CAROL EUBANKS HAYDEN (Berkeley, Calif., U.S.A.)

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

CAROL EUBANKS HAYDEN (Berkeley, Calif., U.S.A.) CAROL EUBANKS HAYDEN (Berkeley, Calif., U.S.A.) The Zhenotdel and the Bolshevik Party ' The February Revolution of 1917 in Russia was sparked on International Women's Day by mass demonstrations of women in Petrograd who opposed the deprivations resulting from Russia's involvement in the First World War. A massive strike movement, of which women formed the militant leading edge, swept the old regime from power. The appearance of large numbers of Russian women in radical street demonstrations, and the prominent role played by women in initiating the events which led to the overthrow of the autocracy, were unprecedented in Russian history. Since the war had led to the increased employment of women in the Russian labor force, by 1917 one-third of Petrograd's factory workers were women; in the textile-producing areas of the central industrial region, 50 percent or more of the work force in many of the factories was composed of women.1 Following the February demonstrations, observers of many political tendencies were quick to note new possibilities for organizing women politically. Both the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks announced their intention to begin publication of special working women's newspapers (Rabotnitsa-the Bolshevik paper and Golos rabotnitsy-the Menshevik paper). The Socialist Revolutionaries proposed the formation of a "union of women's democratic organizations," which would unite trade-union and party organizations under the slogan of a democratic republic. The liberal "League for the Equal Rights of Women" moved quickly to organize a mass demonstration calling for electoral rights for women.2 In the months after the February Revolution, a small number of Bolshevik women in Petrograd and Moscow took the initiative in beginning and organizing the Party's work among women: among them were A. M. Kollontai, Inessa Armand, N. K. Krupskaia, K. I. Nikolaeva, V. Slutskaia, Roza Kovnator, L. N. Stal', P. F. Kudelli, and A. I. Ul'ianova (Lenin's sister). Most of these women had been involved prior to 1917 in urging the Bolshevik Party to take an interest in organizing women, and many of them had been associated with the publication of 1. For an interesting account of the role of women in the February demonstrations and strike movement, see Anne Bobroff, "The Bolsheviksand WorkingWomen, 1905-1920," Soviet Studies, 26, No. 4 (Oct. 1974). Concerning women in the labor force: Akademiia nauk SSSR, Istoriia rabochikh Leningrada, 1703-1965, 2 vols. (Leningrad: Izd. "Nauka," 1972), II, 31; A. Riazanova, "Rabotnitsa v proizvodstve,"Kommunistka, [hereafter K] No. 3 (March 1924). 2. Pravda [hereafterP], 9 March 1917; Rabochaia gaieta, 15 April 1917; Delo rcaroda,21 March and 29 March 1917. (In this paper all dates prior to October, 1917, are given Old Style, unless otherwise indicated.) 151 the journal Rabotnitsa for a brief period in 1914. All of them (except Slutskaia, who was killed in 1917) later became leaders of the Bolshevik Women's Department (Zhenotdel).3 The Bolshevik women based their political analysis of the "woman question" on accepted Marxist theory (Engels, Bebel) and on the work of native Russian Marxists, such as Kollontai and Krupskaia, whose writings on the position of women in Russia had become an accepted part of Bolshevik political literature by 1917. The Bolshevik approach toward women stressed that women workers, as a proletariat of "recent levy," were the most culturally and politically backward sector of the working class in Russia, and that, through their passivity in the face of oppression, women had acted as a brake on the development of the working-class movement. Bolshevik literature also dealt extensively with the special position of women as the most oppressed sector of the exploited masses as a whole, and of the working class in particular. Women workers were subject to the dual oppression of household drudgery and wage