Women Family and the Russian Revolution¶

Core Argument¶

This book sets out to demonstrate that the oppression of women is not a transhistorical or biological given but a product of class society, specifically the emergence of private property and the monogamous family as a mechanism for ensuring paternity and inheritance. Drawing on Engels' Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, the authors argue that women's subjugation originates with the division of labour that confined them to domestic work, a sphere excluded from social production and therefore rendered economically dependent and politically powerless. The full emancipation of women, therefore, requires the abolition of private property and the socialisation of domestic labour—a task only possible through socialist revolution.

The book's central thesis is that the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 created a unique historical opening to confront the 'woman question' as an integral part of socialist transformation, but that this project was ultimately defeated not by inherent impossibility but by specific historical defeats: economic backwardness, revolutionary isolation, and the subsequent consolidation of the Stalinist bureaucracy. The authors argue that Stalinism reversed Bolshevik policy, rehabilitating the bourgeois family, recriminalising homosexuality and abortion, and subordinating women's liberation to the imperatives of breakneck industrialisation. The collapse of the USSR and the restoration of capitalism confirmed that women's gains under state socialism were real but vulnerable, as capitalist restoration immediately worsened women's lives through unemployment, cuts to childcare and healthcare, and the promotion of 'traditional values'.

Overview¶

The book opens by establishing the materialist foundation for the entire analysis, tracing the shift from primitive communism—where communal production and collective child-rearing meant relative equality between the sexes—to the rise of class society and the patriarchal family. The authors polemicise against both bourgeois feminism, which treats patriarchy as an autonomous system separable from capitalism, and biological determinism, which claims women's reproductive role naturally consigns them to domesticity. The argument is grounded in concrete historical evidence from hunter-gatherer bands, ancient Greece and Rome, and matrilineal kinship systems among the Iroquois and in pre-colonial Africa.

The narrative then moves to the development of Marxist theory on the 'woman question' within the German Social Democratic Party, examining the contributions of Engels, Bebel, and Clara Zetkin. The authors distinguish the Marxist position from bourgeois feminism, noting Zetkin's landmark 1896 report arguing that the 'woman question' differed by class: bourgeois women fought men for property rights, while proletarian women's interests united with working-class men. The chapter also addresses the SPD's campaign against Germany's Paragraph 175, which criminalised male same-sex acts, and corrects common misrepresentations of Marx and Engels on homosexuality.

The book traces the Bolsheviks' evolving engagement with the 'woman question' from the late nineteenth century through to the February Revolution of 1917, arguing that the Party's practical work among women workers proved decisive for the revolutionary movement. The authors detail the establishment of the women's journal Rabotnitsa, the organisation of factory gate meetings, and the crucial role of women textile workers in sparking the February Revolution on International Women's Day 1917. The October Revolution itself is presented as a proletarian, socialist revolution that immediately granted women full legal equality, introducing civil marriage and divorce, the eight-hour day, paid maternity leave, and the legalisation of abortion and decriminalisation of homosexuality.

The middle sections of the book examine the establishment of the Zhenotdel (Women's Department) during the Civil War, the contradictions of the New Economic Policy, and the gradual bureaucratic degeneration of the revolution. The authors argue that the NEP forced severe cuts to state-funded social services, undermining women's liberation and forcing them back into dependence on the family. The formation of the Troika—Kamenev, Stalin, and Zinoviev—marked a qualitative degeneration of Bolshevik leadership, as factional loyalty supplanted party loyalty and the apparatus of control was constructed through the Secretariat and Orgburo.

The later chapters trace the catastrophic collision between Stalin's bureaucratic apparatus and the Soviet peasantry through forced collectivisation and famine, the Hujum unveiling campaign in Central Asia, and the increasingly reactionary family policies of the 1930s. The 1936 'Family Law' reasserted the traditional family as an economic unit, banned abortion, and recriminalised homosexuality. The Great Terror of 1937–38 is analysed as the mechanism through which the Stalinist bureaucracy consolidated itself as a ruling stratum, annihilating the older generation of Bolsheviks. The book concludes with the progressive erosion of women's liberation from the war years through to perestroika, and the catastrophic reversal of gains following the restoration of capitalism in the former Soviet Union.

