Women in the Political Sphere of Stalin's Soviet Union

What did the participation of women in Soviet politics look like? To what degree were women involved in administrative, managerial, and political functions? Did women achieve political equality with men, or did old structures of discrimination and exclusion remain? We will be considering these questions in this video, focusing specifically on the so-called Stalin Era to determine the dynamic evolution of women's roles in early and mid Soviet politics.

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Script and video/audio editing by "M"
Narration by "C"
Animation by "V"

Music:
From Aleksey Mazhukov & VIO-66 - Music For Recreation
Track 1: Paraphrase On Themes Of I. Dunayevsky's Song From The Film "Volga-Volga"
Track 2: Forgive Me

Works Cited:
Attwood, Lynn.“Rationality versus Romanticism: Representatives of Women in the Stalinist Press,” in Gender in Russian History and Culture, ed. Linda Edmondson,158-176. New York: Palgrave Publishers, 2001.

Bridger, Sue. “The Heirs of Pasha: the Rise and Fall of the Soviet Woman Tractor Driver,” in Gender in Russian History and Culture, ed. Linda Edmondson, 194-211. New York: Palgrave Publishers, 2001.

Engel, B. A., and Posadskaya-Vanderbeck, A. A Revolution of their Own: Voices of Women in Soviet History (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1998), 101-116; 132-154.

Fitzpatrick, S., and Slezkine, Y. (Eds.). In the Shadow of Revolution: Life Stories of Russian Women from 1917 to the Second World War (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000), 305-321; 342-349; 391-393.

[themarxistproject]

As many of you know, we were forced to reupload this video due to copyright violations in the previous iteration. The Soviet era footage has been replaced with original animations made by "V" who put a lot of work in to save this video from just being a blank screen. As always, we are limited by time and resources. However, we hope to continue to incorporate original animations both to spruce up the presentation and avoid losing content to legal troubles.

[MarcoAntonio-xdej]

Keep up the good work Comrade!! Much love from Brazil 🇧🇷

[boringpolitician]

Glad you got it up again, comrade. I do see a shift in people, coming. I think we are slowly getting there.

[iamjoeysteel]

It's also a bit strange that many people focus a lot on the "Stalinist Era" (the ML era while Stalin was General Secretary) as if he had control over specific circumstances or could have just willed sexism away if he wanted. This could also vary by region as Russia itself is full of varying regions, cultures, and people. Of course sexism isn't going away within 1 generation just because the party tries to make it so. Yet still the USSR had many women engineers by the 1960s. That means those people grew up in the so called Stalinist era.

Regarding the video specifically: I don't like the use of anecdotal without at least multiple examples. In the one example, the fact that she even could get divorced in the 1930s was a big deal for any other country. There is a surprising amount of conjecture that overall takes away from the information and is just speculation on anecdotal examples as well as speculation on broad ones. mixing this with practical and real sources also provided makes it seem oddly misleading whether or not that is the intention. I think the video could have done with more foundation, specifically the conditions leading up to these points. Such as, the climb for many woman was slow due to men pre-revolution being the only ones to get any kind of education. The specific examples are great for demonstrating the complexity of sexism on an individual level during this time, particularly for where the person was, but I don't like the speculative remarks that were being drawn from it. I want to be clear, I'm saying that speculation is counter productive and shouldn't be used in an otherwise informational video that conducts analysis over such a broad stretch of time. Also post war sought the inclusion of countries who were fascist and very sexist which obviously would start diluting the pool. I would have liked to have seen more information about specific Soviet Blocs varied with women.

[mranderson]

Learning history is important. Thanks for this video.

[a.s.]

Increasing participation in the workforce and keeping birth rate up weren't so much at conflict in the Soviet Union as they are in some other systems, because Soviets offered childcare for working mothers. They tried to boost birth rate in several ways, offering monetary and other benefits for having children and banning abortion in 1936 and imposing a tax on childlessness in 1941. Abortion ban was harsh, but it probably didn't seem as bad then as it would now, because Soviet Union was the only country where it had been legal. The ban wasn't as effective as they had thought, because large part of the population had already gotten used to abortions and opted for illegal ones after the ban

[Snow-fzwo]

Great stuff guys, thank you for the reupload!

[guilhermehiroshi]

Nice video. Um abraço do Brasil camaradas.

[rose]

Thanks for the well researched and detailed video. Keep up the good work!

[mikkykyluc]

Very nice and interesting video comrades, good labour!

