DRAFT: NOT FOR CITATION WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE AUTHOR
NUMBER 141
VILLAGE WOMEN EXPERIENCE THE REVOLUTION·
Beatrice Farnsworth
Conference on THE ORIGINS OF SOVIET CULTURE
Sponsored by
Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies The Wilson Center
May 18-19, 1981
Village Women Experience the Revolution
Paper prepared for Conference on "The Origins of Soviet Culture" May 1981
Beatrice Farnsworth
3efore we explore peasant woman's earliest r- ceptions Soviet culture, we should ask an even broader question: what did the Revolution mean to the peasantry as a whole, male as well as female?
War, beginning , devastated village economy.
With the healthy young men the front, with even the horses taken away, there rema d in the village the old ople, the women, and the ildren. Farming dec d. Especially with the Civil War that followed the ion, each r l ss land was sown and bread grew more scarce. And if the peasants wondered why, there were a 3evolution, were in economic ruin, it important to remember--as one his-
torian has pointed out--that generally the peasants had no 2 longings for the past. For majority of them--even when
they opposed the Communis --Tsarism and pomeshchiki 3 (the landlords) were gone good. The Revolut ed peasants from the system of labor service o the
landowner, it gave them status ind endent producers,
and offered not only land but--despite economic chaos 4 the Civil War years, new hope.
For the peasant, illiterate and pol ically a blank,
generally no culture exis prior to the Revolution beyond
the mixture of orthodox rel ousity, local superstition, 5 and folk lore.
-1- Cultural change, when it came, emanated from the towns.
The language itse began change. Peasants heard ab
Pe 's Courts, ncriminals in face of the Revolution,n
nenemies of the working class,n kombedy, smychka, kom.'Uuna, 6
' ~~ ' delegat , Komsomol, and Commissar. The peasant woman, ,]1 at t officially, was no longer '' baba. 11 Party
called her, 11 krest 1 ianka. 11 tions to unfamil
expressions have been reco ed in l rature. Sholokhov
dep d a scene in which a Red Army man addressed crowd. 11 Tovarishch11 he began. The r-ossacks troubled by - ~ ' unusual word stared at one another agitation. The Red
Army man was continually interrupted by shouts: 11 What do 7 you mean by 'commune'? And what is the Communist Party?"
In another novel peasant life a Soviet mil iaman speaks
to ia, a peasant woman, tell her that the workers
and the ants are no longer separate are 11 one element. 11
And the 11 baba" puzzles over the word 11 element." What is an 8 element?
An aim of the Revolution was the breaking down the
old byt--the comp of cus , belie , and manners that
At the simplest de rmined the peasant's daily ' Soviet culture meant knives and rks rather than
peasant's wooden L rature provides ttes.
"Black Fritters," we see the peasant woman, Katerina, come . to town vis her Communist husband and struggling at supper with the unfamil utens s- ropping now one, 9 now other. 11 Similarly in Sholokhov, the Army rr..an requesting food at a peasant hut demands in disgust that he be given something other than the wooden spoon to 10 eat th--a metal ensil, ss l ly to carry rms. Hygiene and a new emphasis on heal care marked new culture. Thus peasant wife, Katerina, noticed clean towel hanging at the sink in her husband's city room. A familiar s were pos rs in connect wi pub c health. '' Syphil ics, do not use alcohol, 11 and 11 louse is a carrier "'1.yp h us. I! Knives, forks, and publ health injunctions could regarded with casual curiousity. Atheism could not. Many a village family was torn apart when one of its youthful members rejec rel Nowpere is this family tragedy
more poignantly i tomized than in Seifullina 1 s; " Old
ltl oman, 11 who drove r Bolshevik son from their home. Soviet culture had its iconography. Thus Andron, another rebellious son another village, put Karl Marx in St. Nikolai's place, and hung two more pictures on either side him: Lenin and Trotsky. gave an order to the Women's Department for wreaths. The peasants came to off e of the village Soviet and saw pine wreaths
-3-
• above the pictures, the ribbons, and the banners with lden tasse Only the candles were missing. A peasant orted to Andron's father: 11 Just been to your 14 son's chapel ••.. He's made some new saints. new culture seemed also to encompass sexual irr.Jnoral Immoral of course was not new the reflect literature before World War I, pe behavior fell r below the norm. The difference was that in old days e was rec ed as such even by sinners. Not only d war and revolution cause village morals to deteriorate even further, but very val ity of sexual standards were being challenged. was nothing new for a peasant girl birth six or seven months after her marriage, but after Revolut , when it
happened in the , gossips might say: 11 That 1 s the Soviet fashion. If a marries r the S ts she's sure to have a baby in six months.!! Alexander Neverov, the se educated writer, scribed effect of Revolution on the scene: 11 s did not come home at night, and married women stayed away. A strange wife pressed rself to a strange husband .... "
-4- The girls sang songs:
Don't you swear at me, Mother, Now we are free to do as we likel I'll lie down if I like, I'll get up if I like, I'll go and spend the night with Ivan. If Ivan gets a swollen head, I'll go and get another lover .... 17
"Young girls would sleep unwedded, young men would cease to obey." 18
Here and there the emancipation of women impacted sharply on the peasant family: Prohorova "learned all sorts of foreign words ... culture, equal rights, and so on.
It wouldn't have been so bad if only the young girls 19 listened ... but the married women listened too." Women were given the right in 1917 to divorce and occasionally some of them used it. Before the Revolution, a man might abandon his wife but if a peasant woman left her husband it caused indignation. By 1921, especially among the younger population, the fact of a 11 baba11 separating from her husband 20 ceased to astonish her neighbors. Divorce became a theme in peasant literature. A peasant husband went to the
Ispolkom--the village office of the Executive Committee of the Soviet--to protest the departure of his wife. The Party official opened the Code of Soviet law. 'You must look upon a woman differently and you mustn't force her to live with you. You mustn't beat her either. 1 The muzhik looked at the Code--it was a large book--he would have liked to
-5- smash the Code to pieces on the woman's head--but it couldn't be done; his hands were tied by an invisible 21 force.
But for the majority of peasant women the option of leaving a husband remained unrealistic. One woman explained: nYes, it's all very well to talk about divorce-- but how could I feed my children? Two's better than one when it comes to that. Alimenta? (the divorced father's legal share of the support of his wife or childre~. Yes,
I know about that--but what good would that do me when I know my husband has nothing in his pocket to pay me. And if my husband. goes away, or if I get land somewhere else, how can I work the land alone? Together we can manage some- 22 how. n
Although the instance of peasant divorce was not high when compared with the cities, by the mid 1920's most of 23 the village lawyers' cases involved Alimenta. The new freedom of women to divorce also found expression in a reported wave of household partitioning initiated by women 24 in many cases as part of divorce settlements. Delegatki, the women working within the network of the Zhenotdel, the
Women's Section of the Party, became advocates of the 25 property rights of the n baba. n
The very organization of government within the village
-6- functioned as an aspect of an culture. sel'sovet, its basic e , was viewed as both imported imposed.
The number peasants taking part in elections er the
Civil War remained small (22. 1922). re were many villages which no more to 15% of peasants would turn out to vote. lack of rest in this new Sov t titution is erstandable s e sel 1 sovet was cont d by the author s and its ership was decided on by the Party the volost in onsultation w the local rty cell, if re was one. peasants regard ancient mir, an institution had revived during and after the ion, as the ac village 27 government.
Party staffed sel 1 sovet w village poor, the batraks and the be , or even rs sent out from 28 the towns to strengthen proletarian element. ' this import, sel 1 sovet, d those whom khoz va of the vi called the rifraff. An aspect the new culture then was the sudden prominence within 29 of its poorer inhabitants.
And finally, peasant who ously regarded v as a unity-- mir--was told that rather than a
it consisted really of three parts--the rich peasants,
middle, and poor. Soviet culture from the outset
-7- 30 forced on peasant a l of class c ict.
