During World War Two, women played a massive part both at home in the Soviet Union, and away on the battlefield. On the battlefield, around 8,000 female soldiers were fighting the enemy, both on the ground and in the air, with effective results (Stites, 1991: 296). Many German troops would rather commit suicide than be defeated by a women’s battalion (Levin, Pushkareva, 1997: 250), and along with those who did not and were defeated, women played a large role in the fighting. People were still uneasy about women fighting and killing in the war, but the women explained that they used their maternal instincts when fighting. At home, women took over the roles men had left behind in order to fight in the factories and on the fields, often working their way up into good jobs during the men’s absence. Once the war was over, however, men came back from war and many women were forced out of these jobs, as the men were given good jobs as a reward for fighting for their country (Atkinson, Dallin, Lapidus, 1977: 174). This shows there was still an unequal division between the genders, despite the amendment of the constitution in 1936, as the men were clearly still seen as the main workers within the family.
Following the war, the population had suffered a dramatic decrease from the fatalities on the battlefield, and the Soviet Union needed its population to be replenished. This was obviously down to the women to provide, and women who gave birth to several children during this pro-natal drive were given medals for their valuable service (Edmondson, 2001: 169). Also at this time, it was made legal to have children outside of wedlock, possibly another way to maximise the birth rate (Atkinson, Dallin, Lapidus, 1977: 243). Once Stalin had died in 1953, Georgy Malenkov succeeded him as the leader of the Soviet Union, but he had to resign just days later due to opposition, and was in turn succeeded by Nikita Khrushchev. This period is known as the post-Stalin thaw, though Khrushchev had many innovative plans for women within society, and under his rule the Zhensovety, the women’s councils, were founded in 1958 (Bridger, 1987: 90). These groups were founded in workplaces and regions and provided valuable experience for women, attempting to get them involved in politics, as well as holding practical classes in skills such as cooking, sewing and motherhood. This was one of the more gender-equal points in the history of the Soviet Union, allowing women to finally have a hand in deciding their own fate if they so wished, though the Zhensovety eventually died out. Also during Khrushchev’s rule, abortion was once again legalised, showing women had more freedom, and that there was less pressure on them to bear children for the good of their country (Booth, Tolz, 2005: 167). Khrushchev was removed from power in 1964 by his opposition, led by Leonid Brezhnev, the following leader of the Soviet Union, though he still remained a party member until his death in 1971.
Leonid Brezhnev succeeded Khrushchev and decided that the Soviet Union needed another population drive, promoting large families as Stalin did following the war. However, people were giving birth to many children in the East of the Soviet Union but not the West, and due to the racism present in the society at the time, Brezhnev promoted large families in the West and small ones in the East for a while, though he eventually decided to promote 3-child families across the entire Soviet Union (Clarke, Posadskaya-Vanderbeck, 1994: 38). Brezhnev stayed in power for a very long time, until 1982, when he was succeeded by Yuri Andropov who died soon after, himself being succeded by Konstantin Chernenko. This period is known as a period of stagnation, when little of interest occurred regarding the rule of Russia. When Chernenko died in 1985, however, Mikhail Gorbachev came to power and further devoted the government to a population increase. Women were offered 3 years of paid maternity leave as the main incentive to bear children, and because of this many women decided to devote themselves more to having a family than working and having a career (Edmondson, 1992: 190). The Soviet Union came to an end in 1991, with Gobachev being its final leader.
In conclusion, I believe the Soviet Union did not make women equal to men to a great extent, and that women had an unsteady role within society, sometimes being workers, sometimes mothers and sometimes even fighters, whilst men merely provided practical labour. Women still had to deal with family and domestic duties whilst working, and often large families which would have been hard to look after were promoted. The Soviet Union portrayed itself as a gender-equal, but I feel that for the reasons outlined above, it still had an awful lot to do before this ideal would actually have been realised.
Bibliography:
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Booth, S., Tolz, V., Nation and Gender in Contemporary Europe, 2005, Manchester.
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