Originally Posted by
tailfins
This is mainly directed at @
Balu , I was going to make it a private message, but decided to make it public in case other board members are interested.
I have known a number of full-fledged hammer-and-sickle Communists in my time. A curious detail has come to mind. I noticed that in Communist countries such as Vietnam, Cuba, and the former Soviet Union that families are featured in government propaganda. However, Marxism considers the family as a hindrance to women's equality. It further specifies that children should be raised by the state, with parents serving only as assistance.
Decades ago when I was searching for a wife, I met a Brazilian Music Major when visiting an old professor at the University of Missouri. That Brazilian was preparing to head home for the Summer and was busy shopping for flights home. To my surprise, she offered to let me drive her from St. Louis to Miami, making it clear that the deal had certain "benefits". During the four days that I spent with her, I learned that she and her parents were active members of the Communist Party of Brasil (PC do B). She told me that she considered families nauseatingly bourgeois. She hoped to have a child without being able to know who the father was. She warned me to take precautions if I didn't want to contribute to her effort to raise a little Communist without a father. I never forgot that and don't think I had ever met anyone so radically Marxist in my life.
Consider the following:
https://www.marxists.org/archive/kol...ism-family.htm
First of all thank you very much for your interest to this subject and to your approach to investigate this theme, which I appreciate very much. The most remarkable thing in this that you referred to the brightest supporter of this trend Mrs. Kollontai.
Let us start from the beginning. The theory of Communism was imported to Russia from the West and the basis of it was the doctrine of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels which was popular and widely spread in Liberal and Democratic circles of Russian Empire which finally were organized in many Paries, one of which was The Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party.
It is true that during first 3-5 years after the October coup(*) in 1917 the bolsheviks tried to implement this theory of a family into Society, but failed. The reason for it is that Russia was and is traditional and religious country with many centuries traditions. And these liberal seeds didn't germinate on the Russian soil. People rejected it. So in further Party and State documents Family was defined as the prime cell of the Communist Society where Mother and kids were the objects of special care of the State.
I would recommend you for better understanding to read the biography of Mrs. Kollontai, the History
of RSDLP, the materials of it's II Congress in London, a list of the names of the founders of the this Party and the nationalities of its leaders before and after the October coup. It will be a great assistance for better understanding the development of further events.
And do not be mislead by their 'Party names'.
(*) - the term Coup was used in the USSR till 1927.
Last edited by Balu; 03-11-2017 at 06:27 PM.
Indifferent alike to praise or blame
Give heed, O Muse, but to the voice Divine
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(A.Pushkin)