://maitron-en-ligne.univ-paris1.fr), which is a biographical dictionary on the French social and workers movement. This database had a guideline function in order to study the portrait of the French women mentioned in this dissertation.

Analyzing the newspapers themselves was relevant to understand the importance of the articles for my dissertation. The relationship between the title and the text, the objectivity or the subjectivity of the article, as well as the information relative to the newspaper pertaining to its tendency, frequency and scope, was significant for the empirical research. In addition, it was essential to investigate the particularities of each selected periodicals, in order to understand their narratives and the women behind these articles. The terms used, as well as the importance given to the subject, helped to answer my research questions and to confirm or invalidate my hypothesis.

As a method of analysis, I used the Histoire Croisée as a theoretical framework, notably developed by Benedict Zimmerman. He theorized this approach by questioning the links materialized in the social sphere between different historically constituted formations. . M. Werner, and Benedicte Zimmermann, “Penser l'histoire croisée : entre empirie et réflexivité,” Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales 58, no. 1 (2003): 8. This approach is valuable for the analysis of my research because it has the benefits of entangling histories, both in a practical and intellectual means. Since my research analyzes French media receptions in the face of the Soviet sexual morality, it is not only a matter of comparing the two social realities concerning the women's question. By having an Histoire Croisée approach, this allows to analyze the dialogues undertaken between Russian and French feminists.

Contributions

The interest in writing global women and sexuality histories has increased in the past couple of decades, triggered by controversies on fundamental theoretical misconceptions and methodologies on writing history. It gained popularity as a perspective to trace back gender history on a larger scale, by integrating several communities, areas, states and nations. The cultural and linguistic turn have challenged basic assumptions: discourse, deconstruction, representation and poststructuralism are only key terms which have entered the discipline, and transformed the way history is understood and written. While queer studies have risen in popularity as ethnographical and anthropological discussions on sexuality, gender have entered the field of history and designated historians' growing interest and sensitivity. Analyzing gender and sexuality on an historical framework, have been seen as a thematic approach. In order to question it, I would suggest that gender history is now at a crossroad.

The existing scholarship on French feminism in the 1920s largely tends to study women through the French left, as well as its concrete actions on women's rights and emancipation. In addition, historiography on this subject addresses the contribution of French women to international women's conferences, such as those organized by Clara Zetkin. Clara Zetkin was a German Marxist politician, a figure of socialist feminism. She was president of the Socialist International Women. She was also a member of the Reichstag during the Weimar Republic from 1920 to 1933. in Stuttgart and Copenhagen. On the other hand, few studies have delved into dialogues between Russian women and French women at this time. My study is distinguished by the historical analysis of French feminists confronted to the Soviet women's uniqueness in relation to sexuality. However, the new Soviet Russia with emerging ideas was, at the time, a point of central curiosity for these French feminists who criticize these new sexual moralities. This is where this dissertation enters in contact with the existing literature on French women's movements. By outlining French press reaction towards Kollontai's ideas on sexuality, I contribute to extend the analysis on the pluralism of feminisms in France during the 1920s.

Body of Content

Firstly, to achieve this purpose, this research will present specific work done by Alexandra Kollontai. She was the People's Commissar for State Welfare (social security) in USSR from 1917 to 1918 and created/established new sexual moralities in Bolshevik Russia. Kollontai has dedicated much of her work to the need for a “psychological” revolution of humanity.. Porter, Alexandra Kollontai, The Lonely Struggle of the Woman Who Defied Lenin. By increasing women's sexual freedom, she would shape the “New Woman”: an autonomous worker and lover who was economically independent. Consequently, the ideology of sexual morality was oriented to transform the intrinsic organization of the social and biological reproduction ways by revolutionizing the daily life, which turns towards the collective life and the salaried work.. Renault, “Alexandra Kollontai et le dépérissement de la famille… Les deux verres d'eau de Lénine,” 49.

Secondly, I will interpret, through the study of the French women's press in the 1920s, the reception and the French feminists' opinions regarding the sexual morality proposed by Alexandra Kollontai. I am approaching their program by analyzing the French feminist press, such as La Voix des femmes and L'Europe Nouvelle, which embodied two different political approaches that were reflected in their journalistic styles. I will highlight Louise Weiss' and Madeleine Pelletier's journeys to Moscow in order to interpret their meetings with Kollontai. Then, I will study Kollontai's theory as a challenge that made French feminists establish their own agenda more concretely and probably helped them articulate their inner difference among the different feminist currents

Finally, this research will focus on the social and political realities of the sexual revolution was perceived in the 1920s, and how it was experienced by women in particular. The reasons for these particular reactions will be defended in this thesis, by surveying scholars' works on the different women's movements in France in the 1920s, and how they behaved towards each other concerning sexual moralities. Indeed by analyzing feminist organizations' relations between them, it will be possible to denote their different approaches towards the sexual morality proposed by Kollontai. Thence, I will demonstrate that the multiplicity of French feminist associations made it difficult to have a consensus on their opinion on free love, since women were taking part in other kind of struggles.