To understand how Soviet culture was perce ini- tially by the "baba," or in the language the Corrununists, the nkrest 1 ianka, 11 one must know first· values of women, how related values peasant community, and how they related t values peasant men. A sexual division had some always existed the vi
need recall the fre references literature to " women, n with assumption they were a group unto themselves, to understand that women had their sepa
re.
What then were ir values? The peasant woman was a khoziaika and she wanted to remain one. r concerns were narrowly individual and focused inwardly on family. !!The womed1 might move as a group to spring to draw water, to the stream to wash c s--but re was no sense sisterhood. Rather, malice and competition prevailed especially in matters relating to the family. Competition over possession of a man and b -or lack
ldren. Young girls 1 in a female where marriage was their utmost concern. They were involved in female rituals, gathe to sew cl for dowr s, parties r those about to be married, assembling with ir
-8- famil s to await the arrival the marriage makers '~<'lho
ther the friest would arrange for the dowry--a 31 situation that rema d unchanged by the Revolution.
though toy scribes a young peasant woman who
ressed frankly a sense of re e at death of a child, such an example is probably the exc tion. The theme Russian lullabyes, a mother's devotion to .,_ infant, was no G more representat of the 19th and 20th 33 century Russian mother. A 19th century sian writer states that 1 asants ... view the bi of ldren as a sign of God's ssing on the parents, whereas not having 3L~ children is considered a misfortune! Beyond ques-
tion the mother's relationship the ld was the fact
that ldlessness for the peasant woman was a painful
situation often constituting a source of moral humiliation.
In novel Brusski the young peasant w Kat , longs
for a child and release from moe ry of women at the 35 spring who ca her barren. To be barren meant to be
deprived children through whom alone a woman could fi
imp+ant herse in family of her husband and be guaran- 36 ed comfort in her age.
The world of women was concerned also with private
economic rests. Village women, espec ly the more
prosperous one, were occupied small scale commerce. It
-9- was the 11 baba 11 who went to the city to bargain and to 37 sell milk and eggs. Indeed, it was she who was in charge 38 of the cow. Concerns with family and with commerce were
congruent, of course, with the general values of the
village community. But the world of the peasant woman,
her outlook and her development differed nonetheless from
that of the peasant man. The woman was essentially custo-
dian of the family and the basic rituals of life. They
were 11 matchmakers, mourners, midwives, gossipmongers, and 39 custodians of social propriety;'' the man was 11 provider
and protector, 11 involved in running the affairs of the mir
and--depending on his economic status--a force in the
village power structure. He was concerned with paying taxes,
renting land, sowing, plowing, and fighting in the war. At
the front he received a degree of political awareness and
a literacy he may earlier have lacked. As one of Tolstoy's
peasants exclaimed, in the Power of Darkness, 'a man, he may
at least learn something in the pub, or in the army, or in 4o prison, maybe. But a woman~'
Because of her backwardness and her essentially
familial concerns, Soviet culture when it came to the village
sometime around 1920 threatened the peasant woman in a 41 particular way. The Communist Party wanted to liberate
her from nearly all that was familiar: her petty-ownership
-10-
• psychol , her ill eracy, her ignorance, and her d eon her husband's family. The Party's task was to get the masses of peasant women to disda and to hate the squalor of their own lives--instead clinging 42 the own rusty s s. App ing to her se ity, Communist women quoted to the "baba" Nekrasov's famous lines:
Dolia russkaia, Doliushka zhensl<.::aia, li trudnee kat' 43
Why was the downtrodden 11 baba11 neve less resis to the message? The reasons were both practical and psycho-
1. The Communists were her to reject r accustomed security. They pr sed communal nurseries, kitchens, and laundries, and a future participation publ life. To the average illiterate and backward woman, engrossed in r personal world and accus d to the pro- tection a husband, socialist dreams emancipated womanhood were hard appealing. As a peasant woman
lained: if you had a good husband you were all right 44 the old days, and you are all right now.
Summer nurse - -:Ihere the Cow..munist
Women's Section was active, were a threat. Rumors circula-
ted that once in them chi ren were enro as Communists 45 and taken from their mothers. One saw tentative accep- tance the new culture when peasant women, becoming convinced that nurse s were us , asked Zhenotdel to build Indeed, organiz a nursery would become, by mid 1920 1 s, a Communist ploy for ncatchingn 47 1 the ' baba. n
But such acceptance was infrequent the early years.
Upon occasion, women sp w particular rce inst nurser s as following resolution taken a meeting of peasant women in Penza guberniia indicates. "The women's meeting ... under the chairmanship Evgeniia
Romankova, unanimous refuse to open and organize a kindergarten and nursery since in our community we don't 48. have mothers who would refuse to bring up ir children. 11
Labor conscription--decreed in 1920--was another
threat. 11 baban liked to gossip with her neighbors or
sit front of her hut crac sunflower seeds. She
worked hard but at r own tempo and ~ she resented
interference, regimentation, managers, and enforced
overwork. And although labor mobilization did not require
change of location for peasant women with children under
twelve it did mean coercion and arduous work such as 49 clearing snow from railway tracks. Peasant attitudes
toward work discipline which was so much a part the
early culture were unequivocal. An American v itor approach a group batrachki working in a Sovkhoz was told ve that no~ life was not better
them than Tsarist days. ''Ttle worked then from dawn we didn 1 t have to keep it up
t even stop to sing, and lie down sun
and s we wanted to and the foreman d 1 t
d the same e But now they make us stic
our It
r cultural change was the introduct
vil 1 eracy classes for adults. And ion
might rce d by a minority of peasant women as an opportunity, for many the nlikpunkt!l was an
b r c ting with the peasant woman's sire to 51 le 1 Learn how to read and write? 1 a peasant woman asked. !lAnd when do you think I'd have the t to do
cow has to be milked, the p be d,
water to carried, the baby screams,· or r one is
fact
some women resented education for the ren as an
unde parental authority.
Bolshevik idea that attend school was unwe ome. In a village in rniia peasants
c that in the old days d not go to school. Now a teacher agitates for their attendance and 18 girls
-13- 53 immediately enter. Yet, the number of girls in school there in 1924 as compared to 1922 had declined signifi- cantly. In some schools there were no girls at all.
Traditionally if a sacrifice were to be made, it would be for the son. He would be going into the Army and it was inconvenient for a man to be illiterate. But for the
"baban to remain illiterate was no great misfortune. Fre- quently it was the mothers who prevented their daughters from going to school. One peasant father wanted his daughter to be educated but his wife scolded that the family 54 could not afford it. Those girls who did go to school often left before completing the course of study. On the other hand, girls in Penza guberniia were attracted to the
11 likpunkt," although they felt shy about attending. They 55 wanted a separate women's literacy group.
The same peasant woman who was so little interested in education that she objected to her daughter going to school, if she lived in a village where the Party was active, was subjected to efforts to change dramatically her outlook. Mainly she was to achieve a different self- image, that of a competent, interested, and literate citi- zen. If she learned to read then speculators would not be able to cheat her. If she were to take part in elections to volost and village Soviets, the Soviets would not be
-14- dominated by kulaks and former shop and tavern keeners.
If s used r equal rights to , then the Soviet would be made up of honest people who would defend village poor. r self-interest as mother would also be served. For if women participated in Soviets, and the volost exe ive committees, the Soviets would 56 care more about improving the l of women and children.
