The Workers Opposition, On Bureaucracy and Self-activity of The Masses by Alexandra Kollontai 1921

The essence is this: what system of administration in a workers’ republic during the period of creation of the economic basis for Communism secures more freedom for the class creative powers? Is it a bureaucratic state system or a system of wide practical self-activity of the working masses? The question relates to the system of administration and the controversy arises between two diametrically opposed principles: bureaucracy or self-activity. And yet they try to squeeze it into the scope of the problem that concerns itself only with methods of animating the Soviet institutions.

Alexandra Kollontai was a leading Bolshevik during the Russian Revolution that led the Workers Opposition within the Bolshevik party. She opposed bureaucratization in the early Soviet government.

Her ultimate fate was to be non-violently purged by Stalin through exiling her as part of an obscure diplomatic mission. Compared to the fate of the other old Bolsheviks who were outright murdered, her fate was a mercy.