USSR: The great retreat
How accurate is it to describe soviet social policy in the 1930s as a ‘Great Retreat’?
Stalin’s early promises compromised of socialism and a life free from exploitation in regards to his social policies. However, he soon realised his error and reverted to a more conservative form of rule, whereby the interest of the state was given priority. Many describe his soviet social policy during the 1930s as a ‘Great Retreat’, it was named this as his policies saw a return to earlier social policies under the Tsar and former leaders. It is debatable as to how far his actions were a retraction of previous decisions…and the areas impacted were women, family, and education. A common theme of the great retreat was the gender role in society.
It was believed that sexual equality had been achieved by the 1930s when a women’s branch of the Communist Central Committee was shut down due to its aim being achieved. This was misleading as the Party had reasserted traditional gender roles through the making of homes. Women were expected to manage the ‘well-ordered communist home lives’ by performing orderly household chores, and also building Russian families as supported by the state, who provided reward schemes for mothers with over seven children- an example being 2.000 roubles a year. There is no doubt this was a retreat as in the 1920’s it was common for nannies to undergo the maintenance of the family themselves; freeing the mother to devote themselves to work. Yet this was abolished in the 30’s by sending party women to do their duty at home: alongside the 5 hours domestic services they had to provide for their families when men were freed of it all. Contradictory to this, women did for the first time receive working entitlements in the industrial labour force, partly due to the FYPs. The 20s saw a mere 3 million women employed, yet, this figured soared to over 13 million in the early 40s. A great movement forward despite that women were being paid less than their male
Stalin’s early promises compromised of socialism and a life free from exploitation in regards to his social policies. However, he soon realised his error and reverted to a more conservative form of rule, whereby the interest of the state was given priority. Many describe his soviet social policy during the 1930s as a ‘Great Retreat’, it was named this as his policies saw a return to earlier social policies under the Tsar and former leaders. It is debatable as to how far his actions were a retraction of previous decisions…and the areas impacted were women, family, and education. A common theme of the great retreat was the gender role in society.
It was believed that sexual equality had been achieved by the 1930s when a women’s branch of the Communist Central Committee was shut down due to its aim being achieved. This was misleading as the Party had reasserted traditional gender roles through the making of homes. Women were expected to manage the ‘well-ordered communist home lives’ by performing orderly household chores, and also building Russian families as supported by the state, who provided reward schemes for mothers with over seven children- an example being 2.000 roubles a year. There is no doubt this was a retreat as in the 1920’s it was common for nannies to undergo the maintenance of the family themselves; freeing the mother to devote themselves to work. Yet this was abolished in the 30’s by sending party women to do their duty at home: alongside the 5 hours domestic services they had to provide for their families when men were freed of it all. Contradictory to this, women did for the first time receive working entitlements in the industrial labour force, partly due to the FYPs. The 20s saw a mere 3 million women employed, yet, this figured soared to over 13 million in the early 40s. A great movement forward despite that women were being paid less than their male