Impact on policies on women and minorities
Gender policies: the ‘Great Retreat’
- Stalin reversed many of Lenin’s progressive gender policies by the mid-1930s, deeming earlier experiments in sexual liberation and easy divorce as social failures.
- His 1936 decree reinstated the family as the fundamental unit of Soviet society, outlawed homosexuality, restricted abortion, and made divorce more difficult.
Note
- Under Lenin, the 1918 Constitution granted women full legal equality, including the right to vote, divorce, and access to education and employment. The Bolsheviks legalized abortion (in 1920), made marriage a civil rather than religious institution, and established crèches and communal kitchens to ease domestic burdens.
- Despite official rhetoric about women’s emancipation, Stalinist industrialization imposed a ‘double burden’ on women who were expected to fulfill demanding roles both as workers in factories and as mothers at home.
- The war intensified this exploitation: women became essential to sustaining wartime production and military roles, yet their economic rewards were limited, with real wages for women actually falling between 1930 and 1945.
- Recognizing the declining birthrate and wartime population losses, Stalin’s government introduced policies that incentivized large families. By 1944, mothers with more than two children were honored as ‘heroines of the Soviet Union,’ while abortions were banned outright and taxes penalized small families.
- Over half a million women served in the Red Army during World War II, highlighting their indispensable role in the Soviet war effort. However, the reality was grim: newly available archival evidence reveals widespread sexual abuse of female soldiers, particularly by officers, exposing the dark underside of their militarized participation and the regime’s failure to protect or properly honor these women.
- Early Bolshevik feminist organizations like Zhenotdel were disbanded by 1930, signaling the state’s withdrawal from promoting independent female voices.
Note
- The Zhenotdel (Women’s Department), established in 1919 by the Bolsheviks, aimed to promote women’s rights and integrate women into Soviet political and economic life.
- Led by figures like Alexandra Kollontai and Inessa Armand, it focused on improving literacy, legal awareness, and employment among women, especially in rural areas.
- The Zhenotdel helped implement progressive reforms such as access to divorce, abortion, and childcare support.
Historiography
- Historians coincide in the fact that Stalin’s policies were overall negative for women, stressing the “double burden” and the ideological tension between revolutionary ideals and a traditional role for women.
- Nevertheless, some scholars offer some positive aspects of Stalin-era policies for women that you may want to include in your essays to show nuance and help evaluation.
- The First Five Year plan meant a mass entry of women into the workforce, with almost 4 million wage-earners entering industry, construction, and mining by the early 1930s
- Stalin’s industrialization drive also included major investments in training and schooling. Millions of women gained new literacy, vocational skills, and access to advanced roles—nearly one-third of engineers and over 40% of industrial workers were women by 1940 .
Suppression and Control of Religious Minorities
- Stalin’s anti-religious campaigns aggressively targeted all faiths, including Orthodox Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. Churches, mosques, and synagogues were closed or repurposed; clergy faced imprisonment or public humiliation.
- The repression provoked resistance, especially in rural areas where religion was intertwined with cultural identity.
- Despite a wartime tactical relaxation to boost morale, religion was strictly subordinated to the state and used as a tool for patriotic mobilization rather than genuine religious freedom.
- During the Great Patriotic War, Stalin temporarily eased religious persecution, reopening churches to harness nationalist and spiritual fervor in the defense of the USSR.
- Post-war, however, religious institutions became tightly controlled instruments of state power, with the Orthodox Church overseeing other denominations to prevent political dissent. This relationship institutionalized the Church’s subservience to Stalinist totalitarianism, eroding its independence and spiritual authority.
