Abstract
In this article, Beatrice Farnsworth suggests that Aleksandra Kollontai, Old Bolshevik, socialist-feminist, and former leader of the Workers' Opposition, survived Iosif Stalin's terror largely because in her effort to assure Stalin that she was no longer an oppositionist, she nurtured a friendly dynamic with him. Indeed, in their conversations, she pursued a gendered strategy of warm deference and flattery. Yet, while publicly serving the Soviet regime, even ingratiating herself with the party leadership, Kollontai, in diaries written for history, privately, and at risk to her life, mourned the regime's failure to develop "communist humanism." With their interlocking themes of emotion and personalities, her diaries not only provide insight into Kollontai's uncanny survival and the personal responses of an Old Bolshevik to political changes and people but offer a rare and intimate portrait of the internal life of Soviet politics at their highest level.
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