The Soviet Family (Edexcel A-Level History): Revision Notes

The Soviet Family

Introduction

Soviet policy towards the family underwent significant transformations between 1917 and 1985. These changes directly affected the legal rights and social position of women. Some periods saw deliberate attempts to revolutionize family structures and advance women's liberation, while other periods witnessed conservative policies that reinforced traditional gender roles.

Families and women in the 1920s

Differing views within Lenin's government

There was no unified approach to family policy within Lenin's government. Different Bolshevik leaders held contrasting views about the future of the family in socialist society.

Alexandra Kollontai took a radical position, viewing the family as an oppressive institution. She proposed:

• Replacing traditional families with communal living arrangements
• Substituting monogamous marriage with free love (relationships based on personal choice without legal ties)
• The concept of the 'withering away of the family', which she considered essential for creating the 'new woman' who would be truly liberated
• Her reasoning was that families encouraged selfishness and individualism, qualities incompatible with socialist values

In contrast, Lenin and Trotsky held more conservative views on family matters. Lenin was particularly critical of the concept of free love. However, Lenin did acknowledge that traditional marriages often involved abuse and exploitation, recognizing the need for reform in marriage and divorce legislation.

Zhenotdel's work (1919-1930)

Following the revolution, significant reforms were introduced to transform family structures and advance women's rights. The Women's Department, known as Zhenotdel, operated from 1919 until its abolition in 1930. This organization collaborated with various government departments to promote women's rights across five key areas:

Education

• Partnered with the Commissariat of Education to introduce co-education (mixed-gender schooling)
• Established women's reading rooms in cities where women could study and learn
• Created education schemes specifically for women working in factories
• Implemented quotas to ensure female representation at all educational levels
• Achieved notable success: by 1930, approximately 28% of university students were women, compared to only 12% in Germany and 20% in Britain

Legal rights

• Worked with the Commissariat of Justice to establish women's rights in law
• From 1919, women gained the legal right to equal pay for equal work
• Women received equal voting rights with men

Reproductive rights

• The Soviet Union became the first nation to grant a legal right to abortion on demand
• Contraception was also made legal throughout the 1920s

Marital rights

• Introduced 'postcard divorce' during the 1920s, available to both men and women
• From 1926, either partner could end a marriage simply by sending a letter or postcard to their spouse informing them the relationship was over
• The government treated marriage as a straightforward contract that either husband or wife could dissolve easily

Sexual rights

• Lesbianism had not been criminalized before the revolution and continued to be legal
• Prostitution was legalized
• Zhenotdel collaborated with the Commissariat of Health to provide medical support for prostitutes

Problems and limitations of 1920s policies

Despite these progressive reforms, many policies quickly proved ineffective or produced unintended negative consequences.

Abuse of divorce rights: Men exploited the new divorce laws in harmful ways:

• Many men divorced their wives soon after pregnancy
• Between 1917 and 1928, men initiated 70% of all divorces
• This often left women homeless, unable to work due to childcare responsibilities, and without income

Failure of communal living: By 1925, experiments in communal living had ended. Kollontai's vision of the 'withering away of the family' was formally abandoned.

The 1926 Marriage Code: This legislation reflected the government's return to belief in traditional family structures:

• Made adoption easier to help care for children orphaned during the Civil War
• Established de facto marriage, giving cohabiting couples the same legal status as married couples
• Both provisions demonstrated the government's view that marriage was the essential model for society

Sexual harassment: Zhenotdel proved unwilling to help women experiencing sexual harassment. Soviet law did not recognize sexual harassment as a crime. When women organized protests against sexual abuse – such as strikes and walkouts by Leningrad women workers in 1928 – male party officials dismissed striking women as troublemakers and viewed their complaints as 'anti-Soviet' activity. Consequently, no changes were made.

Lack of childcare funding: As funding was cut from crèches and children's homes, street gangs developed, consisting of children orphaned during the Civil War or abandoned due to family breakdown who survived through petty crime.

The Great Retreat, 1936-53

Stalin's conservative turn

During the mid-1930s, government family policy became significantly more conservative. Trotsky, writing from exile, described these new policies as the 'Great Retreat', contrasting them with the 'advance' of women's rights in the 1920s. Stalin's policies partly responded to problems created by the liberal policies of the 1920s, but were also designed to create a stable society that could focus all its energy on industrialization.

