The name of the English social activist Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797) is little known in our country, and her work has remained poorly studied until recently. Her books were not published in Russian 1 . Such figures of the international proletariat as E. Marx-Eveling, A. Bebel, E. Flynn, G. Pollit and others appreciated the ideological legacy of Wollstonecraft, because it played a certain role in the development of the socialist and labor movement in England, the United States, Germany and other countries.

The first known mention of her in the Russian press dates back to 1827: it was a caustic and ironic note about the new translation of her book "Defending the Rights of Women"published in Paris in 1826 .2 In the 70s of the XIX century, the name Wollstonecraft appeared on the pages of the Russian progressive press 3 . Later, E. V. Tarle, V. M. Khvostov and other specialists wrote about Wollstonecraft; a separate section in S. B. Kahn's work and a special essay in G. Serebryakova's book "Women of the French Revolution"are devoted to her4 .

V. I. Lenin noted that the English working-class movement of the French bourgeois Revolution of the late eighteenth century "brilliantly anticipates much of the future of Marxism." 5 The creative legacy of Wollstonecraft, a friend and associate of T. Payne, W. Godwin, T. Holcroft and other theorists of the radical democratic movement, can serve as a confirmation of this idea. The proximity to the democratic social wing had a decisive influence on Wollstonecraft's worldview and work. A former companion and governess in wealthy homes, then the owner of a private school and the author of several mediocre artistic and pedagogical works, Wollstonecraft gradually turned into a very radical writer after 1789. She wrote eight books and over 400 articles and reviews published in the progressive journal "Analytical Review"in 1788-1797. Wollstonecraft's socio-political views are reflected primarily in her writings "Defending the Rights of Man", "Defending the Rights of Women", "A historical and moral View of the origin and development of the French Revolution and the impact it Had on Europe", " Letters written during a brief stay in Sweden, Norway and Denmark"6, as well as in many journal articles. They reveal the author's ability to comprehend some of the economic causes of social phenomena .7 And Wollstonecraft's notes on Scandinavia indicate that her views had elements of a materialistic understanding of the contemporary historical process.

Of Wollstonecraft's works, the most famous was the book "Defending Women's Rights", which was repeatedly reprinted in different countries. It defended women's equality, and its author "added the concept of gender equality to the arsenal of ideas of radicalism" 8 . For the appearance of such a composition, there was a certain social ground. The industrial revolution that was rapidly developing in England caused

1 In an anonymous article ("The first leader of the women's movement." "The World of God", 1897, December, ed. II) it is mentioned that M. Wollstonecraft's book "Protection of Women's Rights" has been translated into Russian. This translation has not yet been detected.

2 "Bulletin of Europe", 1827, January.

3 M. K. Tsebrikova. English novelists. Otechestvennye Zapiski, 1871, No. 8, pp. 420-421.

4 See V. M. Khvostov. Zhenka i chelovecheskoe dignity [Woman and Human Dignity], Moscow, 1914; E. V. Tarle. The French Revolution and England. Collected Works, Vol. VII, Moscow, 1959; N. P. Kareev. William Godwin and his Political Justice. "Scientific Notes" of the Institute of History, Moscow, 1929, vol. III; E. B. Chernyak. Mass movement in England and Ireland at the end of the XVIII-beginning of the XIX century M. 1962; S. B. Kan. Istoriya sotsialisticheskikh idei (do vozrozhdenie marxizma) [History of socialist ideas (before the emergence of Marxism)]. Women of the French Revolution, M. 1964 (unfortunately, the essay on Mary Wollstonecraft is not free from factual inaccuracies).

5 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 38, p. 305.

6 See about them: K. S. Rukshina. Mary Wollstonecraft " Protection of human rights "(1790). "Questions of the Soviet state and law". Minsk. 1968; her own. Mary Wollstonecraft is an artist. "Scientific reports of the higher school. Philological Sciences", 1968, N 2; ee same. Mary Wollstonecraft on the Great French Revolution. "French Yearbook, 1968", Moscow, 1970.

