Bukharin on Women under the Soviet System

Nikolai Bukharin, Russian "Bolshevism" and the Working Women. July 31, 1920

Written amid civil war and international isolation, this brief Bukharin piece explained “Russian Bolshevism” to an outside audience through a concrete claim: the political awakening of working and peasant women. He cast the revolution as a school that turned ordinary people into administrators, delegates, organizers, and, when necessary, fighters. The argument is also polemical. Bukharin contrasts women’s new public roles under Soviet power with their exclusion under the old regime, and he dismisses liberal and intelligentsia activism after February 1917 as a shallow imitation of the deeper transformation he credits to October.

Original Source: Soviet Russia. Vol. III, No. 5 (31 July 1920), pp. 109-110.

We Communists in Russia live under such unusually hard conditions that we have neither energy nor time to record immediately all the important and interesting events created in the course of the revolution and now being further developed. We are entirely engaged in the struggle that is going on for the protection of the revolution, which is being attacked by its deadly enemies. We also must do reconstruction work, so as to bring about Communism. Owing to the pressure of work and struggle we fail to pay sufficient attention to the fact that the new order created also a new and entirely different individual, who did not exist before, in fact. whose existence before was impossible. The new social relations among the people create and educate new human beings. Everybody is ready to abuse and insult the Bolshevik-most people do it without any particular reason, simply for the pleasure of passing judgment on Bolshevism; others have no idea about it and don't know what it really means. Only a few realize what a tremendous rebuilding task Bolshevism is performing for the benefit of humanity. Under the scorching breath of the revolution, and owing to the activity of the Communist Party, there sprang out from the lowest rank of the society, among the creative mass, new people of a higher type; they are determined fighters, full of self-sacrifice, bright and faithful workers, real heroes,

It is especially interesting to observe the change which took place among the women of the plain proletarians and peasants. Those hitherto treated like cattle have at last realized that they are human beings entitled to equal rights. They take part in the general struggle against capitalism against exploitation and slavery in any form. The working-women and the rural female population began to participate in the administration of husbandry. They sit in the Soviets and Executive Committees of various types and hold responsible positions, and are frequently seen armed, or nursing at the front. The working women of the middle class and the peasant women are especially active in all situations that deal with the social care of women, mothers, children, aged people, sick, invalids, etc. They are to be found in institutions for pregnant women, women who have just been confined, for nursing women, in infant asylums, in children's colonies, at vocational centers, in school kitchens, public dining rooms, tea houses, in hospitals, recreation centers, in aged and invalid homes, in public libraries, reading rooms, in propaganda centers for the spreading of communistic ideas and general knowledge; everywhere these simple women are active in bigger or smaller groups; they are, in fact, often the very soul of such establishments. In the performing of their duties they show as much brain as heart, they have an almost "ambitious, passionate enthusiasm" for the new creative abilities and possess common sense for practical things.

Women who hardly ever heard about Communism before the revolution, many of whom learned to read and write only in the schools of the party organizations, do distinguished work in order to realize the Communistic theory. The talents and energy of the women after the revolution, owing to free activity, grow like plants in the sunshine after a shower has just passed. This new life awakens the women of the proletariat and peasants; it gives them tasks and duties, experience and training; it transforms them into revolutionary fighters and co-workers of the Communistic Society. This is still more surprising when we keep in mind all the suffering, strain and struggle which Soviet Russia has had to go through in order to protect its existence and secure its proper development. Here and there the Bolsheviks are compelled to take up anew the struggle against armed forces, to suppress the spirit of capitalism which the counter-revolution of the whole world is ready to save by the force of its weapons; the shattered domestic economy results in privation, hunger, diseases. In spite of all this, Soviet Russia is struggling for a bright future, for a free and happy common life, mid the women of the proletarians and peasants are working and struggling together with them. A person who would have to report the activity and strivings of these women from day to day would have a hard task to decide where to begin and where to stop.

The Cossack Conference now being held in Moscow is very typical as an indication of the new individuality awakening in the women. Women are also taking part in this conference as delegates entitled to equal rights. The revolution opened their eyes, awakened them, transformed them into fighters for the cause of the working people. What a transformation! Before the revolution, these women sat in their Cossack villages, managed their cottages, gardens and fields, as their mothers and grandmothers had done before them. They did not care what took place beyond the boundaries of their little village. When one of these women happened to visit the seat of the county or province, this was an event which gave material for long gossip. Now they participate in the discussions and decisions of their Soviets and they do not hesitate to make the long journey to Moscow. They sit among strangers whom they have seen for the first time and they express their opinions, discuss and come to conclusions; they feel as if they were among brothers and sisters discussing the most important life-issues of great Russia. Many a sensible remark, a clever suggestion, a thoughtful question, comes from the peasant women. It seems like a dream but it is reality.

The revolution and the Soviet Government offer to every toiler, creating with his hands or brain, the possibility to work for the common welfare and progress, and thus enable him to obtain bread, freedom, dignity, honor, in short-helps him to create an existence worthy of a human being. The right and the duty to cooperate, regardless of sex--that is the rule in Soviet Russia; this cooperation is carried out through the shops, fields and administration. During the regime of the Tsar, the women had no part in the political life of the country. The lady of the higher circle was wife and mistress, she did not care about the affairs of the state. The fate of the women of the masses was similar to this. After the March revolution of 1917. the women of the wealthy classes, namely, the liberals and the intellectual women (the "Intelligentsia ) began to take part most energetically in public life. They also appeared as speakers at meetings. But only among the revolutionists could the Russian woman, who has always been so daring and full of self-sacrifice, take a full part in the political life. The revolutionary movement and struggles were carried on by men as well as by women. Not only Sophie Perovskaia, but many other Russian women who found death on the gallows, in horrible prisons. in deserts of snow, have their revolutionary integrity attested with a firm hand. As soon as the revolutionary movement had penetrated the masses, the women also became its supporters. The proletarian women did not fail to appear at any economical or social walk-outs, at general strikes, at public information centers, at May demonstrations. Working women and wives of workers fell on the battlefields of the revolution. But in comparison with the great number of the working class, the number of women who took part in the political struggle of their class was comparatively small. Only a small group of the elite of the working women was working and fighting for the emancipation of the exploited and suppressed, who were in misery and slavery. Only the proletarian November Revolution brought out the big mass of the working and peasant women, who were seeking and failing, but always conscious of another, greater ideal. The individuals were growing intellectually and morally through this ideal, and in serving it these individuals became the majority and are now innumerable.