Alexandra Kollontai was a Russian revolutionary and one of the main leaders of the Bolshevik Party during the Russian Revolution of 1917. In 1920-21 she was a leader of the Workers' Opposition within the party. From 1923 onwards she withdrew from directly political activity and became a Soviet diplomat and ambassador to Norway, Mexico and Sweden. Kollontai played a pioneering role in analysing the oppression of women from a socialist and Marxist perspective and in developing political work among working-class women, and was responsible for many practical measures to improve the situation of women in the early years of the revolution. Many of her ideas, controversial at the time, were rediscovered and taken up by the women's liberation movement in the 1960s and 70s.