Kollontai encouraged the setting up of nurseries and communal laundries and restaurants. In 1920 Kollontai became the head of the women's department, which tried to make the new laws more than just paper policy. She toured all parts of Russia, including backward rural areas, urging women's fullest participation in education, and every part of social and political life. She was at the forefront of the debates about sexuality and relationships that flourished after the revolution. Kollontai argued that our sexuality is bound up with wider social relations.
People try to escape the pressures of poverty and exploitation through their personal relationships.
Man experiences this 'loneliness' even in towns full of shouting noise and people, even in a crowd of close friends and workmates. Because of their loneliness men are apt to cling in a predatory and unhealthy way to illusions about finding a 'soulmate' from the opposite sex. When women play an active and equal role in the running of society, argued Kollontai, it creates the basis for both men and women to re-evaluate their relationships. In this collective, new forms of relationships are maturing and the concept of love is extended and expanded. Foreign invasion, civil war and economic collapse decimated the workers' regime.