6. Abortion Rights, New Economic Policy and the Second Conference of Communist Women¶
Core Argument¶
Chapter 6: Abortion Rights, New Economic Policy and the Second Conference of Communist Women
This chapter examines the profound contradictions that emerged as the early Soviet state attempted to advance women’s liberation under conditions of devastating material scarcity and political retreat. In November 1920, Russia became the first country to legalise abortion, responding to mass demand from working women and the deadly toll of back-street terminations. The decree permitted free abortions in state hospitals, performed only by doctors, yet it reflected traditional views that abortion was a social evil to be eliminated through socialism and maternity protection. In practice, severe shortages of hospital facilities meant illegal abortions remained widespread, particularly in the countryside. The New Economic Policy imposed financial constraints, and from 1924 commissions ranked women for free abortions, prioritising single unemployed women. By 1926, resource pressures led to a ban after three months and the introduction of charges, increasing illegal terminations.
The NEP, adopted at the Tenth Party Congress in March 1921 amid the Kronstadt mutiny, introduced a market economy in agricultural produce, increasing social differentiation in the countryside and reducing state support for communal dining and childcare. Lenin characterised the NEP as a temporary retreat forced by petty-bourgeois forces. The decree abolished collective responsibilities and unleashed corruption among local officials. After the civil war, careerists flooded the party; by 1927 former Mensheviks and SRs comprised about one quarter of active higher cadres. Demobilised Communist soldiers became administrators, enhancing centralisation and hierarchical structures. At the Tenth Congress, Stalin strengthened his position through control over appointments. Trotsky later argued the NEP allowed a new bureaucratic layer to strengthen itself by drawing close to bourgeois strata.
The NEP forced severe cuts to state-funded orphanages and day care centres, transferring them to impoverished local authorities. Many closed; others raised fees. This undermined women’s liberation, forcing them back into dependence on the family and increasing the number of besprizorniki. Trotsky insisted a revolution must help women and children; Rykov opposed state aid, arguing care belonged to the extended family. In August 1925, the government retreated from the 1918 Code, instructing children’s homes to put all children over three months up for adoption as a temporary measure, actively seeking well-to-do peasants who would use them as unpaid labour.
The Second International Conference of Communist Women (June 1921) advocated delegate meetings and non-party women’s conferences. The programme demanded full legal equality, education, healthcare, socialised housework and childcare, and an end to the sexual double standard, but omitted reproductive rights. Kollontai addressed gender roles and sexuality but lacked appreciation of material constraints. The Third Congress adopted the United Front strategy, requiring communist independence and freedom to criticise social democrats. Zetkin reported that national parties neglected work among women; the ultra-left dismissed it as reformist. The Congress made women’s departments binding on all parties. Communist women increasingly campaigned on abortion, demanding abolition of anti-abortion laws. Meanwhile, Kollontai was removed as Zhenotdel Director in January 1922 after breaking party discipline to support the Workers’ Opposition against the NEP. The Eleventh Party Congress saw appointment replace election of delegates, and Stalin’s Secretariat gained control over party appointments, turning local Control Commissions from defending members into mechanisms of control, with purges directed at crushing dissent.