Occasionally "baban was convinced to enter the
Soviet. More frequent she respond negatively: ni have small c ren at home and a Therefore I have no time to work in the Soviet. 11
11 I am illiterate--what would I do in the Soviet and how will I·be of use to the llage? 11
11 My husband is opposed.!!
rhaps most ien of the cultur~l messages was
one that cal don krest 1 ianka to act collectively
for the general good. The Russian peasants who tradi-
tionally worked hard on the own strips land half-
heartedly elsewhere and who is said lacked a social
conscience were be urged to in terms society's
interest and to care about improvement the ral 58 people's economy as they cared about ir own. They
were exhorted to rstand the concept mutuality
between city and village: peasant must give grain to
-15- the towns cause tory w r could not produce implements r he had no food. They were to enter the s re they would "tvork to help the widows and famil s Army men. They were to con- struct shelters and nurse s for orphans and children of the village poor and were to pa ipate in the subbotniki, somehow abs unc ial idea of work without pay. unc on proved to be particu- larly awkward. rniia when the question of wages for the delegatka came up, majority of them, 6o not receiving any pay, s re to work.
The absence of any will to c ectivity on the part of women is t by oppos ion to the early Soviet communes. Women reac negatively although they were promised more than ir bands. In 1919
Pravda reported that was break
on the formation of co~~unes. s ' Kaganovich would argue that peasant women were providing much of the resistance to c cti If they did
go into the communes they from active 63 participation. The commune d women from certain
chores but it required them much more justment than it did of their husbands who for most part went
about their accustomed agricultural work. Quarrels arose
-16-
• in community kitchens and dining halls. Women did
not like cooking for se outside ir family, do
impersonal menial jobs or caring for children of
others. According to one source~ women engaged in
all manner of recriminations and dod the work. One
reporter, sympathetic the commune, found women
disliked communal nursery as much as chen
and had to be rotated very often. ke and sip
were the rule. But women, they needed to, did act
c ctively. Krest 1 ianki, especially widows, sometimes
formed communes whose purpose it was to sustain each other.
The nFortress of Communism11 was started in lower Volga .re on by /seven widows or wives. Husbands joined upon release from 65 service.
For the peasant woman in a village that experienced
minimal or no organ ed Party activity, Soviet culture
probab meant little besides the ncommissar!l who requisi-
tioned in. And, if traveled into the large towns,
the Agit-Punkt (perhaps a kiosk in a station)
disseminating Bolshevik propaganda. The new culture was
experienced more intensely by the relative few peasant
women who were drawn into the Soviet orbit. The semilite-
rate 11 baba11 who dared to challenge every principle traditionally ld sacred in r environment, a pioneer 66 progress became a feature the rural scene.
Invariably she possess an unusual personality that had manifes d itself ore the Revolution. Usually she was
remarkab for r rsonal independence and bravery. Two
such tional heroines epitomize the new peasant woman:
Mar 1 ia-bol 1 shevichka and Kat D Mar' and Katia
were each portrayed as physical~y larger than their
husbands, strong women with loud voices who but into
!l muzhik 1 s business.tt Katia especially established
herself as a e within the mir. During the war, she
took over all mascul respons ilit s farming,
performing them so well that she was e of the
elderly men who wondered why their daughters- law c
not work in the fields like Kat instead of returning to
their mothers or staying indoors fuss over children.
Each of them began organizing women within village.
Mar 1 founded a Zhenotdel. nVJe never even heard a
word like that-- didn 1 t sound Russiann vvas the peasant 67 reaction. Mar 1 ia and Katia turned away from religion.
(Katia initial out of anger at a too generous land
allotment to the 1 priest). As a j , Mar 1 ia
elected t district Soviet--few people wanted to hold
office anyway. She surprised everyone with her newly
-18- bus ss-like manner. Other women became cted with her hevism. Two them left ir husbands.
To sure these 11 new women11 refle a tiny minority
the villages. But as harb rs of a new they attrac d considerab attention. Author, Aleks r
Neverov, s his short st with Mar' retreating wi
Bolsheviks face of a Cossack attack. !!They say someb saw her another vi maybe ' wasn't she--maybe was another one who looked l her. re are a lot of around nowadays. 11 So it se And readers' reactions st he was correct. Mar' was praised, congratulated and invited to it like-minded souls 68 other v s.
Who did these red souls 11 other vi s 11 tend to be? batrachki, bedniachki, single-woman householders, Red Army w s, and widows, were general 69 the women most receptive to rural .Pa activity. Through the Zhenotd they were· dratvn into Party orbit. They tended to be mature rather than young women. A correspon- dent orting on a non-Party c renee of worker and peasant women in Orlov erniia in 3 noted that of 134 gatkii (63 whom were peasants and urban women), the majority, 70, were in the to 45 age , 49 were 70 from 17 to 25 and 18 were olP,er than The Party
-19- worker was that there were o some young
Krest 1 pres who left farm and c ren to attend the conference. At a similar women's c renee in the guberniia Nizhni-Novgorod that same year a large part of the surprisingly were r 30, fewer were from 30 to and some were older The reporter found breakdown significant cause previous con- ferences r women preva ral, young peasant women burdened with children were ss responsive to , while the young woman was the least likely all to participate. orts deplored the 72 pauc rls in the rural Komsomols. In some there were no women at all, or at , simply one in a cell of thi -a result of parental di roval and an abusive att on the part of young men toward those whom 73 disda d as nbaby.n
single woman hous r- ten a widow--had most reason to respond posit the CoTh~unist presence.
most vulnerable member mir, her life was ra-
inarily difficult. She was expected alone to raise
ren, to maintain the le, and to farm. A small percentage of these women into the category
ss peasant--the b The majority of them with varying degrees of success. How did they manage? An
