Soviet Attitudes Toward the Family (Edexcel A Level History): Revision Note

Summary

• This note will examine how Soviet attitudes towards the family changed from Lenin to Brezhnev

• Soviet leaders saw the family as vital for creating the "new socialist citizen" and maintaining social order

• Lenin’s early reforms aimed to challenge traditional family structures

  • However, instability and weak legal systems limited their impact

• Under Stalin, the family became a tool for social discipline, population growth and support for industrialisation

• Khrushchev attempted to modernise family life and ease the 'double burden' on women

  • However, shortages and poor provision meant that everyday life changed little

• Brezhnev promoted a conservative, traditional view of the family

  • Claims of equality masked continued gender inequality

• Historians still debate whether Soviet family policy represented progress for women or simply another method of state control

Why was the family important to Soviet politicians?

• Soviet politicians believed the family was essential for

  • Shaping the "new socialist citizen"

  • Stabilising society during periods of rapid change

• Many Soviet leaders used family policies as a way to solve wider social and economic problems, including

  • The rebuilding of the population after the Civil War and the Second World War

  • Supporting industrialisation

• Despite the change of what a socialist family should look like, all the Soviet leaders believed that controlling family life allowed the government to

  • Influence behaviour

  • Maintain social order

  • Promote wider ideological goals

Lenin's policies toward the family

• Lenin's government did not have a consistent policy towards the family

  • Lenin and Trotsky held conservative views towards the family

    • They understood that marriage and divorce laws needed to be reformed due to the abuses that went on in some marriages

• However, Alexandra Kollontai believed

  • Families were oppressive

    • It encouraged selfishness and individualism

  • Families should be replaced with monogamous marriage and free love

  • Removing families would allow for the emergence of the 'new woman'

• Policies before the revolution became meaningless as democracy was suspended in mid-1918

  • It was then effectively abolished in 1921

  • Legal rights were hard to uphold as Soviet law courts had little authority

The Zhenotdel

• The Zhenotdel worked alongside other government departments to integrate women into Soviet society and improve women's rights

• The Zhenotdel worked with the Commissariat of Education to introduce

  • Co-education

  • Women's reading rooms

    • In urban areas where women could study

  • Education schemes for women in factories

    • Quotas were set to ensure women were represented at all levels of education

• The Zhenotdel improved women's rights by introducing the following:

  • Equal rights, 1919

    • The Soviet Union was the first country to provide women with equal working and voting rights

  • The legalisation of abortion, 1920

  • Contraception, 1920s

  • The legalisation of prostitution, 1922

  • 'Postcard divorce', 1926

    • The government viewed marriage as a simple contract which could easily be ended by either the husband or the wife

    • Between 1917 - 1928, 70% of divorces were initiated by men. Often leaving women without homes or jobs

  • The continuation of lesbianism not being a crime

    • Lesbianism was not criminalised before or after the revolution

• The Zhenotdel attempted to provide Soviet women with support

  • When prostitution was legalised in 1922, the Zhenotdel worked with the Commissariat of Health to offer medical support to prostitutes

• However, the Zhenotdel did not always provide the support many women needed

  • They refused to help women who were victims of sexual harassment

    • Soviet law did not recognise this type of crime

  • Women in 1928 organised strikes and walkouts

    • They were seen as 'un-Soviet' and the women as troublemakers

    • The laws were not changed

The end of communal living

• By 1925, Kollontai's experiment for communal living ended

  • The 1926 Marriage Code became the official Soviet stance on family

    • The belief of a traditional family

  • Showing that the government believed that marriage was the essential model for society

• The official changes had significant effects on families as

  • Adoption became easier

  • Facto marriage was established

    • Providing men and women who lived together the same legal status as married men and women

• However, the New Economic Policy (NEP) did not fund crèches or day care

  • Showing that the government wanted to re-emphasise marriage and not to emancipate women

  • Lack of funding resulted in street gangs

    • Those who lost their families in the Civil War lived by participating in petty crime

Stalin's policies toward the family

• Government policies towards the family became more conservative under Stalin

  • They were a reaction to the problems created in the 1920s

  • Stalin needed to stabilise society to help with industrialisation

• Stalin's overall aim towards families in the Soviet Union was to

  • Cut divorce

  • Increase birth rates

• In 1936, to achieve his aims, Stalin made the following changes:

  • Abortion became illegal

    • Unless the pregnant woman's life was in danger

  • Contraception was banned

  • Divorce became expensive

    • Approximately one week's wages

    • Fathers were expected to pay at least one-third of their income to their ex-wives to support their children. This increased to 60% if they had more than two children

  • Sex outside of marriage was stigmatised

    • On collective farms, managers would carry out 'medical virginity checks' to ensure abstinence

  • Male homosexuality was made illegal

    • Consensual sex between men received a five-year sentence in a labour camp

  • Lesbianism was regarded as a 'disease'

