E. M. Vesnik, All-Union Conference of the Wives of Managers, Engineers and Technicians in Heavy Industry. May 14, 1936

The Soviet women to which the "Obshchestvennitsa" movement was intended to appeal were an elite segment of Soviet society. Its participants are raised here "to the level of active builders of socialist society"; but Vesnik, one of them, was conscious enough of potential class hostilities when she promised that former opera-singers would become efficient poultry-farmers, that they would press their husbands to have, in the late evening, another look at the factory if something went wrong, and that, as a condition of such desirable activities, they would hurry to leave Moscow with its theatres and fashionable shops in order to make music in their homes and in the workers' clubs, and also to make their own dresses, much nicer and less expensive than those from Moscow.

Original Source: Izvestiia, May 14, 1936.

Comrades, before I tell you of the work of the wives of the engineers and technical workers of the Krivoi Rog metallurgical combine, I should like to pass on happy and sincere greetings to him who is the main organizer of the great victories of our country, of whom the whole country and all contemporary humanity are proud-to Comrade Stalin, our great leader. (Uproarious applause, shouts of "Hurrah" everyone rises and cheers Comrade Stalin.)

Comrades, I also want to convey sincere greetings to the inspirer of our women's movement, a great organizer like Stalin, our dear and understanding People's Commissar-Comrade Sergo Ordzhonikidze. (Uproar of applause, shouts of "Hurrah" everyone rises and cheers.)

Comrades, I have many times heard the question: Why was initiative of your factory taken up so passionately in hundreds of factories throughout the country and why has the women's movement grown from tens to hundreds in a period of a few months? Because this movement found the ground prepared. It needed only an initial push. We needed only direction. The whole country was in the grip of such enthusiasm, such heroism, that we, the wives of the engineers, could not stand aside from the great uprising and remain mere spectators. Comrades, in the factories we feel perhaps even more acutely than elsewhere the wisdom of Comrade Stalin's call to the struggle for a better life, for culture and the care of men. (Loud and prolonged applause; everyone rises.) Against the background of our wonderful new achievements one feels a special need for increased social and cultural work.

Comrades, social work in our country has been greatly bureaucratized. We have everything in our country; we only need to know how to utilize our resources; we must put our heart into the work and everything will prosper, even that which was lagging behind.

We Soviet women are also united by the fact that we all stand by the Party, we are all longing to work, and we all have one name, the name pronounced by Comrade Stalin and which we bear proudly. We are Bolsheviks without the party-ticket. (Applause.)

Comrades, the appeal for our work had already been made in Comrade Stalin's six conditions. But we still needed a push, and this push was given us by Comrade Ordzhonikidze. Remember how in 1934 Comrade Sergo issued an order at the Magnitka plant that the managers were responsible for the child-welfare establishments. Did not this order concern us too? Was it not an appeal to us? How could we have failed to help our husbands in undertaking this task of organizing good child-welfare establishments? After that Comrade Sergo gave us concrete indications about those sides of social life which still awaited reorganization.

To undertake this work where it was most difficult had become our guiding principle.

The child-welfare clinics in the Krivoi Rog settlement were as in most other settlements, set up in barracks, and housed only some 200 children. Now our clinics house about 800 children, and not one of the nurseries, not one of the creches is run in a barracks. We pressed our managers-our husbands-to find first-class accommodation. Now we have built wonderful creches of forty-three rooms, two cottages for 100 children, a nursery for 100 children, and so on. Comrades, all these nurseries and creches have linen made by the wives of engineers and technicians, some 3,000 sets of linen, suits, table-napkins, sheets, all made by our hands.

We have opened a children's restaurant and two children's sanatoria. In 1935 we set up a children's rest home in Odessa. This year we are going to take 1,500 people to holiday camps.

In organizing child establishments we had to deal with the builders. When he was here in 1934, Comrade Sergo drew Comrade Vesnik's attention to the fact that doors, handles and other fittings had an untidy appearance and that however well the houses were built, these bad details spoilt everything. We caught and remembered every remark made by Comrade Sergo. We made the builders equip the children's establishments with good furniture and good fittings for the same money. We mercilessly condemn the mediocre standard; we condemn rough chairs which collapse after a couple of days; we inspect the distemper and oil paint; we do not want our floors to show cracks after a few days. We do not stand for the usual half-finished work. It is true that the builders have come to dislike us. Whenever they saw that car with the wives draw up, they ran for it. But we matched their cunning: we would park the car a few houses away, walk up to the workshop quietly, and then achieve what we were after. (Applause.)

