Dora B. Montefiore, The Communist, October 1920
Source: The Communist, 21 October 1920;
Transcribed: by Ted Crawford.
The following letter has been received by Comrade Dora B. Montefiore from Madame Kollontay, in reply to a letter of greeting:-
Moscow,
13th Sept., 1920.
“Dear Comrade Montefiore, – I was ever so glad to get your kind greeting. I could not answer it at once, as unfortunately I got very ill (typhus fever) at the time of the International Congress. We live in a new world where the beautiful hopes of the future real Communism are mixed up with so many remains of the old capitalistic world. It is a hard struggle to make of Russia a real Communistic state, but little by little the work goes on. If only the comrades in the rest of the world would give us more active support! One thing is achieved: there is actually no capital, no private property in Russia, and the psycho1ogy of the masses has changed so greatly, that it seems we have stepped forward many centuries from the time of the beginning of the imperialist war. Also, the place of the women in the state and family has changed: all women have to work, for ‘who does not work does not eat’ in Soviet Russia. We have less and less of those women who were but a burden to their husbands and family.
“Oh, there is ever so much I would like to tell you about Soviet .Russia. Come to us some day, dear friend! But remember always before you criticise us that we could not and have not yet achieved Communism; one country, one nation, alone, cannot do it! Communism must be the work of all proletarians of the world. And we have great hopes that our English comrades will soon show us that they can do more than Russia, who was oppressed by the Tsar; where we had no good mass organisations, where the economical conditions are much less prepared for Communism than in Great Britain.
“Dear comrade, my love to you and my Communist greetings. I hope we shall meet soon.
Yours in Communism,
ALEXANDRA [Kollontay].”