Zhenotdel
[4] Kollontai wanted to stray these working women away from the Russian feminist suffrage movements that she felt were superficial and lacked the essence of revolution.
She began to teach factory women in St. Petersburg that only through socialism and joining their husbands and brothers in the proletariat revolution, would bring about their liberation.
The harsh living conditions and famines that erupted during the war made the second stage of the women’s movement impossible to maintain.
They made women’s issues a secondary priority because the male leadership felt domestic work did not benefit industry.
The party made drastic cuts on social spending because the Civil War created mass famine and poverty in the countryside and severe unemployment among women.
The Zhenotdel began to evolve away from working towards specific women’s issues, into a tool the party utilized to forward its policies.
[8] Before the revolution, Bolsheviks believed that forming a separate women's organization would promote feminist ideas and spend insufficient resources.
This hindered several old Bolshevik women from agreeing with the formation of the Zhenotdel because they thought it would prevent a unified proletariat Revolution.
[4] The main idea in a Utopian society for Zhenotdel women is the creation of a liberated and independent woman—a woman that is free and equal to men in every aspect of life.
The Zhenotdel wanted to build daycare centers, cafeterias, and laundries in order to liberate women from the double burden of domestic and industrial work.
In order to eliminate the capitalist state and the exploitation of the proletariat, the Zhenotdel felt that it was essential for women to be liberated and equal to their male comrades.
Before Stalin came into power and the idea that socialism could exist in only one state became mainstream, the Soviets believed that it would be easier to convince the working classes of the developed Western nations if they created a successful socialist revolution in the East.
[11] Before 1926, de-veiling was not a priority for the Zhenotdel and even believed it was a distraction from the important work that they were doing to bring economic and political independence to Central Asian women.
The Zhenotdel now spoke of de-veiling as an urgent issue and increasingly spent their efforts organizing large demonstrations where they would hold speeches proclaiming female liberation and end the meetings with these women ridding themselves of their paranjis.
[12] They believed that by transforming the oppressive conditions under which these women lived, it would completely change the social and cultural order that prevented a Soviet revolution from happening.
[11] When Stalin came into power and facilitated the Five-Year Plan, Zhenotdel workers were at first hopeful that collectivization would lead to the communal housing and socialized childcare they had been fighting for.
Several women wanted, instead to be involved in general party work and felt that this was merely the same division of labor that was practiced in the home.
Peasant women were joining farm organizers refusing to give up their grain as the party began doubling down on requisitions of food crops to feed the industrial workers.
[15] The Zhenotdel was shut down by Stalin as he was establishing his power in 1930, he believed that women's issues in the Soviet Union had been "solved" by the eradication of private property and the nationalization of the means of production.