slavery; they were discriminated against on the job, in the family, and in terms of social and political rights. There were thus theoreti- cally two rationales for a special Party approach toward women. On the one hand the Bolsheviks felt that the political backwardness of women posed a threat to the revolutionary movement; on the other hand they recognized that a special effort would be necessary to raise women from their doubly-oppressed status.4 - In 1917 the Bolsheviks were faced with the need to compete for the allegiance . of women workers with other political tendencies of the left and with newly ' developing feminist organizations. In response, the Bolsheviks reaffirmed their traditional anti-feminist position, stressing that the interests of women workers were identical with those of the proletariat as a whole and quite distinct from the interests of the female "bourgeois equal-righters." The Bolsheviks argued that bourgeois feminism was an attempt to obscure the class interests of women workers by proposing that all women had common interests over and above their interests as members of a particular class; bourgeois feminism would serve to co-opt women workers by directing their energies into a movement which concentrated only on political rights for women. The Bolsheviks' opposition to the "equal-righters" was intensified by the feminists' support for Russia's war effort.5 3. For a survey of the history of the journal Rabotnitsa [hereafter R and brief biograph- ical sketches of the women involvedin its publication, see V. Vavilina, ed., Rabotnitsa, vsegdas vami (Moscow:Izd. "Pravda," 1964). 4. For examples illustrating Bolshevik literature on the woman question, see N. K. Krupskaia, Zhenshchina-rabotnitsa (Tipografiia "Iskry," 1901); A. Kollontai, Sotsial'nyia , osnovy zhenskago voprosa (St. Petersburg: Izdanie "Znanie," 1909); R (Feb.-June 1914); P 1971, pcrssim;KPSS, Listovki Petrogradskikh bol'shevikov, 3 vols. (Leningrad: Lenizdat, 1957), II-III, passim; KPSS, Listovki Moskovskoiorganizatsii bol'shevikov, 1914-1925 (Moscow:Gos. izd. polit. lit., 1954), passim. 5. E. Tarasova, "Pod znamenem bol'shevikov," in A. V. Artiukhina, et al., eds., Zhenshchiny v revoliutsii (Moscow: Gos. izd. polit. lit., 1959); A. Kollontai, "Avtobiograf- icheskii ocherk," Proletarskaia revoliutsiia, No. 3 (1922); V. Bil'shai, Reshenie zhenskogo .
Recommended publications
  • Citizens-In-Training in the New Soviet Republic’ Gender & History, Vol.13 No.3 November 2001, Pp
    05_Wood 08/10/2001 1:50 pm Page 524 (Black plate) Gender & History ISSN 0953–5233 Elizabeth A. Wood, ‘The Trial of the New Woman: Citizens-in-Training in the New Soviet Republic’ Gender & History, Vol.13 No.3 November 2001, pp. 524–545. The Trial of the New Woman: Citizens-in-Training in the New Soviet Republic Elizabeth A. Wood Our task consists in making politics accessible for every labouring woman and in teaching every [female] cook [kukharka] to run the government. – Vladimir Lenin, Third Congress of Soviets, 1918 The accusations were flying thick and fast against the defendant. She had pretensions to running the government and meddling in public affairs. She had taken part in strikes and demonstrations. She was trying to put all women on an equal footing with men. She had destroyed her own femininity, ceasing to be an object of beauty and pleasure for men, ceasing as well to raise her children and, instead, giving them into others’ hands. All these things, it was alleged, con- tradicted woman’s very nature, which was to serve as decoration in men’s lives. The setting was The Trial of the New Woman. The prosecution witnesses included a factory director, a lady secretary, a rich peasant, a priest, and a traditional family woman. The so-called ‘bourgeois’ court initially found the defendant guilty, but then workers appeared on stage, and her judges ran away. Her rights were restored, and she was recognised to be ‘equal to men in all respects’. This Trial of the New Woman was, of course, a mock trial, and the new woman herself emerged as the heroine of the play.