[gofar]

... when a son died, all societies mourn... when a daughter died, charge to fate... in the soviet era that continued to this day, daughters are told to learn everything and push through what they prefer... though mothers and grandmothers reacted and disagreed, at least, fathers and grand fathers give their alright of daughters learning everything... one sister continued buddhism/yoga, one sister taken by chritianity praise the lord amen, one sister went islam prophet mohammed... the brother continued ethnic ancestral rituals... there are times of heated arguments for differences of not eating pork, eating vegetables only, and eating everything... mao words: we fight we tussle we misunderstand each other in the night everyone eat in one big pot... everyone learned to cope up or tolerate or ignore each other preferences... no matter soviet and stalin and mao kim ho castro are being MUTILATED by western media/ literature, the sentiments for opening all worlds to daughters could never die... the sentiments of gratefulness pass generations after generations... daughters are delightful same as sons... daughters are mourned same as sons... daughters supported and encouraged same as sons... any soul in east asia wont forget soviet russia stalin mao no matter how many chocolates america and western europe give...

[abc.kontrolpekerja]

Please add subtitle for all video comrade..

[hassankhan-jgdx]

Just wanted to point to point out the 1936 constitution ratified by Stalin actually prohibited abortion and made it harder for women to initiate divorce. Obviously setting back women's rights that were achieved during the early stages of the revolution. Women were still expected and even encouraged them to provide both paid and domestic labor. This did nothing but emphasize instead of erase the gender division of labor because of the Dual burden of paid and unpaid labor that women had to endure. This relegated women in Soviet society primarily to the role of reproductive based labor. Which consisted of child rearing.

[gofar]

thank you the marxist project... kindly allow me... one very reason why soviet-lenin-stalin moscow russia sentiments could never die... is the then attention given to female bodies (women)... it spread so fast around east asia... particularity to sons in east asia greatly eased... one ethnic father said: you are six girls and one boy... it is alright for you to learn the basics of judo karate for self defense... note: in those times, brothers are responsible to sisters safety... a one brother with six or seven sisters is also a butt of joke in societies/communities... they say: tell your father to make good in doing sex to produce son not daughter... the soviet ear is the beginning of opening all activities to daughters not just grooming them for marriage for the purpose of procreation and taking care of the household & everything related to having children rearing children grooming daughters...

[ime]

He literaly banned abortion and bring back traditional family.

[ArgyleOW]

what was the name of the party organisations mentioned at 10:36 ?

[thatgoodstuff]

This is a nice vid but why phrase it as the "woman question"

[gofar]

in communism, the use of comrade parent children youths elders, dont necessitate acknowledgement if female or male... in communism, gender age religion is simply not particular things to matter... what is particular to define in communism is the defining of proletariats and bourgeosie of how both classes can meet and work together for peace and prosperity of every citizen of the nation... equality is a modern terinology... old people only know values and rights of every living entity... it is the modern world that devised terminologies and complicated the material meaning to the social meaning to the spiritual meaning... like you talk of equality but you dont first define what aspect of equality do you want to pursue... in the times of revolution, females volunteered to battle trainings and no leader said, no you cant bcoz your body is female... male is better... such words are never heard... only heard from a number of truly male chauvinists... are they born that way...? yes is the answer... the problem is, there is not a hard lined female appeared who hates a male or see a male as unfit... seems there is no female chauvinist... equality is only applicable to weight and size... women in communism/ socialism simply fought for their RIGHTS and DEMANDED RESPECT... it was a matter of justifying desire and passing requirements and qualifications... equality is not a very appropriate term in the social aspects of life...

[t.gallagher]

the prewar to 1970 jump in women's participation is a ridiculous
Why skip over the Khrushchev coup in the 50s????
even if u think Stalin was bad there was still the revocation / condemnation of Stalin by Khrushchev and new policies

[mooodswings]

Well, well. A "Marxist" channel that won't use the very basic methods of materialism and dialect for its analysis - neither consider contradiction within its rhetoric at least, to cover its shame. What we have here is an essay that fails to cover basic concepts and developments achieved when Stalin served as a General Secretary towards gender equality. The main - if not only - concern of this video is to highlight wrong decisions - few of them legit while the majority being ridiculous, not considering any historical context, thus resulting in wrong conclusions and misleading viewers. But, what can one expect when Lynne Attwood and her (truly marxist :D) concept of a "rational and romantic view" is used? Give me a break. Anyway, we know you socialist-democrats hate Stalin - USSR in general as a matter of fact, but at least try to retain some dignity when using Marxism/Leninism as your supposed theory and method to view this world.