The Role of Peasant Women in Soviet Society

Agriculture played a fundamental role in the success and failure of many Society policies enacted throughout the twentieth century, such as the five-year plans and collectivization. The countryside’s importance is due to the need to provide for growing urban populations and because the large part of Soviet society, the majority women, resided in this area. These meant women were a critical part in all aspects of agriculture in the soviet countryside. The government realized this and promoted women in the workplace as heroes and role models, they also enacted progressive family codes to improve the position of women in society. However, these did not change the attitudes of society especially in the more rural areas. This was evident in that women were still expected to keep up domestic chores if they worked and in the amount of discrimination women experienced at home and in the workplace. Rural women were restricted to the lowest paying jobs that usually required the heaviest manual labor. High positions in the workforce were extremely difficult for women to attain, the exception being during wartime. The position of rural women in soviet society was extremely important, through their hard work and persistence the Soviet Union was able to survive especially during devastating wars, due to this it is important to understand their role in the countryside.
After the October Revolution of 1917, Soviet Society was dramatically changed in the countryside. Prior to the revolution the countryside consisted of family plots that allowed them sustain themselves. On these family farms women from a young age worked alongside men. The self-sustaining family plot was one in which every member of the family had their share of the work. Howeve...

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...ld not be able to be replaced or repaired because all resources were being redirected to the war efforts. The 1941 harvest was done completely on manual labor. (Denisova 2010, 18) Women were an important factor in maintaining the country afloat during World War Two, without their self-sacrificing efforts to provide for the nation the U.S.S.R. would not have been able to come out of the war faring much better than countries like France and Italy.
While being seen as inferior to men in the countryside, women were able to work in difficult conditions to support their families. Even through radical change women played a central role in agriculture and thus in the advancement in industrialization. Especially in time of war and during the Five Year Plans, women were able to show their ability to outperform the expectation of their male counterparts and work relentlessly.