Lenin and Sex

Chris Burford cburford at gn.apc.org
Fri Sep 7 15:45:23 PDT 2001


At 07/09/01 22:37 +0100, you wrote:


>I think Clara Zetkin, not Kollontai, is the source of this story, in her
>pamphlet "Reminiscences of Lenin". Bits of it are reprinted in Robert
>Tucker's "Lenin Anthology", and the passage on "glass of water" theory is
>pp.692-3.
>
>Lenin: "I consider the famous 'glass of water' theory as completely
>unMarxist and, moreover, as anti-social... To be sure, thirst has to be
>quenched. But would a normal person normally lie down in the gutter and
>drink from a puddle? Or even from a glass that has been greased by many
>lips?...", and so on.

Thanks to google, the full reference seems to be at

http://www.maoism.org/misc/women/Zetkin.htm

Clara Zetkin - My Recollections of Lenin

From MY MEMORANDUM BOOK

A dramatic and well written account, presumably without the aid of a tape recorder, of a meeting in 1920.

It is punctuated with little vignettes like:

"Lenin sprang to his feet, slapped the table with his hand and paced up and down the room."

It contains a clear argument by Lenin against mechanical materialism and an argument that sexual relations between humans are moulded by the ideological superstructure.

Also

http://www.marxists.org.uk/subject/women/authors/zetkin/zetkin1.htm

Clara Zetkin

Lenin on the Women's Question

From My Memorandum Book

Chris Burford



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