1936 legal changes

Stalin's primary aims were to increase birth rates and reduce divorce rates. To achieve this, substantial legal changes were introduced in 1936:

Pronatalist policies

Stalin adopted a pronatalist policy, offering financial incentives to encourage women to have more children:

• Women with seven children received 2,000 roubles annually for five years
• Mothers with eleven children received 5,000 roubles annually

These policies were supported by media campaigns exposing unfaithful men. For example, the trades union newspaper Trud regularly published stories about men who abandoned themselves to lives of 'wildness, degeneracy and baseness'.

Women's domestic labour burden

Women were expected to work on collective farms or in Soviet industry while also performing essential family labour. On average, women spent five times longer on domestic responsibilities than men during the 1930s.

Stalin's policies emphasized the importance of stable families based on monogamous heterosexual relationships. He believed these formed the foundation of a successful socialist society by providing a disciplined environment for raising children.

Women and the family, 1953-85

Khrushchev's approach

Following Stalin's death, women's rights received renewed emphasis. However, Khrushchev approached women's rights within the context of traditional family structures. Generally, he wanted women to continue their traditional roles as wives and mothers, but sought to make these roles easier to fulfill.

Recognition of women's problems

Khrushchev's government made some effort to acknowledge and address women's challenges:

Women took full advantage of these opportunities to write about their own experiences. By the late 1950s, newspapers were publishing stories about rape and domestic violence, exposing major problems in Soviet society. The magazines became forums where women could discuss their experiences of abortion, childbearing, motherhood, sex, and work.

Impact of the Second World War

Khrushchev's government recognized the war's profound impact on women:

• The war caused the deaths of over 10 million men
• The proportion of women in Soviet society increased from 52% in 1939 to 55% in 1959
• The war created many lone-parent families

In this context, the traditional Stalinist model of a heterosexual monogamous family with a working husband and stay-at-home wife no longer reflected reality for many families.

Policy reforms under Khrushchev

To address these changes, Khrushchev introduced several policies to modify women's legal status and make family life easier:

Legal and welfare reforms:

• In 1955, abortion was legalized
• In 1956, state-paid maternity leave increased from 77 days to 112 days

Economic plans:

• The Sixth Five-Year Plan (starting 1956) committed to 'improve in every way the working and living conditions of women workers', including expanding crèches, childcare facilities, and communal laundries
• The Seven-Year Plan aimed to eliminate the 'double shift' by introducing convenience foods and mass-produced clothing, reducing the need for women to cook and sew
• The Seven-Year Plan also aimed to make refrigerators widely available, eliminating the need for daily shopping trips

Persistent problems

Despite these changes, significant problems remained:

Women under Brezhnev

Conservative policies

Brezhnev continued to emphasize the centrality of the family to Soviet life. However, under his leadership, much less was done to improve women's status.

Official position: The government proclaimed that sexual equality had been achieved. The lack of women in senior positions in industry, agriculture, and government was explained by women's 'natural' desire to focus on their families.

Censorship: The government banned Soviet press coverage of women's campaigns in Western countries, attempting to suppress debates about women's roles and sexual oppression.

Views on women's work: Brezhnev tended to regard women primarily as unskilled workers whose principal goal was having children.

Traditional domestic roles

Within the home, traditional gender roles persisted. By 1982, official figures indicated that women spent twice as much time doing domestic chores as men. Brezhnev viewed this as part of the natural order and praised women for their sacrifice.

Brezhnev's primary concern was for women to have more babies and care for them properly. Therefore, the government did nothing to address sexual inequality in domestic labour.

Limited reforms: Brezhnev did introduce some reforms to ease women's lives, such as lowering the pension age for women from 60 to 55.

Feminism in the Soviet Union

Feminist intellectuals and feminist groups faced suppression by the KGB (Soviet security service). Consequently, the feminist movement in the Soviet Union remained small, particularly compared to the United States.

However, between 1979 and 1982, some feminist groups began to emerge:

Conclusion

Soviet family policy underwent significant transformations over time, and these changes directly affected women's official status. The initial attempts to ensure women's liberation during the 1920s were replaced by more conservative policies from the mid-1930s onwards. In the 1950s and early 1960s, there was a renewed attempt to advance women's rights. However, Khrushchev's campaign never questioned the fundamental nature of the family or the assumption that women should be responsible for childcare and domestic labour. Under Brezhnev, policy toward women hardened once again. The emphasis returned to women having children, while men occupied high-status positions in the public sphere.

Throughout the entire Soviet period from 1917 to 1985, the pattern was one of initial revolutionary promises followed by gradual retreat, with brief periods of modest reform that never fundamentally challenged traditional gender roles within the family structure.