-20- irate Communist reported from one village that was not with the lp the r. Instead he found a ruth- less exploitation by the mir of the s woman. These women who sowed, harrowed, harves d, threshed and worked the vegetable gardens, did the w of both a, and 1 a \. would resist, perhaps vi ntly. But Mar 1 ia or Akulina -21- not contradict the mir. were not inclined to p est or to undertake a lawsuit. might be taken from them by other means as well. strips of land 1 ing to the women farmers were usually poorer than strips belonging to the men cause men, taking of the fact that a woman was not likely to the strips, or if s d was not about to start a f , year after year ir own strips at her e. The mir was not d. When it came time apportion tax obligations, ority of land strips cultivated by women was usually not taken into account. On the other hand, women were frequently d higher than the other eholds--again because 74 d not offer strong resis e. But occasionally from the ranks of the miserably loited Mar 1 ias and Akulinas there would be a 11 baba11 more outspoken. Such a woman, A. Volkova, from Smolensk erniia, wrote a letter to journal Kommunistka which she called on the rab , the seemingly favored 11 e in the Revolution n remember the kres t r ianki. She read in the women 1 s s in Rabochi Put 1 ab meetings for city women. requested similar meet for peasant women where ir questions could answe 75 about problems like the .in-kind. The unusual 11 baba11 -22- was repre ctionally by the crude and naive but very bold Kat Dolga who did not hesi tell the miller when was cheating the peasants or the priest 76 when he was someone 1 s turn in 1 wood. It was exceptional women like these whom the Zhenotdel, worker s when she asked yoQ~g men Komsomols if there wasn 1 t just one woman in village who v-1as more than the rest and wi whom they could be 77 put contact. But even the stalwart Katia Dolga who· read accomplished a nman 1 s workn the fields was uneasy r name was proposed for presidium of t village S (because the Party wanted a woman repre- sentat ) . How could she s same table with men? 78 How would it look GO people? more independent women, responding to the new , became the 11 troublemakers, 11 organizing other women, a·ttending the Zhenotdel 1 s 11 babi kursyn and part ipating in meetings that today we would recognize as consciousness raising and in China would be !! bitterness. 11 At non-Party volost and guberniia c rences, peasant de would be encouraged to about their own 1 s . session after sess documented in the pages of journal Ko~~unistka and cted in Soviet fiction, peasant women told not -23- • about the hardship their past, also about ir current exploitat both by kulaks and by male members Soviet power structure in llages. re are some examples: rov shows us Dolga at r rst pol ical meet -speaking he s like !Ia dam b openn--telling the misery r early rna l ch began at How she her husband's family to return to r, and how r husband went to the p st to t her home. r mother-in-law r husband the whip and told him to beat her. She had a hard life whi her mother-in-law lived but she saw that for other women was even worse. It was as women 79 were cursed birth, she told the assembled group. Another 11 baba,n Tat'iana asked bitte -what kind life is women? She labored in a nothing, bea s children. Two she lost being beaten. Three died as infants. The last one lived but 80 crippled. blamed her mother-in-law for accident. Women complained about conditions life l'lhich in some tances v1ere made worse by Revolution. Drunkenness, well-known in ::::ntinued to plague countryside even becoming a of local S t organs which in view of some peasants 81 resembled taverns more than rnment inst ions. -24- Drinking at home seemed to women to have increased. Now each muzhik brewed own and had become impos- 82 sible the "baba.n At a similar meeting in Nizhni 0 1 Novgorod baby ' protested against the pa tax-in- and cruelty of sadistic Soviet tead sympathizing w diff ies of a d Army man 1 s wife and perhaps lett her more eas , taunted woman with outlandish requests. One such was she produce 60 ident black cats so that could a 83 coat. The Pa worker d that th was only one episode of humiliating injustice occuring locally at the hands brutal c ectors of the tax- kind. A twenty-two year old peasant woman t her expe es previous year as a er of Soviet. The propos that she chair a wo committee with idea--as she now realized--of manipulat her. When she called to task r their irregularities, they ened to her. I don't to the S t anymore she told the c renee. I am twenty-two and I 84 s want to live. An older woman protes that the working woman in the city four months maternity leave, while she had borne sixteen children (fi~e of them buried) and worked -2 the while. Why aren't peasant women the 85 same b its as the c woman. D trust for city rabotnitsy was co~~on among the krestr who compla d ab their own d icult , , the onerous tax-in-kind, the exhausting work course a long surr~er day while the tory woman worked, in their view~ not 24 86 but simp 8. with anger were also ons of new culture. One peasant woman Orel gube ia recalled that in the past she had no land and the vi called her a tramp. 'Why? I was not a l! Now she siatin of land and the kulak who formerly had 40 8. sold her son's miner's clothing and even managed to buy a horse. She lived well. It was warm inside the winter. St she did to id too ' want cl the Revolution. 11 They me a Communist. 3ut I 87 am not a Communist. !I Another woman explainea t she had never been at a guberniia conference. s never knew where the city was. But now seemed to her as though 0 was sitting in her vegetable patch. And with this colorful exclamation the 11 baba11 su~~ed up the cultural impact of the Revolution on her 88 life: had taken r out of village. -26- women together to express pers evances and t was a dramatic way of draw Soviet orbit. re were other innovations: ions various suppl lect and groups to develop su~mer nurseries which Tv s did not always ace Sov t co ope although cooperatives were we in pre- Russia. They made excuses: 11 baba!! could 1 without her daily trip to city to sell milk and eggs from her own farm; or, were the kind of to work together harmonious frequently cooperation succeeded. els brought change to 1 s those 91 relat few women involved. A r the Zhenotdel rep a conversation with a nbaban recalled that in no one in the v to hear about an artel. They told her to t of her eas. But she persuad r peasant women jo h her--especially Red A w s who farmed one. ther they obtained seed ~ity. Their two horses became the common prope artel. -27- Going beyond joint agricultural work, they organized a children 1 s dining room with he of the Soviet network. (It eventual:y closed due to insuff ient supplies.) The Zhenotdel worker marve d that a 1 was be by the pea~«nt women themselves desp e mockery of t men. ;f!, t we may assume an on-going degree of Zhenotdel in form of encouragement, 1 ra ture r re ing hut, and evid ly the very sheets of paper (unavailab in the llage) that the women needed record p oc 92 their meetings. Peasant women--aga in the relat ly few villages with ene tic Party organizers--might experience propa- ganda at any ~evel of daily life. Even allowing for the likelihood that Party workers exaggerated the degree their actual accomplishments, the scope agitation 93 was broad. On Sundays the nbaban was recruited, ostensib to gather mushrooms and med inal herbs, but in fact really to hear Pa propaganda. Dramatic and 94 choral eire s were created in the villages. Dramati- zations