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 an… - Alexandra Kollontai

When I was appointed as Russian envoy to , I realized that I had thereby achieved a victory not only for myself, but for women in general and indeed, a victory over their worst enemy, that is to say, over conventional morality and conservative concepts of marriage. ... What is of a wholly special significance here is that a woman, like myself, who has settled scores with the double standard and who has never concealed it, was accepted into a caste which to this very day staunchly upholds tradition and pseudo-morality. Thus the example of my life can also serve to dispel the old goblin of the double standard also from the lives of other women. And this is a most crucial point of my own existence, which has a certain social-psychological worth and contributes to the liberation struggle of working women.

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