7 A. Gregory. The French Revolution and the English Novel. N. Y. 1915, p. 247.

8 A. L. Morton, J. Tate. History of the English Labor Movement, Moscow, 1959, p. 77.

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The workers ' question came to life, and with it the women's question became more acute, as the manufacturers intensively exploited women's labor. Wollstonecraft began writing the book in the fall of 1791, directly influenced by the revolutionary events in France. When she read the text of the French Constitution of 1791 and the draft law on public education submitted to the Constituent Assembly, she was outraged by the fact that both documents ignored women's rights. In the pages of the book, Wollstonecraft sharply criticized these documents, showing the limited freedoms that do not apply to women. She argued that women should gain economic independence and be given the opportunity to earn their own bread. "Isn't it wicked for a government to be so unreasonable to half its population that it doesn't take care of honest and independent women and encourage them to engage in socially respected activities?"9 The author lists the types of work that a woman could do, and at the same time invades the areas traditionally assigned to men. A woman can be a doctor, nurse, midwife, study history and politics, manage a farm, manage a store (pp. 221-223). Prominent women can engage in political activities. "I will probably provoke laughter by only briefly mentioning the idea that I am going to develop later (in the proposed second volume of the book, which was not written. - K. R.); I really think that women should have their representatives in elected bodies instead of allowing themselves to be despotically ruled without having any power. the opportunity to participate in the discussion of state affairs" (p. 220). Wollstonecraft was convinced that the economic independence of women would eliminate prostitution. Engaging women in a variety of occupations will also save them from the buying and selling that marriage often does in bourgeois society (p. 120, 222).

Wollstonecraft consistently traces a certain commonality between the position of women and the fate of all the poor, the oppressed majority. This juxtaposition runs through the book and allows the author to denounce the tyranny of the ruling parties in various ways. "The whole system of representation in our country," the author sarcastically observes, " is only a convenient tool of despotism. Women should not complain, for they are as well represented in the government as the large class of workers who pay for the maintenance of the royal court, but cannot feed their children with bread" (pp. 220-221). Women are denied the same education as men for the same reasons that the rich do not want to spread knowledge among the poor: "If you expand a woman's knowledge and strengthen her mind, then blind obedience will end, and tyranny always seeks to ensure blind obedience" (p.56). Wollstonecraft, in contrast to the feminist bourgeois movements, was convinced that the path to women's liberation lay in the reconstruction of society as a whole. Granting women their inalienable human rights will improve society, because injustice to them undermines its moral foundations (pp. 52, 261). Wollstonecraft believed that with economic, political, and civil rights, women would become "more considerate daughters, more faithful wives, more sensible mothers - in short, better citizens. We... let's learn to respect ourselves "(p. 224).

The utopian socialists of the nineteenth century knew Wollstonecraft's works. There is a record of R. Ousna's attitude to it. Her eldest daughter, Fanny, in a letter to her sister dated July 29, 1816, recounts her conversations with Owen and his plans for the transformation of society, and goes on to say: "He told me the other day that he wished our mother were still alive, because he had never met another person who thought exactly like him, and could just as enthusiastically and passionately enter into his plans. " 10 In his organization, the New Harmony Colony, Owen introduced women's suffrage. Among the demands put forward by him, as you know, was " full equality for men and women." "Protection of women's rights" you-

9 М. Wollstonecraft. A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. L. 1891, pp. 138, 223 (below references to this edition are given in the text).

10 J. Marshall. The Life and Letters of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. Vol. I. L. 1883, p. 150.

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It was published in 1792 in French in Lyon, where Charles Fourier lived at that time. This French utopian socialist was developing his own concept of human development at that time, and in it he assigned a major role to the cause of women's liberation. Fourier also linked the problem of women's emancipation with the problem of eliminating exploitation .11 There is a possibility of personal acquaintance between M. Wollstonecraft and A. Saint-Simon. At the end of 1792, M. Wollstonecraft came to France, where she spent more than two years. It is known that Saint-Simon was held in prison from December 19, 1793 to October 9, 1794. At the same time, Mr. Schlabrendorf, a close friend of Wollstonecraft, was in prison. The writer often visited him and "could meet Saint-Simon there" 12 . By that time, Saint-Simon might have read the Lyon or Paris (also 1792) edition of The Defense of Women's Rights. As you know, he provided for political rights for women in his "association".

