After the Russian February Revolution in 1917, Alexandra Kollontai returned from exile to Russia, and that same year she was made the first commissar of Public Welfare in the new Bolshevik government - the only woman appointed by Lenin after the October Revolution. "In practice we lag behind our intentions", Kollontai said of their attempts to move forward. "In our attempt to construct new forms of life and living, to emancipate the labouring woman from family obligations, we are constantly running up against the same obstacles: our poverty, and the devastation of the economy." Kollontai saw women and men freed from the "bourgeois institution" of marriage if the state, rather than men, gave women support for their children. She fought for female suffrage, for decent childcare facilities in the workplace and in the community, for legal equality, and for maternity and abortion rights.In 1896, Kollontai accompanied her husband, Vladimir Kollontai, a factory inspector, on a visit to a factory. She was outraged by the appalling working conditions there. Her husband, on the other hand, was indifferent. Alexandra joined forces with a local Marxist group, and, with her husband's express disapproval, supported the St Petersburg textile workers' strike of 1896. Her conflicting personal and political roles led Kollontai to leave her husband and, temporarily, her son. Kollontai later wrote, "the man would only see in me the feminine element, which he tried to mould into a willing sound board to his ego . . Repeatedly the moment arrived when I had to shake off the chains of our relationship. Then with an aching heart but with a sovereign uninfluenced will, I would once more be alone. And yet the greater demands life made of me, the more important the work waiting to be tackled, the greater grew my longing to be enveloped by love, warmth and understanding - And so all the easier began once more the old story of disappointment in love."In 1920 Kollontai took over the leadership of the Zhenotdel (Women's Organisation). That same year she joined the Worker's Opposition, which was banned in 1921. Kollontai remained in politics throughout her life, but after Party disapproval over her membership of the Worker's Opposition, and her affairs with two seamen - she was no longer at the centre.
