5. War Communism, the Founding of Zhenotdel¶
Core Argument¶
During the Russian Civil War, the Bolsheviks faced not only twenty-one invading imperialist armies—including American, British, and Japanese forces—but also the immense task of consolidating revolution amidst devastation. The Red Army, under Trotsky’s leadership, defeated the main White forces by March 1920, yet internal factionalism festered. Stalin formed a clique with Kirov, Molotov, Ordzhonikidze, and Voroshilov, systematically undermining Trotsky, even publishing false claims in Pravda that his tsarist officers were executing Bolsheviks without trial—lies later exposed by a Central Committee investigation.
War Communism was adopted from June 1918, involving forced grain requisitioning from kulaks and nationalisation of large-scale industry. Committees of Poor Peasants (kombedy) were created to identify kulak grain stores but failed, clashing with middle peasants and dissolving in December 1918. Most peasants supported the Bolsheviks for granting them land, opposed requisitioning, but hated the Whites who would restore landlordism. The food situation grew so desperate that Petrograd’s industrial workers fell from 400,000 to fewer than 75,000 by 1920.
The First Congress of the Communist International (March 1919) affirmed the need to draw women workers into struggle. Alexandra Kollontai proposed a resolution stating the dictatorship of the proletariat could only be won with working-class women’s active participation. Commissions established after the 1918 Congress set up crèches, public canteens, and campaigned for maternity rights and women’s access to higher education, operating under the slogan “propaganda in deeds as well as words.” In September 1919, the Central Committee made it binding on all party organisations to establish women’s departments (Zhenotdel), though these were funded indirectly through Agitprop or local committees, remaining subsidiary. Under Inessa Armand, Zhenotdel mobilised women for the war effort; women fought as machine gunners and staffed the Red Sisters medical corps. After the war, Kollontai redirected Zhenotdel toward orphan care, feeding, and housing. Delegate assemblies allowed women to voice criticisms about low pay and lack of childcare, but local Zhenotdel had no authority to intervene. The organisation launched the journal Kommunistka in June 1920, edited by Krupskaya, and used stranichki—women’s pages in newspapers—reaching a claimed circulation of nearly 400,000 by 1921. Krupskaya estimated two million Soviet women attended delegate meetings in the decade before Zhenotdel was abolished.
The Second Congress of the Communist International in 1920 formally established the Communist Women’s Movement, mandating each section create a women’s commission. Lenin and Zetkin argued that temporary, focused work was necessary to overcome centuries of oppression. However, the resolution did not instruct parties to recruit women into leadership positions—a fatal weakness. Many male Bolsheviks saw women’s work as charity, not revolutionary necessity. Without leadership integration, the women’s sections remained vulnerable once the immediate crisis passed.