Women in the Russian Revolution
The provisional government that took power after the February 1917 overthrow of the tsar promoted liberalism and made Russia the first major country to give women the right to vote.
As soon as the Bolsheviks took power in October 1917, they liberalized laws on divorce and abortion, decriminalized homosexuality, and proclaimed a new higher status for women.
The young Russian feminist movement was exhilarated by the uprising of 1905, which was followed by a liberalization of some of the tight restrictions on women, and the creation of a national parliament.
[2] Women fought directly in the war in small numbers on the front lines, often disguised as men, and thousands more served as nurses.
Some Marxists referred to women workers as the "most backward stratum of the proletariat" and accused them of being unable to develop a revolutionary consciousness without party guidance.
[15] Beginning in October 1918, the Soviet Union liberalized divorce and abortion laws, decriminalized homosexuality, permitted cohabitation, and ushered in a host of reforms that theoretically made women more equal to men.
[17] The epidemic of divorces and extramarital affairs created social hardships when Soviet leaders wanted people to concentrate their efforts on growing the economy.
By 1936, Joseph Stalin reversed most of the liberal laws, ushering in a conservative, pronatalist era that lasted for decades to come.
They were able to equalize women's legal status with men's by reforming certain laws such as the Code on Marriage, the Family, and Guardianship ratified in October 1918 which allows both spouses were to retain the right to their own property and earnings, grant children born outside wedlock the same rights as those born within, and made divorce available upon request.
[20] While men were forcibly conscripted for service in the civil war when multiple enemies tried to overthrow the Bolsheviks, women were not required to participate.
Lenin spoke often of the importance of relieving women from housework so they could participate more fully in society, and an effort to pay workers for household chores began.
Some changes to the traditional emphasis on family were implemented, including making divorce easily attainable and granting full rights to illegitimate children.
She drove through reforms to allow women rights to divorce, abort, participate in government affairs and create the facilities like mass canteens and mother centers.
[25] In 1918, with Sverdlov's assistance against opposition from Zinoviev and Radek, she succeeded in getting a national congress of working women held, with Lenin as a speaker.
The spring of 1920 saw the appearance, again on Armand's initiative, of the journal Kommunistka, which dealt with "the broader aspects of female emancipation and the need to alter the relationship between the sexes if lasting change was to be effected".
