The Russian Revolution and the Emancipation of Women

The Russian Revolution and the Emancipation of Women

The roles of Russian women have changed drastically because of the revolution. The women were given more freedom and therefore were successful in achieving independence followed by a higher standing in society. Before the 1917 revolution, women were treated to be beneath men in almost every aspect in life. However, due to active women’s right movements, and more opportunities the war gave them, women were finally able to declare their independence and be appreciated as individuals. The emancipation of women in Russia didn’t occur over night but rather was a result of bourgeois feminist movement along with the 1905 Russian Revolution.Women’s participation in the Russian Revolution of 1917 was shaped by two former generations of the revolution: the Populist Revolt (1860-81) and the revolution of 1905 (1890-1914). The Populist Revolt was purely an upper-class affair. Most of the several thousand females who participated in the revolutionary movement between the 1860s and 1880s were from privileged Russian families. The few first Russian feminists were mostly from noble families, for instance Anna Filosofova was the wife of a tsarist general, Sofya Perovskaya assassin of the tsar in 1881, and Alexandra Kollontai, a Bolshevik commissar in 1917, were daughters of generals. The revolution of 1905 was based on a nationwide, all-class uprising. The growth of “women’s consciousness”; an act of refusal to accept traditional social roles of women began in early 19th century Russia. However, it only came onto the public scene in the late mid-century. The needs of women were defined separately from the general social struggle and the liberation of all the people. Their aims were modest and their achievements impressive: charity for poor girls, mutual assistance, self-directed activity in a land where this was in short supply, and educational and professional opportunities. In the help of their effort to achieve women’s independence, in the 1870s, universities and medical courses became available to Russian women. The Russian women stressed their individuality, independence and modernity by means of physical appearance and symbolic gestures such as short hair, plain clothes, a de-feminized manner, cigarette smoking, and brusqueness in speech.(Boxer 2000, p. 297)

Lenin was the first political leader in power to ever proclaim the complete equality of the sexes. His regime legislated equal pay for equal work, proclaimed full political, juridical, and educational equality, legalized abortion and liberalized the divorce system allowing woman a full partner in the family.

The war had a mixed social and economic impact on women. Because the war took away about one-third of the male population of working age away from homes and jobs, women were open to new job and civic opportunities along with new responsibilities. For women in the middle and upper classes, the war opened opportunities for them to serve as nurses near the front or as first-aid and canteen staffs at stations. As the war took away men to join the army, it created new job and better wage opportunities for women in fields that had been previously closed or restricted. The February Revolution and the freedom it brought revitalized the feminist movement. Feminist took advantage of it immediately to expand organizational activities such as fighting for their rights to vote. When the initial declaration by the Provisional Government about “universal” elections to the Constituent Assembly did not specifically include women, The League for Women’s Equal Rights organized a great demonstration on March 19th in which about 40,000 women marched to the Tauride Palace to demand the vote. Many Socialist feared that women, especially peasants, would vote for reinstating the monarchy. (Wade 2000, p. 116)Although both the socialist and liberal parties had long stressed the importance of women’s rights, their reactions differed to the new opportunities the February Revolution brought them in the sense that educated women in the socialist party rejected feminism. They argued that they had more in common with the men of their class than with women of other classes. In general, the Russian Revolution in 1917 played a huge role in changing the role of Russian women in society. However, this was not the case for the peasant women. The year 1917 had little effect on peasant women as women. Living in poverty, peasant women weren’t able to see the revolution as a chance to change the role of women or a gender opportunity but rather they were faced with general uncertainty and economical difficulties.

The Bolsheviks came to power with the idea of liberation of women and transformation of the family. 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.(Smith 2002, p. 137)The Bolsheviks launched a movement for women’s self-activity; the Zhenotdel, also known as women’s section of the Communist Party (1919-1930). Under the leadership of Kollontai, the Zhenotdel spread the news of the revolution, enforced its laws, set up political education and literacy classes for working-class and peasant women and fought prostitution.(Boxer 2000, p. 302)

References

*wikicite|id=idBoxer2000|reference=cite book |last= Boxer |first= Marilyn J. |coauthors= Jean H. Quataert |title= |edition= Second|date= |year= 2000|month= |publisher= Oxford University Press, Inc. |location= New York, New York 10016 |isbn= 0-19-510950-3 |chapter= 14
*wikicite|id=idSmith2002|reference=cite book |last= Smith |first= S.A. |title= "The Russian Revolution" |year= 2002 |publisher= Oxford University Press, Inc. |location= United States |isbn= 0-19-285395-3|pages= 137
*wikicite|id=idWade2000|reference=cite book |last= Wade |first= Rex A. |title= The Russian Revolution, 1917 |publisher= Cambridge University Press. |year= 2000 |isbn= 0-521-41548-9 |chapter= 4


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