But while in many parts of the world socialist ideas (such as free public education and a graduated income tax) helped achieve greater social equality and brought relief from brutal poverty for millions of peasants and industrial workers, socialism and communism also retained important androcratic components. Part of the problem lay in communist theory. Marxism, which developed into one of the most influential ideologies of modern times, did not abandon the androcratic tenet that power is to be attained through violence, as attested by its well-known adage "The end justifies the means." And part of the problem lay in how Marxism was applied in the first nation that adopted communism as its official ideology: the Soviet Union. Marx and Engels had recognized that a profound alteration of relations between women and men during prehistoric times ushered in the class society they so abhorred. Consequently, in the early years of the Russian Revolution there were some efforts to equalize the position of women. But in the end, menâand just as critically, "masculine" valuesâremained in control.
Indeed, one of the most instructive lessons of modern history is how the massive regression to violence and authoritarianism under Stalin coincided with the reversal of earlier policies to replace patriarchal family relations with an equal relationship between women and men. As Trotsky was to remark (but only after his fall from power and exile), the failure of the communist revolution to achieve its goals in large part stemmed from the failure of its leadership to bring about a change in patriarchal relations within the family. Or in our terms, it lay in the failure to bring about any fundamental changes in the relations between the two halves of humanity, which continued to be based on ranking rather than linking.
During the nineteenth and into the twentieth century other modern humanist ideologiesâabolitionism, pacifism, anarchism, anticolonialism, environmentalismâalso emerged. But like the proverbial blind men describing the elephant, they each described different manifestations of the androcratic monster as the totality of the problem. At the same time, they failed to address the fact that at its heart lies a male-dominator, female-dominated model of the human species.
The only ideology that frontally challenges this model of human relations, as well as the principle of human ranking based on violence, is, of course, feminism. For this reason it occupies a unique position both in modern history and in the history of our cultural evolution.
-Riane Eisler, The Chalice and the Blade: Our History, Our Future
