Welfare Ministers

"I am still far from being the type of the positively new women who take their experience as with a relative lightness and, one could say, with an enviable superficiality, whose feelings and mental energies are directed upon all other things in life but sentimental love feelings. After all I still belong to the generation of women who grew up at a turning point in history. Love with its many disappointments, with its tragedies and eternal demands for perfect happiness still played a very great role in my life. An all-too-great role! It was an expenditure of precious time and energy, fruitless and, in the final analysis, utterly worthless. We, the women of the past generation, did not yet understand how to be free. The whole thing was an absolutely incredible squandering of our mental energy, a diminution of our labor power which was dissipated in barren emotional experiences. It is certainly true that we, myself as well as many other activists, and working women contemporaries, were able to understand that love was not the main goal of our life and that we knew how to place work at its center. Nevertheless we would have been able to create and achieve much more had our energies not been fragmentized in the eternal struggle with our egos and with our feelings for another. It was, in fact, an eternal defensive war against the intervention of the male into our ego, a struggle revolving around the problem-complex: work or marriage and love? We, the older generation, did not yet understand, as most men do and as young women are learning today, that work and the longing for love can be harmoniously combined so that work remains as the main goal of existence. Our mistake was that each time we succumbed to the belief that we had finally found the one and only in the man we loved, the person with whom we believed we could blend our soul, one who was ready fully to recognize us as a spiritual-physical force. But over and over again things turned out differently, since the man always tried to impose his ego upon us and adapt us fully to his purposes. Thus despite everything the inevitable inner rebellion ensued, over and over again since love became a fetter. We felt enslaved and tried to loosen the love-bond. And after the eternally recurring struggle with the beloved man, we finally tore ourselves away and rushed toward freedom. Thereupon we were again alone, unhappy, lonesome, but free–free to pursue our beloved, chosen ideal ...work. Fortunately young people, the present generation, no longer have to go through this kind of struggle which is absolutely unnecessary to human society. Their abilities, their work-energy will be reserved for their creative activity. Thus the existence of barriers will become a spur."

"I wanted to be free. I wanted to express desires on my own, to shape my own little life."

"Already as a small child I criticized the injustice of adults and I experienced as a blatant contradiction the fact that everything was offered to me whereas so much was denied to the other children. My criticism sharpened as the years went by and the feeling of revolt against the many proofs of love around me grew apace."

"I revolted against this marriage of convenience, this marriage for money and wanted to marry only for love, out of a great passion."

"I stood close to the materialist conception of history, since in early womanhood I had inclined towards the realistic school."

"I could not lead a happy, peaceful life when the working population was so terribly enslaved."

"Not a single one of the men who were close to me has ever had a direction-giving influence on my inclinations, strivings, or my world-view. On the contrary, most of the time I was the guiding spirit. I acquired my view of life, my from life itself, and in uninterrupted study from books."

"My Marxist outlook pointed out to me with an illuminating clarity that women's liberation could take place only as the result of the victory of a new social order and a different economic system."

"The vehement struggle between the two factions of the broke out anew: the on the one side, the on the other. In 1908 I belonged to the Menshevik faction, having been forced thereto by the hostile position taken by the Bolsheviks towards the Duma, a pseudo-Parliament called by the in order to Pacify the rebellious spirits of the age. Although with the Mensheviks I espoused the point of view that even a pseudo-Parliament should be utilized as a tribute for our Party and that the elections for the Duma must be used as an assembling point for the working class. But I did not side with the Mensheviks on the question of coordinating the forces of the workers with the Liberals in order to accelerate the overthrow of absolutism. On this point I was, in fact, very left-radical and was even branded as a "" by my Party comrades. Given my attitude towards the Duma it logically followed that I considered it useless to exploit the first bourgeois women's congress in the interest of our Party. Nevertheless I worked with might and main to assure that our women workers, who were to participate in the Congress, emerged as an independent and distinct group. I managed to carry out this plan but not without opposition. My Party comrades accused me and those women-comrades who shared my views of being "feminists" and of placing too much emphasis on matters of concern to women only. At the time there was still no comprehension at all of the extraordinarily important role in the struggle devolving upon professional women. Nevertheless our will prevailed."

"It must be admitted that, although I possessed a certain degree of ambition, like every other active human being, I was never animated by the desire to obtain "a post." For me "what I am" was always of less importance than "what I can," that is to say, what I was in a position to accomplish. In this way I, too, had my ambition and it was especially noticeable there where I stood with my whole heart and soul in the struggle, where the issue was the abolition of the slavery of working women."