The task of providing provisions for the workers is no easy job. But our husbands entrusted us altogether with the most difficult tasks of household organization. It seemed as though we should not be able to manage the task of getting the provisions, but now I can say that we achieved the complete reorganization of the people's food supply. Comrade Pitersky is probably among us now, and he can testify to this, because he himself supported the proposal to place the social feeding in the hands of Comrade Maryanovskaya, who is the wife of the deputy chief mechanic of the works.

Comrade Maryanovskaya in 1934 on her own initiative organized a small canteen in the engineers' and technicians' club and everything was good and cheap there. This canteen drew all the engineers from the restaurants which served bad and tasteless food. It was then that the committee of our women's organization suggested to Maryanovskaya that she should look after the big restaurant as well. When Maryanovskaya, took over, she inherited torn table linen, broken crockery, frightful forks and a deficit of 18,00 rubles. The directors of the combine were subsidizing the restaurant to the extent of 10,000 to 12,000 rubles monthly. Dinners used to cost 3 rubles; and only bachelors who had no one to cook for them ate there-family men avoided it.

Within two months Maryanovskaya reported that she did not require the subsidy and volunteered to take over a further restaurant which had closed down after its manager had been found guilty of embezzlement. Maryanovskaya, appointed the wife of an engineer as manager of this reopened restaurant. Later she opened yet another canteen, using the turnover money from the second district, a new restaurant in the guild-house, and took under her management the canteen in the business club, and finally took over the restaurant for engineers and technicians in the old town. (Applause.)

The wives of the engineers Laurin, Ulitsky and others are helping her. And not only did they never manage restaurants before, but they never did any work outside the home.

As a result, Maryanovskaya, in October 1935 reported profits amounting to 20,000 rubles and by January 1, 1936, Of 33,000 rubles. (Applause.)

Everyone will of course say: What a miracle! How was it done, what happened? Why did the wives manage the business so well and profitably? Enthusiasm, love for the work, a desire to help their husbands at all cost, to help the workers and Stakhanovites so that they should leave the restaurant having eaten well and amply-and not leave them disgruntled after a bad meal-those are the main reasons for our success. Furthermore, the Soviet housewives have, so to speak, come home. Previously things were like this: each restaurant had its manager, its chef, its cashier, its assistant and its deputy and so on ad infinitum. Now Maryanovskaya has united all the restaurants under her and has one book-keeper, one chef, one assistant. She frequently goes herself to the kolkhozes and Soviet farms for the provisions. She does the pickling and preserving herself. As you know, large numbers of melons are grown in the Ukraine. Previously a load of these melons would come in by lorry, many of them squashed. These squashed melons would either be given to the relatives of the restaurant staff or thrown away. Now not one melon is wasted. They are cut up and made into sweets for cakes and puddings. (Applause.)

The same thing happened at the poultry farm. Nineteen hundred and thirty-three and four were bad years in the Southern Steppes so far as production was concerned. That is what gave us the idea of setting up a farm. Inspectors duly arrived and said that our farm must have a director, a chief zoological technician, a veterinary expert, a manager. But I began by doing the jobs of all four to keep down the overhead expenses per hen. All the Soviet farms of our department have deficits while our poultry farm brings in profits, all the same. I said "all the same -- because at first people kept saying 'There you are, an opera actress, and goes and suddenly takes up farming. She'll spend the money, she'll achieve nothing, and since she is the chief's wife, all this will be hushed up-but the money and the farm will have been ruined." And in spite of everybody, the farm "suddenly" prospered and is flourishing. On our poultry farm old hens lay 135-140 eggs and young ones 150 and more.

By 1936 the farm had yielded fifteen tons of meat and about a million eggs. Comrade Maryanovskaya gets eggs from us for her restaurants all the year round. We also make very good confectioner's goods, using the eggs from our farm.

We have distributed 8,000 chickens and 2,000 hens to the workers. This year we shall have to distribute 3,000 hens-12,000 we shall keep for the farm-and half a million eggs. I have already sent 250,000 eggs to restaurants this year.

Now a few words about our work in the hostels. At first we were rather frightened. When we first came there, the workers asked us angrily: "What sort of a commission is this? Are you, too, going to make some notes and go away again?" (Laughter.)

