Encyclopedia of Russian History

The party responded to this increased insistence with charges of feminist deviation. In February 1922 Kollontai (now tainted as well by her involvement in the Workers’ Opposition) was replaced as head of the zhenotdel by Sofia Smidovich. Smidovich, a contemporary of Kollontai, was much more socially conservative and less adamant about all the injustices to women. Kollontai and her close assistant, Vera Golubeva, did not cease to sound the alarm about women’s plight, even when Kollontai was reassigned to the Soviet trade union delegation in Norway. From her exile in 1922, Kollontai, calling the New Economic Policy “the new threat,” expressed fears that women would be forced out of the workforce and back into domestic subservience to their male companions. She now even began to question whether feminism was such a negative term.

The Twelfth Party Congress in April 1923 reacted vehemently against the possibility of any such feminist deviations. At the same congress, Stalin (normally reticent on women’s issues) now praised women’s delegate meetings organized by the zhenotdel as “an important, essential transmission mechanism” between the party and the female masses. As such, they should be used to “extend and direct the party’s tentacles in order to underENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY mine the influence of the priests among youth, who are raised by women.” Through such tentacles, the party would be able to “transmit its will to the working class.” Three months later Smidovich announced that Kommunistka would no longer carry theoretical discussions of women’s emancipation.

Unfortunately, the historical record of the zhenotdel for the period after 1924 is less clear than the earlier record because the relevant files of the women’s section are missing from the party archives. The women’s section in 1924-1925 was headed by Nikolayeva, herself a woman of the working class and long-time activist in the Leningrad women’s section. In May 1924 the Thirteenth Party Congress again attacked the zhenotdel, accusing it this time of one-sidedness (odnostoronnost) for focusing too much on agitation and propaganda rather than working directly on issues of women’s daily lives. Soon thereafter Nikolayeva, Krupskaya, and Lilina became embroiled in the Leningrad Opposition. It is quite likely that the zhenotdel records were purged because of this.

Alexandra Artyukhina, newly appointed as director of the section (replacing Nikolayeva), made a point of arguing that the women’s sections should propagandize against the Leningrad Opposition on the grounds that otherwise female workers would fall for their false slogans in favor of “equality” and “participation in profits.” Now more than ever the women’s sections strove to prove their original contention that they had “no tasks separate from the tasks of the party.” During the second half of the 1920s the women’s section toed the party line, participating in military preparedness exercises for women workers during the war scare of 1927, as well as in the collectivization and industrialization drives of 1928-1930.

In January 1930 the Central Committee of the CPSU announced that the women’s sections were being liquidated as part of a general reorganization of the party. While the decree declared that work among the female masses had “the highest possible significance,” this work was now to be done by all the sections of the Central Committee rather than by special women’s sections. In some parts of the country, especially Central Asia, the women’s sections were replaced by women’s sectors (zhensektory). Kommunistka was completely closed down. Lazar Kaganovich, Stalin’s spokesman for this move, claimed that since the women’s section had now completed the circle of its development, it was no longer necessary. The historic “woman question” had now been solved.

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ZHENSOVETY

The impossible position of the women’s sections can be clearly seen in resolutions and criticisms of the last years of their existence. They were sometimes criticized for devoting too little attention to daily life (byt), while other times they were attacked for too much of a social welfare bias in helping women in their daily lives. If they were too outspoken, they were accused of feminist deviations, while if they were not visible enough in their work, they were accused of passivity. Ultimately, the untenable position of the women’s sections arose from their position as transmission belts between the party and the masses. While the founders of the zhenotdel had hoped that they could carry women’s voices and needs to the party, the party insisted that the principal role of the women’s sections was to convey the party’s will to the female masses. See also: ABORTION POLICY; ARMAND, INESSA; FEMINISM; KOLLONTAI, ALEXANDRA MIKHAILOVNA; KRUPSKAYA, NADEZHDA KONSTANTINOVNA; MARRIAGE AND FAMILY LIFE; SAMOILOVA, KONDORDIYA NIKOLAYEVNA

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