Women Under Stalins Regime

Georgii Riazhskii “Kolkhoz Brigade Leader”

 After the Russian Revolution of 1917, the Bolsheviks assumed power of Russia. Once they were in control, they made many changes to the laws but also so that they could change society over time. One thing they did new was to grant women more freedom, so they were not oppressed by their husbands. Women now had the power to divorce their husbands among many others; things we take for granted today.

Many artists, including many females artists noticed this change. Women became subjects of more and more pieces of art. One common thing you could see after the Revolution was art depicting women working. They no longer were only represented with stereotypical femininity, but were seen as workers- as equals.

Susan Reid looks into “Stalins Women,” in her article All Stalin’s Women: Gender and Power in Soviet Art of the 1930s. Reid argues, that followers portrayed in the cult of Stalin were almost always women and had an air of femininity and submission to them. This is an interesting point of view but historically makes sense to the male dominated society. Reid continues expressing that,

“The personification of the power and beneficence of the Soviet state in the form of the charismatic male leader aimed ultimately to cast the entire Soviet people in the conventionally female role of devoted obedience.”

This stereotypical gender role is evident not only in Russia but in the U.S. and around the world as well. It can even be seen in U.S. WWII propaganda which is about 20 years after the soviet art that Reid analyzes. This reading in turn leads me to believe women’s rights may have been legally adjusted in the Soviet Union after the revolution but they were not instituted into society on a fundamental level until much later. Women still struggle for equal work for equal pay, across the world today. We may never see full equality in our lifetime, but we can study the evolution and small steps that move over generations. Reid’s article provides and interesting look at the role of women in 1930s Soviet Art and her article also prompts the larger dialogue about women’s rights.

Sources:

file:///Users/Taylor/Downloads/reid_stalins%20women%20(4).pdf