    • Attempts were made to 'cure' lesbian women through hypnotherapy

• To support the changes to the law, Stalin also introduced

  • Financial incentives

    • Introduced in 1944

    • Women who had seven children received 2,000 roubles a year for five years

    • This increased to 5,000 roubles for mothers of 11 children

  • Media campaigns

    • Exposing unfaithful men

    • The Trud, a trade union newspaper, ran stories of men who turned to 'wildness, degeneracy and baseness'

Khrushchev's policies toward the family

• Khrushchev's policies towards the family were different to Stalin's as Khrushchev

  • Wanted the traditional role of women to change

    • Women who had families were not supported by the previous government, which resulted in inequality

  • Saw the effect the death of ten million men during the Second World War had on families

    • The proportion of women in society increased from 52% in 1939 to 55% in 1959

    • Many families had only one parent

    • The traditional Stalinist model of family failed to work as women could not afford to stay at home

• Khrushchev introduced the following policies to help families, especially women

  • Abortion became legal in 1955

  • State-paid maternity leave increased to 112 days, from 77 days in 1956

  • Crèches, childcare facilities and laundries became more available under the Sixth Five-Year Plan

  • The Seven-Year Plan aimed to

    • Reduce the 'double burden' by mass-producing clothes and introducing convenience food

    • Make refrigerators widely available to reduce the need for women to shop daily

• However, these policies had limited success as

  • Crèches tended to open late and close early

    • Women were unable to work a full day

  • Some employers refused to grant women their full maternity leave

  • The 'double burden' continued

    • Appliances were not readily available

  • Contraceptives were difficult to purchase

  • Housework was still seen as a woman's job

  • Women found it difficult to earn an education

    • As they still had to complete household tasks and work

Brezhnev's policies toward the family

• Brezhnev did not make as many policy changes towards the family as

  • The government officially claimed that equality had been achieved in the Soviet Union

    • Despite the lack of women in top positions in the government, agriculture, and industry

    • This was because of a woman's 'natural desire' to focus on their family

  • There was a ban on media coverage of the advancement of women in the West

  • Brezhnev saw women as unskilled workers whose main goal was to have children

    • By 1982, women spent twice as much time as men completing household chores as men

    • This was seen as 'natural'

  • Homosexuality continued to be a crime

  • Lesbianism was still seen as a mental disorder

Did Soviet attitudes toward the family improve life in the USSR?

• Historians debate whether Soviet family policy genuinely improved people's lives, or whether it was primarily used by the state to control society

The Soviet state improved family life

• Early Bolshevik reforms aimed to modernise and equalise family relationships

• Legal equality was expanded

  • Marriage law reformed

  • Divorce simplified

  • Women gained property rights and control over earnings

• The state sought to support working families

  • Socialisation of domestic labour was promoted

  • Expansion of childcare and maternal support under Khrushchev

• Family reforms aimed to weaken the patriarchy

  • Encouraged female participation in work

  • Attempted to reshape gender roles in line with socialist ideology

Key historian

“The Bolsheviks strongly emphasized waged labor as a prerequisite for women’s liberation precisely because the struggle to incorporate female labor into the working-class movement was central to working-class women’s equality in the nineteenth century. Their commitment to the socialization of housework and the withering away of the family were direct responses to capitalism’s assault on the family and traditional gender roles. Female waged labor and its attendant consequences provided the link between the various components of the Bolshevik vision. By 1918, the Bolsheviks stood heir to a multifaceted vision of women’s liberation rooted in a long revolutionary tradition. They had taken the first decisive steps toward their ideals in a new Family Code that radically broke with the laws and mores of their country’s past.” - Wendy Goldman, Women, the State and Revolution (1995)

The Soviet state did not improve family life

• Family policy reinforced traditional gender roles

  • Women were still expected to be the primary carers and domestic managers

  • Legal equality rarely translated into social equality

• Women faced conflicting demands

  • Expected to work full-time and run the household (“double burden”)

  • State rhetoric often praised women as mothers rather than independent individuals

• Family remained a tool of social discipline

  • Stalin used the family to stabilise society and increase the population

  • Under Brezhnev, conservative values were promoted as 'natural'

  • Women experienced role conflict and persistent inequality

Key historian

“Current Soviet officials continue to stress the important role of the family to Soviet society. Indeed, the strength of the society has become virtually synonymous with the strengthening and stability of the family. However, this continued emphasis has placed Soviet women in a precarious position. For while their first social duty remains to contribute to the national economy through employment, they are expected to continue to fulfil their traditional roles as housewife and educator-mother in almost full measure… As such, the Marxist goal of female emancipation has only partially succeeded… The lack of synchronization between these two requirements of female emancipation makes it difficult to evaluate the development of Soviet family policy without ambivalence. Without doubt, this incongruence will continue to exert political and familial strains within the Soviet society, creating both role conflict for women and a sexual division of labor within the family.” - Gary Lee Bowen, The Evolution of Soviet Family Policy: Female Liberation vs. Social Cohesion (1979)