    [Show full text]
  • Utopian Visions of Family Life in the Stalin-Era Soviet Union
    Central European History 44 (2011), 63–91. © Conference Group for Central European History of the American Historical Association, 2011 doi:10.1017/S0008938910001184 Utopian Visions of Family Life in the Stalin-Era Soviet Union Lauren Kaminsky OVIET socialism shared with its utopian socialist predecessors a critique of the conventional family and its household economy.1 Marx and Engels asserted Sthat women’s emancipation would follow the abolition of private property, allowing the family to be a union of individuals within which relations between the sexes would be “a purely private affair.”2 Building on this legacy, Lenin imag- ined a future when unpaid housework and child care would be replaced by com- munal dining rooms, nurseries, kindergartens, and other industries. The issue was so central to the revolutionary program that the Bolsheviks published decrees establishing civil marriage and divorce soon after the October Revolution, in December 1917. These first steps were intended to replace Russia’s family laws with a new legal framework that would encourage more egalitarian sexual and social relations. A complete Code on Marriage, the Family, and Guardianship was ratified by the Central Executive Committee a year later, in October 1918.3 The code established a radical new doctrine based on individual rights and gender equality, but it also preserved marriage registration, alimony, child support, and other transitional provisions thought to be unnecessary after the triumph of socialism. Soviet debates about the relative merits of unfettered sexu- ality and the protection of women and children thus resonated with long-standing tensions in the history of socialism. I would like to thank Atina Grossmann, Carola Sachse, and Mary Nolan, as well as the anonymous reader for Central European History, for their comments and suggestions.
    [Show full text]
  • Zhenotdel, Russian Women and the Communist Party, 1919-1930
    RED ‘TEASPOONS OF CHARITY’: ZHENOTDEL, RUSSIAN WOMEN AND THE COMMUNIST PARTY, 1919-1930 by Michelle Jane Patterson A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of History University of Toronto © Copyright by Michelle Jane Patterson 2011 Abstract “Red ‘Teaspoons of Charity’: Zhenotdel, the Communist Party and Russian Women, 1919-1930” Doctorate of Philosophy, 2011 Michelle Jane Patterson Department of History, University of Toronto After the Bolshevik assumption of power in 1917, the arguably much more difficult task of creating a revolutionary society began. In 1919, to ensure Russian women supported the Communist party, the Zhenotdel, or women’s department, was established. Its aim was propagating the Communist party’s message through local branches attached to party committees at every level of the hierarchy. This dissertation is an analysis of the Communist party’s Zhenotdel in Petrograd/ Leningrad during the 1920s. Most Western Zhenotdel histories were written in the pre-archival era, and this is the first study to extensively utilize material in the former Leningrad party archive, TsGAIPD SPb. Both the quality and quantity of Zhenotdel fonds is superior at St.Peterburg’s TsGAIPD SPb than Moscow’s RGASPI. While most scholars have used Moscow-centric journals like Kommunistka, Krest’ianka and Rabotnitsa, this study has thoroughly utilized the Leningrad Zhenotdel journal Rabotnitsa i krest’ianka and a rich and extensive collection of Zhenotdel questionnaires. Women’s speeches from Zhenotdel conferences, as well as factory and field reports, have also been folded into the dissertation’s five chapters on: organizational issues, the unemployed, housewives and prostitutes, peasants, and workers.
    [Show full text]
  • RICHARD STITES (Lima, Ohio, U.S.A.) Zhenotdel: Bolshevism And
    RICHARD STITES (Lima, Ohio, U.S.A.) Zhenotdel: Bolshevism and Russian Women, 1917-1930 From reading about the early years of Soviet history in the vast majority of textbooks and accounts, the student the ' general might easily carry away impression that nothing of enduring significance went on in Russia between the inauguration of NEP in 1921 and the beginnings of industrialization in 1928 except the struggle for power between Stalin and his enemies. Materials on social innovation, experi- mentation, and popular mobilization are usually relegated to separate chapters subordinate to the "main" story. This is the result partially of our Western pre- occupation with purely political events and personalities; but partially also, it would seem, of a reluctance to grant excessive space to the positive achievements of the Russian Revolution. The campaigns against anti-Semitism and illiteracy, the labor schools and the mass edication drives, and the variety of morally inspired egalitarian and affirmative action movements-in other words, early "communism"-receive short shrift in most Western studies. This is all the more regrettable since much of the educational and liberation work done in these years, though certainly pushed into the background under Stalin, really constitutes the social and psychological foundations of present-day Soviet life. Nowhere is this truer than in the Zhenotdel campaign to emancipate Russian women in the years 1917 to 1930. Zhenotdel, the women's section of the Communist Party, had a pre-history. The first generally known Russian work dealing with the problem of women from a Marxist viewpoint was Krupskaia's pamphlet, The Woman Worker, written in Siberia and published in 1900.
