Pot of Gold or Poisoned Chalice? The Impact of Western ‘Support’

Abstract

Interest from the West in the development of a women’s movement in Russia is not new to the post-Soviet era. Numerous accounts and studies of the workings of women’s organizations as well as of the lives and living conditions of ordinary women were undertaken during the Soviet period.¹ In the late Soviet and post-Soviet era, relations between East and West changed dramatically and the position of Russian and western women’s organizations and activists vis-à-vis one another changed with them. The liberalization of Soviet society which began in the late 1980s and continued into the 1990s in post- Soviet Russia, allowed a burgeoning of activity in terms of new and independent women’s organizations in Russia itself. It also led to new and intensified cooperation between some of these organizations and western counterparts. Where, previously, contact had been relatively limited and subject to restrictions imposed by the Soviet authorities, the relaxation of restrictions on access to Russian society offered new opportunities for foreign activists and organizations to work in open collaboration with Russian organizations and, in some cases, to set up offices and projects on Russian territory.