"The question rises whether in the middle of all these manifold, exciting labors and Party-assignments I could still find rime for intimate experiences, for the pangs and joys of love. Unfortunately, yes! I say unfortunately because ordinarily these experiences entailed all too many cares, disappointments, and pain, and because all too many energies were pointlessly consumed through them. Yet the longing to be understood by a man down to the deepest, most secret recesses of one's soul, to be recognized by him as a striving human being, repeatedly decided matters. And repeatedly disappointment ensued all too swiftly, since the friend saw in me only the feminine element which he tried to mold into a willing sounding board to his own ego. So repeatedly the moment inevitably arrived in which I had to shake off the chains of community with an aching heart but with a sovereign, uninfluenced will. Then I was again alone. But the greater the demands life made upon me, the more the responsible work waiting to be tackled, the greater grew the longing to be enveloped by love, warmth, understanding. All the easier, consequently, began the old story of disappointment in love, the old story of in ".""

"To me the war was an abomination, a madness, a crime, and from the first moment onwards–more out of impulse than reflection–I inwardly rejected it and could never reconcile myself with it up to this very moment."

"Such is life's irony."

"Looking back one perceives only a massive operation, struggle, and action. In reality there were no heroes or leaders. It was the people, the working people, in soldiers' uniform or in civilian attire, who controlled the situation and who recorded its will indelibly in the history of the country and mankind. It was a sultry summer, a crucial summer of the revolutionary flood-tide in 1917!"

"The issue was to wage a struggle against the war, against coalescence with the liberal bourgeoisie, and for the power of the , the Soviets."

"Then came the great days of the . became historic. The sleepless nights, the permanent sessions. And, finally, the stirring declarations. "The Soviets take power!" "The Soviets address an appeal to the peoples of the world to put an end to the war." "The land is socialized and belongs to the peasants!""

"When one recalls the first months of the Workers' Government, months which were so rich in magnificent illusions, plans, ardent initiatives to improve life, to organize the world anew, months of the real romanticism of the Revolution, one would in fact like to write about all else save about one's self."

"I never gave a thought to any kind of danger, being all too engrossed in matters of an utterly different character."

"The Revolution was in full swing. The struggle was becoming increasingly irreconcilable and bloodier, much of what was happening did not fit in with my outlook. But after all there was still the unfinished task, women's liberation. Women, of course, had received all rights but in practice, of course, they still lived under the old yoke: without authority in family life, enslaved by a thousand menial household chores, bearing the whole burden of maternity, even the material cares, because many women now found life alone as a result of the war and other circumstances."

"In the autumn of 1916 when I devoted all my energies to drawing up systematic guidelines for the liberation of working women in all areas, I found a valuable support in the first President of the Soviets, Sverdlov, now dead. Thus the first Congress of Women Workers and Women Peasants could be called as early as November of 1918; some 1147 delegates were present. Thus the foundation was laid for methodical work in the whole country for the liberation of the women of the working and the peasant classes. A flood of new work was waiting for me. The question now was one of drawing women into the people's kitchens and of educating them to devote their energies to children's homes and day-care centers, the school system, household reforms, and still many other pressing matters. The main thrust of all this activity was to implement, in fact, equal rights for women as a labor unit in the national economy and as a citizen in the political sphere and, of course, with the special proviso: maternity was to be appraised as a social function and therefore protected and provided for by the State."

"In all the social relations which I had during the three years of my work in Norway, I never once experienced the least trace of aversion or mistrust against woman's . To be sure, the healthy, democratic spirit of the greatly contributed to this. Thus the fact is to be confirmed that my work as official Russian representative in Norway was never, and in no wise, made difficult for the reason that I belonged "to the weaker sex.""

"The work began with great zeal and the most roseate hopes. A splendid summer and an eventful winter marked the year of 1923! The newly resumed trade relations were in full swing: Russian corn and Norwegian herring and fish, Russian wood products and Norwegian paper and cellulose."

"My life was as crammed with strenuous work and highly interesting experiences alike."

"If I have attained something in this world, it was not my personal qualities that originally brought this about. Rather my achievements are only a symbol of the fact that woman, after all, is already on the march to general recognition. It is the drawing of millions of women into productive work, which was swiftly effected especially during the war and which thrust into the realm of possibility the fact that a woman could be advanced to the highest political and diplomatic positions. Nevertheless it is obvious that only a country of the future, such as the Soviet Union, can dare to confront woman without any prejudice, to appraise her only from the standpoint of her skills and talents, and, accordingly, to entrust her with responsible tasks. Only the fresh revolutionary storms were strong enough to sweep away hoary prejudices against woman and only the productive-working people is able to effect the complete equalization and liberation of woman by building a new society."

