CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2025
| Author | Talaver, Alexandra |
|---|---|
| Title | A WOMAN SHOULD BE GIVEN THE RIGHT TO DECIDE HERSELF: The Role of the Soviet Women's Committee (1945-1992) in Gender Policymaking in the Soviet Union |
| Summary | This dissertation explores the history and impact of the Soviet Women’s Committee (SWC) from its origins in the Second World War through its dissolution in 1992, with a focus on its role within the Soviet state. The study challenges dominant historiographical narratives that dismiss the organization as a mere “puppet” of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The research was guided by five questions. First, what was the SWC and who were its members? Second, how did the SWC as an organization shape its members' perception of their role in the Soviet state? Third, how did SWC members participate in Soviet policymaking regarding women’s rights? Fourth, to what extent did SWC members continue what has been called “Bolshevik feminism” and to what extent, and when, did they divert from it, or adapt it? Finally, what do my findings add to the existing scholarship regarding the SWC, the history of Soviet gender policies, and broader, of state feminism under state socialism? Based on archival research in the State Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF), the Russian State Archive of Contemporary History (RGANI), and the Central State Archive of Moscow (TsGA), and drawing on the state feminist framework, this dissertation focuses on three policy areas that influenced women’s status in the Soviet Union: the decriminalization of abortion in 1955, the labor legislation of the 1970s—1980s, and International Women’s Year (1975). To examine the SWC’s role in policymaking in the Soviet Union also required research on other state institutions in which SWC members were involved: the Central Committee of the Communist Party, the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions and the Soviet Supreme Soviet. My dissertation demonstrates that the SWC served as a platform for forming Soviet women as an interest group within the Soviet political system and that SWC members to a certain extent managed to shape the policy debates and outcomes in the analyzed cases. It also shows that SWC members, while adhering to the conventions of official Soviet discourse, nonetheless sometimes reshaped it through their participation in policymaking. SWC members actively relied on the many thousands of letters they received from Soviet women, letters from which they derived legitimacy and, often, agenda points for their work. However, “ordinary” Soviet women themselves did not get direct access to the policymaking process via the SWC. Thus, the dissertation concludes that the Soviet Union’s case fits the concept of “partial state feminism” (one of five forms on a scale or spectrum of state feminisms) and had serious limitations. A brief comparison of the SWC with its successor, the Union of Women of Russia, also highlights what socialism has achieved for women. Promises of Bolshevik feminism kept their traction for most of the duration of the Soviet Union, giving SWC members legitimacy to advocate for women’s rights, even in the authoritarian and heavily militarized state that was the USSR. |
| Supervisor | Francisca de Haan |
| Department | Gender Studies PhD |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2025/talaver_alexandra.pdf |
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