Chapter 1. Women, Socialism and Free Love, Revolutionary Sexual Moralities in the USSR, 1920s

Sexual moralities are nowadays extensively discussed by scholars to understand how people's bodies and sexual lives are in a way controlled by the state, or power entities. Moreover, the family sphere, often perceived as the ultimate private domain in society, is, on the contrary, explained by scholars as a central part of society's domination of public norms. Michelle Perrot explains that the history of private life is not a natural reality: it is a historical reality, built in different ways by certain societies.. Perrot, and Duby, Histoire des femmes en Occident. V.5, Le XXe siècle, 15. The private sphere only made sense in relation to the public life. Ibid., which means that sudden social change with respect to the norms of private life had to be made following the Russian Revolution of 1917.

The USSR quickly changed its approach in regards to society in this area in order to fit with their socialist ideologies. They were mostly dedicated to family life and thus to the private sphere.. Willimott, “`How do you live?': experiments in revolutionary living after 1917,” 439. Thence, Kollontai had the ambition to instruct individuals to think like a communist by following a new ethical code. For example, the idea of creating public canteens to free women from domestic duties was an important idea for Kollontai. To integrate these radical changes, the Congress appointed Alexandra Kollontai as the People's Commissar for State Welfare.

Alexandra Kollontai was one of the famous figures for women's rights in the beginning of the 20th century, as much in Russia as in Europe. One of her struggles was women's freedom through privacy, family and sexuality. The family and the bourgeois marriage had to tend to disappear in order to leave room for sexual freedom. In other words, the collectivization of love would help establishing the steppingstone to socialism's sexual moralities. To this end, the idea of patriarchy should be challenged in order to abolish women's economic dependence on men. Thus, the ideology of sexual freedom was first and foremost created to satisfy the relations between the working class and private life and will be explained in the first part of the thesis: it will clarify how she was seeing love and sexual intercourse in this new society, from a social and psychical point of view.

The purpose of this chapter is therefore to interpret the question of distinction of the New Woman in the nascent Soviet sexual morality in the 1920s. I would stress that this part of my dissertation is a contribution to comprehend the conceptualization of Kollontai's measures and how she had to undertake the changes of the social norms surrounding privacy. By understanding the work of Kollontai, it will be possible to analyze the effects of her actions on women's private sphere in the USSR. I want to underline the outstanding changes on sexual moralities in revolutionary Russia and their effects on women's everyday life in the private sphere. The mode of economic subsistence was growing in the socialist civilization, where women would no longer be economically dependent on men and where the family would no longer be a unit of consumption that supports capitalism.. Ibid, 438-440. I emphasize here that sexual availability would be transformed under those circumstances: it would be transfiguring into love-fellowship. This term was used throughout history to oppose the traditional conceptions of the family and the gendered power relations. At the very least, marriage institution, as mentioned above, exploited women' sexual inequalities with a reproductive obligation. This ideology has its source mainly in socialist theorists of the 19th century.

1.1 Family, Marriage and Women, Engels and Marx Theories

This idea was thus brought in the method of the abolition of the monogamous family suggested by certain nineteenth-century socialists in Europe. In order to properly understand the components of this goal, I want to highlight the different theories led by these figures who wanted to transform the established family order. I refer here to Karl Marx in the German Ideology published in 1845, the Communist Manifesto. Karl Marx, and Friedrich Engels, Manifeste du Parti communiste, (1848). Trans. Emile Bottigelli. (Paris: Flammarion, 1998)., released in 1848 and to Friedrich Engels in his book The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, issued in 1884, where these family conceptions were first approached in the Marxist analysis. These two authors, male figures, among many others, were the initiators of these socialist ideas in regards to the monogamous family which influenced several revolutionary women to undertake a struggle within a social transformation of moral norms on sexuality in the twentieth century.

The institution of marriage in the socialist sphere, 19th century

The concept of family, in the Marxist analysis, has a purely economic origin and is characterized by the total supremacy of the man on his wife. Family relations are furthermore restricted to a question of economic balance of power where men take ownership of women. According to Marx and Engels in the German Ideology, the division of labor involved the collective interest of all individuals through work.. Friedrich Engels, and Karl Marx, L'idéologie Allemande: Marx Engels, (1846), Trans. Renée Cartel and Gilbert Badia, (Paris: Editions Sociales, Classiques du Marxisme, 1968). If work is not divided equitably, man's own action is transformed into power, which represents a domination here on woman.. Engels, and Marx, L'idéologie Allemande. As we can read in the German Ideology, “The bourgeois family fades naturally with the fading of its corollary, and both disappear with the disappearance of capital.”. Engels, L'Origine de la famille, de la proprieìteì priveìe et de l'Eìtat, chapter 4. Therefore, affectivity, referring to Marx and Engels, comes only after economic purposes in the constraining bourgeois couple. In German Ideology, the words of Marx and Engels encourage the deterioration of the family.

However, a few decades before, in 1816, Charles Fourier put forward a certain philosophical notion with respect to the concept of love in his book Le Nouveau monde amoureux. Charles Fourier Le nouveau monde amoureux, 1814, (Paris: Anthropos, 2^nd ed, Stock, 1999).. He considered that adultery was particularly common, that faithfulness in love was contrary to human nature. He recognized that the social consequences of marriage were very negative for women. That is, the married girl was essentially considered as a commodity for sale and acquired by marriage as a property. To this extent, women inevitably had to accept their roles as a genitor and housewives.