and concerts became na of non-Party conferences. Brochures and leafle were d tributed. In read huts, teachers read from scarce copies of new Party journal, Krest 1 ianka. re were excursions of peasant women to museums, and Moscow to children 1 s -28- insti ionsj the museum of the ople's Commissariat of 'Alectures, and mov s. Cultural innovation ce.me to the village in the form of "magic lantern11 97 (slide) its j and model gardens. In the summer 1920 on the steamship 11 Starn peasant women of P electrici the countryside--how in several minutes 98 it was possib from milk to make r. use of street theater was icularly effect in attract large numbers of s, especially the dramatization of people's courts. Saratov, the Zhenotdel presented a staged cou on work deserters, gangste , sabotage, and nnew women.n In Ekaterinburg a performance 11 the people's court" investigated the 99 morality "outrages" against women. .... Und ly a remarkable aspect new culture was the iar notion that women active uolitical Whether or not the krest'ianki resp --the message itself p cultural shock. Neverov evokes this bewilderment. a poignant vignette peasant women asked the chairman a village meeting when he called for a -29- • e whe r nbabyn were supposed to raise 100 hands too. was a new world of meetings at whi it was nec::essary not only to sit without c::hatt (d to ) but also to obey s ra s r. At a Komsomol meeting married women were bitterly rec::ounting the ha s their l s a woman burst out with her own s When rrupted with the reminder that were to speak without permisston, the st' 102 retorted: 11 I don't know your rules.'' r than being su~~oned to meet was sight of autho ive women within the ruling Communist network-- when was a tenet of rural life that women were to 103 be rel on. Here we must ask to what the krest' were actually in touc::h with st Party in s. Three-fourths of the r all, 104 had no ed Party activity by the end t s. 105 And alone there were 150,000 s. Ac::cord statistics for 1920 there were 15 gubernii 106 peasant women in the Communist In was estimated that the krest' made up 1.5% village Soviets. In about 36 i there were 107 1, st'ianki serving in the sel'sovet. The total number of politically active .peasant women was small-- -30- desp e the pressure exerted by ty to b "'JOmen 108 o the Sov ts the local ls. Yet d experience women in polit authority their contact with Zhenotdel. e areas where the 11 11 Women's Section was most act , baby however iffe- or negat the reg , were brought ch with a female political culture. But '' activity11 t mean mere a poorly paid volost er, knaps on her back, by foot, 110 20 to 30 versts, from volost volost. only parts of a rniia experienced the Zhenotdel. In general, it was the peasant. women who lived semi-indus- trial areas l Iaroslav and Gomel' gube i who received the greater cultural impact s e Zhenotdel workers drawn from the trial areas guberniia c be sent into the vi s to spread Party mess The purely 112 peasant i had a ss developed Party apparatus. In the s -industrial areas!J female workers were particularly consc the need develop ties between c and country women. Thus in , Kostroma, and Penza guberniia, de s meetings were organized 113 together with city rab sy. Wi the same idea mind, all-c gatka meet decided to under s wing a volost legatka meet in Budaevka. -31- For was an increased urban pre- sence in the village. Zhenotdel s r to develop l s by bringing groups st 1 ianki into the city to meet in conferences the rabotnitsy. Desp optimistic conclusions from Party workers that a s was being forged be en rural urban women, the opposi may in fact have oc st 1 ianki, as we resented the rab sy as the 115 dominant, and favored c s. A look at rural ipation in the 1 network provides a sense of nbabyn exposure to pol active women. What follows is not an analysis, rniia by erniia, but rather a sampling of the Zhenotdel activity in which the st 1 ianki were invo Each 11 baba11 drawn into the political ne , however, b fly, was herse a cultural phenomenon she returned to her vi One report publ in mid-1920 re s that non- Party volost conferences of peasant women were--by closest count--conducted in 60 gubernii during the revious half year. In all 853 c rences took place. A volost 117 conference usually cons ted of around 200 Delegates meet among krest 1 ianki were usually conducted in areas Communist Party ce (the -32- Ukraine, Samara, and R ernii were given as examples). Besides volost skii meetings, there were also village dele meetings in those villages having large enough populat , for example, in 118 Ekaterinburg, and Tsaritsyn rnii. I .:I' '/' The fundamental sues discussed at well-run ost delegatkii meetings were se of land and taxes. tax in kind and the land c were laws about which lfbabyn had the most troubl questions. Other top s interest were the s e of the committees of mutual aid, the struggle t samoganka-brewing, the new rights of the krest' Soviet Russia, hygiene 119 and the protection of mothers and infants. Questions of anti-religious propaganda were rarely put forth at delegatkii meetings in view, we are told, of the lack sknlful agitators available de~l with anti religious 120 questions. Reports ind d that some delegatki meetings were poorly conduc , touching not on issues daily concern to st'ianka, but on such matters as the international women and Soviet industrialization. The de in these instances lost interest in meetings. Besides non-Party c rences and delegatki meetings, peasant women were drawn into demonstrations. On 8 March -33- 1921_, International V.lomen 1 s Day there were 25 of them Vladimir gube ia with _,250 working women and 21,250 122 peasant women participating. Orchestrated marches did not prove genuine enthusiasm for the regime but only that broad numbers peasant women were in some way touched by the Revolution. In Kaluga guoerniia a Party worker reported that organizational act ty was we developed in 89 volosts (out 176). legatki worked in all sections of 123 vo1ost executive committees. The Ka1uga guberniia Zhenotdel in 1920-21 conducted 85 meet at which 4,500 nbaby11 participated. Delegatki meetings peasant women were created in 87 volosts, drawing in around 5,000 . 124 peasant women. In Siberia, in 1921, there were 272 volost organizers working among peasant women. In ' Samara, Perm, Astrakhan, and Ekaterinburg gubernii and in the Don area, the Zhenotdel assigned volost organizers, conducted de:egate meetings, and apportioned delegates to 125 volost executive committees. Saratov guberniia 1921 there were up to 1,000 peasant women serving as 126 praktikants--usually for three months. In a se s vo1osts in Penza guberniia peasant women were e cted to the Soviet and in one area, a krest 1 ianka was chosen as chair of the Soviet. At an uezd Congress of Sovie in -34- Penza guberniia out 110 delega s re were eleven 127 peasant women. re and there one met a peasant woman who was a member a Volost Execut Committee~ a d ctor of one or another section Volost Soviet~ or a member of board of the Volost cooperative. as a Communist rep er noted frankly~ it was difficult 128 draw even the peasant de gatki into Party. passive, reluc- tant be involved COl:Ih'Tiun is t ne , within a years after the Revolution, many became aware, not only women who stepped out traditional 11 baby11 roles and ente public life--but tensions re locally from phenomenon of women in political activ Let a village in guberniia when a peasant woman was p osed for the S t (presumably at urging), the men objected, call it 11 unheard of11 in d cting roles. ( they were c d to 129 choose a erate Red Army ). Men ortedly called a disaster if nbaba11 were e t to the Soviet or attended pol i meetings. 