MOBILIZING GENDER FOR SOCIALIST MODERNITY: THE WORK OF ONE TRANSYLVANIAN CHAPTER OF THE UNION OF ANTIFASCIST WOMEN OF ROMANIA AND THE UNION OF DEMOCRATIC WOMEN OF ROMANIA, 1945 TO 1953. By Alexandra Ghit Submitted to Central European University Department of Gender Studies In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of European Master in Women’s and Gender History Supervisor: Professor Susan Zimmermann Budapest, Hungary CEU eTD Collection 2011 Abstract My thesis looks at the role of two communist women's organizations in Romania between 1945 and 1953 in processes characteristic for Stalinist modernity and seeks to understand how what Kotkin terms "the grand strategies of the state" where formulated centrally, implemented and altered locally by activists and resisted and/or negotiated by those constructed as "beneficiaries". Specifically, I look at the involvement of the Union of Antifascist Women of Romania (UAWR) in the production of discourses on women’s citizenship as part of an essentially modernist process of expanding the political community implicitly pursued by the Romanian Communist Party. Secondly, I trace the way in which the Union of Democratic Women of Romania (UDWR) contributed to social engineering projects meant to bolster the population by appealing to women to change their mothering practices. Thirdly, I look at the involvement of the UDWR in the “persuasion work” carried out in favor of collectivization beginning with 1949 and the way resorted to rhetorical strategies meant to portray their work as successful, despite the overt opposition and resistance mounted by women. CEU eTD Collection i Acknowledgements I’d like to thank my supervisor, prof. Susan Zimmermann, for her insightful comments and support throughout the writing of this thesis. I am grateful for her tact in dealing with my rather erratic work habits and her assistance as coordinator of the Matilda MA program in Gender and Women’s History. Also, prof. Daniela Koleva for agreeing to be the second reader of my thesis. I am deeply grateful to everyone who has discussed this thesis with me and provided encouragement when things got bleak. CEU eTD Collection ii CONTENTS Abstract ....................................................................................................................... i Acknowledgements..................................................................................................... ii Contents ..........................................................................................................................1 List of Abbreviations ...................................................................................................4 CHAPTER 1- INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................5 Chapter 2- FRAMEWORK AND METHOD...................................................................8 2.1. Introduction ..........................................................................................................8 2.2. Paradigms in understanding state and society in socialist systems: totalitarianism, revisionist social history and post-revisionist (cultural) history................................................9 2.3. The historiography of the early years of communism in Romania........................13 2.4. State, power and modernity.................................................................................16 2.5. Previous Studies on Communist Women’s Organizations ...................................20 CEU eTD Collection 2.6. Method and Sources............................................................................................27 1 2.7. Conclusions ........................................................................................................30 Chapter 3- Expanding the political community: The Union of Antifascist Women of Romania, central actors, local activists and the performance of gendered citizenship.................32 3.1. Introduction ........................................................................................................32 3.2. A modern project after the war, before “high Stalinism”: a greater political community in uncertain times................................................................................................34 3.3. As far as the center stood: types of actors and different visions for citizenship ....37 3.4. Representations of gendered local action and syntheses of socialist citizenship ...46 3.5. “They would not collaborate”: local chapters representing and performing mobilization ..........................................................................................................................50 3.6. Conclusions ........................................................................................................53 Chapter 4- The UDWR’s interventionism: Attempting to change domesticity and mothering..................................................................................................................................54 4.1. Introduction ........................................................................................................54 4.2. High-modernism and rational, legible, Soviet domesticity...................................57 4.2.1. A “unified” communist women’s organization and the reproduction of the CEU eTD Collection population .........................................................................................................................57 4.2.2. Soviet models, European ideas on mothering and domesticity ......................60 2 4.3. Mothering discourses..........................................................................................64 4.4. Improving “the people” through better food and eating .......................................69 4.5. (Re)making spaces, redefining motherhood, constructing proper domesticity......74 4.6. Conclusions ........................................................................................................79 Chapter 5- Hardships and Moderate Success: UDWR reports on collectivization in Satu Mare county (1949-1952)..........................................................................................................80 5.1. Introduction ........................................................................................................80 5.2. Intense, uneven dialogues: Activists and peasants negotiating the “first wave” of collectivization......................................................................................................................82 5.3. The Center’s rhetorics of triumphing over hardships: The Story of Maria Zidaru 86 5.4. Languages of hardship and mentions of success: Reporting on UDWR attempts to draw women on the side of collectivization in Satu Mare county...........................................89 5.5. Conclusions ........................................................................................................98 Chapter 6- Conclusions..................................................................................................99 Bibliography................................................................................................................100 Primary Sources.......................................................................................................100 CEU eTD Collection Secondary Sources...................................................................................................104 3 List of Abbreviations FDWR- The Democratic Federation of Women of Romania GAC-Gospodarii Agricole Colective (Collective Agricultural Farms) MADOSZ- Magyar Dolgozók Országos Szövetsége (Union of Hungarian Workers of Romania) RCP- The Romanian Communist Party (name used between 1945 and 1948) RWP- The Romanian Workers’ Party (name used following the merger with the Social Democratic Party in 1948, until 1965) UAWR –The Union of Antifascist Women of Romania UDWR-The Union of Democratic Women of Romania WIDF– Women’s International Democratic Federation CEU eTD Collection 4 CHAPTER 1- INTRODUCTION My thesis looks at the role of two communist women's organizations in Romania between 1945 and 1953 in processes characteristic for Stalinist modernity and seeks to understand how what Kotkin terms "the grand strategies of the state" where formulated centrally, implemented and altered locally by activists and resisted and/or negotiated by those constructed as "beneficiaries"1. Specifically, I focus on the activities of the Union of Antifascist Women of Romania (active between 1945 and 1947) and the Union of Democratic Women of Romania (formed in 1948 and disbanded in 1953), analyzing materials published by these organizations as well as the archives of the Satu Mare (in North-Western Romania) chapters of these organizations. Relying on a conceptualization of Stalinist modernity and of state-society relations influenced by the “post-revisionist” paradigm in Soviet studies, the thesis attempts to flesh out the impact of these "grand strategies" on the construction of gender and the experiences of women. In discussing the imagination and implementation of social engineering projects I attempt to capture the interaction between discourses in propaganda materials, discourses and practices elaborated at the local level and the reactions of the women targeted by the campaigns of the organization-as reflected in reports produced especially by the local chapter of the UAWR and UWDR from Satu Mare county, in North-Western Romania. Through this approach