Women's Role In Pre Revolutionary Russia

The role of a women in Pre Revolutionary Russia was one of servitude, especially for the women of the middle to lower class. This servitude usually consisted of spinning and weaving clothes, making candles, preparing food, cleaning the house, childbirth, child rearing, etc. etc. The women of the upper classes were free from most of these duties, except childbirth and once that was done, they were free to pursue their own pleasures. The Revolution “freed” women of these bonds, or it was supposed to. However, women have been in the work place for centuries, nn 1719, 21, and 71, Peter the Great, made it law that a woman found guilty of crimes would be sent to linen mills and industrial factories (Buckley, 1981:81-82). The early 20th Century saw an increase in women in the work force, going from three million to thirteen million

in twelve years (Buckley, 1981:83).

What did the Revolution and the Soviet Experiment do for the Russian woman? Can a Communist state provide for all this when its history is so ingrained in a patriarchy? Can women and men be equals in all things? That is the purpose of this paper, to decide just what did the Soviet Experiment do for the New Soviet Woman? Did it free them of household chores, childrearing, a wife-beating, drunk husband, or being able to get an abortion when they wanted it? How can this be you might be asking yourself? The Revolution freed women from the bonds of servitude that had held them for centuries, it allowed them to get abortions, divorces, and jobs without all the difficulties that they had before the Revolution.

Alexandra Kollontai was a leading author of the early 20th century in espousing the role of the New Soviet Woman. She had many ideas about what Communism would provide for this new type of woman.

Here are four primary ideas she said the State would provide; the first idea is that there will be communal kitchens so she doesn’t have to spend time shopping or cooking, the second idea is that there will be groups of people who will clean all the communal apartments, the third one says that there will be no more laundry to do because there are public laundry facilities for that, just walk in and drop your laundry off, and last is that children will be brought up by the state and there will be nurseries and kindergartens and other school facilities to enable these children to grow up to be a good Communists (Kollontai, 1920: 5-7). Kollontai has some very good ideas, but would they be able to come to fruition? These were just a few the things that would allow the New Soviet Woman to be free of domestic servitude. Engels writes, “…the normal family will stop being an economic unit…when domestic work…made a public industry…care and raising of children is made into a public matter” (Schwartz, 1979: 68) and “Only through the participation in the labor force outside of the home can the open or disguised domestic enslavement of the woman begin to take be challenged.” (Buckley, 1981: 79). These two quotes mean that when all things (child rearing, preparing of food, house and laundry cleaning) are made into public institutions that the woman will be free to pursue a job outside of the home. Once she had a job she would be able to pursue other interests, like the arts or becoming more minded. This looks good in writing, but to put it into practice would take many years.
In the early years of the Communist regime the woman was given many new liberties that she hadn’t had before; she could divorce when she wanted to, have abortions, equal work and equal pay to name a few things (Schwartz, 1979: 67). But some of these rights were curtailed, why would a nation do this when it preached equality for all its citizens? One reason is the vast amount of human life lost after industrialization and collectivization, WWI, the Purges, famines, and falling birth rates, so the divorce laws became more rigid. A few years later, towards the end of the Great Patriotic War, divorce laws were changed again, which made it almost impossible to get divorced. and abortions were banned. These changes still portrayed the traditional role of the woman as a child bearer and child rearer.