Chapter Guide¶

Production — Establishes the materialist foundation: the mode of production determines social relations, and women's subjugation originates with class society and private property, not biology.
Acknowledgements — Personal note thanking contributors for editorial and research support.
Abbreviations and Explanatory Notes — Reference guide to abbreviations, party nomenclature, and historical chronology.
Opening Quote — Epigraphs from Wendy Z. Goldman and Leon Trotsky framing the revolutionary moment's radical promise for women's emancipation.
Introduction — Argues that women's oppression is rooted in class society and the patriarchal family, and that the Bolshevik programme of socialising domestic labour remains the only path to full emancipation.
The 'Woman Question': Recognition of Women's Dual Burden — Examines Marxist theory from Marx and Engels through Bebel and Zetkin, distinguishing it from bourgeois feminism.
The 'Woman Question': Early Years in Russia — Traces Bolshevik engagement with women workers from the 1890s through to the February Revolution.
Working Women of Petrograd Ignite the Russian Revolution — Analyses Lenin's April Theses and the role of Rabotnitsa in mobilising women for the October insurrection.
October 1917: A Proletarian, Socialist Revolution — Details the revolution's immediate legal gains for women and the establishment of the 1918 Family Code.
War Communism, the Founding of Zhenotdel — Examines the establishment of women's departments during the Civil War and their role in mobilising women.
Abortion Rights, New Economic Policy and the Second Conference of Communist Women — Analyses the contradictions of the NEP and its impact on women's liberation.
Objective Circumstances Limit Bolshevik Aspirations — Argues that revolutionary isolation and economic backwardness created conditions for bureaucratic degeneration.
The New Course and the 1926 Family Code — Traces the formation of the Troika and the suppression of internal party democracy.
The First Five-Year Plan, Women in the Workforce — Examines how rapid industrialisation subordinated women's liberation to production targets.
Collectivisation and Famine — Analyses the catastrophic impact of forced collectivisation on peasant women.
The Hujum, Unveiling and Collectivisation in Central Asia — Examines the contradictory effects of Soviet modernisation on Muslim women.
The Second Five-Year Plan, A Woman's Right to Choose — Details the increasingly reactionary family policies and the 1936 abortion ban.
The Great Terror — Analyses the purges as the mechanism for consolidating the bureaucratic ruling stratum.
Women, the Great Patriotic War and 'Post-Stalinism' — Traces the erosion of women's liberation from the war through to perestroika.
Women and Capitalist Restoration — Examines the catastrophic reversal of women's gains following the USSR's collapse.
Appendix: Capitalist Restoration – From Soviet Union to Russian Federation — Traces the methodical dismantling of the Soviet planned economy.

Key Concepts¶

Mode of production — The economic foundation of society that determines social relations, including the position of women.

Double burden — Women's dual exploitation as waged workers and through unpaid domestic labour within the patriarchal family.

Zhenotdel — The Women's Department of the Bolshevik Party, established in 1919 to organise and mobilise working women.

Socialisation of domestic labour — The Marxist programme of replacing individual housework with collective institutions such as public dining halls, laundries, and nurseries.

Bourgeois feminism — The reformist position that seeks legal equality within capitalism without challenging the mode of production itself.

Bureaucratic degeneration — The process by which the Soviet state was captured by a privileged layer of functionaries who suppressed internal democracy and abandoned revolutionary internationalism.

Stalinism — The counter-revolutionary regime that reversed Bolshevik policy on women, the family, and sexuality, rehabilitating traditional patriarchal structures.

Permanent revolution — Trotsky's theory that in backward countries, the bourgeois-democratic tasks can only be resolved through socialist revolution, which must then spread internationally.

NEP (New Economic Policy) — The temporary retreat to market mechanisms in agriculture adopted in 1921, which undermined state support for women's liberation.

Hujum — The Soviet campaign in Central Asia to unveil Muslim women and integrate them into industrial and agricultural production.

Chapters¶

21 chapters