p ... Lenin resumed the thread of his thoughts.

p “Yes, yes; I know that," he said, "I too am badly suspected of philistinism on that account.  [69•*  But I don’t get excited over that. Yellow-beaked fledglings who have just about been hatched from their bourgeois-tained eggs are all so terribly clever. We have to reconcile ourselves to this without mending our ways. The youth movement is also sick from the modern treatment of the sex problem and the excessive interest in it.”

p Lenin emphasised the word “modern” with an ironical, deprecating gesture.

p .. ."In the atmosphere created by the aftermath of war and incipient revolution old ideological values tumble, losing their power of restraint. New values crystallise slowly, by struggle. Views on relations between man and man, and relations between man and woman, are becoming revolutionised; feelings and thoughts are also becoming revolutionised. New delimitations are being set up between the rights of the individual and the rights of the collective body, and hence also the duties of the individual. This is the slow and often very painful process of passing away and coming into being. All this applies also to the .field of sex relations, marriage, family. The decay, putrescence, filth of bourgeois marriage with its difficult dissolution, its liberty for the husband and bondage for the wife, and 70 its detestably false sex morality and relations fill the best representatives of humanity with the utmost loathing....

p . . ."In the sphere of marriage and sexual relations a revolution is approaching in keeping with the proletarian revolution. Naturally the exceedingly tangled interlacement of questions thus brought to the fore deeply engrosses both women and the youth. Both the former and the latter suffer greatly from the messy state of sex relations. The youth is up in arms against this with the impetuosity characteristic of it. That is understandable. Nothing would be more false than to begin to preach to the youth monastic asceticism and the sanctity of filthy bourgeois morals. However one would hardly say it was a good, thing that in these years sex problems, violently pushed into the limelight by natural causes, were becoming the central feature of youth psychology. The consequences are sometimes nothing short of fatal. Just ask Comrade Lilina about it. She should have some experience from her extensive work in different educational institutions, and you know that she is a real Communist and has no prejudices.

p “Youth’s changed attitude to questions of sexual life is of course based, ’as a matter of principle’, on theory. Many call their position ‘revolutionary’ and ‘communist’. They sincerely believe that this is so. I, an old man, am not impressed by this. Although I am anything but a morose ascetic, yet quite frequently this so-called ’new sex life’ of the youth-and often enough of grown-ups tooseems to me purely bourgeois, seems to me to be just a variety of the good old bourgeois brothel. All this has not the faintest resemblance to free love, as we Communists understand it. You of course have heard about the famous theory that in communist society satisfying one’s sexual desire and craving for love is as simple and trivial as 71 drinking a glass of water. Our youth has gone mad, absolutely mad, over this ‘glass-of-water’ theory. It has proved fatal to many a boy and girl. Its devotees assert that it is a Marxist theory. Thanks for such ‘Marxism’, which deduces all phenomena and all changes in the ideological superstructure of society directly, straight and unfailingly from this one and only source-the economic basis. This is not at all such a simple matter. A certain Frederick Engels long ago established this truth, which concerns historical materialism.

p “I do not consider the famous ‘glass-of-water’ theory as Marxist at all and besides think it is anti-social. What manifests itself in sex life is not only the contribution made by nature but also an admixture derived from culture, be it on a high level or low. Engels pointed out in his Origin of the Family how significant it was that simple sexual inclination developed into individual sex love and became refined. Relations between the sexes are not simply a game between social economics and a physical want. To strive to reduce changes in these relations, taken in isolation from their general connection with the whole of ideology, directly to the economic basis of society would not be Marxism but rationalism. Of course thirst must be quenched. But will a normal person under normal conditions lie down in the gutter and drink from a puddle? Or even from a glass the edge of which has been touched by dozens of lips? But the social aspect is the most important. Drinking water is really an individual matter. But in love-making two take part and a third, a new life, comes into being. Herein lies a social interest; a duty to the collective body arises.

p “As a Communist I do not like the ‘glass-of-water’ theory in the least despite its beautiful label: ’emancipated love.’ Moreover, it is neither new nor communistic. Perhaps you will recall that this theory was disseminated 72 in fine literature about the middle of the past century as the ’emancipation of the heart’. In bourgeois practice it was turned into the emancipation of the body. It was preached with much more talent than now. How things are with the practice of it I am unable to judge.

p “Not that I want my criticism to breed asceticism. That never occurred to me. Communism ought to bring with it not asceticism but joy of life and good cheer called forth, among other things, by a life replete with love. However, in my opinion the plethora of sex life observable today brings neither joy of life nor cheerfulness, but on the contrary diminishes them. In revolutionary times this is bad, very bad, indeed.

p “The. youth is particularly in need of joy of life and cheerfulness. Healthy sports: gymnastics, swimming, excursions, physical exercise of every description; also a diversity of intellectual pursuits: teaching, criticism, research; and all of this in combination, as far as possible. That will mean more to the youth than eternal lectures and discussions on sex problems and so-called ’utilisation of life’. Metis sana in corpoie sano. Neither monk nor Don Juan nor yet a German philistine to act the part of a mean. After all, you know young Comrade XYZ. A handsome, highly gifted youth. Yet I am afraid that in spite of all he will never amount to anything. He has one love affair after another. No good will come of this, neither for the political struggle nor for the revolution. Nor will I vouch for the reliability or staunchness in the struggle of women whose personal romance is intertwined with politics, or for men who run after every petticoat, and allow themselves to be mixed up with every slip of a girl. No, no; that does not go well together with revolution.”

p Lenin jumped up, striking the table with his hand, and walked a few steps up and down the room.

p “The revolution demands ot the masses and the individual concentration, the straining of every nerve. It does not tolerate orgiastic states like those habitual with the decadent heroes and heroines of d’Annunzio.  [73•*  Laxity in sexual matters is bourgeois; it is a sign of degeneration. The proletariat is an ascending class. It requires no intoxicant to stun or excite it. It has no need of intoxication either by sexual looseness or by means of alcohol. It does not dare and does not want to forget the vileness, filth, and barbarity of capitalism. It derives its strongest stimulants to struggle from the position of its class, from the communist ideal. What it needs is clarity, clarity, and once more-clarity. Therefore, I repeat: there must be no weakness, no waste or destruction of energy. Self-possession, self-discipline are not slavery; they are necessary also in love....

“... Very few husbands, even in proletarian circles, think of how greatly they could lighten the burdens and worries of their wives or relieve them entirely if they would lend a hand in this ’women’s work’. But no, that would be against the ’rights and dignity of the husband’. He demands that he have rest and comfort. The domestic life of woman is a daily sacrifice of self in thousands of insignificant trifles. The ancient rights of her husband, her lord and master, continue to assert themselves in concealed form. His slave objectively takes revenge of him, also in concealed form: woman’s backwardness, her lack of understanding of her husband’s revolutionary ideals is a drag on his good spirits and determination to fight. They are the tiny worms which imperceptibly, slowly but surely gnaw and undermine....”