    [Show full text]
  • Rabotnitsa” from 1970-2017 Anastasiia Utiuzh University of South Florida, [email protected]
    University of South Florida Scholar Commons Graduate Theses and Dissertations Graduate School March 2018 The orP trayal of Women in the Oldest Russian Women’s Magazine “Rabotnitsa” From 1970-2017 Anastasiia Utiuzh University of South Florida, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd Part of the Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons, and the Mass Communication Commons Scholar Commons Citation Utiuzh, Anastasiia, "The orP trayal of Women in the Oldest Russian Women’s Magazine “Rabotnitsa” From 1970-2017" (2018). Graduate Theses and Dissertations. http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd/7237 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Graduate Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The Portrayal of Women in the Oldest Russian Women’s magazine “Rabotnitsa” From 1970-2017 by Anastasiia Utiuzh A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts with a concentration in Media Studies The Zimmerman School of Advertising and Mass Communications College of Arts and Sciences University of South Florida Major Professor: Scott S. Liu, Ph.D. Artemio Ramirez, Ph.D. Roxanne Watson, Ph.D. Date of Approval: March 22, 2018 Keywords: content analysis, the Soviet Union, Post-Soviet Union, Goffman’s Theory, Copyright © 2018, Anastasiia Utiuzh Acknowledgements First, I would like to express my appreciation to my thesis chair, Dr. Scott. Liu, for his patient guidance. He convincingly conveyed a spirit of adventure in regard to this study.
    [Show full text]
  • The New Woman and the New Bytx Women and Consumer Politics In
    The New Woman and the New Bytx Women and Consumer Politics in Soviet Russia Natasha Tolstikova, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Linda Scott, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Feminist theory first appeared in the Journal of Consumer disadvantages were carried into the post-Revolutionary world, just Researchin 1993 (Hirschman 1993, BristorandFischer 1993, Stern as they were carried through industrialization into modernity in the 1993). These three articles held in common that a feminist theoreti- West. cal and methodological orientation would have benefits for re- The last days of the monarchy in Russia were a struggle among search on consumer behavior, but did not focus upon the phenom- factions with different ideas about how the society needed to enon of consumption itself as a site of gender politics. In other change. One faction was a group of feminists who, in an alliance venues within consumer behavior, however, such examination did with intellectuals, actually won the first stage of the revolution, occur. For instance, a biannual ACR conference on gender and which occurred in February 1917. However, in the more famous consumer behavior, first held in 1991, has become a regular event, moment of October 1917, the Bolsheviks came to power, displacing stimulating research and resulting in several books and articles, in their rivals in revolution, including the feminists. The Bolsheviks the marketing literature and beyond (Costa 1994; Stern 1999; adamantly insisted that the path of freedom for women laid through Catterall, McLaran, and Stevens, 2000). This literature borrows alliance with the workers. They were scrupulous in avoiding any much from late twentieth century feminist criticism, including a notion that might suggest women organize in their own behalf or tendency to focus upon the American or western European experi- that women'soppression was peculiarly their own.
    [Show full text]
  • Resilient Russian Women in the 1920S & 1930S
    University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln Zea E-Books Zea E-Books 8-19-2015 Resilient Russian Women in the 1920s & 1930s Marcelline Hutton [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/zeabook Part of the European Languages and Societies Commons, Modern Art and Architecture Commons, Modern Literature Commons, Russian Literature Commons, Theatre and Performance Studies Commons, and the Women's Studies Commons Recommended Citation Hutton, Marcelline, "Resilient Russian Women in the 1920s & 1930s" (2015). Zea E-Books. Book 31. http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/zeabook/31 This Book is brought to you for free and open access by the Zea E-Books at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Zea E-Books by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. Marcelline Hutton Resilient Russian Women in the 1920s & 1930s The stories of Russian educated women, peasants, prisoners, workers, wives, and mothers of the 1920s and 1930s show how work, marriage, family, religion, and even patriotism helped sustain them during harsh times. The Russian Revolution launched an economic and social upheaval that released peasant women from the control of traditional extended fam- ilies. It promised urban women equality and created opportunities for employment and higher education. Yet, the revolution did little to elim- inate Russian patriarchal culture, which continued to undermine wom- en’s social, sexual, economic, and political conditions. Divorce and abor- tion became more widespread, but birth control remained limited, and sexual liberation meant greater freedom for men than for women. The transformations that women needed to gain true equality were post- poned by the pov erty of the new state and the political agendas of lead- ers like Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin.
