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excerpt from "A People's Tragedy"We were of the opinion that no conscious Socialist should ever drink vodka,' recalled one such Bolshevik. 'We even condemned smoking. We propagated morality in the strictest sense of the word.' It was for this reason that so many rank-and-file Bolsheviks abstained from romantic attachments, although in Kanatchikov's case this may have had more to do with his own dismal failure with women. The worker-revolutionaries, he later admitted, 'developed a negative attitude toward the family, toward marriage, and even toward women'. They saw themselves as 'doomed' men, their fate tied wholly to the cause of the revolution, which could only be compromised by 'contact with girls'
We would pick the apartment of some conscious worker on the outskirts of town or on some quiet side street, invite fifteen or twenty trustworthy young workers, and set up tea and some snacks; to avert the eyes of the police, we would also buy some vodka. Only a few girls would attend these evenings.
Kanatchikov, from his autobiography, "A Radical Worker in Tsarist Russia"From time to time Grusha would entertain her girl friends in the apartment. These were workers from the Einem candy factory. They would sit around and drink tea. 1 would then be invited to join them. Embarrassed and blushing in the presence of girls, 1 would silently but seriously drink my tea and curse myself in my heart for my incapacity to deal with women.
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