“Communism as an ideology had been passionately committed to women's equality and liberation, in every sense including the erotic, in spite of Lenin's own dislike of casual sexual promiscuity. (However, both Krupskaya and Lenin were among the rare revolutionaries who specifically favored the sharing of housework between the sexes)…Yet, with rather rare exceptions…they were not prominent in the first political ranks of their parties, or indeed at all, and in the new communist-governed states they became even less visible. Indeed, women in leading political functions virtually disappeared…When women streamed into a profession opened to them, as in the U. S. S. R., where the medical profession became largely feminized in consequence, it lost status and income. As against Western feminists, most married Soviet women, long used to a lifetime of paid work, dreamed of the luxury of staying at home and doing only one job…whatever the achievements and failures of the socialist world, it did not generate specifically feminist movements, and could indeed hardly have done so, given the virtual impossibility of any political initiatives not sponsored by state and party before the mid-1980s”

Source: Marxism, Fascism & Totalitarianism: Chapters in the Intellectual History of Radicalism, (2008), p. 293

Source: Fascism: Comparison and Definition (1980), A History of Fascism, 1914—1945 (1995), pp. 210-211

Source: Russia Under The Bolshevik Regime (1994), p. 245

As quoted in The Times [London] (18 May 1990)
1990s

Letter to Deng Xiaoping (1981)
Context: I agree with and believe in the Communist ideology which seeks the well being of human beings in general and the proletariat in particular, and in Lenin's policy of the equality of nationalities. Similarly, I was pleased with the discussions I had with Chairman Mao on ideology and the policy towards nationalities.
If that same ideology and policy were implemented it would have brought much admiration and happiness. However, if one is to make a general comment on the developments during the past two decades, there has been a lapse in economic and educational progress, the basis of human happiness. Moreover, on account of the hardships caused by the unbearable disruptions, there has been a loss of trust between the Party and the masses, between the officials and the masses, among the officials themselves, and also among the masses themselves.
By deceiving one another through false assumptions and misrepresentations there has been, in reality, a great lapse and delay in achieving the real goals.

Source: Three “Whys” of the Russian Revolution (1995), pp. 38-39

Source: Three “Whys” of the Russian Revolution (1995), pp. 36-37

As quoted in The Myth of the Nation and the Vision of Revolution: The Origins of Ideological Polarization in the 20th Century, Jacob L. Talmon, University of California Press (1981) p. 451. Sorel’s March 1921 conversations with Jean Variot, published in Variot’s Propos de Georges Sorel, (1935) Paris, pp. 53-57, 66-86 passim

Source: Marxism, Fascism & Totalitarianism: Chapters in the Intellectual History of Radicalism, (2008), p. 313