    [Show full text]
  • Alissa Klots History Department the European University at Saint Petersburg Gagarinskaya Ul., D.6 191187 Saint Petersburg, Russia +7-902-80-72267, [email protected]
    Alissa Klots History Department The European University at Saint Petersburg Gagarinskaya ul., d.6 191187 Saint Petersburg, Russia +7-902-80-72267, [email protected] EMPLOYMENT Current Position Dan David Fellow, The Zvi Yaetz School of Historical Studies, Tel Aviv University, 2018-2019 Assistant Professor of History, History Department, The European University at Saint Petersburg, 2017 to the present Past Positions Research fellow\Lecturer, Center for Comparative History and Political Studies at Perm State National Research University, 2014-2016 EDUCATION Ph.D. History, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, 2017 Dissertation: The Kitchen Maid That Will Rule The State: Domestic Service and the Soviet Revolutionary Project, 1917-1953 Major: Modern European History Minors: Women’s and Gender History (concentrations: history of sexuality; nation, state, and civil society); Global and Comparative History (concentrations: modern empires, postcolonial theory, memory studies) Kandidat Nauk (Candidate of Science), Perm State University (Russia), 2012 Dissertation: Domestic Service As A Social Institute Of The Stalinist Epoch Spetsialist, History, Perm State University (Russia), 2006. SELECTED PUBLICATIONS Peer-Reviewed Articles “Lenin’s Cohort: The First Mass Generation of Soviet Pensioners and Public Activism of the Khrushchev’s Era,” Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History, 20:3 (2018): 573-597. Co-authored with Maria Romashova Edited Volumes ‘The Kitchen Maid as Revolutionary Symbol: Paid Domestic Labour and the Emancipation
    [Show full text]
  • The Kitchen Maid That Will Rule the State: Domestic
    THE KITCHEN MAID THAT WILL RULE THE STATE: DOMESTIC SERVICE AND THE SOVIET REVOLUTIONARY PROJECT, 1917-1941 by ALISSA KLOTS A Dissertation submitted to the Graduate School-New Brunswick Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey In partial fulfillment of the requirements For the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Program in History Written under the direction of Jochen Hellbeck And approved by ____________________________________________ ____________________________________________ ____________________________________________ ____________________________________________ New Brunswick, New Jersey January, 2017 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION The Kitchen Maid That Will Rule the State: Domestic Service and the Soviet Revolutionary Project, 1917-1941 By ALISSA KLOTS Dissertation Director: Jochen Hellbeck This dissertation examines domestic service during the first two decades of the Soviet regime as a symbol of revolutionary transformation, as gendered politics of labor, and as experience. In spite of the strong association between domestic service and exploitation, the Soviet regime did not ban or shun paid domestic labor; it turned domestic service into a laboratory of revolutionary politics, to ultimately embrace it as an essential part of socialist economy. At the center of the study lies the trope of the kitchen maid that will rule the state – a misquote from Lenin that turned into a call for transformation addressed to “victims of tsarist oppression,” particularly women. During the first decade after the revolution, transformation implied gaining proletarian consciousness. Domestic servants were to overcome their servile mentality and become workers by developing awareness of their labor rights, engaging in union activities and inscribing themselves into the revolutionary narrative. With the onset of the ii industrialization campaign in the late 1920s, domestic workers were to be transformed once again, this time to join the ranks of industrial workers.
