Date: Tue, 16 Apr 1996 10:20:01 -0600
From: Lisa Rogers <eqwq.lrogers-AT-state.ut.us>
Subject:  Lenin, Zetkin, Marx on sex?


I have heard that Lenin wrote, to Klara Zetkin, 1920:

"The revolution cannot tolerate orgiastic conditions...Dissoluteness
in sexual life is bourgeois, is a phenomenon of decay.  The
proletariat...does not need intoxication as a narcotic or 
stimlulus.  Intoxication as little by sexual exaggeration as by 
alcohol...[the proletariat] receives the strongest urge to fight from
a class situation...It needs clarity, clarity, and again 
clarity...Self-control, self-discipline is not slavery, not even in
[sexual matters]."

I've seen this quote or something similar a couple of times, but I
know little of the context.  Wasn't it in an article Lenin wrote for
the party paper?

More important, what was Zetkin up to that upset Lenin so?  Did she
write something about it, and where would I find it?  

Did Marx have anything to say specifically about sex, sexuality,
sexual orientation, etc?

Lisa



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