Then we knew what we had to do. We decided that we would arrange a number of exhibition hostels to teach them to trust us. No offence to the trade-unionists and union organizers: probably they never went themselves, but sent representatives who would turn up, jot down highly "business-like" notes and "Comrades, we'll see to everything"˛ and then vanish. After which-search for them!

The wife of an engineer, Comrade Kazyrskaya, undertook to teach workers German. In order to brush up her own knowledge she attends German classes in the morning and teaches the workers in the evening. I saw a 60-year-old worker wearing old-fashioned spectacles labouring over the German language. When I asked him: "What do you want to learn German for?" he said: The Fascists can't keep still and are wanting to fight us-but I want to beat 'em and talk 'em down in their own language." (Laughter and applause.)

Comrade Sergo, you were right when you said that we are not only concerned about culture and comfort, but that we also keep production in mind. I am bound to state that we never go to bed until we know whether our factory has worked to schedule or not. And I may say frankly that if scheduled production has not been reached, we worry our husbands at night Why don't you go down to the works and check up once more and find out what has gone wrong-why work is behind schedule?" (Applause.)

I cannot forbear to mention the names of our best comrades-Gorlova, Kazyrskaya, Kobtszar, Gerasimova, Kostuk, Sergienko and others. Gerasimova is my assistant and she is doing great work.

We have among us the wife of an experienced skilled technician who has worked in the factories of the South for thirty years. She is in a position to compare the life of skilled men in the old days and now. Half a year ago she was still paying calls on her neighbours, from old habit, to play cards and gossip about us. But to-day she is saying with tears in her eyes How I wish the restaurant of our guild were better than all the others and our hostels the most beautiful and civilized!" She wept with emotion when she said that, and I could not restrain my own tears. I was trembling with excitement. This woman had felt a new and unaccustomed confidence, comradeship. Now she is passionately attached to her social work, toils with great ardour and is therefore present at this conference. She is reborn. Only just now she said to me: "Evgeniia Emmanuilovna, I am so happy to be here to-day, and I still cannot believe that I shall to-day see Stalin, our dear Stalin!" (Applause.)

In looking after the people we could not help paying attention to health conditions. Unfortunately, Comrade Sergo, we have no hospital. The only one in the neighbourhood is a regional one, and that is a long way off. We had to look after our confinement cases, but though we did organize our own maternity home, the problem was not solved. We discovered that the regional hospital is so overcrowded-they had not reckoned with such a giant springing up near by-that our workers were discharged there before they had fully recovered. And there was more than a kilometre's walk to the tram. But it turned out that matters could easily be put right once our organization set its mind to it. We have arranged with the director of the combine that each day one of us wives goes to the hospital in turn and as soon as we hear that one of our workers is about to leave the hospital we phone for a car and take the worker or the mother home by car.

We work in forty-three hostels. We have opened a model hostel for our Stakhanovites. So far there are only twenty-four rooms in this hostel, but in two months a new home will be ready for bachelors which will be large enough to house 800 persons. Each flat will have a shower-room, with bathrooms downstairs, an "American" laundry for cleaning and mending clothes, barber's shops, reading rooms and club rooms.

This year we are trying to have thirty kilometres of paving laid between the residential areas and along the inhabited houses so that people should not have to walk through the mud. Fifteen kilometres of paving have already been laid. We planted 400,000 trees this year. All our nurseries and creches are surrounded with trees.

Our hostel was dirty and full of bugs. As early as 1934 I went there, together with another comrade, the wife of an engineer, Comrade Tretyakova, who had been an actress. Some women called us "fancy charwomen".

When we arrived at this factory hostel, its doors and windows were badly in need of washing and cleaning. I told the cleaners that this could be done very simply: just use some soap and rub, a bit harder, and all the dirt will come off. They looked at us doubtfully: so I said: Let me have a rag and I will prove it to you. And the dirt of course, came off. And now you will no longer recognize either the cleaners or those ladies who called us "fancy charwomen." They are working side by side with us, their sleeves rolled up, for everyone grasped that if she did not assist her husband, not only would she fall behind us, but also behind her husband, who would look round for a more active wife.

We were also drawing the wives of the workers into our activities. In our movement, of some 500 persons, approximately 150 are wives of engineers and the remainder the wives of foremen workers, working with a will.