    [Show full text]
  • The Kerensky Offensive: a Desperate Operation That Backfired
    Xiuyuan Li 21H.467J Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society The Kerensky Offensive: A desperate operation that backfired Executive Summary The Kerensky Offensive was the last Russian WWI offensive, whose name came from the Provisional Government's minister of war at the time. This operation was aimed not only at holding the Central Powers in the Eastern Front in coordination with the Allied forces in the west, but also at raising the morale of the Russian Army and people's faith in the government. Despite its initial suceess, the desperate offensive ended as a catastrophe: not only did it fail to achieve any of the goals, but it also gave an unrecoverable blow to the Russian military, and further undermined the Provisional Goverment's prestige and widened the gap between the ruling elite and general public. The event contributed to subsequent domestic unrests that eventually led to the seizure of power by the Bolshviks. Background - Turbulent days since the Feburary Revolution After the abdication of the Tsar Nicolas II in Febury 1917, a series of changes quickly swept Russia. The country, having been deeply entrenched in war for nearly three years, had suffered from huge human loss, severe economic distress, and large scale civil unrest. More deeply, the poverty and turmoil as the legacy by the old autocracy drove people desperately seeking new causes to attempt at revitalizing the country. The leadership was shared by the Provisional Government (originated from the State Duma in late Tsarist days) and the Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies (or the Soviet for short).
    [Show full text]
  • Feminism During the Russian Revolution: a Failure on Multiple Fronts
    Portland State University PDXScholar Young Historians Conference Young Historians Conference 2018 Apr 18th, 12:30 PM - 1:45 PM Feminism During the Russian Revolution: A Failure on Multiple Fronts Helen R. Rossmiller St. Mary's Academy Follow this and additional works at: https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/younghistorians Part of the European History Commons, History of Gender Commons, Social History Commons, and the Women's History Commons Let us know how access to this document benefits ou.y Rossmiller, Helen R., "Feminism During the Russian Revolution: A Failure on Multiple Fronts" (2018). Young Historians Conference. 24. https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/younghistorians/2018/oralpres/24 This Event is brought to you for free and open access. It has been accepted for inclusion in Young Historians Conference by an authorized administrator of PDXScholar. Please contact us if we can make this document more accessible: [email protected]. FEMINISM DURING THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION: A FAILURE ON MULTIPLE FRONTS Helen Rossmiller PSU Challenge/Honors History of Modern Europe March 3, 2017 1 The Russian Revolution began in February 1917 and quickly led to the abdication of Emperor Nicholas II, the collapse of the Romanov dynasty and the fall of the Russian Empire. The ensuing turmoil prominently featured a number of influential women. Catherine Breshkovsky, the “Little Grandmother of the Russian Revolution;” Alexandra Kollontai; Inessa Armand; and Nadezhda Krupskaya played a significant role in the success of the Revolution. Although many have been forgotten and their accomplishments overlooked, women were not only a significant force in the Revolution but were the impetus behind it.
    [Show full text]
  • Soviet Women's Agency in the Rabotnitsa Magazine
    “FEMALE WORKERS ARE STILL WAITING FOR YOUR ANSWER, COMRADE NOVOSELOV!”: SOVIET WOMEN’S AGENCY IN THE RABOTNITSA MAGAZINE, 1953-1964 By Dina Omanova Submitted to Central European University Department of Gender Studies In partial fulfillment of the degree of Master of Arts in Gender Studies Supervisor: Professor Francisca de Haan CEU eTD Collection Budapest, Hungary 2019 ABSTRACT This research focuses on the functioning of women’s press during the Khrushchev era (1953-1964), and in particular it analyzes the Rabotnitsa (Woman Worker) magazine for the entire period of Khrushchev's rule. By focusing on women-readers’ letters as well as on the editorial board’s engagement with those letters, my research explores the functioning of the women’s press and acknowledges the readers’ participation in its content production. My research questions are: How did readers participate in and contribute to the media during Khrushchev’s rule? What kinds of questions did women-readers and the magazine’s editorial board raise? In what way were the letters published in the magazine expressions of women’s exercise of agency? The main argument of this research is that readers’ roles in the press went beyond that of passive receivers of the Party messages – the role taken for granted in virtually all of the scholarly literature on this topic, in the vein of traditional, top-down Sovietology. By analyzing readers’ letters in the Rabotnitsa magazine, I demonstrate a multitude of active roles that women as letter-writers undertook in Rabotnitsa. The problems addressed by women included but were not limited to: the shortage of kindergartens, their slow construction, and unsatisfactory conditions, work-related problems, such as unequal treatment, illegal dismissals, poor labor conditions and lack of mechanization.
    [Show full text]