The Family in Soviet Russia

The Family in Soviet Russia By Sidney Webb [The following article is the last in aflowing tides of the rival soldiery in series of six which Sidney Webb, the the two years of civil war, for which leading exponent of Fabian socialism thein “White” armies, strengthened by England, has contributed toC u r r e n t H i s t o r y. In these articles he has presented the contingents of the United States, an account of many phases of the ComJapan, Great Britain, France and munist experiment in the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, were at least as much basing his discussion upon personal ob servation and his long experience in theresponsible as the Soviet Government. study of social problems.] Many more have naturally died in the fifteen years that have elapsed. But N no part of the life of Sovietby far the greater number got away Russia is there in other counin the successive emigrations, and Otries so much difference of assertionthey and their families now perma (if not of opinion) as on what is hapnently form part of the population, pening to the institution of the famnot of Soviet Russia, but of France ily. On no subject, perhaps, is it soand Italy, Austria and Poland, Ru difficult to make either an accuratemania and Greece, Great Britain and or a convincing statement coveringthe United States. Only the minutest either all aspects of the inquiry or allfraction of what was itself never more parts of the U. S. S. R. Let us try than a tiny section of the whole popu to build up, from some significantlation is now in the U. S. S. R., and fragments of the problem, the nearthis infinitesimal remnant seems est approach that can be made to asilently to have disappeared into the general conclusion. proletarian mass. We must begin by realizing the How much Russia has lost, on the nature and the magnitude of thedisappearance of practically all its changes that the revolution hasupper and middle class women of lei wrought in the position, first of thesure with their standards of value and women of Soviet Russia, and then theirof refinement of manners, it would the children and adolescents. Here, be hard to estimate. Of educated wo paradoxically enough, we may fairlymen engaged in professional work leave out of account the only classes(as doctors, scientists, teachers or of women and children about whomwriters, or in music, dancing or the Western Europe and America everdrama) the number was formerly knew much! The tiny fraction ofrelatively small; and of such of these aristocratic women, together with the as have not emigrated with the governess-trained wives and daughwealthier classes, a considerable pro ters of the lesser nobility, of the highportion seem to have accepted, more er government officials, of some ofor less sympathetically, the new the rural landlords and of the fewregime, under which they promptly wealthy employers, have practicallyfound their feet and continued their disappeared from the Russian comcareers amid the rapidly growing munity. Some few were killed in thenumber of women professionals. wild uprising of the peasantry in the What we have to concentrate atten first few months of the revolution,tion on is, none of these relatively and some more in the outrages andsmall groups, but the great bulk of reprisals that marked the ebbing andthe adult women of pre-war Russia, at 52 THE FAMILY IN SOVIET RUSSIA 53 least nine-tenths of the whole, who Now let us see what changes have were either the hard-working wives, occurred or are in progress. The first daughters or widows of peasants,thing that the Bolshevik revolution fishers or hunters or of independentbrought to the women of Russia was handicraftsmen, or else domestic ser their complete legal and constitutional vants in superior households, or emancipation;(in the second was their relatively small numbers) factory opeducation on an equality with men; eratives, chiefly in textiles. There is and the third was such a planning of little information available as to whatthe social and economic environment that mystic entity “the family” inas could be devised to lighten, as far fact amounted to among these vastas practicable, the exceptional burdens hordes of hard-working women, butof the maternal and domestic func pre-war native literature gives a darktions incident upon their sex. Thus picture. The great majority of themwomen over 18 were at once given were illiterate and superstitious andvotes on the same conditions as men, in complete subjection to their huswith equal trade-union and co-opera bands or fathers. It is not usually retive membership, and equal eligibility membered that a large proportion offor promotion. All occupations and all them, possibly as many as one-fourth,positions were thrown open to both were Mohammedans, and were habitusexes. No distinction is made between ally veiled, with the status and ignothe sexes in wages or salaries, holi rance that this implies. days or insurance benefits. No woman Housing is still the weakest pointis deprived of her job on marriage, in Soviet Russia, but in Czarist times,though she may, and often does, prefer the homes of nine-tenths of the wholeto abandon it, perhaps only for a term population, whether in town or counof years, for child-bearing and moth try, were universally unsanitary, overerhood. The laws relating to marriage crowded and filthy, to a degree unand divorce, and their privileges and known in any but the worst of responsibilities,the have been made the city slums of Western Europe. Thesame for women as for men. It must be peasants were as continually deciadded that women working in indus mated by disease, recurrent faminetrial factories have been accorded and premature death as in the Europecertain special privileges and protec of the Middle Ages. They had next to tion in the interests of the children no medical attendance. No doubtno less than those of the mothers, mothers loved their children, as they such as sixteen weeks’ continuous do everywhere, but it is clear that the leave of absence on full pay round child damage-rate and the infantile about their confinements, the right of death-rate were alike enormous. Practaking time off without 16ss of pay to tically every workingwoman was agednurse their babies every few hours before she was 50. As to the marital and the provision of a creche at every fidelity of husbands or the chastity ofindustrial establishment, at which the the unmarried daughters, there were young children may be safely left naturally no statistics. But he wouldthroughout the working day. be the most sentimental of optimists, These changes, which few would with the least possible acquaintanceobject to characterizing as reforms, with peasant or factory life, who couldwere, unlike so many that we have imagine that, in these respects, pre heard of, not merely enshrined in war Russia was any different fromlegislation. The visitor to the U. S. the Britain or the Germany of the S. R. cannot fail to see them nearly seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,everywhere in operation. In the vari about which we seldom think orous technical schools he will notice speak. nearly as many girls as boys, learning 54 CURRENT HISTORY, APRIL, 1933 to be engineers or carpenters, elecbut also no inquiry as to whether a tricians or machinists. In every facwoman is or is not married or the tory that he passes through—and notmother of children. There is, accord merely in the textile and clothingingly, in Soviet Russia no such dis trades—he sees women working sidecouragement of matrimony as exists by side with men, at the lathe, the in Great Britain and some other bench or the forge, often sharing incountries, where the hundreds of the heaviest and most unpleasantthousands of women who are school tasks as well as in the skilled procteachers, civil servants and municipal esses. Women work in and about theemployes are, in effect, forbidden to mines and the oil fields equally withmarry, under penalty of instantly the men. On board the Soviet mercanlosing their employment. tile marine there is a steadily in All this concerns, however, in the creasing number of women sailors,main, the women of the rapidly grow engineers and wireless operators,ing cities and other urban aggrega usually dressed as men, as well as tions all over the U. S. S. R., together stewards and cooks and cleaners. Awith such of the vocations, like teach large majority of the school teachers ing, doctoring and administration, as and more than one-half of all thehave to be exercised in town and younger doctors are women. In all thecountry alike. The great majority of offices women swarm not only as stethe women of Soviet Russia, as well nographers but also as translators,as of the men, are connected with confidential secretaries and responsiagriculture (together with hunting ble executive assistants. and fishing) or essentially with rural Not a few institutions and estabpursuits. What has happened to the lishments in the U. S. S. R. are under wives and daughters in the 25,000,- women directors or managers, often000 families of individual peasants, having under them many hundredsfishers and hunters? To them the of men as well as women. Thus therevolution has brought the same legal present director of the vast Park ofand constitutional emancipation as to Culture and Rest at Moscow, whichthe women in industry and the pro has 3,000 men and women employedfessions. Even in the extensive areas in its varied establishments, is a woin which Islam prevailed, the women man.

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