3-GORBACHEV+Dangol,+Natasha

The Bolsheviks were adamant about female empowerment despite the negative reception garnered by the more traditional adherents of society. Most of the changes that the revolution brought to women were focused on ending their economic dependence on men. Property laws were changed to give women equal rights to own land, to be head of household and to receive equal pay. Attention was paid to women's childbearing role and special maternity laws were introduced forbidding long hours and night work, and establishing paid leave at childbirth, family allowances and child-care centres. Abortion was legalised in 1920, divorce was simplified and civil registration of marriage was introduced.
 * What was the situation for that group/institution before Gorbachev became Premier?**

__Vladimir Lenin: International Working Women’s Day__ Written: 4 March, 1921 First Published: Published On March 8, 1921; In a Supplement to Pravda No. 51. [|__https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1921/mar/04.htm__] “....No party or revolution in the world has ever dreamed of striking so deep at the roots of the oppression and inequality of women as the Soviet, Bolshevik revolution is doing. Over here, in Soviet Russia, no trace is left of any inequality between men and women under the law. The Soviet power has eliminated all there was of the especially disgusting, base and hypocritical inequality in the laws on marriage and the family and inequality in respect of children. This is only the first step in the liberation of woman. But none of the bourgeois republics, including the most democratic, has dared to take over this first step. …”

But as Stalin came to power, the role of women once again reverted to traditional figures in the kitchen. In 1936 new legislation to reinforce the traditional role of the family was introduced, restricting women's rights to independence and mobility. Divorce became more difficult to obtain. Legal abortions were abolished except on health grounds and women were instructed that they had no right to deny the "joys of motherhood". Some may argue that since the Soviets did suffer the most during the war, the severe labor shortages at home compelled the Soviets to instruct women to “enjoy motherhood” to increase the population. Women along with the working class had their political democracy crushed by the privileged bureaucrats. Stalin once again wanted the “new cult” of a stable family with stable relationships. The responsibility for childcare was once again shifted back to the individual family which is always women. Trotsky sums up the changes in society in his book, The Revolution Betrayed:

__Leon Trotsky: The Revolution Betrayed__ Published: 1937 [|__http://www.socialistappeal.org/analysis/women-marxism/141-women-in-the-soviet-union__] "The triumphal rehabilitation of the family…is caused by the material and cultural bankruptcy of the state. Instead of openly saying, 'we have proven still too poor and ignorant for the creation of socialist relations among men, our children and grandchildren will realise this aim,' the leaders are forcing people to glue together again the shell of the broken family, and not only that, but to consider it, under threat of extreme penalties, the sacred nucleus of triumphal socialism." (p. 151) Unsurprisingly, the Stalinists imprisoned and exiled adherents of Bolshevism and everyone else who opposed Stalin. While Stalinism was devastating for the country as a whole, it did bring improvements to the lives of the impoverished, despite failing to provide the promises of the Bolsheviks. More women entered the labor force and educational institutions, yet even as their numbers increased throughout the economy, proportionally they remained concentrated in certain fields, such as medicine, education, and domestic services, which were lower paying, less prestigious, and certainly not as politically influential. As millions of people migrated from villages to the rapidly growing cities, women found new opportunities for work, study, and leisure, even as those left behind in the villages had to bear an increasing share of the labor burden with even fewer resources. Finally, the ideological commitment to women’s equality and emancipation was not shared by all men, and on a daily level, women continued to encounter harassment, prejudice, and exploitation.

**How did that group/institution interpret the application of those policies to it?** The reaction among Russian women of Stalin’s era was not enthusiastic to say the least. Housework was considered socially useful labor by the Stalinists, yet there was an enormous differences in the lives of ordinary women workers and the wives of the bureaucrats, who had luxuries the working women could only dream about. The working women had to balance family life with their full time job. The return of women to family responsibilities was further reinforced with the decline in standards of creches and nurseries. __The Voice of Russia: Raisa Gorbachev: the first and only Soviet First Lady__ Published: 25 December 2013 [|__http://voiceofrussia.com/2013_12_25/Raisa-Gorbachev-the-first-and-only-Soviet-First-Lady-1325/__] "Society could hardly conceal its envy and irritation for Raisa Maksimovna. Many outlandish rumors circulated. Women hated her for her expensive and "foreign made" clothing. (Despite the fact that almost all her life she ordered clothes from Soviet tailors, and only in later years bought ready-made clothes). Men hated her for excessive "independence", for "putting on airs".

Women activists were present before Gorbachev's reforms but conflict ensued during Perestroika. In the 1960s and 1970s,Soviet women entered the party in greater numbers, but their role in the party remained relatively limited. Women’s Councils were politically weak, and there continued to be no women in the Politburo and few women in decision-making bodies. A handful of women (located primarily in Moscow) experimented with feminism and tried to adapt it to Soviet women’s problems. The vast majority of these protest groups was unconcerned with this largely foreign ideology, and brought together local mothers who sought to force state agencies to provide relief and assistance to their children. Slowly but surely however, female activists began forming groups. From 1989, women activists also formed many other new women’s direct action groups to force other state agencies to reform their treatment of women and their children. Also in 1989, non-Russian women began to form new national women’s associations tried to empower women through their role in national identity formation via a nationalist variant of materialistic activism. These groups tended to utilize organizational resources from the system of secondary associations(chiefly, professional unions and academic institutes) that the Soviet state developed to administer areas of education and culture. They were mostly concentrated in Western Ukraine and the Baltics and the Caucasus where nationalist sentiments were rising anyway.

