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Cake day: July 6th, 2026

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  • Very interesting.

    Prostitution is not compatible with the Soviet workers’ republic for a third reason: it does not contribute to the development and strengthening of the basic class character and of the proletariat and its new morality. What is the fundamental quality of the working class? What is its strongest moral weapon in the struggle? Solidarity and comradeship is the basis of communism. Unless this sense is strongly developed amongst working people, the building of a truly communist society is inconceivable.

    The word moral/morality is used 19 times in her essay: https://www.marxists.org/archive/kollonta/1921/prostitution.htm

    However, from the specific sample you have picked, one wouldn’t have known Kollontai’s emphasis on a need for “a new morality.”



  • No.

    Commodity fetishism is the observation that through many small separate acts of market exchange we command each other to behave in very specific ways, while disclaiming this same power and attributing its commands to blind necessity. It’s a key concept in Marx’s critique of capitalism (he devotes a whole section to it in Capital), and Marxists should understand that Marx used the term “fetish” to argue “commodities behave like little gods in that they seem to command men” and not “consumerism is immoral and vulgar." […] We should endeavor to correct this misunderstanding, since the alternative interpretation transfigures Marxism into a monastic doctrine of pious asceticism that — putting aside any of its moral merits — is very unappealing. Marx was very confident that such a project would never grip the masses and lead them to struggle and triumph over capitalism.

    https://redsails.org/commodity-fetishism/