Women under Lenin

Question 1

the change in the position of women can be considered ?

Answer 1

one of the greatest social changes to take place after 1917

Question 2

what was the key to the fundamental changes in the position of women in the new communist state?

Answer 2

economic independence = women should be able to have a job outside of looking after a home and a family
(e.g Alexander Kollontai pushed for this)

Question 3

what was the role of prominently peasant women before the revolution ?

Answer 3

• to attend to household tasks and children
  although they had also been expected to play their part in farming and small-scale domestic economy
• they had been without legal privileges (e.g had no inheritance rights)

Question 4

What did Lenin regard the traditional bourgeois marriage?

Answer 4

as akin to slavery, with the woman the property of her husband and subjugated to his will
- argued it was economic and sexual exploitation

Question 5

what did freeing women from their domestic role require, and how did Lenin feel about this requirement?

Answer 5

• required large-scale provision of facilities such as canteens, laundries, kindergartens ( in other words the socialisation of domestic services)
• this was a requirement which Lenin understood and supported

Question 6

in November 1917, the new government decreed against?

Answer 6

sex discrimination and gave women the right to own property

Question 7

further decrees allowed :
(Church)

Answer 7

church influence was removed by recognising only civil marriage

Question 8

decree (divorce)

Answer 8

divorce was made easier and less expensive

Question 9

in 1920 what happened to abortion?

Answer 9

it was legalised, to protect against the high mortality rates produced by illegal abortions

Question 10

what was provided for women?

Answer 10

free contraceptive advice

Question 11

a new family code in 1926 gave ?

Answer 11

women in ‘common law’ marriages, the same rights as those who underwent the civil ceremony

Question 12

when was wedding rings banned?

Answer 12

1928

Question 13

changes to women’s role in the home also implied a fundamental change in ?

Answer 13

the relationship between men and women

Question 14

once freed from the constraints of bourgeois marriage there would be?

Answer 14

more equality between the sexes and sexual liberation because people would be freer to choose their partners
(thus laws were passed immediately to make divorce easier)

Question 15

the bolsheviks had set?

Answer 15

the socialist dream for women in motion

Question 16

what year did USSR have the highest marriage rate?

Answer 16

in 1919

Question 17

by the mid 1920s, USSR had? How many times higher than Britain?

Answer 17

the highest divorce rate in Europe, 25 times higher than in Britain

Question 18

negatives of easy divorce

Answer 18

divorce being readily available= women were abandoned when they became pregnant
due to the housing shortage = divorced couples often lived together = domestic violence and rape were common

Question 19

survey of broken marriages from the end of 1920s indicated how many cases of divorces were initiated by men and how many by mutual consent?

Answer 19

indicated 70% of cases were initiated by the men
only 7% of cases by mutual consent

Question 20

by 1927 how many marriages in Moscow ended in divorce?

Answer 20

2/3 of marriages ended in divorce, across the country the figure was 1/2

Question 21

advertised ‘equality’ disguised reality as

Answer 21

most women found themselves not only working on the land or increasingly in factories but also attending to all housework tasks and family’s needs e.g spending considerable time in food queues

Question 22

girls were given?

Answer 22

same educational rights as boys, enabled a minority to obtain qualifications and careers previously not open to women
- for most dual burden of work and home still existed

Question 23

limitations of state provision for creches, kitchens and laundries

Answer 23

when this was costed, it added up to more than the entire national budget, reality for many Russian children not network of socialist kindergartens but live in gangs, stealing etc

Question 24

estimated how many orphans in the 1920s

Answer 24

between 7 million and 9 million orphans, most under 13