In England, The Defense of Women's Rights was published in cheap editions at the end of the 18th and 19th centuries and was available to working people. There are indications that the English labour movement has "the intellectual tradition of W. Godwin and Mary Whaleton-craft, the same tradition that Shelley picked up." 13 Members of the corresponding societies were familiar with the ideas of Walston-craft. Thus, the general committee of the London Correspondence Society, at a meeting on August 22, 1793, recommended "the formation of a female society of patriots" 14 . Among the leaders of the correspondent societies, T. Spence, the publisher of the first cheap weeklies for the working people of England, addressed the working women directly. In the constitution of his fairyland of Spensonia, he included a paragraph on granting women the right to vote .15 During the revival of the radical democratic movement in England in the 1810s and 1820s, Wollstonecraft's name repeatedly appeared on the pages of the progressive weekly newspaper Black Dwarf. In 1818, the newspaper held discussions about women's rights and Wollstonecraft's views on the women's question . Interest in Wollstonecraft's ideological legacy increased during the Chartist era. Demands for equal rights for women permeate the Chartist documents of the workers. "Every adult," says, for example, the New Charter of 1831, " man and woman, should have a voice in the selection of a representative." In 1844, a new edition of Wollstonecraft's Defense of Women's Rights was published.

At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, works by bourgeois authors about Wollstonecraft appeared, in which an attempt was made to turn her into an ordinary feminist. But such works did not have a wide resonance. The pamphlet "Shelley the Socialist" by Eleanor Marx-Aveling and Edward Aveling, and the book "Woman and Socialism" by A. Bebel show that Marxists appreciated the ideological legacy of Wollstonecraft, which had a significant influence on the formation of the socialist views of a number of figures, including Shelley .17 Bebel called Wollstonecraft among the women who "deserve the greatest respect, and many male stars pale in comparison with them."18 Interest in Wollstonecraft's works is still alive today. G. Pollit mentioned in his autobiographical book about this fact: his mother, an active participant in the proletarian movement, found it necessary to introduce her 12-year-old son to the "Protection of women's Rights" 19 . The last London edition of this book was published in 1970.

Wollstonecraft's writings were also widely known in Germany. Almost all of them were published here after their first English publication, and the earliest translation of "Protection of Women's Rights" into German

11 S. Fourier. Selected Works, vol. II, Moscow, 1951, p. 8.

12 Е. Rauschenbusch-Clough. A Study of Mary Wollstonecraft and the Rights of Woman. L. 1898, p. 186.

13 E. P. Thompson. The Making of the English Working Class. L. 1963, p. 179. In 1797, Wollstonecraft married the English writer-atheist and anarcho-socialist W. Godwin and in the same year died of childbirth. Her daughter from this marriage, Mary Wollstowycraft-Godwin, later became the wife of the great English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley and the author of talented novels.

14 E. B. Chernyak. Op. ed., p. 197.

18 M. Ber. Istoriya sotsializma v Anglii [History of Socialism in England]. Vol. I. M. - Ptgr. 1923, p. 135.

16 "Black Dwarf", 19.VIII; 9, 30.IX; 14.Х; 4.XI.1818.

17 E. Aveling, E. Marx-Aveling. Shelley als Sozialist. Stuttgart. 1888.

18 A. Bebel. Zhenka i sotsializm [Woman and Socialism], Moscow, 1959, p. 300.

19 Pollit city. Years of Political Apprenticeship, Moscow, 1960, p. 10.

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the language was implemented back in 1793-1794. A year earlier, Konigsberg Mayor T. G. von Hippel's book "On Improving the civil status of Women" was published, which also argued in favor of social and political equality of both sexes. The appearance of such a work in Germany at that time later caused confusion among a number of researchers. "This was at a time when a book on the Improvement of the Civil Status of Men could have been published in Germany with the same right," Bebel wrote. "...Since then, the demand for political equality between women and men has not been heard for a long time."20 . There is an opinion that Hippel's book appeared under the direct influence of Wollstonecraft's writings. The English writer "through T. G. von Hippel proclaimed in Germany the principles that were ultimately to lead to the emancipation of women." 21 Hippel's views on the women's question were radically different from those expressed in his earlier writings. There are direct textual coincidences in the works of Hippel and Wollstonecraft, which can only be explained by direct borrowing.