Gorbachev initiated massive reform policies known as the Perestroika and glasnost that came with social reforms as well. Few people were able to realize that behind these reforms the structure of was deteriorating. Gorbachev introduced seemingly innocuous reforms that proved cataclysmic, unleashing latent forces of discontent, which led to the disintegration of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). Open discussion of the zhenskii vopros (woman question), was a notable hallmark of the Gorbachev era. The Soviet Women’s Committee finally “broke the silence” in a conference in January 1987 about the many grievances of women, which were not responded favorably by Gorbachev. In addition, there were also a lot of opposition and disagreement among his advisors, most notably between Yegor Ligachev and Boris Yeltsin. Gorbachev tried to find a middle way but that made him unpopular with everyone. By 1989-90, Gorbachev's economic policies were foundering hopelessly, and various half-measures were attempted to rescue the reform plans. The Soviet economy was disintegrating slowly. The way Gorbachev wanted to tackle social problems was through attacking alcoholism. Shortly after coming to power, Gorbachev focused on alcohol as an enemy of progress. Alcoholism was the USSR's most debilitating social problem, which led to abuses against the wives, children and high rates of accidents in jobs. It had “unintended consequences” such as increase in bootlegging and loss of revenue for the government. Another issue was religion which emerged again after the government celebrated the Millennium of the Christianization of Russia in 1988. It was popular among the older women who had before been ridiculed by society. By 1989-90, Gorbachev's economic policies were foundering hopelessly, and various half-measures were attempted to rescue the reform plans. The Soviet economy was disintegrating slowly. There were some prominent women who were still loyal to Gorbachev however. The most prominent was none other than Raisa Gorbacheva, a well informed and dedicated Communist. Gorbacheva was an asset in the Gorbachevs' international travel, because she projected an image of a new Soviet Union,sophisticated and up-to- date. In contrast, at home, she was perceived as intrusive in affairs of state and was not popular.
 * How did the Soviet state apply those policies to that group/institution, and what were **
 * the effects? **

Gorbachev sees family life as Stalin saw before him: an important “element of social control.” This is confessed by Gorbachev himself: __Mikhail Gorbachev:__ __Perestroika: New Thinking for our Country and the World__ [|__http://www.socialistappeal.org/analysis/women-marxism/141-women-in-the-soviet-union__] “ "women no longer have enough time to perform their everyday duties at home - housework, the upbringing of children and the creation of a good family atmosphere. We have discovered that many of our problems - in children's and young people's behaviour, in our morals, culture and in production - are partially caused by the weakening of family ties and slack attitudes to family responsibilities…we should…make it possible for women to return to their purely womanly mission." It is clear that there would be no more significant changes for feminism for the future of Russian women. What was promised during the Bolshevik revolution only remained a promise and failed to bear fruit. Although the quality of life of women has increased drastically in along with the economic improvements of the working class, achieving the intended social status and independence from the household has been and still is tough for Russian women. Even though Gorbachev claimed that the future of Russian society was “impossible without enhancing the role of women and without their commitment to all our reforming efforts”, it was evident that his administration wanted to limit womens’ participation in political and economic life. To an extent, Trotsky foresaw the slippery slope for women (and to the greater Russia) after the rise of Stalin. __Leon Trotsky: The Revolution Betrayed__ Published: 1937 [|__http://www.socialistappeal.org/analysis/women-marxism/141-women-in-the-soviet-union__] "How man enslaved woman, how the exploiter subjected them both, how toilers have attempted at the price of blood to free themselves from slavery and have only exchanged one chain for another - history tells us much about all this. In essence it tells us nothing else. But how in reality to free the child, the woman and the human being? For that we have as yet no reliable models. All past historical experience, wholly negative, demands of the toilers at least and first of all an implacable distrust of all privileged and uncontrolled guardians." (p. 158)
 * What was the significance of Gorbachev’s reforms as it pertained to that group/institution? **

Gorbachev, Mikhail. Population and Development Review (1987): 757-59. JSTOR. Population Councul. Web. 02 Mar. 2014. . "Lenin: Opportunism, and the Collapse of the Second International." Lenin: Opportunism, and the Collapse of the Second International. Marxist Internet Archive, n.d. Web. 2 Mar. 2014. .
 * Works Cited: **

Naples, Nancy A., and Manisha Desai. Women's Activism and Globalization: Linking Local Struggles and Transnational Politics. New York: Routledge, 2002. Questia. Web. 2 Mar. 2014. .

"Raisa Gorbachev: The First and Only Soviet First Lady." The Voice of Russia. The Voice of Russia, 25 Dec. 2013. Web. 2 Mar. 2014. .

Rule, Wilma, and Norma C. Noonan. Russian Women in Politics and Society. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1996. Questia. Web. 2 Mar. 2014. .

"Women in the Soviet Union." Socialist Appeal. Socialist Appeal, n.d. Web. .

"Women in World History : MODULE 11." Women in World History : MODULE 11. Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media, n.d. Web. 02 Mar. 2014. .