11 baby11 gad about at meetings, we will find ourselves wi trou- 130 sers, one muzhik explained. A ort from Smolensk guberniia in 1922 of a -35- • peasant delegatka who_, having bcc'Jme enthused delegats i meetings, to attend the village s There she was greeted with abuse. Party wo r recommended to r participation was of course legal- that develop a c ire underground. Once having formed a nucleus of consc krest 1 she might risk 1 ' forth openly. In one raion in Ivanovo-Vosnesensk rniia where the Zhenotdel was particularly act such a circle seemed have been formed as early as 1920. a gathering to elect members to the Soviet, there were present 48 women and 50 men. Under the pressure of the kulaks, as the ort reads, the candidate chosen was a former tavern ke r. The "baby11 raised a c against -to scorn of the men. But as a result of their energet oppos ion (encouraged presumably by the local Zhenotdel) sue- ceeded to draw to their side s peas men and a 11 cand was chosen from n baby side of skhod. 132 News of ory spread ever the entire volost. In comparative terms the numbers D -~ '?.sa:-,_"- YJ. touched by the culture the Revo ion in s first years was small, only thousands, when count ide of the USSR cons ted .5 million scatte sma -36- 133 farms. But that they reached and influenced rela- tive few women should not minimize the novelty of the Zhenotdel 1 s impact. Party was anxious to bring peasant women into political 1 because they res en- ted the most backward element of rural soc ; they had supported counter revo ion ing Civil \ifar and they could by ir res tance be a d we on Revolu- 11 tion. But mes to rr baby was couched in rms the trouble women might create as a negative influence on husband and ldren if t)ey were brought within the orbit of Soviet power. The mes was rather a feminist one. The nbaba11 was invit to focus on r own unhappy past as a woman. She was reminded the hardship of r l in Tsarist t s with a husband who beat r, but whom she could leave because divorce was not allowed, and who had the right to bring her back. She was urged to recall a t when she had no rights, when she was slave of husband, father, brothers, and 134 father-in-law. Peasant women at a meeting hear a -kerc fed Zhenotdel organizer declare: Comrades, remember your mother, wives, sisters, and how they lived. tening to the enthus tic young woman, Neverov 1 s Kat Dolga thought to herself: how good she would come to our village. This woman would really give to -37- 135 the ment The approach was t and occasionally so was the response. The Zhenotdel's message to st' empha- sized women's interests, her oppressed situation and her need to utilize her new rights. That an embryonic femi- nism was present from the outset, is s d a report from Ufa guberniia in 1920. mid a conference of worker and peasant women t spite the difficulty of movement, de the most remote uezds, 110 in all, of whom more were peasants. The delegates were imbued they were going to Ufa not for bread or to buy c on fabric 136 but for a "women's meeting." We have evidence that many krest'ianki res distrusted the Zhenotdel and that they to the proposal that they involve s 1 137 work. Yet we know also that here and there krest'ianki turned to the Zhenotdel netwo ir advocate and that an authentic interact devel ed between the Soviet network and female peasant soc There are reports of delegatki who were consc ious widow of a Red Army man, receiving a refusal from the sowing committee, .asked for help ka. -38- The latter demanded that the woman receive the land to 138 which she was entitled. In other instances a delegatka intervened in behalf of a pregnant woman during War Commu- nism' s era of obligatory labor citing the rights of preg- nant women which she had seen in a report at a delegatki meeting. The chairman of the village Soviet was obliged 139 to release the woman from the assigned work. The delegatka, in the case of peasant divorces, might be simi- 140 larly attentive to the property rights of the krest'ianka. Indeed evidence suggests that the "baba" responded readily to efforts to help her obtain her new legal rights. But 141 Party help of this sort was evidently sparse. Moshe Lewin writes that in general the Party member did not stand out from his fellows either in respect of political training or conduct. The image of the Party official was often that of the nachalnik, the boss who had to be obeyed. Underlying this attitude there was a funda- mental peasant indifference which, at times, turned to 142 disrespect or hostility. There were, of course, excep- tions. Some Communists won the respect of the villagers 143 thanks to their dedication and high moral qualities. The peasants reacted positively in such occasional instances and showed their appreciation. We find examples within the Zhenotdel netw9rk of Party workers who made it -39- a point to in the village that did not 144 view themse s as !lpoi:.Jer11 but simp as working women. A Party worker in Smolensk guberniia sc bed how, at the end of a de gatkii meeting, a young st'ianka begged her to come 'her village. The Party worker was moved by her of urgency. l that the young woman s emotional support, she the village and her, answering r stions. We became ·4~1.. ~ friends, concluded. At a meeting in Orel gube a volost organizer told a typical day spent r women for meet Toward evening you are tired talking, you have not ' and head hurts. But· always there is some krestt.ianka who invit~ you home for soup and bread urging, s e you 146 teach us for nothing, you must come to us and eat. was substantial in the gube ia by way of liberat women, concluded that on whole the Zhenotdel were c e to the local st 1 ianki. She pointed that in se areas where there was a krest'ianksii Dom, on the bazaar days so many women came seeking help, sometimes s in writing a tter, that it was necessary to put 147 them in line. -40- The conscientious wo r found indications in such signs that Communis were reaching the "baba.n Still, the evidence is ove most peasant women in the early years ion were either hostile or ind to then are we to explain puzzl c ion some Party wor- kers, implying qui the oppos peasant women, ' when they received spec at Communists, 148 began more than their husbands to r the regime. In certain instances, we are t ik rural acti- ' vists failed to influence men succeeded in organizing the women, appealing to ir underprivileged 149 position. Occasionally peas women became genuinely zealous. Indeed, a case was 0 a Communist who was reluctant to accept as Party ers two aders among the 11 babi' because the en thus disrupted 150 political meetings. If these observations can be rded as indica- tions of a positive response 11 bab:/' to the Soviet regime, neither should they be d sed as mere optimis- tic dreaming on the part of Communist women. Rather they indicate that occasionally workers vJere able to interact effectively with s st 1 ianki. se peasant women, of their own needs, responded apprec ively to the new -42- Footnotes 1. K.N. Samoilova, Krest'ianka i Sovetskaia Vlast'(~oscow, 192l),pp.l2-1 2. M. Lewin, Russian Peasants and Soviet Power ( ton, Illi~ois~ 1975), p.JJ. Hereafter M. Lewin. J. C~e peasant in Penza erniia replied to t:!:.e q:.. "' - • ' • . - . . .,..,. • ( ~· . - . - d 1 02 6 \ n. r:osn~ tsK~l., .L1:so uerevnl. •'·' scow-l.JenJ.n5:-a ·• _ / 1 • p. 110. :r.