At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, the periodicals of the German and Austrian social-Democratic parties published materials devoted to Hippel's views on the women's question. In this way, Wollstonecraft's ideas were simultaneously promoted. In 1899, the next edition of the Defense of Women's Rights was published in Leipzig. The central organ of German social democracy, Die Neue Zeit, in which A. Bebel, P. Lafargue, F. Mehring, F. Sorge and other Marxists collaborated, welcomed the publication of this book. In the article "About one of our contemporaries who lived a hundred years ago", this essay is called "a landmark in the history of women" 22 . The ideas of Wollstonecraft's works "Protection of human rights" and "Protection of women's rights" were presented on the pages of the German Social Democratic publication "Women's Suffrage" (annual supplement to the magazine "Equality"). The editor of the magazine and the supplement was K. Zetkin. The author of the article argued that Wollstonecraft "was sensitive not only to political oppression, but also to all the boundless miseries of the exploited to the extreme poor... It sees the root of social evil in the division of society into classes. Poverty is the mother of crime and prostitution." Much attention is paid there to Wollstonecraft's views on the status of women. "Among the foremost advocates for women's civil equality," the article says, " one of the biggest figures was undoubtedly Mary Wollstonecraft... The awakening of a woman's thirst for freedom, she gave incendiary power in her "Defense of Women's Rights" 23 .

March 19, 1911 in Germany, Denmark. Austria and Switzerland saw a wave of demonstrations by women for equal political rights with men. In this connection, the organ of the Austrian Social Democratic Party "Oesterreichischer Arbeiter-Kalender" published an article " Mary Wollstonecraft. A pioneer of women's emancipation", where Wollstonecraft is called "the most profound and original thinker in the field of the women's movement", whose works "demand that we continue to fight today against prejudice and oppression, from which women still suffer, and especially the proletarian woman" 24 . The interest in Wollstonecraft is also evidenced by the publication of Godwin's memoirs of the writer, which appeared in Halle in 1912, and the special work of Helen Simon, according to whom, "like England and America, the European continent may also owe to Wollstonecraft the awakening of the women's movement"25 .

In the United States, Wollstonecraft's works were also published many times. There are editions of the Defense of Women's Rights in Boston and Philadelphia in 1792, in New York in 1845, 1856, 1929, and later .26 One of the last American publications was published in 1967. "Books that live" is how the publisher comments on this essay. A vivid testimony of the popular-

20 A. Bebel. Op. ed., p. 343.

21 E. Rauschenbusch-Clough. Op. cit., p. 217.

22 "Die Neue Zeit", 14.II.1903, N 20.

23 E. Milovidova. The Women's Question and the Women's Movement, Moscow, l. 1929, pp. 245, 246.

24 "Oesterreichischer Arbeiter-Kalender fur das Jahr 1912". Wien. 1912, S. 72.

25 H. Simon. William Godwin und Mary Wollstonecraft. Eine biographischsoziologi-sche Studie. Munchen. 1909, S. 62.

26 "A Catalog of Books Represented by Library of Congress Printed Cards". Vol. II. Ann Arbor (Mich.). 1943, p. 229.

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The importance of "Defending Women's Rights" in the US labor movement can be seen in the assessment of this book by the American communist Elizabeth Flynn, who writes: two books " helped me embark on the path of socialist activity. One of them was "Defending Women's Rights" by Mary Wollstonecraft, and the other was "Women and Socialism" by August Bebel"27 . The ideological legacy of M. Walston-craft has not lost its significance to this day.

27 E. G. Flynn. In your own words. Zhizn buntarki [Life of a rebel], Moscow, 1962, p. 51.

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