Abstract
This chapter provides an overview of the changing roles and status of women in the Soviet Union in the Khrushchev era (1956–64), incorporating many of the issues that will be discussed in more detail in subsequent chapters.1 In this period of tentative de-Stalinisation, Khrushchev gave new impetus to the ‘woman question’ and reversed a number of important legal decisions concerning women and the family that had been introduced in the 1930s and 19405.2 The outcome of the population losses and demographic imbalance resulting from the Second World War was that considerable emphasis was now placed on the health and welfare of women, in particular concerning their reproductive rights and maternal responsibilities. The relative economic prosperity of the post-war years provided additional material benefits and home comforts for all Soviet citizens, as well as bringing about changes in the conditions of employment in both industry and agriculture. The scope of production was now extended to the newly developing territories and settlements of the ‘Virgin Lands’. These changes inevitably impacted on the lives of women.
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Notes
For introductions to the Khrushchev era in Soviet history see D. Filtzer, The Khrushchev Era: De-Stalinisation and the Limits of Reform in the USSR (Basingstoke, 1993), M. McCauley (ed.), Khrushchev and Khrushchevism (Basingstoke, 1987), and W. Taubman et al. (eds), Nikita Khrushchev (Yale, 2000). These books have little to say about women. On women, see D. Brown, Role and Status of Women in the Soviet Union (1968), and D. Filtzer, Soviet Workers and De-Stalinization (Cambridge, 1992). Filtzer’s detailed study of the labour conditions of women workers is reprinted in edited form in this volume.
See M. Ilič, Women Workers in the Soviet Interwar Economy: From ‘Protection’ to ‘Equality’ (Basingstoke, 1999), Ch. 5.
S. Dzerzhinskaya, ‘Uchite zhit’ dlya drugikh’, Rabotnitsa, no. 11, 1956, p. 11; M. Volodyaeva, ‘Zapiski mnogodetnoi materi’, Rabotnitsa, no. 8, 1958, pp. 25–7. See also ‘A Big Family’, CDSP, no. 16, 1959, p. 31 (condensed text from Komsomol’skaya pravda, 13 March 1959).
V. Tankinov, ‘0 sueverii i predrassudakh’, Krest’yanka, no. 4, 1956, p. 24; G. Akulenko, ‘Po sledam odnogo pis’ma’, Krest’yanka, no. 4, 1957, p. 25. See also D. Ransell, Village Mothers: Three Generations of Change in Russia and Tataria (Bloomington, Ind., 2000).
See, for example, ‘Divorce Laws and the Status of Illegitimate Children’, CDSP, no. 21, 1958, pp. 20–1 (complete text from Izvestiya, 22 May 1958); ‘In the Interests of the Family’, CDSP, no. 26, 1958, pp. 19–20 (complete text from Izvestiya, 26 June 1958); ‘State and Law’, CDSP, no. 23, 1959, p. 19 (complete text from Izvestiya, 9 June 1959); ‘Right to a Family’, CDSP, no. 17, 1960, pp. 27–8 (complete text from Izvestiya, 19 April 1960); ‘Marriage Law and Illegitimacy’s Stigma: a Dispute’, CDSP, no. 21, 1960, pp. 13–14 (condensed text from Literaturnaya gazeta, 2 April 1960); ‘Bigot in a Scholar’s Toga’, CDSP, no. 30, 1960, pp. 31–2 (complete text from Literaturnaya gazeta, 16 July 1960).
‘An Analysis of How Workers Spend Off-Work Time’, CDSP, no. 33, 1963, pp. 3–7 (complete text from Voprosy ekonomiki, no. 6, June 1963, pp. 32–41).
See, for example, A. G. Pap et al., Gigiena zhenshchiny (Kiev, 1964).
See, for example, N. Grigor’eva, ‘Tri glavy’, Krest’yanka, no. 3, 1963, pp. 2–5.
See also S. Bridger, Women in the Soviet Countryside: Women’s Roles in Rural Development in the Soviet Union (Cambridge, 1987).
This is outlined in ‘Pyatiletka krutogo podema sel’skogo khozyaistva’, Krest’yanka, no. 4, 1956, pp. 9–10.
‘On Respect for Women’, CDSP, no. 45, 1958, p. 24 (complete text from Literaturnaya gazeta, 17 June 1958).
N. Dodge, Women in the Soviet Economy: Their Role in Economic, Scientific and Technical Development (Baltimore, 1966), p. 70.
For historical background, see C. Chatterjee, Celebrating Women: Gender, Festival Culture, and Bolshevik Ideology, 1910–1939 (Pittsburgh, 2002).
On the work of the Women’s International Democratic Federation, see M. G. Gryzunova, Mezhdunarodnaya demokraticheskaya federatsiya zhenshchin, 1945–1975 (Moscow, 1975).
E. Kotton, ‘Sovetskim podrugam’, Rabotnitsa, no. 3, 1956, p. 7. For background on Soviet women’s involvement in international peace organisations, see V. Bil’shai, ‘Zhenshchiny v bor’be za mir’, Krest’yanka, no. 6, 1963, pp. 2–3, and N. Popova, ‘For a World without Arms and Wars, a World without Slavery and Oppression’, Soviet Woman, no. 12, 1960, pp. 2–3.
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© 2004 Melanie Ilič Susan E.Reid & Lynne Attwood
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Ilič, M. (2004). Women in the Khrushchev Era: an Overview. In: Ilič, M., Reid, S.E., Attwood, L. (eds) Women in the Khrushchev Era. Studies in Russian and East European History and Society. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230523432_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230523432_2
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