"I stand on the threshold of new missions and life is making new demands upon me. No matter what further tasks I shall be carrying out, it is perfectly clear to me that the complete liberation of the working woman and the creation of the foundation of a new sexual morality will always remain the highest aim of my activity, and of my life."

"Within the Russian Party itself, the first organized opposition to the policies of both Lenin and Trotsky was led by a woman-Alexandra Kollontai. Alexandra was not an Old Bolshevik, but she had joined the Bolshevik Party even before Trotsky had done so and much earlier than I. During these first few years of the Revolution she was a frequent source of both personal and political annoyance to the Party leaders. On more than one occasion the Central Committee had wanted me to substitute for her in the leadership of the women's movement, thus facilitating the campaign against her and isolating her from the women of the masses. Fortunately, I understood this intrigue and refused these offers, emphasizing that no one could do this work so well as she, and trying to augment her prestige and create sympathy for her whenever possible. By the Ninth Congress of the Russian Party, the last vestiges of trade-union autonomy and workers' control in industry was swept away to be replaced by the control of the political had become the leader of the "Workers' Opposition," a protest missars over the trade unions and the workers' soviets. Kollantai movement against the bureaucratic suffocation of the labour unions and the democratic rights of the workers. As there was no possibility, even at that time, of publicly criticizing the Central Committee or of placing an unofficial opinion before the Party rank and file, she was courageous enough to have a pamphlet secretly printed for distribution to the delegates at the Party Convention. I have never seen Lenin so angry as when one of these pamphlets was handed to him at the Convention-in spite of the fact that "opposition" within the Party itself was still supposed to be legitimate. Taking the platform, he denounced Kollontai as the Party's worst enemy, a menace to its unity. He went so far in his attack as to make allusions to certain episodes in Kollontai's intimate life that had nothing whatever to do with the issue. It was the kind of polemic which did no credit to Lenin, and it was on this occasion that I realized the lengths to which Lenin would go in the pursuit of his strategic aims, his opposition to a party opponent. I admired Kollontai for the calm and self-control with which she answered Lenin's attack. Among the examples she quoted of the methods which were used by the Central Committee against Party "rebels" was the attempt of the "Central Committee to send Angelica Balabanoff to Turkestan to eat peaches." Like many other rebellious members of the Party, she was sent away soon after on a diplomatic mission. For old revolutionists like Kollontai it was a punishment to be separated from the field of revolutionary activity, but after years in Norway, Mexico, and Sweden as Soviet ambassador, she seemed to become reconciled to her position and to fall completely into line."

"Kollontai was never a brilliant Marxist scholar or an innovative theoretician as was her friend Rosa Luxemburg, for example. She "discovered" Marx in a copy of Communist Manifesto which she picked up in a bookstore in Germany during the cooling off period forced on her by her parents. It quickly replaced her populism, which had been shallow and emotional, and seemed to pull her previous ideas together in an intellectually satisfying form-a common experience for many Marxist converts."

"Alexandra Kollontay and Angelica Balabanoff were within easy reach, as they were living in the National. I sought out the former first. Mme Kollontay looked remarkably young and radiant, considering her fifty years and the severe operation she had recently undergone. A tall and stately woman, every inch the grande dame rather than the fiery revolutionist. Her attire and suite of two rooms bespoke good taste, the roses on her desk rather startling in the Russian greyness. They were the first I had seen since our deportation. [...] She leaned back in her arm-chair and I began speaking of the harrowing things that had come to my knowledge. She listened attentively without interrupting me, but there was not the slightest indication in her cold, handsome face of any perturbation on account of my recital. "We do have some dull grey spots in our vivid revolutionary picture," she said when I had concluded. "They are un-avoidable in a country so backward, with a people so dark and a social experiment of such magnitude, opposed by the entire world as it is. They will disappear when we have liquidated our military fronts and when we shall have raised the mental level of our masses." I could help in that, she continued. I could work among the women; they were ignorant of the simplest principles of life, physical and otherwise, ignorant of their own functions as mothers and citizens. I had done such fine work of that kind in America, and she could assure me of a much more fertile field in Russia. "Why not join me and stop your brooding over a few dull grey spots?" she said in conclusion; "they are nothing more, dear comrade, really nothing more." People raided, imprisoned, and shot for their ideas! The old and the young held as hostages, every protest gagged, iniquity and favouritism rampant, the best human values betrayed, the very spirit of revolution daily crucified-were all these nothing but "grey, dull spots," I wondered! I felt chilled to the marrow of my bones."

