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The recent Conference on Women in Easter Europe held in Birmingham set itself the goal of beginning to develop a "more detailed and historical analysis" of the Marxist Movement's politices and practice in the fight against women's oppression, according to BARBARA HOLLAND, one of the organisers of the Conference. In her article below, Barbara Holland, herself a student in Soviet Studies, makes a contribution towards Future issues of Socialist Woman will be devoted to continuing the debate explaining the basis for the official support for the on many of the questions posed. The governments of nearly half the world - the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and China - claim to have liberated their women. This claim obviously needs scrutiny. The initial reaction of many feminists as far as the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe is concerned has been to reject the claims to women's equality. Women are seen to bear a double burden which is, if anything, more oppressive than conditions in the west, and this disappointing outcome of early revolutionary hopes is usually put down to the inadequacies of the Bolshevik party, and in particular their failure both to build an autonomous women's movement or develop a Marxist theory of personal liberation. These failings are themselves in turn seen as the result of male prejudice.
A second argument holds that women have in fact made important gains in these countries, and that the only remaining obstacle to be overcome Is (once again) male prejudice in the form of men's reluctance to take on an equal share of household duties. More pressure on men, plus the continued improvement of state facilities will soon lead to the establishment of a new "socialist" family, in which husband and wife have equal rights and duties. duties.
I feel that both these arguments are too general, as they fail to take into account the complex reality of both the revolutionary period and the present day situation. In particular, male prejudice is seen as an abstract phenomenom, apparently without need of explanation. The purpose of the conference on "Women in Eastern Europe' is to make a start towards developing a more detailed and historical analysis of these questions - which hopefully could then be compared with the experience of Chinese women. In the meantime, however, here are some initial reactions to the views outlined above.
Bolshevik Fallings?
An example of the Bolsheviks "half-hearted" attitude to women's rights is "socialist family".
sometimes found in their failure to give support to the bourgeois feminist movement. However, as supporters of a proletarian, rather than bourgeois, revolution in Russia, the Bolsheviks were against allying with bourgeois forces. The bourgeois feminists were interested only in equal rights for their own class, not in abolishing either the system of private property or the sexual division of labour on which the double oppression of working class women was based. If revolutionaries had encouraged working women to join a movement with such limited aims, it would have made the task of organising them to fight on the basis of their oppression even harder. Before the revolution, the conditions of clandestine political activity made it virtually impossible to set up an autonomous women's movement as an alternative, and what the Bolsheviks did achieve in organising women factory workers and soldiers' wives should not be ignored.
The women's departments (Zhenotdel) that developed from 1917 on were a step in the right direction. They succeeded in raising women's issues among the masses and in encouraging working and peasant women to be active. However, male resistance in the party probably made itself felt in the struggle for resources and for prioritisation, particularly towards the end of the Zhenotdel in 1930. This period saw an influx of new, inexperienced party members, many of whom had close links with the countryside and its strong patriarchal traditions.
The failure to integrate the individual insights made on the women's question into socialist theory, or to develop a theory of personal liberation can also be admitted - but with various "extenuating circumstances". Of these, the main one to mention is the extreme backwardness of the Russian masses. Even the steps taken (such as the introduction of liberal marriage and divorce laws) created problems, in that it made women more open to exploitation by men. The material and social basis for the kind of sexual revolution which Reich desired was simply missing, so it is hardly surprising if attention was focussed elsewhere.
The significance of this failure has also been exaggerated. Bolshevik weakness on this question doubtless made if easier for the reaction in the family structure to become established. But more importantly, it was the bureaucracy's reaction to the crisis within the economy which governed the failure of women's full integration on an equal basis into social, cultural and political life.
One of the most important clauses in the Soviet constition is its guarantee of the right to work. Though in the early days, economic difficulties made the full achievement of this impossible, the drive for industrialisation, plus the more or less adequate provision of creche facilties has made it possible for all work outside the home (only 6% choose not to do so). However, in the absence of other, good-quality collective facilities women still bear the main responsibility for domestic work. The time and energy women have to spend on housework in turn helps to perpetuate the sexual division of labour outside the home i.e. women have less skilled, lower-paid jobs and are rarely found in top positions. Criticisms can certainly made of the party's failure to understand the importance of transforming domestic labour and to prioritise such tasks, but this should not be used to hide the importance of the gains women have made in the right to work. Soviet women are proving this themselves in their refusal to return to the home, despite the incentives the government is offering in its anxiety to increase the birth rate.
Is Sexism Disappearing?
The financial Independence women have gained through employment is helping to weaken the traditional sexism of Russian men. (I say Russian rather than Soviet because the case in some other republics, particularly the Eastern ones, iS more complicated). The great shortage of men after the war held back this process, but the new generation is far more willing to divorce unsatisfactory husbands and have 'illegitimate' children - though the women soon marry and there are few single parents. Men are helping more in the home, but it is still "helping", and on
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This fashion photo, from a Soviet women's magazine, says more than words about the need for a women's liberation movement there today the whole progress remains painfully slow. The obstacle of male resistance is also being aided by another powerful obstacle - in the form of Government policies. The Government is failing to extend communal facilities at the rate it could now afford, it is perpetuating tradtional sex roles in its propaganda, and it is introducing measures aimed at persuading women to return to the home.
I believe this is because with women's right to work secured and a commitment still present to ending the sexual division of labour, the Government is concerned about the effects of this on the family. At the moment the family is useful in absorbing workers increased leisure time, as well as in socialising children, and these functions explain the official support for the "socialist" family. The other possible course of development, in the direction of collectivised domestic work and more time spent in social and political activity outside the home is too threatening to the regime, which depends on the atomisation of Soviet life. The dominance of the family prevents people from making choices about how they arrange their lives, in such ways as living arrangements, variety of relationships, and sexuality. To make such a wide range of choices feasible, the system would have to become more flexible and democratic — a situation that would quickly lead to a challenge to bureacratic power and privilege.
In conclusion, the problems facing women in the Soviet Union, both past and present, are not simply reducible to male prejudice. It matters, but so do the economic, social and political conditions in which it operates, and ultimately it is these conditions which work to encourage or restrict male domination.