~. Lewin, p. J 7 • . ~ • . ;. C·ne s ..!ou ..... c no~, hov.-ever, be -~...._ ...... -;::_ a:se~ce cult;.;;.re. :r.. tte village of Viriati:-:o prier -:c -:te ?.e·,·::l~.. r:ic.:. p . v,...,...)< 19...,0) ( ~, "' c:.. -s .\ev. _._.· ... - t ,, ....nn. - .._ .,../ --""_.,I . enokhi: iz nabliudenii nad Russki= laZYKo= Dcsled~ikt Le-:. :917- "'0"'6 ,.. . '"'9~p' ..:.. ( .c. ' j•. c s c 0 w t ..L .:::. v ) • sn·c~o Tjo_ ~Li.'On P_li"\W$ :::.P? 1 ~ ""·'· 0 \ 7 • 1"iirn·a;l'· -~ .1. ~ 4 . .J...... ••-" "ov ' L' ;,. l:f. = r.• .. o;;.e :o :·.-.e -""' ,·:::...Jr:::ior••·• l.';'"-1' i p. 79. Hereafter, Sholokhov, tt ' 'r .._.1 8 • -..:.a!COV· .r-.O:::'OOOV, ;.:f•:..::c::....=L..=c=8:...... c:::....:::~c.=::::Dolrr-; (\' 2:: . 9. Fa~:..., e i::non E o:::-.anov, "3lack ? ~-:ers,u i:: .' ~ussiar: T.i tera ture Since the 4 1.- -;:;; ..,. 1 ..L • • , c'-ar: o•·" • "-clac"'...,J ~.. Fr~- ~ ++e"'... y ... s-"• ~p. ...,.'11 • 12. tz, ed., Russian Titerature Russi~n Lita~a~ure l9-E) , P· J (..~osco~, . 19'8)) , -~P· ~1.':1.5 - 16 • roL...., ..,.. reference to l.e:::.:: co~sult origi~2l edition. See trar.slation in Elisaveta 2. ~odern Russian Stories (London, 1943). pp. 121-164. 15. Xenia Gasiorowska, Women in Soviet Fiction (~isconsin, 1968), p. 26. Ur.fort~ately for the historian, i1legiti~acy stat~stics were not ~ . • . "'0 l ~. '"'1. ' ' k ept a..~..t.er ~-ne .. eve u .. ~on. s ee unpu..., .J..snea paper, Javid Ransel, "I11egi timacy in Pre evolutionary Rt:.ssia," p. 1. ?aper ser.ted tc :te AAASS, Philadelphia, November, 1980. - T p .,.,. -.:< •• 16_ . r._. an..~..erov, ~russK~, trans. Z. f,:itrov and J. 'Iat 17 . 1\ epu tevyi, " in A.S. l\everov, . 313-:4. p. 300. (Koscow-Petrograd, 1923), 198. 21. "And ron N epute-v-yi," p. 304. 22. :essica Smith, Wo~an in Soviet Russia (Kew Ycrk, 1928), pp. J1-J2. 2 .J·~ -·..:.::na, . . p • 4'·...,... 24. ~. Kubanin, Klassovaia sus~chnost.' krest'ianskikh khozia.:stv (:.:cwcow, 71-75. .:cr regu1e partition of :he Dvor, see 3. -C~ ki. Krest'ianskii Dvor i semeino-imushctestvennve rezdelv scow, 1926) a:::d ~.~. To.::.asr.evskii, Zakonv o nas1ed s tven::1os :i v !::rest' ia::1skc:n khcziais tve ?~r sta sties or. So et village Feasa~ts and Soviet ?ower, p. 81. 27. Ibid., p. 26. J. 28. Ibid, P• 81. A bedniak was a poor peasant. A batrak was an agricultural wage laborer employed by private peasants or by their c ommu:n.i ties. 29. See Lydia Se.i:fullina, "The Old ·r;orr:an," pp • .398-99 and Iakov Korobov, Katia Dolea, p. 18. 30. See K.N. Sartoilova, Krest'ia:lka 1. Sove-:skaia Vlast•, p. 19. Jl. F. I. Pan:ferov, ~russki, nu. 162, 164. }2. Leo Tolstoy, Ar~~a Kareni~a (Kew York, 1961), p. 605. 33. See .;~toni~a r~:art~lnova, tt!.:i fe of as F.e_ ec-;eC. ir: ?opular Lul1abyes," ir: David .z-\,a::se..!.,- ~ ., 'Lhe ~ 1 :::.~...£a:..:m:!.'~:.J..=l.,.v--=i::.:;r.:.." -==-· =r:-=::;:...;;e:..:r;;..;l.=.. :::::.:::~.=1:...... :.?.::..:,i..l:::' s=s-=i;a ( U rca r..a , I ll inc is , • J... 7..,...f..-.... 85 • J4. Ibid, p. 172. 35· F. I. Fanferov, Erusski, P· 20. J6. Anto:r:ina Kartynova, "Life of the Fre-?.evolu-:ionar-y Village as F.eflected in Popular Lul1ab.:es," p. 172. 37. Kc:r:.rnur_istka, no. 3-5 (1922). p. 33. i:; ..-0 38. For a sense of the importance of the cow ..~.o--..a.- cf l1baba", see 2or.anov, .. E ck ?~itters.·' 39. Xenia sicro·~~·ska, ·,;omen i-:: So·v·iet F_iction, p. 28. 40. Lev Tolstoy, V~est' t '~v·. with Party ac-:ivity and hence little sense of a ~ew cu:ture. See 42. E. ?reobrazhensk.:i i~ Kom~~nistka, no. 7(1920), . 19-20. 43. K.r~. Sa=.::)ilova, !~rest· iank2 i Sovetskai2 ·v·lcs't,, d t--:· .r: .f.:" 0 f\) '.,...... ~lj t:' {':' CRl +· ...... _ l...tl U\ -...) o-, \..1\ + I 1·-' 0 0 0 '0 en ~: ::r 1\l \.,) 1-• 'i n' 0 ell (fl (Jl If) I· ' t~! ~ C,.i (!J t:1 11 II> 0 C.t n tn ~ lj 0 CJ' . Ill (l j t·.l td .,.: ..., (II ({l :·1 ~H; Ill ~·1 n . t·-"t ~~ en i ::r ~··· {f) (1) :>; 'tJ ~i ~ ~J p• I·" fil < I· ! l I" p, rn ~ n r+ 1·-' til IU 'I ! I I I·'• .... (ll' .. en ;T ::r (ll ...... ,.... 'c1 ' ., r: (/) () f--' ~.1:1 o' (!) d 0 d· •; :1 'd ~n _...nUl ~ \H:ixf;:;\\~E;u;~~~~~r~:~~lJ-·----, r 1.\) 1\l ...... ,... (!) ,.. ~ )' 0 d·o II' ,;,:.-.....-.- ...:.:. :_:_:.,.!_!..!.:;.:IJ___j ;t: > ro "0 0 tl' t.J ttl (') t/1 rrl llJ 1\) N f~ 0 ~,· ;::;~ '1 .. , 0 ttl J\1 () f'l S"~ '" g, ~,. ftl rl fl, n·, I" i m J\l 'I : 1 I I ! 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'tl rn r; {\) '1 'l: ::'' :1 (fl o' t<1 {\l 0 Ill p, 'i : 1 u' ({) > I···' 1\l !i (' ...... 0 ~ en !J ....t' ••--.,tl"""'#·~· ----~---- "' :" .. 'tl :.i trl 't-1 co 0 :1)1 0 0 ,J .....1' • • .. ' ·' ... :.:1* 0 \() (l) N r+ orl ( r·· ... ~.:.: < 1\l \ fll V'l Ill 1\) l)l 0 (!I )\) '<·--· ) ...... ~ t--J :t·,. (/)I hi ;.. 1 ~~ r; ~ ..~. (ll fll .. 11 ~ .... H '1rT~ ()n ,.,. 0 r1 'd rn "' r. _, 1·-· OJ :1 • t ~- I'll 'tl (l) ~· 'i I_, I·' :; 'tj (ll ~ l1 " :t' := ~ t\) I j c-+ r~ J• () rH \() ~" d < t j ·~~ ~.1· \ . .J d· (ll 0 ...... \_..) c+ ~!, ·.•• 1>-· tskii, Litso Dere~~i, pp. 92-93· 54. pp. 92-93. 55· p. 107. Although adults were ge~erally ne 'tive to idea of literacy-trainir~, in those villages where cultural work was extensive. even older wo:r.en went vdllingly to the "likpu:-Jn; ... ..,.,_~d "11'"\6 ~~ P· .:...v • Krest'ia~ka i Sovetskaia V1ast', pp. 28-29. 57.~· P. ~czit, ?rove~ka ~abotv NizovoEo ~unarata v Derevne, p.79. )8. ck soc 1 cor:science, seeK. Lewin, p. ..._.., 96-:<'_,,, P• 6 • The average early ccr::~ur:e co~sisted of about 50 ;eo~le . Ibid, p. 121. As of er::ber 1918, th~e were 1, 384 comr:u...v:es registered but the actual n~~ber was hig~er. See Bukharin in 1 018 ...... ' . :. ~ , 7 Dece::"oe~ , _, as c1~ea ~n ~essen, u. ~~ . Co1lectivis"t -::e::1:ier:cies were al·ways there to sor::e ex :en: amo::1g the peasantry. - . -~ t" . . . . See t .P· 108. ~ut cc~~ec 1VlSt ~e~Genc~es 1n regard to cne·s own econo=ic advanta is not t.~e sa=e thir:g as a social co~scie~ce. 59. K. ~. Sa~oilova, Krest':anka i Sovetsk~ia Vlast', pp. 24, 29. /,., ., Cv. r:c::=:.:~.. is tka, :r:.c. (1921) • p. J~~e l, ljl9 as ci~ed i~ ~ober~ Wesson, Soviet Cc~ur.es, p. 216. 62. ?ar:lsworth. P• 320n ~- , p • LlC. 64. se co~ents on ~,.