"No American socialist-feminist successfully integrated the anarchist-feminist analysis of domestic oppression into a socialist framework...Nevertheless, a socialist framework existed, in the work of Aleksandra Kollontai. Kollontai, a Russian Marxist revolutionary who participated in the birth of the Bolshevik state, wrote her most extensive analysis of the Woman Question while in exile in Western Europe in the years immediately preceding World War I." Following Bebel and Engels, Kollontai argued that the first requisite for women's emancipation was productive work outside the confines of the domestic circle. However, participation in the work force would not free women unless there were also changes in the industrial system. Ultimately, of course, the workers must overthrow capitalism, Kollontai declared. But, more immediately, socialists should work for shorter hours, less dangerous working conditions, paid maternity leaves, nursery facilities in all factories, and scheduled breaks from work so that mothers could breast feed their babies. Not all socialists agreed with Kollontai on the above issues. Most men and some women refused to countenance the urging of special reforms for women because they believed it undermined the solidarity of the proletariat. But Kollontai further extended her analysis of female oppression to include an attack on the emotional dependence of women upon men."

"Kollontai's analysis in the pre-World War years did not find its way into the work of American socialist-feminists, and it is not clear that they would have accepted her views had they been exposed to them. Nevertheless, her integration of the most important aspects of anarchist-feminism into socialist ideology offered a tantalizing possibility for the creation of a truly feminist radicalism. That the promise remains to be fulfilled does not detract from her accomplishment."

"The power of a government with so much money would be frightening. By controlling investment capital, it would be in a position to dominate business. We would then risk ending up with a sort of national socialism, as it was practiced in Nazi Germany."

"It has not been the style of Canadian politicians to write of their experiences, although it is the common practice for British, French, and American Politicians upon their retirement. But I have been criticized before and I expect to be again."

"My uncertain temper is cooling, as is my sense of racing against time to accomplish the things I want to. I don't have to go anywhere or see anyone I don't want to now, and it is a glorious feeling!"

"I cannot say that I have been hindered all my life by the permutation of genes that resulted in me being born a woman."

"Everyone is an expert on T.V., just as he is on education; everyone has some education and a T.V. set."

"Had it not been for Centennial, with its gaiety and its essential Canadianness, there could never have been a Trudeau as Prime Minister."

"Perhaps in the long view, de Gaulle was more responsible with his troublesome interventions into our domestic politics, for unifying our country than we will ever give him credit for."

"Whenever it was necessary to have a large entourage, we used military vehicles or, as for the two state funerals and our state swearing in, we hired every spare Cadillac from every undertaking firm in Ottawa. It's a make-shift way to operate a country of the size and rank of Canada."

"It was one of the greatest thrills of my life to stand there, waist high in crusty snow, on a peak never before trod by human kind, surrounded by the great ghostly shadows of other individual peaks in this range. I practised my yodel which echoed and re-echoed with no human to hear. It was glorious, a sense of peace and freedom such as I never known before."

"It is a magnificent country, lonely, grand in scale, stretching for mile upon mile,the clear blue air stabbed with peaks of snow, where the sun glints on the ice surfaces, green as sea ice, breath taking in its scope."

"The unexpressed aim of every politician is to influence events that history books will record his name - and spell it right."

"It will be, I suppose, a foolhardy Government that tries to push through legislation making knowledge of both official languages one of the qualifications for election to the House of Commons or appointment to the Senate, but maybe it will have to come to this as a price we must pay for equality of the two great language groups of our founding fathers."

"Pearson had a good grasp of French, although his accent was terrible."

"The year 1967 gave us the feeling of the one-ness of Canada, until it was rudely jolted by de Gaulle and his insensate call for a "free" Quebec. That visit robbed the Centennial year of its high shine and made the people of the other nine provinces aware as never before of the crisis of Confederation."

"Out of near disaster, came real progress."

"Most women have a distaste for guns, and I am no exception."

"I had, in my legal practice, often encountered really shocking examples of the devastating impact of the costs of long-term medical care on meagre incomes. And, just before I was elected, I had my own personal experience in paying very considerable bills for my mother's terminal illness."

"One of the most helpful things I introduced (and of very considerable consequence to Canadians) was my ultimate success in persuading my colleagues (after continuing battle)to reduce the qualifying age for aged pensioners from seventy to sixty-five over a five year period."

"I suppose, as a politician, I should be content, for the Canada Pension Plan certainly put my name in Canada's history books, and in italics."

"I have always thought that one of the signs of natural leaders of men (and women) was their readiness to take the necessary pains to keep their followers with them."