We have opened a "fashion studio" -- its director is Comrade Danilovskaya, the wife of the chief works engineer-and we seriously intend to challenge the Moscow shops. In Moscow shops they charge 300 to 350 rubles for a good dress, while we charge from 40 to 100 rubles and are usually superior in work and quality.

Comrade Stalin, we ask you to accept a few gifts made by the hands of the activist-wives. (All the delegates rise. Comrade Vesnik presents Comrade Stalin with an album, with a piece of tapestry embroidered by herself and a shirt embroidered by the activist-wives; Comrade Ordzhonikidze is presented with a shirt and an album; Comrade Krupskaya receives an embroidered cushion. There is wild and prolonged applause.)

Comrade Voroshilov, here among our delegates are "Voroshilov shots" and drivers who will come to your aid together with their husbands in the hour of need ! (Furious applause.)

The president of the movement is the youngest activist, Comrade Guralnik. She herself went to the department to obtain the rifles. This May 1 for the first time we were not mere onlookers on the pavement, but marched in the ranks with the working class, with our commanders-and, by the way, Comrade Voroshilov, we carried rifles! (Furious applause.)

Comrades, our movement must not be bureaucratized. I often hear people ask: to whom will they be attached? In my opinion, we should not be attached to anybody; we work with all organizations, we are attached to all; and those who want to help us do so, and those who need our help shall have it. In some instances the trade unions are being helpful. But unfortunately our Metallurgists' Union not only helps but also interferes.

Leave us to our managers. Although it is awkward for me to speak about my own husband, I am bound to say that if he had not assisted us we should not have done half of what we have done. (Applause.)

Comrades, we work with great enthusiasm because we feel that we are part of a great collective. The wives of the engineers are deeply impressed by our successes and the great work of construction. A great cultural movement is manifesting itself everywhere and we are only one of the units doing its work. Coming to the conference I travelled by car up to Dniepropetrovsk and I was struck by what I saw. The roads, the pavements, trimmed trees and orchards I saw had not been there recently. Thatched roofs were everywhere being replaced by tiles. There were no engineers' wives-but there are enthusiasts, there Maria Demchenko, Pasha Angelina and others.

Comrades, now that we take our share in the common work and are no longer getting bored at home and getting on our husbands' nerves, now that we are doing cultural work, we are no longer shamed by Pasha Angelina and Maria Demchenko, by the host of shock-workers in the Soviet factories and fields. (Applause.)

As to bureaucracy, may I say this: before the conference took place, officials and departments were torturing me with questions about how many persons are employed in the administration of our movement, how many on the technical side, what minutes we have taken, what subjects we discuss.

When I read that I must submit minutes of our meetings, I got frightened. I have to admit that if our meetings were successful, it was only because we held them over a cup of tea at a club or at home and ended them not with minutes, but with an aria from Evgeny Onegin or Queen of Spades. (Furious applause.)

Comrades, let us keep in step with our husbands. Let those who have not yet joined our movement do so. It is true that this conference is a menace to Moscow and Leningrad, Comrade Ordzhonikidze. I am afraid that all the wives of the foremost technicians will hasten to the provinces and you in Moscow will be left without technicians. (Applause.) And why? Because the provinces offer more scope for one's latent energies (Applause; cries of "That's right !")

Comrades, our work does not disrupt the family as some opportunists say. They used to complain: Here are our wives doing this work and there is no one to sew our buttons on. But we have forced them to change their views. And if in our present enthusiasm we sometimes fail to plan our time-table properly, we shall learn to do so. Thus our work will not destroy the family, but on the contrary will cement it.

Comrades, long live our country, its working people and our leader--dear Comrade Stalin! (Applause. Shouts of "Hurrah". All rise.)

Comrade Stalin, we are ready to struggle not only with bureacracy and the remnants of barbarism, but if necessary with a foreign foe! (Applause.)

Comrades, if there is war, we shall not only send our husbands and sons to the front with a smile, but we shall go with them! Applause. Shouts of "Hurrah". All rise.)

Comrades, we shall go with them and we will be firmly convinced that we shall not be marching to a sacrifice, but to a joyous victory (Applause.)

Source: Rudolf Schlesinger, ed., Changing attitudes in Soviet Russia; the Family in the USSR (London: Routledge & K. Paul, 1949), pp. 254-265.