Women and the Family

A collection of writings and speeches by the great Russian revolutionist Leon Trotsky, examining the effect of the Russian revolution on the condition of women and the development of the family.

Trotsky was among the first to discuss the problems of socialist cultural construction and especially to deal with the specific problems of women in a post-revolutionary society. He takes up many of the questions that are today being raised by the women’s liberation movement:

• the role of women in society
• the relationship of socialism to feminism
• the social role of the family
• changes in sexual morality

–among others.

This book includes articles that were written over the course of thirteen years, between 1923 and 1936, including two, written during Trotsky’s final exile, that contrast the Stalinist policy toward women and the family with the revolutionary policy of the Soviet government during the early twenties. New in the second edition is his article “Family Relations under the Soviets”, his responses to fourteen questions on Soviet morality put to him by an American magazine publisher.