~c::.en in cc=.::u::es ci-:ed in i:esson, p' 216. Tretiakov descr~ted is F. Lezhr:ev-Fir..ko-·.rskii, Sovkhozy i 6. (Moscow, 1928) p. 187 as cited in Robert t-iesson, p. 260, 14). Also see A. F. Cr~yga, Oche~ki no Istorii Y.holkhozno~o Dvizheniia na Ukraine P• .;_..., ..L.::::... - • See h.:_.. Strong, The Sovie~s·cono~e~ ~~eat (~ew York, pp. 121-22 on'?ortress See A. F. CI-..::~·ga, p. 92 for widows o.:-ga zing kclk~J:y !n early years of t~e Revol~~icn. l 0 _..,. I t P· -.I· - ' - -- i 0?1 \ 69. See ~c.;\_:_:; / t l2-~ -.r--1 I pp. 66-67 . •i..T:":'::y w:. ves. r 72. :t·id, r:o.J(l924), p. 26. P• c not have 2S :ne unit a:1d were t~.:..lS 74. 'Ihe :f.. c :s ,..., -- ..... / ..... -- .... ,... ,.....,, .. 2 :· 1 :-_o.J. ):,-;c. • ----C"' .. ...; ~ s t r. ~" ~ - .... as a rer..ed~r 2. ._ .:.e:-.. ::: -\.<':. e l. s p c:-.. s ·: =-e:. - .,....,,..... -:;:;.r-. i:: ~0 ...... -- ...... ·- ..... ::--.e c , ... _, __ . 75· / \l.':L:::_. t 76. :. Kcrcbov, ~a:·a Dcl~a, . "' 7? . --..t.. 8:!.G, P• J?. ?E. l.:..J-L.I..;.. :tiC., P· _____ , -~... .:;,.:; _.,_,_"- • 7· 81. N. Rosnitskii, Litso Derevni, p:p. 38-39· 82. Kommunistka, no. 6 (1923), p. 39. 83. KommQ~istka, no. 3-4 (1923), p. 46. 84. Komm~~istka, no. 3-4 (192)), p. 47. 85. Korrrrnu.nistka 1 no. 3-4 (1923), P• 47. 86. Ko::-=.u."':istka! no. 8 (1923), P• 29. 87. Ko::.:nt;,r;i s tka, no. 6 (1923), P• 39· r . . '":<9 88 • ~. P· .,.~ • . . . ?or collec~:.. ve p·u.rcr:as~r~g orga::.lza-::::to::s, see 3-4 (1923), p. 52 and p. 33. 90. N. Rosr:i tskii 1 "T,i tso : ere,.. ;;.i, P• c.:s:~us't of cooperatives, Ibid, pp. 52-55· 91. The nu.~ber was s~all, sou~ce indicated, :-:er cooperatives. 180,000 were have joined the agricultural coopera-cives • .::-e;:;sica S:::-_it~, .. c·::-.a::-: L< in Soviet ?.ussia, p. . -' . prese~ce of ~~o t~rses suggests a re tively prosperous arte~. See V.A. Sid~rov, 93. SeeN. Rosnitskii, Ti~sc ~erev~e, ;.81 inten-:::i or.s of Co~~unis-::: activists were not out. 94. So~eti~es with unhappy results. of a tusband in renza 2 choral circle. She re=ained in the group. ~. ~c ~skii, i:i:so 'Cerevr: i. 113. 8. 95. Korr~unistka, no. 10~1111921), p. 47 for indication as to the kind of reading material dissemir~ted in Saratov. See p. 48 for publications aimed at peasant wc::en. 96. Otchet otdela Ts~~KP (b) DO racc~e sredi zhenshchin za god ratoty (Moscow, 1921), p. 28; Ko~unist~a, no. 6-7 (1922), pp. 6-7. 97. Ko~unistka, no. 12-13 {1921), p. 55 98. Ko~~~istka, no. 7(1920), p. J4. 99. Otctet otdela Tsr~~K?(b) DO rabote sredi zte~shchin za £od rabotv (~oscow, l92l),p.2?. 100. I. Korobov, Katia Dol£a , p. 101. 101. For we:: en at early ::ee-=ings, see E. 3octkareva a~-~ S. Li ubi!:lc va, Svetlvi PU~' (J\'joscow, 1967), pp. 36-89 and tr.e c!"'.apter "kr-as:1Yi pla~ochek" on the delegatka. 102. I. Korobov, Katia DolEa~ p. 101. 103. Ibid, p. 110. 104. Gail -w. Lapidus, "Sexual E<:!t:.ality in Soviet Policy," in J. Atkinson, et al., no~en in ~~ssia (Stanford, 1977), p. 121. 105. ~. Lewin, p. 105. 106. The gu.cernii wer-e: :!:aroslav, Sir::"":iirsk, Vladimir, Severr:aia- 10 11 >='""' : -::::.--....;::,~ ;..~ ; t·;.. 'P- - • f ,.... -he c--c - ----· (1021\., J, pp. 4c , 42 .• e ...... a.l..e ------"-s, ... p ... n •. e • c::.r~.:J o_ ~-·- ~c.--- ~~be~ii was 6,499· Ibid, 40, ~2. I~e ac~~2~ r.~~~ers were probably . ' . r-.~••.J..O··-- --~or s J..~ce ~r.e!'e ,.~ere ::o l~sted for =ria~sk or )~oscow. Only 8 gubernii listed c.-::-.y peasant worr:en as :::e::bers of :;;e Farty: Iaros1av, Vladimir, Kost~=a, ~~rsk, Gome1', Severr~ia-~vi~. Kiztegorod, and Ivanovo-Voz~ese-::-~k. .• ,.h d· \.]\ 1-' [\l :·1 rn ~tl I··' C I' I·" r+ 0 'd ,.... d 'rf :~-: -:9 ro fl\1 ~-· :1 ·• () ~.1<1 Hl 0 0 :s: ....., lj 0 ~..: 0 ~J :j ;1 ~:r () (!) I j ••~ ...... :] () :J' ,. 0 6 '1 >I. w s:: '.() ,... .. <.n rtl ro . "' (I,) ~J ()' 0 fD til 0 ru 0 (1) d· ~ ,1,~ 0 'i '1 'i ...., (!) n. {/) r+ li c-i 1-' •rj ru (!) 'f (Jll ~· ~~"' t-1 <<1) () (1) 0 0 ,_, .... co I..J ...., 1-'• I..J 1-J• ~ 'd ~ :;s;l \1) '1 'c1 ....., 0 ill t-3 t.l q (l) 'i CD VI 0 l\l (!) ~: ~ t:1 '< :-.; ~~ 'i f\1 ru '1 N ~J· Ul ([) ! ~ 0 ~ 0 (!) 1\) Cli t·:J ...... (() 1-J• 0 (I) H, II) en <0 ,....,_ ('0 0 s...: 0 't::1 ru ~J Ul H (f) (/) ~·_,. (\l 1-J• ::t ~"'· (I) I 1-' n .~. ('0 I'll 1-' I 'J d· rn (!) ...... d f), : :1 t 0 11 m s (l) (0 ~.; •rJ 1-' ~l :l :·1 (!) (1) to< t:;J f {1921), PP• 54-55· 112. Ko~~unistka, no. 10-11 (1921), p. 43. 113. Kom~unistka, no. 10 (1923), p. 29. 114. Kommunistka, no. 8 (1923), p. 29. 115. See Kommunistka, no. 8-9 (1922), p. 35 on peasant resen~ent. "Patronage" (she tvo) of city co::nmunists over village g.:-oups SG~eti~es worked out badly and antagonized the sants. For l2ck o~ se~si~i _ty to the 116. Kornmu:r1is tka., no. 7 (l?2C) , P· 33 . ,-7J... .1 • r:o. (1920) t ...; Ko:nnmni s tka , ../" . 15. 118. The age of the dele was usually 20 tc ~0. no. 10 (1923), p. 29. A report from Penza g~be_ ~2 is i .-ica:ive however, of the underl~·ing rr:ooo of the peasant wc:::er: -:oward S:.lch public work. One "ba':::a" registe:::-ing !':erself as 2 dele -:e :..r. the hope that she would receive some ber:e t, crcssec when she lea~ed that -:he del tka d not receive any s;ecial advanta s. N. Ro tskii, Ti-:sc ~e:::-evn~, p. 113. 119. Koffi:nunistka, no • (1923), P· 30. ..,...... ~,..., 120. l.D::LG, P· )\J• 122. Otchet otdela TsK:Z!:P (b) no rabo"".:e sredi z!·H:r:shc!"'.i::'"1 :.a <:o::i rabotv (Koscow, 1921), p. 28. Eereaf-:er G:c~e-:. l2J. Ibid, ;;. 25. 124. Ko~~unistka, ~o. 10-ll (1921), p. 46. 125. Ctchet, P· 25. 126. Otchet, !J•~ 21. '.F !"a}:ti ~-:s received political indoc-:ri~atic~ fro2 the Zhenotdel and they served in Soviet institutio~s. ll. 127. Kommunistka. no. 5(1920), n. 15. 3ut seeN. Rosnitskii, Litso Jerevni , p. 112 on ~ackward a~~itudes toward wo~en in public life in other areas of Fe~:a rni 128. Ko~~~~istka, no. l-2 (1920), p. )8. 129. Kom.rr:unistka, no. 5 (1920). p. 15. ~n r .,... . t k. . -. • ...., . 1~)v. ~' • .r<.osn~ s L~~, .u~ ~.so .uerevn~, p. 112. "~~u~is+ka no 8-Q·11C22'; p 131. K \J_t...... J.- v t ... "" • o# t: ~ ~\ - / t • 35· Or. l r:icipating in the Skhot, see V.P. "Ze::::el'::ye vel. ~, nc.J (~ay- 19 58)' p. 98. But c:.cccrdir:g ~o r-.·:;sr ": ,..... c;. ~--c. ~~.-;er:t:es abou--c -·...... \...< ... ~~ ..... ~ . C ic5. -:v.:en ty years earl.:er. . . to participate in the skhod end to pa~ticipa~e -, e.:..e :::::lc:::.s -:c the Soviet. Women were ~reated ...... ~ pe~it them in ~he s£ncc; l! -:~ey came, they· at:ls ...... at them. R osn~~,s:r::.~. D. 112 • 132. Kcrr.Inunistka, no. l-2 ll92C), p. ~ lJJ. A.V. Chayanov, -....~ _._.- - Siith {Eo~ewood, Il~inois, (. Iakov, Korobov, ...JO.l.E2., r~orr:rr:ur:.i stka, no. l-2 (192C), p. ;9. 1.39· ~o1n. no. P· 141. Ibid, p. llJ. r; -- 142. K. Lewin. p. 125. ;.:;;ee ., . ?\cs::i ts}:ii, : ~-:.: for exa=ples of peasants who once becoming Party members were able to enrich tr.emselves. 143. K. Lewin, p. 125. 144. Ec:r::-:u:1istka, no. 8-9 (1922), p. 35. 1/,5-"'!'" • 14-7. :~o:::r:unistka, :10. c-9 (1921), P• 55· d, 1923), P· 2.97. - ~ - ..... "' - - . ' 1_50. :...;.r. noz.:~, ~~~~~~~:~~~~~~-~~~.~.~~~~~~-~~;~- '"'~·