Was life better or worse for women under Stalin?

For a short time under Lenin, women had enjoyed a much freer status. In Marxist
theory, treating women as second class was a capitalist way of life, and marriage
was seen as little more than prostitution with the male head of the house exploiting
his wife and then using any resulting children as a workforce to bring in money for
the family. In Marxist thought, marriage was an unnecessary arrangement and
relationships should be less fixed. Children also did not belong to the family to which
they were born but to society.

Life for women after 1917 was a lot more liberal when compared to the ‘old days’ of
tsarist Russia. Among other things, divorce was made a lot more easy to obtain
under Lenin. Women were invited to work in “male jobs” such as factory work and to
become politically involved in the Communist Party, although few did join. Between
Lenin and Alexandra Kollontai (female leader of the Zhentodel, the women’s branch
of the Communist Party) marriage was almost destroyed. The idea had been to
allow divorce with only one partner requesting the divorce, as opposed to both
partners before. This had been to allow women to escape abusive marriages more
easily. But in reality, this resulted in more men escaping inconvenient marriages by
simply divorcing their wife.

When Stalin came to power, he changed the rules regarding women. Instead of
having divorces that were easy to obtain, he put the emphasis on the family as a
basic unit of society. He thought that having strong families would produce a
stronger and more productive society. There was a reason for this. Many children
had been born out of marriage and Moscow by 1930 was awash with a very high
number of homeless children who had no family and, as such, were a stain on the
perfect communist society that Stalin was trying to create.

Stalin’s aims were simple. He wanted control of women, as with other parts of
society. But he also wanted to promote a stable society which would produce many
children for his workforce and his army. This was mainly an issue of control, but we
should not overlook that Stalin also had a view to creating an ideal communist state.

The state paid families a child allowance if they were a married couple. It became a
lot harder to get a divorce. Not only was it difficult to gain a divorce, but it became
more expensive to buy a divorce if you wanted further divorces. Restrictions were
placed on abortions. Ceremonial weddings made a comeback, having been removed
in the 1920s as being “too capitalist”. However the religious aspects were still
banned.

In the work place, women maintained their status and there was effective equality
with men. In theory, all jobs were open to women. The idea was that crèches and
childcare facilities were provided on collective farms and in factories so that the
children could be communally cared for whilst the women worked. There was some
success with this. In 1935 women made up 44% of the work force of the USSR, and
by 1937, 50%. In reality, however, women all too often found themselves both
caring for the home and family in addition to working a full time job in a factory or
farm. Women did benefit from the improved health and living conditions provided for
workers and their families. But they rarely made it to senior positions. For example,
whilst 50-60% of doctors in USSR were female by the late 1930s, there were only 4
female senior doctors in the whole of Leningrad.

B. Armstrong, notes on women in Soviet USSR, Page 1

Examples of Lenin and Stalin’s policies for women:

Lenin Stalin
1. Divorce made cheap, easy and 1. 1935 passed a new law lowering
available at the request of one the age of legal responsibility to
partner. As a result many men 12. This allowed children to be
(and women) abandoned each treated like adults in the law and
other and/or their children and receive adult punishments,
moved to another area where they including death penalty.
could not be tracked down. 2. 1936 Divorce made more difficult
2. Laws passed to ensure fathers to get. It got more expensive with
paid maintenance for children, but each subsequent divorce to put
if the father moved towns he was people off divorcing. Also both
rarely tracked down. parties were required to attend in
3. Abortion legalised, though not court and agree.
actively encouraged. 3. Abortion banned in 1936. In
4. Marriage still the normal state of addition newspapers printed
affairs, but people living together horror stories about abortion to put
without marriage became more women off it. Although lots of
acceptable (pre-1917 it would illegal abortions did occur, the
have been unthinkable) birth rate did rise from 25 to 31 per
5. Government propaganda year in every 1000 population.
emphasised the importance of 4. Court cases of husbands who
women working in industry as well forced wives to have an abortion,
as at home. or of illegal abortionists were given
6. Childcare provided in many full media coverage.
workplaces. 5. The amount of child maintenance
7. As a result of the above policies, rose. This was to discourage
large numbers of youth gangs divorce as absent parents would
roamed the cities robbing and lose a huge part of their wage.
assaulting people to survive. However in reality it was still hard
to track down absent fathers.
6. Homosexuality made illegal to
promote heterosexual family life.
7. Women who had six or more
children were paid 2,000 roubles
per year for five years as a reward
from the State.
8. Most factories in large cities set up
crèches. In addition, children
were taken to the parks to
exercise in good weather whilst
their mothers worked.

B. Armstrong, notes on women in Soviet USSR, Page 2

 Literacy classes were made equally available for
men and women. In the 1930s, women had
virtually equal access to education as men did, and
there was not much discrimination in type of jobs.
For example, lots of women trained as engineers
and technicians.

This open air crèche, similar at many other

factories and collective farms, was provided to
allow women to work whilst their children were
looked after.

Women did technical work alongside men. However, it

is worth noting that not many women got to be
supervisors.

B. Armstrong, notes on women in Soviet USSR, Page 3

 In this poster, the woman is portrayed working
alongside the man in equal status.

Women breastfeeding before work. They was

set up so that they could return to work soon
after birth and would not have to take breaks to
feed their children.

This propaganda picture shows female pilots. It

is true that some women benefitted from a
range of jobs that had just not been available to
them pre‐revolution. But equally, as already
noted, such prestigious jobs were still quite rare
for women.

B. Armstrong, notes on women in Soviet USSR, Page 4

 This state‐run kindergarten was another example of helping the mothers to
return to work. In this propaganda photo, the children appear to be on a trip,
possibly catching butterflies or other insects to study.

B. Armstrong, notes on women in Soviet USSR, Page 5

 This is an interesting quote from
Pravda. It shows how the Party was
trying to fit together Marxist theory of
“free love” and not basing
communities on families with the new
policies of strengthening families. It
does so by justifying it as benefit for
the Soviet society.

These two letter show a division in opinion. The

first clearly implies absolute support for the
policies.

The second suggests that the scheme is not

practical. Yet it clearly states that the scheme is a
good idea, and simply needs a few practical
preparations. The question is, has the second
woman said this because she genuinely believes in
the principle of the rules, or because she is scared
to oppose directly for fear of being purged?
Depending which view we took would radically
change our perception of the soviet policies for
women.

B. Armstrong, notes on women in Soviet USSR, Page 6

 1. Complete the following table:

Ways that women’s life would get better Ways that women’s life would get worse
under Stalin under Stalin

2. What do the sources above not show? Why was this?

B. Armstrong, notes on women in Soviet USSR, Page 7