“What did you do with your children when you became a widow and had no home?”
“My parents took them.”
“And if you had had no parents who could take them? How could you have worked?”
It is true that there must be thousands of women who earn their living and have no family in the background on whom to plant the baby. What happens in a country where there is no paternal State? In Russia the State will clothe, feed and educate them from birth until fourteen years of age. They may go to the Crèche for the day or permanently. Children may go to the State school for the half day, whole day, or to board. Their parents may see them, or give them up for ever, as they choose, and there is no difference made between the legitimate and
TROTSKY, FROM A DRAWING.
the illegitimate child. Moreover, according to the labour laws, no woman may work for eight weeks before the baby is born, nor for eight weeks after birth. She is sent away to a resthouse in the country, always of course at the State’s expense. On application she is given the necessary layette for the new born. It is difficult to preserve one’s maternal sentimentality in the face of this Communistic generosity.