After training youth for the pioneer movement, she moved to Tambov, where she attended the Soviet Party School [ru], after which she taught trade union officials and worked in the regional museum.

Popova was chair from 1957 to 1976 of the executive council of the All-Union Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries (VOKS), and a full member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party from 1961 to 1976.

Gender studies scholar Alexandra Talavar stated that Popova's role in the fight for women's agency in the era between Stalin and Brezhnev was pivotal.

Borisova states that Vasily died in July 1920,[4] during the Russian Civil War,[2] and Lyubov began working as a laundress to provide for the children and her sister, who lived with the family.

During the famine in 1921–22, the daughters gathered goutweed, acorns, and nettles for soup, but there was insufficient food for the family and their mother died from illness and malnutrition soon after their father.

[4] Popova and her daughter moved into a prestigious address on Gorky Street, where their neighbors included Sergei Lemeshev, Konstantin Rokossovsky Aleksandr Tvardovsky, among other celebrities and politicians.

[16] In June, she flew to France to meet with French activists from the Union des Femmes Françaises to plan an upcoming world congress aimed at organizing progressive women in the fight against fascism.

[13][17] In October she was chosen to lead the AKSZh,[15] and in November 1945 she was among the Russian delegates attending the founding conference of the Women's International Democratic Federation (WIDF).

The HUAC report claimed that Popova, head of the Russian delegation and a vice president of the WIDF, was the most powerful member of the organization and controlled its activities.

[21] Gene Weltfish, a US Vice President of WIDF, was questioned about what she knew of Popova, but refused to give any information about her to HUAC attorney Robert Morris.

[23] Scholar Alexandra Talavar stated that Popova's activism for women's rights was rooted in the socialist framework in that she viewed gender inequality in terms of economic systems.

[25] They argued that pressure from the rich and the business community did not allow the colonial powers to introduce initiatives liable to improve the rights of working-class people.

[26] To maximize production and profitability, land and laborers were exploited,[27] which was incompatible with their post-war vision that peace was not merely an absence of war, but a return to social justice among nations.

[30] As the leader of the AKSZh/KSZh, Popova laid the foundations for the activities of the organization and pushed the agenda to steer policymaking in directions that were favorable to women's advancement.

[16] Despite claims that Popova was an "apparatchik", a derogatory label meaning that she was only a communist functionary,[24][31] her positions did not always follow the party line and at times she was critical of Soviet policies.

[32] In a 1954 speech given to the Ninth Congress of Trade Unions of the USSR, Popova acknowledged that inequality in household responsibilities impacted women's advancement.

[33] She identified access to education, anti-discrimination and labor protection legislation, child care and basic food services, economic development, and political will as areas that needed to be addressed if women were to gain equality.

[34] Newspapers in the US in the 1960s, including an article carried in The Anniston Star in 1965, depicted Popova as friendly and frank, stating that she was not afraid to disagree with other Soviet officials who were anti-American.

She also suggested that the government should study reports from the International Labour Organization, UNICEF and UNESCO and implement measures based on their evaluation to improve education, wages and working conditions, and children's well-being.

[37] The journal focused on women's and children's issues and from the 1950s began to include broader multi-ethnic content to reflect the diversity of republics within the USSR and decolonizing countries.

This change was made to turn focus away from Moscow and towards developing regions in an effort to show that the Soviet modernization model was adaptable to global markets.

[40] Popova encouraged interaction between Soviet citizens and foreigners because she believed that engagement with others could overcome prejudices and the effects of negative propaganda, and thus strengthen peace.

[44][45] Popova spent three weeks traveling throughout the country, visiting Washington, D.C., New York City, Detroit,[45] Philadelphia, Boston, Phoenix, the Grand Canyon, and Los Angeles.

[47] Historian Francisca de Haan stated that Cold War perceptions of communist women being "aggressive and dangerous", led to little scholarship in the West on figures like Popova and Romanian activist Ana Pauker.

[47] Official narratives in her time tended to stress the importance of collective action more than individual effort, which has created difficulty in assessing Popova's role.

She concluded from researching Popova's archival record that studying her life confirms that women's advances in the period were not simply given by the state because of "women-friendly policies", but rather gained after significant struggle.