The Problems of Everyday Life by Leon Trotsky
Manage episode 507365951 series 3685290
The provided excerpts offer a comprehensive look at the challenges of building a new socialist society in post-revolutionary Russia, primarily through the lens of Leon Trotsky's writings and related analysis of the 1920s Soviet period. Trotsky’s texts, including excerpts from Problems of Everyday Life, address the necessity of transforming both the material conditions (like improving technology, literacy, and fighting "red tape") and the cultural-moral fabric of the working class, stressing the importance of raising the cultural level to achieve socialism. A concurrent academic analysis discusses the specific issue of Soviet women's emancipation during the 1920s, noting the contradiction between the declared goal of liberation and the government's control over gender roles, particularly in domestic and anti-religious spheres, where new rituals like the "October ceremony" replaced traditional ones. Finally, a short piece by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin emphasizes that seizing power alone was insufficient, requiring a high level of culture among the working masses to actually construct socialism.
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